The Tall T

Pat Brennan:
Did you love him?

Doretta Mims:
I married him.

Pat Brennan:
That's not what I asked.

Doretta Mims:
Yes! Yes, I did.

Pat Brennan:
Mrs. Mims, you're a liar. You didn't love him, and never for one minute thought he loved you. That's true, isn't it?

Doretta Mims:
Do you know what it's like to be alone in a camp full of roughneck miners, and a father who holds a quiet hatred for you because you're not the son he's always wanted? Yes, I married Willard Mims because I couldn't stand being alone anymore. I know all the time he didn't love me, but I didn't care. I thought I'd make him love me... by the time that he asked me to marry him, I'd told myself inside for so long that I believed it was me he cared for and not the money.

Usher:
I'm gonna have me a place someday. I thought about it, I thought about it a lot. A man should have somethin' of his own, somethin' to belong to, to be proud of.

Pat Brennan:
And you think you'll get it this way.

Usher:
Sometimes you don't have a choice.

Pat Brennan:
Don't you?

Pat Brennan:
You got a fine boy there, Hank. He knows his stock. He'll make a first rate station man one day.

Hank Parker:
Not if I can help it, he won't. Ain't a fit life bein' stuck out in the middle of nowhere, all by yourself, knowin' nobody but stage drivers and shotguns. Ain't no fit life at all.

Pat Brennan:
Always thought you were happy at it.

Hank Parker:
Well...

Pat Brennan:
[excepts a gourdful of water from Hank] Thanks.

Hank Parker:
...I was. When Jeff's mother was alive, I was. Alone, it's different. My retire time comes up next fall and I'm gonna take it. A man shouldn't oughta be stuck off by hisself in this kind of country, Pat. It ain't natural!

Pat Brennan:
You wouldn't be half meanin' me by that, would ya, Hank?

Hank Parker:
Well, come to think of it, I guess I do. Ain't right your workin' that spread of yours all alone.

Pat Brennan:
Can't afford to hire hands - not yet, anyway. Still a lot of building to do, fences to run and such. But if I get to lonely, Hank, I can always talk to my stock!

Hank Parker:
Well, when they start talkin' back to ya, just remember what I told ya.

[last lines]

[Pat, to the weeping Doretta, after he has killed three murderous kidnappers]

Pat Brennan:
Come on now. It's gonna be a nice day.

Doretta Mims:
Well, what about you?

Pat Brennan:
I'm going to finish this. If they come, I'm going to finish this once and for all.

Doretta Mims:
Oh, but why?

Pat Brennan:
Some things a man can't ride around.

Billy Jack:
You'd never know she was around, would you, quiet like she is?

Chink:
Them's the kind yuh gotta watch, Billy. I had me a quiet woman once. Outside she was as calm as Sunday, but inside wild as mountain scenery.

Doretta Mims:
Terrible things have happened these past two days, yet all I can do is think of myself. All I can do is look at myself and feel foolish. And do you know why? Because I know now he never cared for me! That he married me for his own interests! [She cries] I saw him killed just now, and I couldn't even feel sorry for him. all I could do was think that he didn't love me. That he didn't care that...

Pat Brennan:
Now you listen to me, Mrs. Mims. [She sobs] Your husband married you for money. You know it, and I know it. But you're alive, and he's dead, and that makes a difference. You can cry and moon about being a fool until they shoot us tomorrow, or you can start thinkin' about savin' your skin, but I'll tell you this [He turns her arounf to face her] It'll take both of us working together to stay alive.

Pat Brennan:
[Referring to Mims] Who is he anyway?

Ed Rintoon:
Old man Gateway's son-in-law... as of this morning. Married into the richest copper mine in the territory.

Pat Brennan:
Then she must be Doretta Gateway.

Ed Rintoon:
Yep, she was scheduled to be an old maid till Willard came along. She's plain as adobe wall.

Pat Brennan:
But not too plain for Willard, hunh?

Ed Rintoon:
Nothin' plain about Old Man Gateway's holdin's. Folks say that his worth's just the other side of one half million dollars. That's too much money for one man to worry about.

Willard Mims:
Would I save my own skin and leave my wife here?

Usher:
I think you would.

Chink:
[after shooting Rintoon] I was waitin' for that old man to try something.

Pat Brennan:
You didn't have to kill him.

Chink:
I would have sooner or later.