Cimarron Strip

Angus MacGregor:
Saddled and packed; five days provisions.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Add this to it.

Angus MacGregor:
Leg irons? For what? That lad's barely weaned.

Marshal Jim Crown:
That lad's wanted in Silver City, New Mexico for boyish pranks like shooting people in the back.

[commenting on the horses Eva has provided]

Lobo:
Couple of days ride and they'll be crow bait.

Eva:
Couple of days and you'll be at the border. Take my advice, cross over. You stink of bounty!

Bill Baylor:
Nobody hangs my brother.

Marshal Jim Crown:
The sheriff over at Indian Wells, he ought to give me a hand; loan me a mount and an extra sidearm.

Jessica Cabot:
Sheriff? Lawmen and jails cost money, which the good folk at Indian Wells don't believe in laying out. They make their own rules with their own guns and their own ropes.

Marshal Jim Crown:
You make it sound like the Dark Continent. They got a telegraph office, don't they?

Jessica Cabot:
They just started switchin' from candles to coal oil lamps.

[reading the sign on Jessie's freight wagon which says "Cabot & Company"]

Marshal Jim Crown:
Are you Cabot or Company?

Jessica Cabot:
I'm both. It was my father's - he left it to me in his will.

Marshal Jim Crown:
There's a law against interferin' with a marshal and you're going to have a long time to think about what you could have done with that five thousand dollars.

Moon:
No, no, you ain't gonna talk me outta nothin'!

Marshal Jim Crown:
Oh, I don't want to - not anymore. Silver City is just where I want to go. The law there will be able to identify me. Now if you still got those handcuffs, why don't you use them?

Moon:
You're bluffin'.

Jessica Cabot:
Why don't you call him?

Marshal Jim Crown:
You're going to have to enter a plea and stand trial and all sorts of nonsensical things. Now it doesn't matter one lick whether your name is Dinglebob McQueen or Matthew Mark Lukenjohn - you shot a parson in a back alley on the Fourth of July. You're in for a couple of inconveniences.

Lieutenant:
Fifty six thousand, four hundred twenty three dollars and ninety six cents - payroll for Fort Supply and Camp Cook. Sign right here.

Marshal Jim Crown:
What's the ninety six cents for?

Lieutenant:
Second Lieutenant's salary for a month.

Francis Wilde:
Lookin' for a job?

Kid:
Nope - lookin' for gold.

Francis Wilde:
Gold in the Cherokee Strip?

Kid:
Well, why not?

Francis Wilde:
I never heard of a trace of it found around here.

Kid:
Well, they never heard of gold in California until they discovered it.

Fargo Jones:
Farmer's Almanac? You fixin' to be a sodbuster?

Darcy:
Well, a man's got to know when to reap his corp, Fargo. It says here that it's a perfect night for it - no moon, balck as the devil's own soul.

Fargo Jones:
You'd know.

Darcy:
Yeah, well, he's a personal friend of mine.

Angus MacGregor:
You picked the wrong man. Old Grimey prefers horses to men.

Darcy:
Oh. Maybe that's 'cause he smells so much like one, huh?

Malachi Grimes:
I'd rather smell like a horse than a polecat any day. I never met a horse yet that would lie or steal or kill people.

Malachi Grimes:
Boy, don't you know that nobody, rich or poor, gets anyplace but to the grave? Don't matter whether a man gets in life, it's how he makes the trip.

Malachi Grimes:
Anyhow, you gotta admit that I'm right about one thing and that's where a man gets.

Kid:
Yeah, I guess so.

Malachi Grimes:
Tell me, boy - how are you plannin' on makin' the trip?

[Crown killed Darcy after the outlaw shot Grimes]

Kid:
He always said the devil takes care of his own.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Yeah, he might be findin' out right about now.

Malachi Grimes:
Boys, you midnd seein' that I don't find out?

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Do you know a man named Purcell? Logan Purcell?

Francis Wilde:
Do we! He's a tough customer.

Angus MacGregor:
Aye, and that bunch of ruffians he runs with - very unpleasant indeed.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Outlaws?

Francis Wilde:
Sort of like Quantrill's Raiders.

Angus MacGregor:
But smaller and meaner. For years they've been hitting every isolated Indian village in the Outlet, leeching off their food and hides.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
And now their blood.

Marshal Jim Crown:
There seems to me there's something especially female flittin' around in that brain of yours.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
No, just the usual female nonsense.

