Man with the Gun

Saul Atkins:
Tollinger?

Doc Hughes:
Might call him a town doctor, too. Ponca was a mighty sick town. Clint operated on it. Patient lost a lot of blood - but lived.

Saul Atkins:
Town-tamer!

[about Clint Tollinger]

Doc Hughes:
Always dresses in gray. Black would fit his profession better

Jeff Castle:
You figure you can tidy up a town single-handed, Mr. Tollinger?

Clint Tollinger:
With a little bit of luck, yes.

Saul Atkins:
He's been a hundred percent lucky and when it adds up like that, it ain't luck.

Stella Atkins:
But then you're not a marshal or a sheriff.

Jeff Castle:
He's a town-tamer.

Clint Tollinger:
The difference is there are no rules in my end of the business except maybe one - never stay in one town too long.

Stella Atkins:
Those guns... all that talk about fighting... what happened to you today. I'm scared!

Jeff Castle:
Honey, you just can't keep on turning the other cheek with a cemetery as big as we've got.

Clint Tollinger:
Just how does he operate?

Marshal Lee Sims:
Well, Dade's a fat man, but don't let that fool ya. Never lifts a pudgy finger himself. You take yesterday for example - just a typical day in Dade's life. He cut himself a piece out of a trail herd that was passing through, then he roughed up the new mine workers over Meadow Creek way, then he tried to grab young Jeff Castle's homesite and then, I bet ya, he divied up the gold dust they took off that poor dead miner over at the Palace. Nothin's too small or mean for Dade Holman. Nothin's too rich or fancy, either.

Marshal Lee Sims:
Now don't tell them church biddies I said so, but Nelly is quite a female. Ain't no lady, of course, but if some of the men in this town stood up to Dade's boys like she does...

Nelly Bain:
You're going to do Mable's song tonight. She's nursing a sore throat.

Ann Wakefield:
But I haven't got any voice and that's the worst kind!

Nelly Bain:
They aren't paying for your pear-shaped tones at the Palace, dear.

Kitty:
Nelly means, "Who listens."

Nelly Bain:
You notice I don't say anything about your manners. Appearances are all I care about. You're pretty girls and the Palace is not a pretty business.

Jim Reedy:
Well, now, I reckon it was downright foolish for Slim to draw agin' you. We maybe got off a little on the wrong foot. We're goin' back home now and we won't come to town no more carryin' our guns. Reckon that's what you want, isn't it?

Clint Tollinger:
Yeah, that's what a want. Now you take Slim's body and bury him out on the prairie. It doesn't look nice for a town as small as Sheridan to have a graveyard as big as we've got.

Saul Atkins:
You're right, of course, only you shouldn't have told him off in front of Stella when he's trying to prove to her he's a man now, and not the kid she grew up with.

Clint Tollinger:
He chose the time, the place and the audience. Kind of a big audience for plans like that.

Stella Atkins:
Then what are you going to do?

Clint Tollinger:
Nothing. I warned him; I thought I made it pretty clear.

Stella Atkins:
Yes, but if you warned a child and he does something foolish anyway, you try to stop him from getting hurt.

Clint Tollinger:
Oh, I see. You think Jeff is a child, huh?

Stella Atkins:
Partly...

Clint Tollinger:
Well, I think he's a man. He might be a little young and bullheaded about some things, but if there were more men like him around, I might not be here.

Marshal Lee Sims:
You remind me of a hungry lion I once seen pace in a cage in St. Louis.

Clint Tollinger:
I'm hiding out.

Marshal Lee Sims:
You? From what?

Clint Tollinger:
Questions I can't answer.

Nelly Bain:
You forget, Clint - I know that your father died because he wouldn't wear a gun. You'll die because you do.

Stella Atkins:
How can you get rid of him just like that? So far he's done exactly what you've hired him to do. You put up the money and he put up his life!

Nelly Bain:
You're staying?

Clint Tollinger:
Mm-hmm.

Nelly Bain:
Of course - a target right to the end. Standing in front of people who won't stand in back of you.

Nelly Bain:
Don't try to change now, Clint, or you'll find that even feeling a little will hurt a lot.

Nelly Bain:
Hurry, Kitty!

Mable:
Lucky Kitty.

Ann Wakefield:
She's going to visit her family. I don't call that fun. My family reads me like a book.

Mable:
What's the matter? Don't they like dime novels?

[last lines]

Clint Tollinger:
Time to quit this business, Nell. There's got to be an easier way to make a living.

Nelly Bain:
We'll find it.

Clint Tollinger:
Jeff Castle made just one mistake.

Marshal Lee Sims:
What?

Clint Tollinger:
He didn't shoot to kill.

Clint Tollinger:
Now get out of town and take your dead with you!

Doc Hughes:
[Referring metaphorically to Tollinger] I don't believe in operations till you'ved tried all the cures.