Original subtitles

ANNOUNCER: The following program is brought to you in living color on NBC.

- Come on, will you, big brother? - I'll be with you in just a minute.

- Hoss, the fire's still smoking here. - Oh.

[HISSING]

Come on, don't take root there. Just put it out.

Hold your horses, little brother.

That's a McClellan saddle, cavalry.

Somebody's in trouble.

Over here.

- [GROANING] - Easy.

Easy, trooper. Easy. Let me look at that wound.

Captain Harris sent me to get help.

- Easy. Easy. - Gotta help him.

- Gotta... - Easy. Easy.

- [GASPS] - Hold on.

He has a bullet in his chest. I'm surprised he got this far.

Candy, I got some medicine and bandages here in my saddle bag.

No, Hoss, it's too late.

What we need now is a bugler... to blow taps.

Pa.

There's the tracks again, the blood spots.

Maybe we've found Captain Harris.

[GUNSHOTS]

[GUNSHOTS CONTINUING]

Get up!

[GUNSHOTS STOP]

- Ha! - Move, move!

[GUNSHOTS CONTINUING]

[GUNSHOTS CONTINUING]

[SHOUTS] Don't fire without a target. Save your ammunition.

SOLDIER: Well!

Well!

If it ain't Sergeant Canady's boy, all growed-up.

Ordy, the ordinance man. Haven't you blowed yourself up yet?

That's what I always liked about you, always a kindly greeting.

- Where you been, boy? - Oh, riding, looking around.

I'll take him.

[GUNSHOTS STOP]

- Woo-hoo! - Get down! Get down, both of you.

Green kids. That's the kind of horse soldiers we get these days.

They think we won this fight.

- We've all gotta learn. - Yeah, but it takes time.

My guess is these kids ain't gonna live that long.

You take cover, Mrs. Harris.

I'm glad you happened by when you did. We need help badly.

[GUNSHOT]

Yeah, we sure do.

They're in cover, Captain.

They'll be coming at us again.

- Real soon. - That's right, Candy.

It give me quite a shock when I seen you.

You'd better brace yourself. You're gonna have a few shocks yourself.

I gotta take care of the horses. It'll be a while for the charges...

That's right, Sergeant. This is Mr. Cartwright.

That's Mr. Canady, Candy for short.

Canady?

Yeah, known him since he was no bigger than my thumb. I helped raise him.

You and every other non-com on the row.

His father used to be first sergeant in B troop, my old outfit.

He was killed on patrol.

Mr. Canady, my thanks for giving us a hand.

Sure.

Sergeant, I want a man posted here at all times,

one on the trail where we came in, and one on the lakeside.

That slope's almost vertical, but they might try it anyway.

And Mr. Cartwright, I'm short of men.

I'm gonna have to use you and your people, if I may.

Sure.

Captain, those fellas down there were riding after you pretty hard.

- What are they after? - Gold.

Army gold. That ambulance is a pay wagon.

You're right, but I'm gonna have to ask you how you knew.

Well, like the sergeant said, I'm an army brat.

- I grew up at Fort Despair. - Fort what?

Fort Delaney. The men there called it Fort Despair,

and a lot of other things.

Trouble was that the army owned the forts,

and the outlaws owned the trails in between them.

Colonel Spit-and-Polish John Purcell had an idea

to use an ambulance as a pay wagon to move payroll gold.

Worked fine for a while, until the word got out.

Captain, the army would be better off if they used a real pay wagon now.

The outlaws would probably think it was an ambulance.

- Guard posts are manned, sir. - Very good.

Something I ain't had a chance to tell you, Candy.

Angel Montana's bossing that bunch out there.

Yeah, I saw him when he was shooting at me.

You know him?

Yeah, I know him, too. We were kids together.

He was one of the blanket Indians that hung around the fort gate.

- Half-Mexican, half-Apache. - And all bad.

Jim, Trooper Perkins is badly wounded. He's in great pain.

- I've done everything I can... - I know you have, Ann.

He's only a boy. He's terribly frightened. If you could talk to him.

Candy?

You know her?

Yeah.

She was my wife.

Go up there and draw their attention from the back.

- We will attack from the front. - Sí, patrón.

Andale!

[GASPING]

[GENTLY] Perkins?

You did a fine job, son.

We're gonna get you back to the post hospital and you'll be just fine.

