"Is this the camp of Vernor August?" "In Santa Barbara they told me that he and his daughter had come this way." "Well, at any rate, your beauty has repaid me for my trip." "Every mile of it." "See what I'm making for my baby?" "Come and I'll show you." "A moment, please." "I regret, sir, that the reputation of this wild country does not permit hospitality." "I'd appreciate your leaving." "I'm Vernor August." "I waited an extra day for you in Santa Barbara but decided you wouldn't come." "Well, it is a long trip from San Francisco." " lf you wish to be certain it was I who wrote you..." " No." "I once had the pleasure of viewing one of your art collections in Boston." "I knew who you were before your letter arrived." "Oh." "Mr. Paladin, my daughter Gina." "You are most happy to meet..." "I am most happy to meet you." "When I first met your daughter, I had the strong feeling that I'd seen her someplace before." "That's quite impossible, sir." "Well, then the loss is mine, madam." "It's miss." "The small clothing and the talk of a baby, it's... it's a little joke of ours." "Please, sir, do me the honor." "Gina, the wine for our guest." "Yes." "I was afraid you wouldn't come." "This country is so wild, so wide and different from the East." " But, then, you know that." " The reason I came was that your letter was not exactly specific as to why you wanted to see Elliot Spencer." "Ah, surely you're joking, sir." "Have you no conception of the genius of this man?" "Well, I did see his Tuscan Lake Nymph in the Louvre, and that gave me a vague idea." "Well, then, 20 years ago he created his last great work, then he disappeared." "Everyone wanted to know... will the great Spencer ever work again?" "Then I find you're the last man to see him." "The man I left in the wilderness three years ago was looking for peace, not work." "Then he's changed his mind." "That's why I'm willing to pay you $2,000 to take me to him." "I have only agreed to meet you, and I find it very difficult to believe that Spencer has changed his mind." "I have but one argument for that." "Gina." "The Savages." "Je suis tres touché." "You recognize the stone?" "Yes." "Afro-Asian aboriginals in the marble of West America." "It's taken me a whole year to trace them to a thief who stole them from a strange man who he said lives south of here." "So you see..." "Spencer does work again." "Yes." "She is very beautif..." "Gina!" "You're tired." "Your argument is very powerful, sir." "This is Spencer's work, no doubt about it." "The slight elongation of the torso... thigh." "Double symmetry." "The symbolism." "Now... if we find him... if we find Spencer and he does not want to see you, what then?" "Then I've come a long way for nothing." "You have my word, sir." "All right, we'll start in the morning." "Do you like working with your hands, Mr. Paladin?" "Very much." "Well, you show a remarkable skill." "A man taught me when I was very small." "I can't make her as beautiful as she really was." "Yours is not so beautiful." " No." " But I like you." "Where's your mother, Gina?" "She sleeps in the ground." "I used to put flowers there, but Father forbade it." "You say a man taught you to do this." "Who, Gina?" "Who?" "He was my best friend next to my mother." "He used to swing me in his arms and say I was his beautiful little one." "Those were the happy days, when I was very small." "And still, we all must grow up..." " mustn't we?" " Why must we?" "There!" "It'll stay like it is, no matter what my father says, or you!" "I am like the woman in The Savages, aren't I, Mr. Paladin?" "Remarkably so." "Will you swing me in your arms?" "I think not." "Why?" "Because I might like that, and it might not be what you expected at all." "It is better to stay a child... so then people can love you." "And there is no hate." "Mr. Paladin." "Our agreement does not concern talking to my daughter." "We'll break camp immediately." "Oh, shut up, will you?" "Spencer?" "I'm afraid this is a private encamp..." "Paladin!" "Oh, my good friend!" " Here." " Oh." "What's this all about?" "Ah, August." "Colette?" "So much like her." "Her name is Gina, not Colette." "Gina." "Surely you remember the child you found so charming once upon a time." "You are like someone I should remember." "Colette... my wife is dead." "Colette, dead?" "To me, for many years." "To others, for only three." "Despite her years, she still remains a child, Spencer." "Like her father, I would say." "You go too far." "There are ways for gentlemen to settle such things." "My camp is right over there." "I'm pleased to welcome an old acquaintance." "Would you like to walk with me?" "August." "You had better go and get your wagon." "Well, I suspected he was lying." "Still, he would have just kept on searching for you until he found you." "Of course." "I wondered how you happened to choose this particular place." "Did