"Be a good boy, now." "One for you." "One for you." "For you." "And two for Mother." "Paladin." "I got your telegram." "Essentially, you haven't changed." "Little older." "Well, age, Doctor, is the price of living." "Everything ages, nothing really changes." "Sour mash." "From Kentucky." "It doesn't erase the memories, but it does blur their image a little." "She must have been quite a woman." "Not a woman, Paladin." "The woman." "You didn't know Aurora, did you?" "No." "Hmm." "Would you believe it?" "Few days ago," "I held a man's life in these hands." "I had to leave the bullet where it was, but man's still alive, for a while at least." "Well, Doctor, those hands saved my life one time." "And that is why I'm here." "How long ago was that war, Paladin?" "Hmm." "A thousand years?" "For a little while, my hands had their old skill, and..." "Well, I'll make it short." "I settled here because Aurora lived here." "She married somebody else." "Afterwards, all those years..." "I tended the bruises he put on her." "He was the sheriff here." "Caleb Tully." "Past tense?" "She died two years ago." "He died..." "last week." "They had a son." "Johnny." "Almost 18 now." "You see those mountains?" "He's up there hunting the man accused of killing his father." "You want me to bring the boy back." "Caleb Tully was a brutal man." "Took life without compunction." "He brutalized his wife, and had a good start on his son." "I want that son saved, Paladin." "For whatever of..." "her is in him." "Now drop it!" "A rare trick, boy." "Well, what you gonna do with me?" "First of all, who are you, and why the fireworks?" "You was following me, wasn't you?" "Name's Cardiff." "Noah Cardiff." "Well, I was trailing a boy." "That so?" "Altitude." "That him?" "You Johnny Tully?" "What are you?" "One of that old buzzard's flock?" "Old eagle sound more like it." "Seeing as I trapped you so easy." "Now, if you are Johnny Tully, I'm here to take you home alive." "Yeah, I'm Johnny Tully." "Uncle Moody send you?" "He did." "And he must have sent you after him, too, because he's a murderer!" "He said you were trailing a man who was accused of murder." "Yeah, I had plenty of reason to kill old Caleb Tully, but I didn't have that pleasure." "You lying killer!" "No." "He's like his pa." "He's all temper." "Only, old Caleb preferred to have you tied up when he whopped you, or shot you." "Well, now... how long you been walking around with this?" "Yeah." "Few days." ""I held a man's life in these two hands." Yeah." "Who shot you, Cardiff?" "Man with a badge." "Yeah, well, you listen to me." "I'm wearing that badge now!" "You see that?" "And believe me, one way or another," "I'm gonna see that you get what you got coming." "Johnny, what's your authority for wearing that badge?" "The authority of taking it off... my dead pa's shirt." "Now, I don't know whether this man's guilty or not." "That's a matter for a court of law to decide." "Well, look-it, I thought you hired out to help me!" "Only to take you home." "We've got a two-day trip." "Now you get the horses." "Hey." "You couldn't, uh, just let an old man have..." "have his gun, let him go on his way, mind his own business?" "You worried about your conscience overtaking you?" "Having the likes of you and him overtake me sure ain't reassuring." "What's the matter?" "This fire good enough for you?" "I'm still worried about that conscience of yours." "You hear something?" "Well, now, Cardiff, just who do you expect?" "Well... business associates." "You have something of theirs?" "Course not." "Hey, maybe we ought to move out." "This place kind of exposed." "How many associates?" "Well..." "Canute, Mule," "Sam, the Apach." "Johnny, get the horses." "Hey, Paladin, maybe I did take a little more than my share." "Then we were all thieves together." "Wasn't like as if we was friends or something." "Would that have made any difference?" "No." "Whoa, whoa..." "Eh, whoa, now." "Whoa." "Any sign?" "No." "Hey, I'm all tuckered." "Why don't you just let me slip off and hole up until you come and fetch me." "I'll share half of what I took with you." "Maybe $10,000." "Old man, when men run for their lives," ""all the gold that's under the moon," ""or all that ever was, could not of those weary souls make a single one repose."" "You're saying no, huh?" "They're moving slow." "Can't be too far ahead." "The one in black, he's the dangerous one." "I got a right to ask what we're doing here?" "We keep riding, he'll never live to reach town." "Help him down off that horse." "I'm not gonna tell you again." "You're sure mighty concerned over a killer." "I'm concerned about a human being that needs a doctor's help to stay alive." "Well, the only doctors in this town are ghosts, Paladin." "I know." "That's why you're gonna bring Dr. Moody here." "You mean ride out alone?" "Well, now, what makes you think I'll bring anybody back?" "'Cause if you don't, you'll never have a chance to see him hang." "You take our horses, give our trackers something to look at." "Come on." "Now, you're so all-fired smart;" "just unfasten that gun belt!" "What's the matter with you?" "Old man, I removed the temptation from that gun yesterday." "Dag-nab you, Paladin!" "Well, we've got four visitors." "Three of them look like your kind of businessmen, the other one's an Apache." "Don't talk so blamed loud." "You want 'em to hear you?" "What are they doing?" "Looks like they're gonna camp right in the middle of the street." "Listen, Paladin, we don't need to wait for the doc." "It'll be dark pretty soon." "You wouldn't make it two miles." "You drive a hard bargain, boy." "I'll go a three-quarter split on that money with you." "Well, you're a worse crook than me!" "You want it all!" "It worth your life?" "Well, I ought to have a little expense money." "Ain't you got no pity for old men?" "Old man?" "Old buzzard?" "Hmm." "Hey, Paladin." "Hmm?" "Things are closing in on you, boy." "Mm-hmm." "Old man, how long ago did you spend that money you've been tempting me with?" "Well, how'd you..." "Say, if you're so all-fired brainy, sending that youngin' was a mistake." "He'll come a-chargin' back here with a passel of righteous citizens." "They'll hang you right alongside of me 'fore you know it." "Old man the only mistake I made was not walking to that window and inviting your friends in." "Paladin!" "Paladin!" "Doc, up here!" "Johnny, cover the door." "Watch the stairs." "You sure do keep me busy." "He a friend of yours?" "That's right." "He ain't got very good taste." "Yeah, not in patients, either." "I think you're gonna make it, after all." "Outlive you, Doc." "Maybe you have already." "If we waited to round up some help, we wouldn't be in this mess." "We'd have round up some help, Johnny, this man might be dead." "He's a murderer!" "He killed my pa, remember?" "No, Johnny." "Johnny, the day this man escaped from your father, he staggered into my place wearing hand irons." "Said your father had tried to shoot him in cold blood." "Did you believe that?" "He wore chains." "Just been shot in the chest." "I did what I could for him." "Then, your father came in." "Trailed the blood." "Was a crazy man." "Was filled with a killing lust." "Johnny, I couldn't let him take a life" "I just saved." "Moody?" "You... you didn't do it, did you?" "He did it." "You're all I have left, Uncle Moody." "He did it, didn't he?" "No, Johnny." "Why'd you bring me way back here to tell me?" "You brought me back here, Johnny, because a man was dying." "Cover me." "Get around back." "All right, Sam, come on out!" "Paladin!" "Come up here!" "Come on." "He's dead, Paladin." "You know, that old man..." "he's probably killed 50 people, maybe more." "Uncle Moody just killed one." "Huh." "How is it figured, Paladin?" "Johnny..." "I don't know." "That doc... he was a good man." "That's the trouble." "Good always die young." "That it?" "Or is it that only the young men die good?" ""Have gun will travel," reads the card of a man" "A knight without armor in a savage land" "His fast gun for hire heeds the calling wind" "Paladin, Paladin, where do you roam?"