Marshal Jim Crown:
I'll bet there is.

Angus MacGregor:
Aye, a strange girl that one - deep, wild...

Francis Wilde:
Yeah, but what a story this is going to be, Mac...

Angus MacGregor:
Jim's gonna have his hands full with her.

Francis Wilde:
Raised by Indians, enslaved by outlaws...

Angus MacGregor:
And he doesn't even suspect it yet, I warrant.

Francis Wilde:
...risked her own life to shelter him and nurse him back to health...

Angus MacGregor:
But it's plain to see - shines out of her eyes every time she looks at him.

Francis Wilde:
...then discovery - flight - a dramatic escape!

Angus MacGregor:
The girl's fallen in love with him - that means trouble!

Francis Wilde:
That's a perfect happy ending! Mac, sometimes I don't think you know what you're talkin' about.

Angus MacGregor:
Happy endings indeed. Frances, you're daft!

[the sound of Marshal Crown's pistol cocking behind him ends Screamer's drunken binge]

The Screamer:
Howdy, Marshal. Do you want to play?

Marshal Jim Crown:
The game's over, Screamer.

The Screamer:
Then you may as well shoot me and put me out of my misery.

Marshal Jim Crown:
I'm going to do worse than that. I'm going to improve your character.

The Screamer:
Now, Marshal, you ain't told me the charges.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Stampedin' chickens on the Sabbath.

The Screamer:
You ever face me man to man, you're gonna be black, blue and bloody red all over.

The Screamer:
I can night track! I got eyes like a cat. I can track day or night, across slate or granite, moon or inside your hat. You better count me in!

Marshal Jim Crown:
You?

The Screamer:
Who else you got?

MacGregor:
Me!

The Screamer:
You couldn't track a cockroach through a puddle of beer.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Mac, you make sure he has three square meals a day.

MacGregor:
Aye - beans for breakfast and beans for lunch... and then for supper we'll have some beans!

[last lines]

Marshal Jim Crown:
Dulcey, I hate to tell you this...

Dulcey Coopersmith:
But it's the wrong time of year to plant rutabagas.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Mm-hmm.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Well, you're wrong, Mr. Crown. Any man who give up ten thousand dollars to save a switch-tailed, ram-squaddled skunk has a very green thumb.

[Dulcey treats MacGregor's bullet wound]

MacGregor:
Behind the bar, lass, there's a bottle of my private stock.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Your private stock's not going to help this.

MacGregor:
It's me, the inner man, that needs help!

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Is it very dangerous?

MacGregor:
Lead's always dangerous. Whiskey's the cure!

[MacGregor spits out the liquor he tried to drink]

MacGregor:
What kind of scotch whiskey is this?

Marshal Jim Crown:
Tequila.

Marshal Jim Crown:
What's west of here?

Bartender:
Rattlesnakes, tarantulas, gila monsters - no game, no cattle, no people.

Marshal Jim Crown:
And beyond that?

Bartender:
And beyond that, nothing but waste. The old Indian gods go there to die.

Marshal Jim Crown:
One place to die is good as another.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
You look worried - I can tell.

Marshal Jim Crown:
I'm always worried when I work this town.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
No, this is something special - this girl getting killed tonight.

Marshal Jim Crown:
I told you when you came to Cimarron there'd be more killin' than laughin'.

Marshal Jim Crown:
You make a strong point with a knife.

Kallman:
The product of a misspent youth, Mister.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Good morning!

Marshal Jim Crown:
Mornin'.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Oh, let me put it another way. "Good morning, Marshal Crown, sir!"

Marshal Jim Crown:
I'd shoot the Bluebird of Happiness if it squawked as loud as you.

Francis Wilde:
The New York Times - they said, "Yes." They want everything I can give 'em.

Angus MacGregor:
About what? As if I didn't know.

Francis Wilde:
Jack the Ripper, dark nights, murdered beauties, chilling fog, flittering shadows and the fairest flower of New England, Miss Dulcey Coopersmith, stalked by a wild beast. My reputation is made!

[last lines]

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Oh, don't worry about it, Francis. Asa Tayback's crowd will be in tonight and the Marshal will give you a real rootin' tootin' story if you like.

Marshal Jim Crown:
I told you I'm leaving town and I'm going to sleep for two days!

Francis Wilde:
What about my story?