- You did a fine job, son. - Thanks, Captain.

The rollcall gets shorter.

The party's now down to four able-bodied men and my wife.

- And four of us. - Yeah.

What's their strength?

About 18, at last count.

- But Trooper O'Brien rode out at dawn... - Captain.

I didn't have a chance to tell you, but we, uh... we found Trooper O'Brien.

The last thing he was able to say was that Captain Harris needed help.

Look, as a favor to me, I'd like my wife to go on thinking

- that O'Brien got through all right. - Of course.

ANN: Jim!

- It's shot full of holes! - I didn't see it in time!

I know, honey, you were taking care of Perkins. Cut it!

There's about a quart left.

Jim!

He was alone.

My thanks again, Mr. Canady.

Seems that we're more than ever in your debt.

Forget it.

I don't think they'll try that again.

[SIGHS]

Just thinking of all that water I wasted on those dead ashes.

Yes. Think we could use a couple of buckets of that lake.

- [KNOCKS HOLLOW] - Half-full.

Hm. That's great.

That means we got a little less than six quarts left, for us and the animals,

and they got a stream within easy reach of where they're dug in.

Captain, what about ammunition?

Well, my people have between 40 and 50 rounds per man.

- How about yours? - Well, I guess, about the same.

[SIGHS] I suppose we should pass the word around

that nobody's to shoot at anything unless they can't miss.

- Yeah. - We'll be here a long time.

SOLDIER: Captain Harris! Sergeant Ordy!

All right, we see your white flag.

What do you want?

I want to talk to Canady.

Candy, this is your old friend, your old amigo, Angel.

Angel Montana.

Come on out and talk to me.

Angelito, my old friend.

Here I am. Speak your piece.

Candy, you're on the wrong side!

- You should be down here with us. - I like it where I am.

ANGEL: [LAUGHS] You joke, amigo.

After what the army did to you, you could not want to help the army.

Give it up, Angel. Ride away while you still can.

Why you want to die to protect gold that is not yours?

Come with me. I will give you a double share.

Not interested.

I will give you back the woman they stole from you.

Come on. And then we spend the gold in Mexico City.

For the last time, I'm not interested.

Somebody must have kicked you in the head.

You are not smart anymore.

[GUNSHOTS FIRED]

Angelito!

I had him in my sights three or four minutes.

- You're good to have around. - ANGEL: Now, you will all die.

And the woman, she will die a hundred times.

[GUNSHOT]

Winged him! I sure did.

Kelly, down! Get down!

I tell 'em and I tell 'em, but they never listen.

Candy's pure army brat. Grew up in the forts of the south west.

- Didn't know that, huh? - Uh-uh. No. He never told us.

His mother died when he was four.

Heat, dust, frontier lonesomes. Happened pretty often on non-com row.

He knew the manual of arms when he was seven.

When he was nine, his pa was killed.

No folks, no place to go.

Lot of us had a hand in raising him, if you want to call it that.

Mostly, he grew up by himself.

He was riding scout at the age of 17.

[CANDY SIGHS DEEPLY]

Do you mind if I join you?

- There's one thing that hasn't changed. - What?

Army iron rations.

Make a Billy goat go hunting for a nice tender tin can.

How's your father?

About the same.

I've only seen him once since...

- since I saw you last. - Right.

He was in Washington about a year ago. His hair is snow white.

He's got a few more lines in his face, but otherwise, he hasn't changed.

He wouldn't know how. Colonel Spit-and-Polish.

Wondering about her, huh?

Yeah, I reckon I was.

Another army brat.

Her pa served with Candy's pa, both of them non-coms.

When the war come,

he got a battlefield commission and ended up as a colonel.

They grew up together, fought and made up.

Then one day, he come back from patrol after a running fight with the Apache.

Four survivors, seven bodies stretched across the saddles.

Doing a man's work, he figured he was a man.

So, he took Ann into town and married her.

When, they got back to the fort he marched in and told the colonel.

Two hours later, he was riding out on a patrol.

I might as well say it. That's one man I've learned to hate.

So did I.

Oh, he only did what he thought was best.

- For both of us. - You can believe that, Ann. I don't.

I was gonna kill him when I got back to the fort.

I'm still not sure why I didn't.

Because you couldn't.

You know, you've changed.

You're a lot prettier than you were.

[FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING]

ANN: Why didn't you write?

