"Are you fixing the path?" "That depends, Mr. Sasquatch." "What you mean by fixing?" "My name is Caine." "Caine?" "You're no Indian." "Think you is Chinese." "Half of me." "The other half" "Sasquatch!" "Heard you coming half a mile away." "You're Bigfoot for sure." "Now stay out of my way!" "I'm fixing to catch me "Old Ironsides."" "I intend to borrow it for a day or two." "You can tell the next sheriff you see that I told you so." "And don't trouble yourself with your pants leg." "May I pass?" "No." "You go back the way you came." "I prefer to go north." "My name is Logan McBurney." "I believe a man has the right to know the name of the man about to shoot him dead." "Here they come!" "Get out of the way!" "Get out of the way, boy!" "They'll shoot you down now!" "Away, boy!" "Get out of there!" "Get out of the way!" "They'll run you down, boy!" "Oh, man, get out!" "Out, out!" "I know you are" "All right now." "That's it, boy!" "There you go!" "There you are." "Wait, my boy." "I told you they'd shoot you, and they did." "Now I'll have to bring you with me, Caine." "Why do you wish to help me?" "I'm crazy." "Wave your hands, boys." "You'll have smoke coming out of your ears." "Run, boy!" "You shouldn't have done that!" "Now I'll have to cut you down." "Hello?" "Are you injured?" "You're a monk." "A priest." "Yes. I am Kwai Chang." "Where have you been hiding?" "I heard your scream but a moment ago and I came as fast as I could." "Then you must have encountered Kai Tong." "If so, why did he fail to cut off your head?" "Who is Kai Tong?" "The outlaw." "The man who ravished me." "He was here but five minutes ago, riding on a white horse." "You must have seen him." "l have seen no one." "I am sorry." "Can you walk?" "Walk?" "Idiot." "Why would I want to walk?" "To be away from here if he comes back." "If he comes back?" "Of course he'll come back." "To kidnap me." "You are not injured?" "Oh, stupid man." "Must I explain what it means to be assaulted by a mad barbarian?" "Or are you so innocent?" "No." "I have been outside for over a month." "Outside?" "My temple walls." "But you are a grown man." "And you have only just learned what being ravished means?" "I have known the meaning, but nothing of the practice." "Incredible." "It may seem so." "My masters are practical men." "If a thing is not likely to improve one's priesthood it is seldom discussed." "And Shaolin priests have very little to do with being ravished." "As a practical matter." "Kwai Chang, you must come back with me to the emperor..." "...and repeat your lovely explanation." "The emperor?" "Oh, it will bring tears of laughter to his eyes. I know it." "Kwai Chang, our national hero." "Did you say Kai Tong the outlaw rode a white horse?" "That is Kai Tong." "Run, Kwai Chang, or he will kill you." "He is smiling." "Of course, you idiot." "He joys in killing." "He has killed 300 men in a single combat." "Run!" "I will take him prisoner." "Oh, have no fear. I will not harm him." "The fact is, Anna is dying." "And when a pure-blooded Oglala Sioux commences to die particularly the tribal burying ground." "That's where l'm bringing Anna." "Yeah, I'd like to have you ride along, if you're so inclined." "Of course, Anna...." "Well, she...." "She doesn't talk very much now." "Mr. McBurney, I do not wish to offend you." "I am sorry Mrs. McBurney is ill." "I would like to go with you to help you but this stagecoach is not yours." "I'm taking your drift, Caine." "No more Oriental wisdom is needed nor desired." "No obligation." "No offense." "You may stay under my roof as long as you like." "We'll just do without the introductions to Anna if you know what I mean." "I am called Kai Tong." "This lovely lady is Mei Lee Ho of my village in the north soon to be my wife." "I am Mei Lee Ho of the imperial court, concubine to his imperial majesty." "And soon to be advanced to the rank of imperial consort of the second degree." "I had hoped you would not shame yourself and me with that intelligence." "You are the only source of shame in my life, Kai Tong." "And I have no wish to be your wife, soon or ever." "I have always respected the priesthood." "I am Kwai Chang." "It pleases me you have respect for the priesthood." "It would please me more if you had respect for womanhood as well." "Kwai Chang, you will leave now." "First I must take Kai Tong to the nearest police barrack." "You are not armed." "Take my saber." "No." "Please." "I have my quarterstaff." "And if I break it?" "It is yours to do with as you please." "Then I accept." "You broke it." "l said I would." "You said I might." "I meant in combat." "My Persian Mameluke saber!" "Worth 1 000 monks!" "Anna's sound asleep." "You know why I saved you at that creek?" "Because I saw you out in the middle of the road trying to flag down that stage and I figured to myself, I said:" ""Caine thinks I'm gonna get myself killed," right?" "Mr. McBurney why do you need such a large wagon to carry Mrs. McBurney to the burial