Marshal Jim Crown:
You'll have a story alright - about a daredevil, hell-bent-for-leather lawman who took on eighty drink-crazed cowboys and tamed 'em.

Francis Wilde:
What lawman?

Marshal Jim Crown:
Francis Wilde, the Scourge of Cimarron!

[about the reinactment of an Indian-cavalry battle in Wildcat Gallagher's Wild West Show]

Old Will:
Marshal, that's the way it was when we got to Blue Clay Flats. Time we got there, those cussed Indians had scalped fourteen women that same day, but we got it back on 'em!

Marshal Jim Crown:
I guess you just about seen everything, Will, from Mandan meetings to ring-tailed epizooties.

Wildcat Gallagher:
Any notions for my show?

Marshal Jim Crown:
One. Cancel it!

Wildcat Gallagher:
Well now, is that a polite way of sayin' my show's no good?

Marshal Jim Crown:
Too good.

Wildcat Gallagher:
You confuse me, Marshal.

Marshal Jim Crown:
You can dredge up the old days in St. Louis or Des Moines, but not here, not now. You're too close to the meat of the bone.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Now go back to your farms. Live for yourself, not the dead!

[last lines]

Francis Wilde:
Look at 'em! They all want to shake the hand of Wildcat Gallagher. They want to believe he's what they would have been.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Who's gonna tell 'em it wasn't thataway? That Western man had fleas in his hair, grease on his shirtfront, calluses on his backside. They do a lot of talkin' today, but we didn't talk then - we didn't have anything to say. The only thing we thought about was where we were gonna find our next meal.

Francis Wilde:
Times change.

Marshal Jim Crown:
There was a last beaver, a last wolf, a last longhorn, a last buffalo. There was a last Indian.

[reading the question Dulcey wrote on a dime novel]

Marshal Jim Crown:
Gunfighter, gambler, lawyer? No, Miss - Marshal.

[Jim c*cks his rifle]

William Payne:
That's an ugly sound, Marshal.

Marshal Jim Crown:
It always has been.

William Payne:
But you don't even know me.

Marshal Jim Crown:
William Payne, the farmer's messiah.

William Payne:
Now you're beginning to understand.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Had a heel shot off. They tell the story that you can't back up.

William Payne:
That's it.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Took a chestful of lead goin' against a Winchester armed with principle.

William Payne:
That's a way to put it.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Guts and gall!

William Payne:
Now you know me.

William Payne:
Ten million acres across that river - the Cherokee Outlet, the last free homestead land left in America. Ten years we fought to open it, for our plows, for our homes. We've taken abuse, we've suffered abuse while the cattlemen squandered that land - land they don't even own, except by government lease. And now we're going to have it. We've done it. We've got a bill in Congress that's going to decide once and for all who owns it - cattlemen or us. They're votin' on that bill in Washington now and I'm not about to jeopardize it by violence and you know it.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Now you know me.

Bear:
Where'd they hide you?

Marshal Jim Crown:
Abilene.

Bear:
The devil!

Marshal Jim Crown:
Three year.

Bear:
You put the lid on Abilene?

Marshal Jim Crown:
Prettiest ice cream parlors you ever saw. Roller-skatin' every Friday night with a cowboy band.

[an explosion destroys the jailhouse]

Angus MacGregor:
'Tis not a jailbreak man, nay you fear. My still blew up.

[Mobeetie offers MacGregor a bottle]

Chalk:
No, man, no. Didn't you know. Scotsman eat grass!

Mobeetie:
Is that right? I thought they were part human.

Angus MacGregor:
I fancy the jail you improvised, your honor - worthy of my own credentials. Late of her majesty's forces - VC, DSO, retired.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Do you think you can track him?

Angus MacGregor:
You're talkin', man, to the laddie that taught the Sioux.

Hardy Miller:
I've got 80,000 head of cattle out here - any twenty worth more than you make in a year. I've got 340,000 acres of land - you couldn't ride it in a week... One hundred sixty men. I've had Congressmen to my house; the President of Mexico visit my ranch. You're warning me?

Marshal Jim Crown:
You and every other rancher in the Cherokee Outlet.

Major Ben Covington:
There's a field out there behind that hill, Marshal. Do you know what's in it?

Marshal Jim Crown:
No.