Because I didn't know where you were. "Back east." That's all he told me.

You were back east, and the marriage was annulled.

He promised me he'd see you got all my letters.

When he was in Washington. He said you rode off and left no address.

He's a liar!

Jim.

- Uh... My husband, Captain Harris. - We met.

Mr. Canady, my wife told me all about you.

We were just talking about you, too, Captain.

Oh?

Ann, you know, it isn't safe for you to be wandering around up here at night.

- You might silhouette yourself... - Jim.

You forget I was born out here.

I knew that before I was five.

"Stay below the crest." The first thing you learn out here, isn't it, Candy?

Yes, just about.

You're right, Ann, I did forget.

[ANN SIGHS]

That wasn't nice. He's been very good to me.

And he's an officer and a gentleman, just what the colonel wanted.

- Stop that! - All right.

He was what I thought I wanted.

I thought I was never gonna see you again. Don't you understand?

I had learned to live with that.

I told myself you were dead.

Why did you have to come back now, when it's too late?

- It's not too late. It isn't, Ann. - Yes, it is.

Ann, any other time, any other place,

I'd just walk up and we'd say hello and go by politely.

Then I'd just walk away and maybe come back, stand and look.

Here there's no time to look. You're my wife, Ann.

- No. - You're my wife!

I don't care what it says in some book some place. You're my wife.

Candy.

She is a married woman.

She was my wife, Mr. Cartwright, and I sure didn't annul that marriage.

- Anything? - It's all quiet now.

There was some movement down there a few minutes ago.

- Let's hope they stay down there. - Yeah.

At least we got the moonlight on our side.

But they gotta know we're running out of water.

Well, that's tomorrow's problem.

I'll be back in an hour. If you see Candy, tell him I'm looking for him.

I been trying to figure what I'd do in Candy's place,

and I don't come up with no answers.

Neither do I.

You figuring on using that?

- It's the least we can do for Kelly. - Yeah, right.

We won't be telling Montana's bunch anything they don't already know.

You seen Candy?

His bedroll, but he ain't in it.

Captain and his missus was by a few minutes ago.

He was asking about him, too. Maybe you'd better search the area.

I already did.

Gone, huh? Saving his hide.

I don't know that I blame him.

You believe what you want, but don't say that again, not where I can hear it.

Jim, I don't believe it. Candy wouldn't just leave.

Look, Annie, you've got to believe it. I don't know how or why, but he's gone.

We've searched everywhere.

Honey, you'd better get some sleep.

I will, Jim.

Presently.

[BUGLE PLAYING TAPS]

[BUGLE RINGING OUT]

[DISTANT BUGLE]

What is the matter, Rojo?

That bugle. Why do they play that, huh?

For the dead.

If you want to think about something,

think about the four little fat kegs of gold that Rio saw yesterday.

Four little fat kegs of gold that we will have tomorrow.

[RUSTLING]

[CLATTER]

It's warm, but it's wet.

You went down into their camp. How?

Angelito was a friend of mine once, remember?

He taught me how, a long time ago.

- Did you see him? - He almost stepped on me!

But he didn't see me.

For the first time, I'm beginning to believe we might get out of this.

And for the first time, I'm beginning to realize that Mr. Canady is quite a man.

Oh, he is, Jim.

He is.

Don't expect no cheers from me.

I just want to know which guard you passed on the way in.

Skinny, blond-haired kid.

It figures. He'll never make a soldier.

We've doubled the guard. No one else can get through.

They've got us boxed in, as nearly as I could tell. No way out.

It was my idea to spook their horses, take their attention off us. No chance.

They've got four guards on those horses. I counted 11 of them altogether.

There's a stream down there, plenty of water.

Everybody was carrying full bandoleers.

You ain't telling us anything we don't know, and you could have gotten killed.

Could have left us without a gun we need.

Like I said, don't expect any cheers from me.

All right, Ordy, I didn't ask for any.

You'd better get some sleep. You'll be doing guard duty in two hours.

I didn't want to guess what was down there. I wanted to know.

Or did you want to impress Mrs. Harris?

Two hours. I'll be back to wake you up.

Candy.

No one else could do this thing.

- Tomorrow, we kill him. - Sí.

Up there, they're running short of bullets.

Even in the dark! Even in the dark I wouldn't have believed

that a man could get in and out of that camp alive.