ground?" "Why?" "Because she's a big woman." "I need all the haulage I can get." "Are you not afraid people will mistake you for a common thief?" "Mistake me?" "I'm a horse thief, four times over." "Now, McBurney, if you don't want to get it took off just north of the hairline hand over the key to that treasure coach real quick." "You are Shaolin." "I must be sure, Kwai Chang." "If you are Shaolin, you must bear the marks of honor burned on your forearms." "I must see these." "You will be sure, Kai Tong." "But by then, I could also be dead." "A man does not die of caution." "May I see the marks of honor?" "The dragon and the tiger." "You do me honor." "It has been one of the ambitions of my life to fight a Shaolin monk." "I will now have that privilege." "Goodbye, Mei Lee Ho." "You have been privileged to witness a noble event beginning this day." "I saw and I heard." "And I see Kai Tong running away from another man like a coward." "This is not just another man, Mei Lee Ho." "This is a Shaolin priest." "I would sooner face 25 of the emperor's elite Dragon Guards with only my fists than to face this man with all the weapons I could carry." "Without them, I am utterly overmatched." "I will be back, Mei Lee Ho before you and Kwai Chang have gone very far." "Coward!" "Killer of eunuchs and footmen!" "I have killed none of your servants." "But then, neither could I find them." "You are safer with Kwai Chang, walking." "Walking?" "If Kwai Chang does not kill you, I will!" "He hopes to win your favor with this fight." "I do not wish to be his wife." "Nor I his executioner." "Are you so sure that you could prevail over him, then?" "No." "But he is sure." "No use in it, I tell you." "She was running empty when she got to me." "Wouldn't take on any bullion till Canyon Springs." "They picked up $42,000 worth at Rawhide Springs on the way up, and you know it." "And if we don't find it in the salamander you and the Chinaman here are gonna fetch us a tidy reward dead or dying." "Lookie here, Buskirk!" "Yellow and gold and all that!" "Hold on tight, kid." "I'm not gonna let this happen." "If they was to make off with Old Ironsides, Anna would never forgive me." "McBurney, we struck gold!" "He ain't interested, Buskirk." "He just wanted to borrow the wagon for a couple of days." "Now, do not get yourself shot, Mr. McBurney." "I would not think of it, friend." "Take care of that rope." "I'm gonna need it." "Kai Tong permitted it." "Probably supervised it!" "Oh, all my jewels!" "Oh, and the chair was a gift from the dowager empress herself!" "Mei Lee." "Mei Lee, we must go." "Go?" "Go where?" "To the police." "To report what has happened." "Search for your servants." "You mean..." "...across the bridge to the north?" "The bridge is not far." "Did you not hear Kai Tong tell you he was constable of the north?" "Yes." "Well, he is!" "The police live in fear of him and the imperial police wink at his crimes because they think he's my lover." "He tells them that." "And pays them fat bribes to believe it." "They come right to his lair to collect." "The Black Dragon Inn." "I know that place." "This is all the more reason why we must confront them with the truth." "Come." "Anna is in here?" "In the box?" "How does she get air?" "Light?" "Not so loud." "She's sleeping." "You stay here." "There we go." "We'll roll her out on these." "We roll her up the ramp and then lash her down." "Will that not make the wagon top-heavy?" "It might." "We'll just have to wait and see." "See, Old Ironsides has specially built reinforced leaf springs and running gear." "That's why I borrowed her in the first place." "We could try it first without Mrs. McBurney in the box." "No, no." "No time for that." "What if the roof caves in?" "No harm." "She's safe in here as a tickbird in a banana bush." "Mr. McBurney, you are going to do this this way if I help you or not?" "I sure could use your help." "Be obliged." "But, yes, sir." "I'll do it alone if I have to." "Are you with me?" "Not so loud." "All right now." "Come on, Caine, up." "Give it a big push." "Come on." "Up!" "Lift it!" "All right, Caine." "A little more now." "Put your back into it." "McBurney!" "You let us out of here now and you get a full one-third share of the gold!" "We're getting it, Caine." "No." "Back up, boy." "It's going now." "We're getting it." "Hey." "Ho, boy." "Back." "Hey, McBurney?" "Push!" "McBurney, that's a generous offer seeing as how me and Buskirk had to stay a week and figure that thing out." "And also, we wouldn't have had to chase you up here, huh?" "Back up, boy." "Back up." "Hey, come on!" "Back up." "Hey, McBurney, in case you don't know it the roof of this wagon here is made out of wood!" "McBurney, that thing's gonna smash through, and it's gonna squash us." "Hold up!" "Wait a minute, Caine." "Them logs is starting to wiggle." "McBurney!" "Don't let us die here!" "McBurney, pull!" "Quick!" "McBurney!" "Hey, McBurney!" "Let us out of here, McBurney!" "We've done it, Caine." "Now