Major Ben Covington:
Neither do these farmers. There are four hundred stones out there, Marshal - dead boys with Kiowa arrows in there backs. Fifteen years of bloody Indian wars laying out the territory; making the peace. And do you know what they won for it? Meat once a month, the rest beans. Weaponry out-moded, fouled, a marksman couldn't hit a target. We're understaffed, we're underpaid, we've got recruits so green they don't know the difference between a Dahlgren mortar or a coehorn, or old men who have forgotten.

Major Ben Covington:
I'll tell you what's remembered, Marshal - the noble redskin, always battling one against forty. The rape of the Sioux, the Trail of Tears; the Indian never breaking a treaty, the soldiers always lying, cheating, dispossessing dirt. We broke this land! You're asking me to send my men back maybe to be killed, all for the sake of wimpering pig cutters who assumed the almighty Lord spread it out for just for them to take?

Marshal Jim Crown:
Where are they? Forty cowboys are going to chop those settlers into kindling if I don't have the men to stop them. Where are the sheriffs?

Francis Wilde:
Resigned - all five. No deputies available.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
What do you think?

Marshal Jim Crown:
Go home.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
This is my home.

Marshal Jim Crown:
With the finest lasses you'd want to see?

Dulcey Coopersmith:
I know what it was. I know what it is. There isn't a thing in the place that doesn't need fixing and the kitchen's horrible with dirt and grease and dust, but I know what it can be.

Marshal Jim Crown:
How old are you?

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Twenty.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Twenty? Nobody's twenty anymore.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
You're right, I lied - I'm eighteen. How old are you?

Marshal Jim Crown:
Thirty-five.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Well... that isn't so bad.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Do you want to feed people and clean up behind them?

Dulcey Coopersmith:
But it would be mine! I've never owned something that was mine before. I have a future.

Marshal Jim Crown:
A future?

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Well, there'd be tables inside with linen and candles in bottles like these glowing ever so softly...

[Jim smashes a bottle and thrusts the jagged edge at Dulcey]

Marshal Jim Crown:
Look at it! That is the future here, Dulcey! It's vicious and it's raw. You're tryin' to feed sugar to a horse that's crazy and wild with fear and full of blind, stupid hate. They won't even want to see ya or know what you have to offer. Then one day, you're standing next to a fire or a shootin' or some liquored lout is tearin' up the town, and all at once they'll be standin' over you sayin' "I never saw she was there" but it will be done. No, you're going to be hurt around here, Dulcey, and no one's goin' to mean to do it.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
That can't happen.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Can't it?

Dulcey Coopersmith:
You're here.

[Francis encourages Jim to market himself as a lawman]

Marshal Jim Crown:
Doc Crown...

Francis Wilde:
The Legend of Cimarron!

Marshal Jim Crown:
Town Tamer of the West!

Francis Wilde:
Like Masterson...

Marshal Jim Crown:
Cartwright, Ben Thompson...

Francis Wilde:
Stoudenmire, Hickok...

Marshal Jim Crown:
Cartwright was a trigger-happy gun sharp, Ben Thompson was a drunken animal who'd kill on a dare, Stoudenmire liked to club Mexicans to death. They'd make the laws and they'd break 'em. They'd cheat, steal, lie - they trusted no one and no one trusted them. That's the stuff that makes legends. You want a legend? You're going to be part of it. I want deputies!

Francis Wilde:
Well, you, me and him. Us three. Could be worse.

Marshal Jim Crown:
It's gonna be.

Bear:
What's happened to you? We used to take on fifty of anything - men, grizzlies... You name me one time we ever lost!

Marshal Jim Crown:
Never, Bear.

Bear:
Well?

Marshal Jim Crown:
Not once. But what did we win?

[Jim is not amused by Francis' newspaper article describing the exploits of Marshal 'Doc' Crown]

Francis Wilde:
Well, that was the deal.

Marshal Jim Crown:
What deal?

Francis Wilde:
You said: I get a legend, you get a deputy.

Marshal Jim Crown:
And what about them farmers? What have they got to go back to? Nothin! They're hungry, broke, angry. What do you think they're gonna do when they sit around here, maybe for years? I'm gonna have every bad guy in the nation pourin' in here like leeches. Con men; jayhawkers; tinhorns; washed-up, red-eyed losers. I gotta jungle here and every son of a jackal's goin' to be callin', lookin' for the spoils!

Angus Mac Gregor:
Dead ten times over. Jim, I never saw done to any creature what was done to him. Never.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Doc, what do you think killed him - man or beast?