you notice the rhombohedral cleavages in the outcroppings?" "Perhaps I did, unconsciously." "It's like a Carrara." "It's quite a good marble." "Well, of course." "I thought I recognized her." "It's the Tuscan water nymph." "That's her mother." "Ah, yes." "I heard them as they stared at that statue." ""So lovely, so beautiful," they said." ""The wife of Vernor August." ""And he?" "Such a blind, stupid fool."" "They are the ones who are blind, August." "Loveliness like hers comes only from within." "Her very faithfulness is what gave her beauty." "Do you wish to inspect the pistols?" "August, in your own words, you have made a very long journey for nothing." "Yes." "I'm not afraid of death, but I will not take life." "Even if I tell you it was Colette's wish?" "Gina!" "She even made a mark on the pistol which would be known only to you." "Tell him who gave me the pistols." "Mama gave them to you." "A water lily." "The water lily here." "It was a private joke between us." "That... how wonderful it would be if our feet could root in the lake bottom and we could die each winter and be newly born each spring." "Without the encumbrance of a husband, of course." "Perhaps I hoped she felt that." "She never said." "I even had Gina polish them for me." "And now I think it appropriate that the seed of the water lily witness their final use." "I see." "You destroy one and wound the other." "And all for nothing." "The child is yours." "Your flesh and blood." "You have Colette's message in your hand." "Do you deny her last wish?" "Spencer, have you ever held a pistol in your hand before?" "No." "But when it's over," "I want Paladin to take her." "Find a place for her that she'll..." "This child is not a piece of merchandise for bargaining." "I agree!" "She's the only human thing in this whole affair." "But I want her away from you." "Away from your hate." "Even you ought to be able to tell her head's too empty for hate." "Or anything else." "If there is a person here without understanding, it's you, August." "This is none of your affair." "Yes, to that I must agree." "Well, I am forced to disagree with both of you." "Now..." "I'm gonna ask you people one time... not to go through with this." "August, you're an intelligent man, an educated man." "Give credence to the idea that he may be telling the truth." "No?" "Well, then, have the charity to forgive him for what you believe happened." "He was a very young man, and you say yourself that your wife was a rarely beautiful woman." "You waste time, sir." "Spencer." "This is exactly the kind of a thing that drove you out here." "You were a man sick, revolted, preferring death to living in a world filled with ugliness." "Somewhere a poet must have said," ""To truly love beauty is to be wiling to die for it, if necessary."" "But I feel sorry for you." "To have had a beautiful woman and a lovely child, and to have known the wonder of neither." "Two gentlemen." "Two gentlemen so mired in the muck of their own self-pity that they can't see the obvious." "What do you think the death of either one of you is gonna mean to this girl?" "Where there is no mind, there can be no effect." "You insist on going through with this?" "Very well, since I have a certain professional interest in the safety of my clients, and since August hired me..." "Spencer." "You mean... you'll..." "The gun is loaded, primed, cocked." "All you need do is pull the trigger to fire it." "We'll move on the count." "Count of five, turn and fire." "Perhaps this is what she meant by the water lily." "It is almost winter, isn't it?" "One." "Two." "Three." "Four." "Five." "Paladin, no, you're my friend." "All right." "All right." "All right, now." "I'm not gonna kill him, Gina." "Here." "These are very fine dueling pistols." "But I suspect they've been tampered with." "I suspect that any person pulling the trigger would indeed be taking his own life." "Colette..." "Colette planned this?" "I think she must have known that sooner or later, he'd find you." "And I think she must also have known that you would never pull the trigger." "No." "No, you're wrong!" "You're wrong!" "Gina," "August said you knew that those guns had been tampered with." "Did you know?" "No." "You're the man who taught me how to make beautiful things with my hands when I was little, aren't you?" "Yes." "Spencer... will you go back to San Francisco with us?" "Not yet." "But I have two friends that'll know where I am, and I know where you'll be." "And as for you, young lady... when I get you to San Francisco, the first thing I am going to do is put you in some clothes that befit your years." "Do I have to wear shoes?" "Yes, you have to wear shoes." "Spencer, this may not be the best of all possible worlds, but if we try, we can make it the best of all possible compromises." "Gina?" ""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?"