Return of the Seven Page #3

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- Only if I have to.

Same old Chris.

I might have known you'd be along.

It's good to...

Whatever you and your men

are being paid,...

.. I'll double it. I'll triple it.

- Same old Lorca.

- Come. We will talk.

- Can't do that.

- That's the only thing you can do.

You're six against 60.

Don't expect these farmers to help you.

They have no stomach to fight.

- No?

- No.

Kill him.

Go on. Kill him.

You've killed others.

- But they didn't have guns.

- They had guns three years ago...

.. when 200 men gave up their lives

inside the walls of this church.

Gave up their lives

to rid this country of tyranny.

Do you think it concerns these farmers...

.. that I tracked bandits across miles of

desert and fought them on this ground...

.. while they hid under their straw beds?

Mis hijos.

My sons. Tall, erect,

like two well-bred stallions.

They're buried here with the others.

No longer will their graves

be marked by ruins.

This church, this village,...

.. will be a monument

for those who fought so well.

A monument built with the sweat

and blood of those who never fight.

I'll prove it to you. Lopez.

Do as he says.

- Kill him.

- Francisco!

- You stay out of this, Father.

- I have stayed out of it as long as I can.

I beg you, Francisco, before it is too late.

Before God damns you to hell

for what you are doing here.

You spared my life once.

Now I'm going to save yours.

Take your vaqueros and ride out of here.

Ride out and don't look back.

I was wrong.

You're not the same old Chris.

I won't let you drown your grief in other

men's blood, if that's what you mean.

Go on.

Get out.

Pues morimos, compadre.

Muchachos! Vmonos!

There will be a next time.

Vmonos!

He will be back.

I know.

I swore I would never wear this again.

What a man swears and what he does

isn't always the same.

It's good to see you, Chris.

Good to see you, Chico.

Is it?

Lorca has many men out there.

I've been shot at before.

But we cannot pay you to help us, Chris.

I knew a young gun once.

He was a wild,

mostly drunk kid when I met him.

Turned out to be a man.

Man enough to set his gun aside,

take a wife,...

.. try to amount to something.

He also turned out to be a friend.

- Worth dying for?

- If I have to.

What about the others?

They're along for the fight.

If it wasn't this one, it would be another.

Get up in the bell tower.

Watch off toward the cemetery.

If they come, it'll be from there.

And Chico.

Don't get too attached to that gun.

When this is over...

I'll throw it in the water bucket...

and ride out.

I did not know it would come to this.

When Francisco lost his sons

I tried to give him consolation.

He told me he wanted to build

a monument to those who had fallen.

I convinced him it should be a church.

I wanted it as much as he did.

Even more.

As God is my judge, I have tried

to help these poor souls,...

.. tried for so long.

I've spoken to them of faith,...

.. of love.

They believed me.

But my words and their prayers

have changed nothing for them.

The children have died,...

.. the crops have failed.

And now I have betrayed them.

I'm not a religious man, Father.

But I'll tell you this.

They need you.

More now than ever before.

I failed them.

You failed yourself.

Got knocked down.

Get up, Father.

At least as far as your knees.

That's the last of 'em. Now what?

- We movin' out tonight?

- We're not moving out at all.

Catch us in the open with 300 men

on foot, we won't have a chance.

- We gonna stand it out here?

- We got cover, we got supplies.

And they have to come to us.

That cuts the odds in half.

They won't lay out there very long.

Like as not they'll try to

get it over with as fast as they can.

- I wish to hell these walls were higher.

- They will be.

You and Frank

split the workers in two groups.

One take the south wall,

the other take the north.

Get rocks, timbers, adobe blocks,

anything a man can stay alive behind,...

.. and start building.

- Now?

- Now.

The storm is over.

It's a long day's ride

to the hacienda, compadre.

Would you have me run from seven guns

and those farmers? Those cowards?

All we have left

is the ammunition in our belts,...

.. the water in our canteens,

and the food in our stomachs.

That is enough.

That is more than enough.

Vmonos, muchachos! Adentro.

Vmonos, muchachos! Vmonos!

I don't know about you,

but that scared the hell outta me.

- You reckon they'll hit us again?

- Just as hard as they can.

Bring me a horse!

Come on!

Are you all right, compadre?

I will make them suffer for this.

I will make them all suffer for this.

Lopez, you may ride to the hacienda.

Get every man that works for me.

Every boy old enough to carry a gun.

The farmers, the vaqueros.

Bring them all here!

But if I do that,

you will have nothing to go back to.

The cattle will scatter into the hills

and the crops will fail in the fields.

All you have worked for, compadre.

All I have worked for

is buried beside that church.

My sons.

Do as I say, compadre.

Funny how your mind'll play tricks on ya.

Up there, when they was comin' at us,

I got to thinkin' they were husbands.

- Husbands?

- Ganged up on me.

Sent a shiver up my spine.

I swear, we get outta this, I ain't

ever gonna look at another woman. Ever!

- Agh!

- Oh. Sorry.

Looks like they're gonna wait for night.

They hit us in the dark, it could get

kinda hard to stay alive in here.

We make a run for it, we can be back

at the village in two days, maybe less.

- And then what?

- Make our stand there.

What about the women and children?

Yeah.

Looks like you should have

turned me in for that bounty.

About that bounty, Chris.

There never was a price on ya.

I just wanted to ride

along with you for a ways.

- Well, maybe they'll back off.

- Not Lorca.

He won't let go

till this is over once and for good.

You seem like you know him pretty well.

I was paid to kill him once.

Shame you didn't get the job done.

By his sons.

His sons?

He said they were tall, erect,

like finely bred stallions.

They weren't.

They were gentle, like their mother.

Lorca thought they were weak.

He rode roughshod over them trying

to make them over in his own image.

Their mother tried to stop him.

Died trying.

They hated him, wanted him dead.

So they hired you.

Lorca found out about it.

He could have had me killed.

Instead he gave me a horse,

let me ride out.

Don't know why.

Maybe he saw in you

what he never saw in his own.

Maybe.

Wonder how come

the two of 'em ended here.

Knowing Lorca, he shamed them into it.

Then why is he building

this church for 'em?

Not for them, Vin. For him.

He got his chance to do the one thing

he could never do when they were alive.

Be proud of them.

What are they waiting for?

I wish now that Petra

had never found you, Chris.

That you'd never gotten into this.

You and the others get killed,

what good will it do?

Nothing will change.

No matter what happens here,

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