all you have to do is lash her down, and off we go." "Giddap!" "Oh, boy. I'm sure glad I'm here." "What did he have in that box?" "His woman." "That's what he said. I heard him clear." "Must have been like he said." "She died of them gallstones about 2000 pounds of them." "Kai Tong, you see, is a crazy man." "He was always insanely violent, even as a child." "He insisted at first I was to be his wife." "And I pretended to agree, to avoid being beaten to death by him." "Then I was invited to be a concubine, and I accepted." "Kai Tong lost what little mind he had left." "You spoke of a private army?" "Yes." "He has one." "Mostly bandits." "He dreams of making them stronger than the imperial guards." "Then Kai Tong says, "Death to the emperor."" "Why does the emperor not arrest him?" "I don't know." "He has tracked us." "We can" "Oh, no." "Look." "Kai Tong's men." "Mei Lee, can you swim?" "No, but I have been meaning to learn." "I believe it is time for your first lesson." "We're going right past Canyon Springs Station." "If I can stop her, I'll go in and ask permission to borrow this iron man." "I'll never stop her!" "We're gonna go through!" "We will stop her." "Now, sheriff, Old Ironsides is out there somewheres and we'll find it in short order." "Come on." "That wasn't Old Ironsides, was it?" "Well, that or the box she came in." "Well, rate it was going ain't no use of us trying to chase it." "You wire ahead and tell them it's coming." "Only one road forks off between here and Old Woman Creek..." "...and they ain't likely to take it." "You mean Sitting Bull Trail?" "Nobody's ever took it ever come back to talk about it." "McBurney ain't gonna take that trail." "The Oglalas hate him, liver and lights." "What'd he do?" "Oh, he had one of their women hanged." "What'd he do a thing like that for?" "Fifty dollars." "Come on." "Mr. McBurney, it must be very hot inside that box." "Best thing in the world for her." "She must be short of air." "Sometimes she is, sometimes not." "But a more beautiful woman you'll never see." "I shall never see her at all unless you open the box." "Not now." "She needs her sleep." "Sleep?" "Nothing...." "Nothing living could sleep through that ride." "You don't know Anna, Sasquatch." "She was brought up on a dead run." "Mr. McBurney, I am going." "No, you ain't, Caine." "I was going to say" "One:" "You don't believe it's my woman out in that box." "Two:" "You noticed we didn't stop to ask permission or turn over the gold." "So that, three:" "You don't think it's right for you to come along with me and Anna." "Four:" "Your ankle bone hurts." "Five:" "You're sick of me." "Right?" "I am in apprehension what you will do next." "It is seldom what you say you will do." "Well, I'll remedy that right now." "I'll let you know what I'm going to do next if you try to walk out on me." "I'll blow your head off." "You just try to make a move and see if I don't." "I believe you would." "Know why I'd shoot you, Caine?" "Because I need you to be my best man." "I like you, Caine." "Anna and I ain't married, except by common law, see?" "She wants to make it legal before we part ways." "So you'll be my best man." "Down the road at the agency, there's a Lutheran reverend that runs a traveling mission church and school." "He'll be my reverend." "And after that, I have to be going." "Sure, you will." "My solemn word." "All things being equal." "Yes, sir." "Well, time we get going." "What is "all things being equal"?" "It's a manner of speaking, boy." "As luck would have it." "It's all for the best." "Time will tell." "Yes, sir." "Well." "It's the fortunes of war." "Yeah." "You know, as luck would have it." "I do not understand why we did not land on the southern shore." "Surely I made it clear that this is Kai Tong's home ground." "Yes." "There is a Shaolin temple near us just to the north." "They will give us sanctuary." "They would allow a woman in your temple?" "They would make some arrangements in view of your circumstances." "If they were to view my circumstances at the moment they might be more inclined to turn me away and you with me." "No." "Compassion is the first rule of the Shaolin discipline." "I'm sure it was not curiosity." "Am I lacking curiosity?" "Unless it is in something even more essential like masculinity." "Oh, I see." "How can you see when you're looking elsewhere?" "is it not better to look elsewhere than to fix one's eyes on what one cannot have?" "What we cannot have?" "Are we talking of the same thing?" "We have talked of nothing else." "Well, I was referring to me." "Myself." "So was I." "But we have been talking of many things besides me." "How can you say we have talked of nothing but me?" "Forgive my stupidity." "I have been conscious only of you while we talk so it seemed to me we talked only of you." "I had never thought such feelings were even available to me." "And I?" "Did you think I was available to you?" "You are concubine to the emperor." "And you are cousin to the