Dr. Kihlgren:
Neither. I've seen men who died in a hundred different ways. Gunshot, stabbin', clawed by a grizzly, strangled, stomped by a horse, gored - you name it, I've been there to pick up the pieces. But this is somethin'... somethin' else.

Marshal Jim Crown:
There's got to be an explanation.

Dr. Kihlgren:
Alright, you call it! Man, beast, say he was killed by a rock slide if you want. But whatever killed Walt Daggett, I can't put a name to it.

Dr. Kihlgren:
Now superstition feeds on ignorance and rumor. Well, there isn't nothin' I can do about the ignorance, but I won't add to the rumor. We'll nail him in a box and put him in the ground before anyone else sees him and pretend it never happened.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Joshua Broom? I thought you were dead.

Joshua Broom:
Once maybe - never again.

[first lines]

Angus MacGregor:
The pride of the railroad police preparing your usual hearty welcome for the knights of the road.

[Ragan taps his baton meaninfully into the palm of his hand]

Ragan:
Just going to collect a few fares.

[reading names off the railroad's water tower]

Angus MacGregor:
Skysail Jack, Cincy Red, Chicago Sam - from the look of the register, I'd say you missed a few the last month or two. Aye, perish forbid one poor devil should ride the luxury of a freight car for a single mile without giving the railroad its due. Tell me, Ragan, where do prefer to punch their tickets - over their head or across their kidney?

Ragan:
Well, I ain't choosy. Either way, they pay good.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Jim! Jim, you surprise me. No, you don't surprise me, you astonish me.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Did I lean too hard on Mr. Lehigh?

Dulcey Coopersmith:
You were positively rude! Just because a man was in jail doesn't mean...

Marshal Jim Crown:
Dulcey, there isn't a crime that con man hasn't committed, not a face he hasn't hidden behind, not a lie he hadn't told, not a grift he hasn't ground. Now, you are better off hiring on a gila monster.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Even the meanest creature deserves another chance.

Marshal Jim Crown:
So you're going to give him that chance, huh?

Dulcey Coopersmith:
I very well might.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Dulcey you own this place. I hope when I get back you still do.

A-1 Joe Lehigh:
This younger generation doesn't know beans from whistleberries about us. This is a lot of trash. I wonder why these paper fighters don't run down the McCoy and print the truth for a change. They're a bunch of howlers.

Francis Wilde:
[dictating to MacGregor] And after the second shot, A-1 Joe pulled me off my pony into the mesquite. Didn't seem to bother the old outlaw that the posse was just...

Angus MacGregor:
Wait a minute. How do you spell 'mesquite'-with a C or with a K?

Francis Wilde:
[after a moment's thought] Make that 'bushes.'

Mr. Ruckles:
Who's left to keep the peace? Mr. MacGregor?

Marshal Jim Crown:
Mr. MacGregor.

Mr. Ruckles:
Respectin' your friendship...

Marshal Jim Crown:
Right now he's checking all the windows and doors of the good people who work from eight to six.

Tate:
Been a long time.

Bo Woodard:
I know.

Tate:
You've changed, Bo.

Bo Woodard:
Eight years older, one hand less.

Tate:
What did you come here for?

Bo Woodard:
Eight years, one hand, ten thousand dollars.

Tate:
You're a dead man!

Bo Woodard:
That's what you thought eight years ago.

Bo Woodard:
You're lucky I hate you so much. You might be dead by now.

Zena:
What about me, Bo?

Bo Woodard:
You're last. I saved the best for last.

Sheriff Phillips:
Oh, now why don't you stop complainin'. You're as good as on a vacation.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Vacation, huh? Some vacation. I don't see this room jumpin' full of trout - do you?

Marshal Jim Crown:
Well, I don't want you or him back in this town for three months.

Pinky:
You didn't mean that, Marshal. You're just playin' a joke on... Aww, MacGregor, you talk to the man.

Angus MacGregor:
You're appealin' to the wrong clan for a handout.

Owley:
That nose of yours is always smellin' us into trouble.

[Turner's men brutally beat two farmers]

Marshal Jim Crown:
I told you before, Turner. You keep your dogs on a leash when you come to town.

Turner:
Well, you gotta run a good dog from time to time, Marshal, or else they go soft.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
If you're referring to Marshal Crown, he's a very fair man. He always wants what's right.