Well, it's an acquired skill. Candy was born on the frontier.

Skill, yes, but great courage, too.

There is gold in that ambulance, four small kegs of it.

Angel and his men aren't gonna give up until they've got it.

All he wants is the gold. Why don't we just give it to him?

Because once we give them the gold, they'd kill us anyway,

- They don't want any witnesses. - That's right.

They've got plenty of ammunition and water and we're running out of both.

Even an optimist would have to say that the enemy is gonna win this battle.

[CHUCKLES]

My first battle. My first time in the field.

- Well, it's not over yet. - No, of course not.

Maybe somebody will happen along.

After all, we did.

Just by chance and in sufficient numbers to give us the help we need?

No, Mr. Cartwright, I don't believe that, and neither do you.

If it should come to that, I hope you won't let them take my wife alive.

It's just like you, Candy, guessing again.

I'm not guessing, I know.

An old ordinance man like you wouldn't walk across a parade ground

without three or four sticks of dynamite in your pocket.

- Against regulations. - [SCOFFS]

When did regulations start bothering you, Ordy?

A long escort mission like this, you'd bring a whole bundle.

All right. I had six sticks till a week ago, when we camped at White River

- and I got hungering for fresh trout. - Now. I'm talking about now.

- Three. I got three sticks left. - You got fuse?

- We ain't gonna use fuse. - Why not?

- We throw it out. They throw it back. - We use a short fuse.

No. I got something else, something special.

Something new.

Impact detonators.

Fulminate of mercury. No fuse needed.

86 pounds of impact.

That's what the book says, 86 pounds. Me? I ain't so sure.

- I sweat when I look at 'em. - I don't blame you.

Take it easy.

Be careful.

So, what we got to do is, uh... figure out a way to make Angel Montana

- lean on these things 86 pounds worth. - That's right.

- [GALLOPING] - Captain, no!

I don't want to hurt you.

I don't want to hurt nobody.

[HARRIS GROANS]

This! This is punishment for babies!

You make me hurt you.

I give you pain you never even dream about.

This is no big thing.

The gold does not belong to you.

Tell them to give us the gold and we all part friends, huh?

That woman up there.

She is your wife.

She's a very beautiful woman.

You do like I say? I don't know her.

You don't do as I say?

I know her better.

Put that gun away. We attack into their guns, we lose more men.

We tie him to those trees. In the daylight, they see he is alive.

They get mad. They worry.

They make mistakes.

Pa!

What?

I think he's still alive.

Oh, Ann. Don't look. Don't look.

Ann, there ain't nothing you can do. Come on with me. Come on.

He had to have known he couldn't get past them.

Well, I guess he thought he had to try.

He's a fool. He should have known better.

Yes, he should have known better.

But I suppose he felt he had to impress the lady, too.

- You got the dynamite? - I went to get them, didn't I?

[CRYING] Oh, it's my fault. I should have known he'd try.

Miss Ann, he only did what he thought he had to do.

Don't go faulting yourself.

[COINS RATTLING]

That'd buy more whiskey than a man could ever drink.

Yeah. Give me the detonators.

Take it easy, real easy.

- That ought to do it. - Yeah.

Careful.

Real careful.

Okay.

[COINS RATTLING]

Easy, easy, easy.

Hey, Pa, I see a patch of shirt down there.

It'd be a clean shot.

Yeah. The only trouble is you'd be killing two men.

First him and then Captain Harris.

- We'll need a white flag. - I'll get a towel from the ambulance.

Just a minute.

I'll get him back for you.

- What are you doing? God damnit! - You stay right there. Angel!

Angel!

ANGEL: Qué quieres? What do you want?

I have the gold.

No tricks, or we kill the captain.

No tricks. We give you this, you let the captain go.

One?

There are four in that ambulance wagon.

Give us four kegs, and we give you the captain.

- Just one. - All.

ANGEL: We want it all!

Leave it, you fools!

Leave it!

Let's go get Captain Harris.

Well?

- Candy, he's my husband. - You don't love him.

- Please understand. - No, I don't. I can't understand, Ann.

Please.

Candy, please. Help me.

Ann? It's time to go.

Go on. Go on.

CANDY: Hey, Captain Harris. Wait up.

Wait up, Mrs. Harris. When you see the colonel, give him my regards.

Tell him from me you married yourself quite a man.

I will.