jackass." "Forgive my stupidity." "Do you not belong to the emperor?" "Are you not bound to him?" "I am bound to him as a handmaiden..." "But I am not his wife." "And I do not owe him the same fidelity as a wife." "I am not a slave, Kwai Chang." "He does not own me, nor my heart." "You must take into account my ignorance." "No." "You are not ignorant, Kwai Chang." "I have never seen so marvelous a man so fulfilled in masculinity except for one limitation." "What is that?" "You are naive." "Yes." "You know no other women?" "My mother." "Kwai Chang, do you love me?" "I do not know." "Look at me, please." "As I am bold you must therefore be bold." "Kwai Chang, your eyes are in love." "I am teaching them boldness." "Teach your lips boldness." "Teach them to kiss." "Run." "Hide." "All I'm asking is to be married up with me woman." "I'd think a man of your calling would jump stark-bottom naked into a fiery furnace to do his duty." "You offend me, sir." "You offend Mrs. Stekel and common decency, sir with your foul mouth." "No, sir!" "I will not be a party to such a union." "Hush, Amos." "What did you say your name was?" "Logan, madam." "I'd swear I've seen you somewhere before, Mr. Logan." "Only that wasn't your name then." "Logan's always been my name." "And furthermore, any man who would carry his woman around in a dreadnought like that, in a nailed-up crate like so much junk" "Anna likes to travel first class." "Onto a Sioux reservation where you've got no legal business being!" "Do you realize you could get us all massacred?" "I told you, Anna was born Oglala." "Raised here." "Raised up here." "Anna Littlemoon is the only Anna that l" "Wait." "Anna White Eagle!" "I told you, I don't know her Sioux name!" "Just plain Anna." "Anna McBurney!" "That's enough." "McBurney." "Logan McBurney." "You're the man hanged Anna White Eagle for the vigilantes down at Chuckwater Station!" "I never hanged nobody." "That's a lie." "You're the same man wouldn't let me give the body a Christian burial." "Had to get those vigilantes to pull you from her body!" "Hush, Amos!" "He'll kill us both." "A grave robber is what he is, Ethel." "Grave robber." "Opened her grave at Chuckwater Station and had her put in that box!" "Bet my last dollar!" "You devil!" "Come on!" "Go get them, Tall Pot." "They're grave robbers!" "Take them prisoner." "Ghouls!" "Grave robbers!" "After them!" "They're getting away!" "They're getting away!" "What did he say?" "They're going to capture them and torture them." "Good." "Mr. McBurney it is not true what the reverend and his wife said." "You did not steal your woman, Anna, dead or alive?" "Of course I didn't." "You're daft, Sasquatch." "l will do what I can to marry you and Anna if you would like me to." "You'll do what?" "I am a priest." "You be the medicine man." "No. I am a priest of the Shaolin order." "My temple is in Hunan Province in the southeast of China." "I noticed there was something strange about you the minute I clapped eyes on you." "The way you made them arrows disappear out of the air." "We are trained in the martial arts." "Martial ceremony should come easy to you, then." ""Martial" means:" ""With the art of war."" ""Marital" is the word for marriage." "Two very similar words that mean different things." "Tell you've never been married." "You hear that, Anna?" "We're gonna get hitched in Chinese." "The fourth bandit turned and galloped away." "He ran when he saw what you did to the others." "He will have reached Kai Tong and the others by now." "Can we not rest here?" "We cannot stay." "We must leave." "Now." "We must." "You are an incredible warrior, dear Kwai Chang." "I have seen hundreds of men fight in exhibitions before the imperial court." "But I have never seen anyone to challenge you." "The closest would be Kai Tong." "He would do well to stay home at The Black Dragon Inn and lock the doors." "But he will not. I understand him now." "You understand his madness?" "is not love a kind of madness?" "You think he loves me to the point of madness?" "To be separated from you by force is enough to drive any man mad." "He will lure me into a fight while his outlaws capture you." "Then you do understand his madness." "So soon?" "I have kissed you, Mei Lee." "You have begun to kiss me, Kwai Chang." "You stopped to fight." "Do you mock me, then?" "Never." "I invite you to finish what you have begun." "A token, which you must carry." "I beautiful Mei Lee Ho love you." "You are beautiful, Kwai Chang." "I am merely exquisite." "If you are merely exquisite then I shall be forever merely enchanted." "Hear me, Shaolin!" "Shaolin, hear me!" "I do not wish to kill a priest but I must if you do not leave her at once." "Save her." "Save yourself, Shaolin that we may fight one day to a proper death." "Kai Tong bids you leave her this instant." "Light the arrow." "To the roof!" "Let me go to him, or he will kill us both!" "No, Mei Lee." "Stay close to me." "Get her!" "Bring her to me!" "Bring her out!" "Kill him!"