5 Card Stud Page #3

All right. I like you.

That's better.

Sometimes the truth|is actions, not words.

Act!

That could've led to trouble|in this town.

Prevented it.

If I was who you're worried about,|it'd be too late. I'm Jonathan Rudd.

That's my church down the street.

Van Morgan.|Pretty late for a preacher, isn't it?

We don't keep hours.|Nor does Mr Poe, that's where I've been.

The liquor's better at Mama Malone's.

I believe you're right.|But I don't go for the liquor.

I go to get people away from it,|on Sunday mornings at least.

Wind must've blown the door open.

Hey, you!|Gimme a hand, quick. Come on.

Hold him while I cut him down.

It's Mace.

- What do you want, Dad?|- I think I'll just have some coffee.

Thank you.

I think that's all I'll have, too.

I hate funerals.

Who'd want to kill Mace Jones?

Just about anybody|who ever knew him.

What would it take|to make you lose your appetite?

A bellyful.

Sometimes you don't seem|quite human.

More like you were made|in a factory or something.

If I was made by a machine|then you made it and you ran it.

Stop it, both of you. Just once!

Now to the sin of murder|we must add sacrilege.

Since coming to this town,|I've sadly had to perform

the burial of three men|who have died violently.

For the hand that slew|Fred Carson and Stoney Burough,

I sought the Lord's forgiveness.

But for the limitless evil|of him who slew Mace Jones,

I ask for limitless punishment for|he took a man's life in God's House.

Let us pray, therefore, that heaven|receives the soul of Mace Jones,

and that the soul of his killer|wander the darkness for ever.

All men being sinful and Thou just,

I pray You regard any score|against Mace Jones as even.

Strike it from Thy books|and let him sleep. Amen.

Amen.

I didn't hear you praying,|Little George.

You never will, either.|I don't believe in it.

Hey, George.

Van called the last meeting,|I am calling this one,

while we're still alive to meet.

We've paid for that hanging|three times.

We've paid for it all right.|But anybody notice how?

Three times|by some kind of strangling.

Stoney with wire, Fred smothered,|Mace got the rope.

All three of them strangled.|Which brings to mind what?

The way the card cheat died.

I still say|it's the work of an outsider

getting even for the card cheat|and an insider telling him who did it.

I don't know why it didn't hit me before|but it sure as hell hits me now.

We want the man, but we've never|looked up from the card table.

Well, I am looking up now.

And right at me, huh?

If George was going to talk,|he'd talk to the Marshal.

He'd talk where it'd do the most good,|where we wouldn't find out.

Why?|What good would it do George?

You think George likes you, Joe?|He don't like nobody.

You're the one who found that man|and told him about the card game.

Now you just tell us who he is.

I got no use for lynchers.

They ought to get|the same thing they give out.

And if I needed any killing done,|I'd do it myself.

But you're right about one thing.

I don't cotton to most people.|Least of all to you.

Why, you...!

There's a right place to stop.

I don't know if Nick is right,

but you'd best keep|your back to the wall.

And Van had better sit|right alongside him.

'Cause if I'm wrong about George,|I just might be right about him.

Everybody ought to have somebody|to say goodbye. Even you, Mace.

That sermon over Mace, you take it|hard that he died in your church.

My church?|I don't own it, I just look after it.

That night, how long were you out|before the bell rang?

I told Marshal Dana.|Why don't you ask him?

I'd like to hear it from you.

I went up to Poe's, as I said.|I saw you on the way back.

I was gone maybe an hour.

Even if you talked some, that's a long|time. Poe's is only 100 yards away.

Suppose I said I like to walk at night.

Suppose I said that's what I was doing.|You believe me?

No reason not to.

I'm glad you take my word for it,|because that's what I was doing.

What kind of man murders|in a church?

The kind that doesn't believe in God,|the kind that God doesn't scare.

No killer is scared of God, Mr Rudd.

In a church, in an alley|or behind a rock.

Watch this, sweetheart.

Left hand.

Men talk about guns|like they're women.

"She's a beauty", they say.|What's beautiful about a gun?

If you were going to do a man in,|what weapon would you use?

- It wouldn't be a gun.|- I'll bet it wouldn't.

If he was after us, we'd be dead.

"The wicked flee|where no man pursueth. "

"The righteous don't flee,|they stand like a lion. "

Yes, ma'am. That's the right quote.|Where'd you learn about the Bible?

Where'd a preacher|learn how to shoot?

Every preacher was something else|before he became a preacher.

You know, I'm tired of shooting|at tin cans and bottles.

We still have some cartridges left.

We're not going to shoot|each other, are we? How about...?

Six out of six.|Can't do better than that.

- You can only do worse.|- My shooting was way off.

- Way off? Six out of six?|- I was aiming at the spaces.

See you in church.

If every preacher was something else|first, I wonder what he was.

Everybody was something|else first, even me.

I don't know what you are now.

You don't need that gun to find out.

But maybe I need one.

Sam! I'll bank the fire. Go on home.

- Only one rig left? I'll take care of it.|- OK, Joe.

Are you still stewing|about Mace Jones?

Stewing about how I sit down|to a drink and play some cards,

and how I get up and hang a man.

Being drunk is a poor excuse.

You weren't drinking very much,|what's your excuse?

I don't lean on excuses.

Whiskey or no whiskey,|you went along.

- With you leading.|- That makes you a sheep.

A drunk sheep maybe,|but all the same.

- You were with us on that rope.|- Three men on that rope are dead.

You don't give a damn|about anybody except yourself.

When I was ten, eleven...

...my mother died.

They laid her out in the parlour and|my old man took me in to see her.

She wasn't my mother any more.

She was something busted.

She was something|that wouldn't run any more.

My old man was crying...

...but not me.

He looked up and he said,|"Where's your heart, boy?"

I didn't say anything.

So he slapped me|right across the mouth.

I still didn't say anything.

So...

...he took me out, back of the barn,

and he beat the hell out of me.

But he never drew a tear.

I think your mother was|as dead as you.

If I am dead...

...the same man killed me.

Name of Sig Evers.

Bring a glass for your friend.|I think he'll need it.

- He won't drink with you.|- Bring the glass.

Now it's reserved|for just you and me.

That's right.|These are unlucky chairs.

Are you afraid to sit down?

You sure know where to find them.

Mace Jones in the church,|Joe Hurley in the stable.

Meaning that I could've killed|both of them.

So could you. Trouble is,|so could any other man in town.

Any one of those four guys|could've blabbed to the killer.

My guess, though,|is that it's the first, Fred Carson.

Why Carson?

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