David Arlyn:
He sounds like my father... but what is right?

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Well, I'd like to think that right brings good for everyone - not just myself - even if it hurts me or brings me pain.

David Arlyn:
Good for everyone...

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Could anything be more right?

Turner:
I've had a bellyful of you, Crown.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Then we're both stuffed.

[first lines]

Felix Gauge:
Don't turn around - just keep your hands around that tin cup... You're Crown?

Marshal Jim Crown:
I'm Crown.

Felix Gauge:
I'm Felix Gauge... and my brother Gene.

Marshal Jim Crown:
I've got a picture or two in my office.

Marshal Jim Crown:
You two make no mistake about it. You're going to be throwing yourself on the mercy of the court.

Gene Gauge:
You sure have our interests at heart, Mr. Crown; I can read that.

Marshal Jim Crown:
I got ten days and I'm gonna use 'em and you're going to be gettin' what's comin' to ya - one way or the other. Now, if you don't like the terms, you go back to sleepin' in the hills. If you do, follow me. It's a hot day, a long ride back and it isn't gettin' any cooler.

Big Jake Mulady:
You fancy yourself quite the fisherman, don't you, Marshal?

Marshal Jim Crown:
Hook and line, that's all.

Big Jake Mulady:
You ain't catchin' nothin'. You need bait. Good, live bait.

Marshal Jim Crown:
How about twenty years?

Big Jake Mulady:
You're not likely to land this fish.

Marshal Jim Crown:
I might - if I had a noose at the end of the line.

Gene Gauge:
I guess you boys never traveled through these rocks before. Don't it bother you nothing grows, no bugs in it, nothing crawling on the bottom? Not even any animal tracks leadin' in here. Yessir, you boys sure need educatin', like, ah, if there's no slime, no bugs or mud in the waterhole, that might mean it's not too hospitable to living things.

[Gene pulls a sign saying "Arsenic" from the rocks and sticks it back in the middle of the waterhole]

Gene Gauge:
You boys might think about that - in the time you got left.

[last lines]

Padre:
He was a strange boy, Marshal. So young, yet so preoccupied with death. The hunted are very lonely men, aren't they? I used to believe that somewhere along the line it was the lack of a hand held forth to them - lack of a word - but now I'm not so sure.

Marshal Jim Crown:
I'm not either, Padre.

[last lines]

Marshal Jim Crown:
Did you learn anything from the job?

Francis Wilde:
Well, yeah, but sometimes I wonder if all I'm good for is taking pictures.

Marshal Jim Crown:
What are you talkin' about?

Francis Wilde:
Sometimes I wonder if I fit out here.

Marshal Jim Crown:
You did a good job up there in Hardesty. Now don't kid yourself. Somebody's gotta write the words and take the pictures and let those Easterners know what's goin' on. Otherwise nobody's going to learn from the mistakes. Now, you fit just fine!

[about the wolf hunters]

Carl Kersey:
Well, they were here first.

Hardy Miller:
So were a lot of other varmints.

[as Crown prepares to leave with his posse Dulcey gives him an enormous bundle wrapped in a tablecloth]

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Wait, I've brought you something to eat.

Marshal Jim Crown:
For me and what army?

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Now, it's good nourishing food and I want you to eat all of it.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Thank you, Dulcey.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Oh, and... be careful...

[Crown glares at Dulcey]

Dulcey Coopersmith:
...with the tablecloth.

Marshal Jim Crown:
What you going to hunt here, coyotes? And then, after you've wiped them all out, what? Prairie dogs? Well, the first thing you know, you'll be chasin' grasshoppers.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Good evening, everybody. Sorry I'm late. Somehow I didn't receive an invitation. Go on, don't let me interrupt anything.

Arliss Blynn:
No reflection on you, Marshal, but we were discussing ways of protecting ourselves and our property.

Marshal Jim Crown:
I'm in favor of that. I'm in favor of anything that makes my job easier. Anything except a vigilante committee meeting.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Mr. Forcey, when was the last time you held a gun? I hear it's been some time since they had Indians in Philadelphia.

Sergeant Bill Disher:
Hey. Hey! What do you think you're doin'?

Francis Wilde:
I think you're a great storyteller, Sergeant, and I think a lot of my readers will be mighty interested in reading about your friend.

Sergeant Bill Disher:
My friend. My friend is not a curiosity to tickle the sweet imaginings of some sweet-smelling corset salesman in a barber chair. You want to write about Little Tom, well, you write about the way Little Tom died. Certainly it was an Apache tommyhawk. Certainly it was a Sioux arrow. Certainly it was a bullet fired over a game of chance or a prairie fire or, at the very least, a kick from a wild white Arabian. Oh no, my little Pekinese, to bring down Tom it took a length of covered wire and a railroad track.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Well, he's already knocked Francis down.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Who?

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Sergeant Disher. Francis was taking down some of the things he was saying when, all of a sudden...

Marshal Jim Crown:
Well, if he's going to make a business of sticking his nose in other people's business, he better get used to bein' knocked down.

Marshal Jim Crown:
You all right?

Francis Wilde:
Yeah! Cub reporter holds own against cavalry immortal.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Where are you from? Somewhere down South?

Joe Wyman:
Maryland.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Well, the next time you talk about where this man belongs, you just try to remember where you were back when you were eight years old in Maryland. This place didn't exist. There wasn't any Cimarron Strip. There wasn't anything here but Comanche hunting grounds. It took the cavalry six long bloody years to make this place fit for citizens like you. Well, it doesn't matter whether Sergeant Disher was among 'em or not...

Trooper Eldridge:
He was.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Well, I'd say Sergeant Disher has as much right here as you have. Maybe more.

Arliss Blynn:
I should like to report that my assistant may not be able to pursue his trade without the full use of his hands.

Major Ben Covington:
Is that in this report?

Arliss Blynn:
Yes.

Major Ben Covington:
Well, I'd like to point out to you, sir, that Sergeant Disher has been issued more decorations for bravery in the service of your country that your assistant ever had fingers on his hands - even before he met Sergeant Disher.

Francis Wilde:
You know, you're going to wound my feelings one day. I can sense it coming on.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Oh, no no. Now listen, you're a different kind. You dash off here and you dash off there and something exciting is always happening behind your back and it drives you to distraction. But me, I'm very different, because all I really need is one tiny little room, just as long as it's clean and sunny... and all mine.

[Francis fires a warning shot over the head of the escaping Sergeant Disher]

Sergeant Bill Disher:
You'll never hit me that way, boy.

Francis Wilde:
That was a warning!

Sergeant Bill Disher:
A warnin'? Oh, you'll have to do better than that. Tricky Jim would have warned me with a bullet through the belt buckle.

MacGregor:
And that's where the next one will go!

Sergeant Bill Disher:
Ah, that's good, MacGregor. You're the cold-blooded one. The steel of Scotland is in ya.

MacGregor:
You come down here, or I'll introduce a little lead into your system!

Sergeant Bill Disher:
Ha! Here's me heart. Make it a quick, clean shot. I know you wouldn't want me to suffer.

[last lines]

Sergeant Bill Disher:
Will you listen to how quiet it is. All the shopkeepers gone back to their bleedin' inkpots. Listen to how quiet the wind is. Ah, it's a glorious day. There's a hawk under the sun...

MacGregor:
Stop! Or I'll shoot!

Francis Wilde:
Stop or I'll shoot!

MacGregor:
[disgustedly] I just said that!

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Well, what time will you be back?

Marshal Jim Crown:
By the middle of your second dream. Now go on back to bed, Biscuit.

Angus MacGregor:
Go on, get on before my trigger finger decides to make you dead as well as despicable.

[while Marshal Crown lures the Valdeman brothers into following him, Francis and Angus spirit outlaw Dickie Valdeman out of town]

Francis Wilde:
Pretty slick, huh?

Angus MacGregor:
I wish I felt so smug about Jim's part of the plan.

Nathan Tio:
You really think I'm worth shooting?

Clo Vardeman:
I wouldn't waste the lead on you. You're already cracked at the seams and you're hollow inside.

Nathan Tio:
Vivid images, probably quite accurate. Little wonder you inspire such respect - or is it simply fear? Fear of blind, unreasoning, brute force. Just a thought, Vardeman.

Nathan Tio:
He's not the first man to be killed in the West, nor will he be the last. And that, my dear Miss Coopersmith, is a truth as bald as the mountains and as bare as the desert.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
How can a man like you talk about the truth?

Nathan Tio:
This is a land of truth. You have come out here as serene and starched and fresh from Sunday school and set up a tea room in the middle of a bonfire, and Crown has coddled you into believing it could be done. Well, welcome to the West, Miss Coopersmith. You have been dreaming in the lion's den and now the lion is dead and this is the day of the jackal.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Well, what do you call that?

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Supper.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Belly wash and sinkers?

Dulcey Coopersmith:
It's beef broth and homemade biscuits. It's the proper diet for any man with a serious injury.

Marshal Jim Crown:
It's not even the proper diet for a beat-up prairie dog.

Sgt. Clay Tyce:
There's one thing you better learn, Sergeant Major - out here never get in the line of fire.

Sgt. Major Boyd Chambers:
Yes, I know. It's the only reason for shooting a man in the back.

Sgt. Clay Tyce:
Don't stand at attention anybody - I'm only a sergeant. True, I'm the bravest sergeant in the whole of the U.S. Cavalry, but a sergeant nevertheless; non-comissioned by the oversight of the U.S. Congress.

Sgt. Clay Tyce:
Out of my way, I must reach the lady fair for whom I have fought bloody battles with injun and foreign mercenaries and several wars dating clear back to the Revolution.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Clay! Clay Tice!

Sgt. Clay Tyce:
The very same. Wounded am I - half dead, but I plucked out the arrow from my heart and packed the holes with mud and dragged myself on my armholes back here to gaze once more at that face, the soft beauty and the golden flashing smile that heals the wound that breaks the heart with tenderness.

[Crown grimaces after tasting MacGregor's cooking]

Angus MacGregor:
I'll keep supper for you, Jim.

Marshal Jim Crown:
You do that, Mac. You lock it up good so it won't escape.

Angus MacGregor:
The trouble with women is they try to raise a man from infancy to the grave... and the trouble with girls is they grow up to be women.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
It wouldn't be necessary if men ever grew up.

[last lines]

Dulcey Coopersmith:
I don't understand what happened. Why did he change?

Marshal Jim Crown:
He didn't change, Dulcey. He never was the man you thought he was.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
How can you go away for a whole week without a single change of socks?

Marshal Jim Crown:
I don't imagine the judge will even notice.

Dulcey Coopersmith:
Well, you just think of me slaving over that hot iron and I'll think of you strutting around that hotel wearing this...

[a fine new shirt]

Dulcey Coopersmith:
...and have all those ladies say...

Marshal Jim Crown:
...look at that hayseed walkin' around like a peacock.

Marshal Jim Crown:
Long life or short, friend. Your choice.

[Marshal Crown summons MacGregor from a saloon]

Angus Mac Gregor:
Duty calls - no doubt a fair maiden to be rescued or a dragon or two to be slain.

Sarah Lou Burke:
If you put all the defenders of womanhood in a fairy's thimble, you'd still have room for an elephant and a brass band.

[first lines]

Freight Agent:
Well, good morning, gentlemen. Hot enough for you?

Whitey:
Sure is. Are you the man in charge here?

Freight Agent:
Yep. Passenger agent, freight agent, custodian of the U.S. Mail, dispatcher - you name it.

Whitey:
I'll do that.

[Whitey pulls a pistol and points it at the freight agent]

Whitey:
Safe opener

Whitey:
Funny, Dulcey - lying here in your arms, I don't feel small anymore.

Marshal Jim Crown:
I hear Deeker's in the territory.

Lane Bardeen:
You got any messages for him?

Marshal Jim Crown:
Yeah. You tell him to get out. If he's plannin' on settin' up shop in the Outlet, the army will be down on his throat and if he moves onto the Strip, I will.

Lane Bardeen:
Is that all?

Marshal Jim Crown:
Nope. Tell him that I don't want to kill him.

Lane Bardeen:
That's nice.

Marshal Jim Crown:
I got no such feelin's towards you. I'd shoot you down just as I would any other mad dog.

[reading Deeker's wanted posters]

Angus MacGregor:
Armed robbery. Arson. Looting, murder and mayhem... and you say you were in the army together?

Marshal Jim Crown:
Scouted for him during one campaign. Not a bad soldier as long as there were enough Indians around to kill. He worked himself up to captain before they threw him out.

[discussing why Crown has never been married]

Dulcey Coopersmith:
What kind of girl are you looking for, anyway?

Marshal Jim Crown:
Oh, I'm not lookin'... and if I were, it wouldn't be for a girl - it'd be a woman.