Red River (1948) - Quotes

Early Tales of Texas (Journal): Thirty days on the trail and they reached the Brazos. The way now became harder. Hills and rocks impeded their progress. Each weary mile became endless. The men became morose and worried. The cattle restless and jumpy.

Early Tales of Texas (Journal): The days became longer, sleep was at a premium, hard work became harder and Dunson became a tyrant. After three weeks, they reached San Sabo. Here at last was water and a place to rest tired muscles and sore aching bones.

Early Tales of Texas (Journal): To Dunson it was just a job, a big job. Ever north they drove ten thousand cattle crawling through hot, dry country and by the end of the first two weeks they had covered over one hundred and sixty miles. Every mile had taken its toll --- quietly.

Early Tales of Texas (Journal): And that was the meeting of a boy with a cow and a man with a bull and the beginning of a great herd. In search for land they traveled South through Texas, across arable and promising land, but weighed it and they found it wanting. So on they went on through the Panhandle ever southward seeking...past the Pecos...nearing the Rio Grande...

Early Tales of Texas (Journal): In the year 1851, Thomas Dunson accompanied by a friend, Nadine Groot, left St. Louis and joined a wagon train headed for California. Three weeks on the trail found them near the northern border of Texas. The land to the South looked good to...

Tess Millay: I'm scared too. That's why I'm talking because it's the best thing to do when you feel that way. Just talk and keep on talking...I talk to myself even if I have to sit in front of a mirror and talk...You can talk to me. I'm right here. It would help. Oh please, you can tell me to mind my own business if you'd like. And if it would help any, you can hit me, like I did you right across the mouth. But it would be good for you to talk, and I'd like to talk to you...Please, I'd really like to talk to ya.

Tess Millay: [to Matt] I asked you before why you were so mad. Is it, is it because your cattle, the cattle Cherry told me about, might run off? Or maybe, maybe you don't like the idea of helping, helping a bunch of women.

Tess Millay: [to Matt] What are you so mad about? I asked you why you're angry. Is it because - because some of your men might get hurt, killed maybe?

Cherry Valance: [to Matt] But your heart's soft. Too soft. It may get you hurt some day.

Matt Garth: How can a man sleep with Indians out ahead and him behind us?

Matt Garth: Which would you rather have? What's behind, or what might be ahead?

Matt Garth: I've been wondering too. The way he looked when we left him. It all happened so fast. I hadn't...I hadn't started out...I couldn't let him hang Teeler and Laredo...I don't know. He was wrong. I hope I'm right. I hope there's a railroad in Abilene.

Matt Garth: It was all burnin', only Indians around, just all burnin and smokin', smellin'. They were burnin everything. I can see it. It's plain. I can see it. It was burnin the wagons. People was screamin'.

Nadine Groot: It's all right. For fourteen years, I've been scared, but it's gonna be all right.

Nadine Groot: [to Bunk] Your sweet tooth is almost as bad as having a whiskey tongue or liking a woman.

Nadine Groot: [to Bunk] I could take the end of your nose off just as easy. A man in your age stealin sugar!

Nadine Groot: [about Matt and Cherry] They was having some fun - peculiar kind of fun, sizing each other up for the future. Them two's gonna tangle for certain and when they do, it ain't gonna be pretty because they got a thousand miles to do it in.

Nadine Groot: Never liked seein strangers. This is cause no stranger ever good news'd me.

Nadine Groot: Why do Indians always want to be burnin up good wagons?

Nadine Groot: Colonel, me and Dunson...well, it's me and Dunson.

Nadine Groot: If I was you, Colonel, I'd ponder on lettin him be. He's a mighty set man when his mind's made up. Even you can't change him. Now he'll be headin South. Mind he don't stomp on you on the way out.

Tom Dunson: [to Matt; Long pause; He seizes Matt's gun from his holster and throws it away; He hits Matt in the face several times] Go on, draw. I said DRAW'! Then I'll make ya. You're soft! Won't anything make a man out of ya?! You once told me never to take your gun away from ya! You yellow-bellied, chicken-livered...

Tom Dunson: All right. Anybody else? Say it now, cause I don't want ever to hear it again. I don't like quitters, especially when they're not good enough to finish what they start. Now go on! Speak up! Say it and you can join your friends here...

Tom Dunson: [to Bunk] You started all this...we're three or four hundred head short and you killed Dan Latimer...stealin sugar like a kid. Well, they whip kids to teach em better.

Tom Dunson: Well, we start tomorrow. We're goin to Missouri with ten thousand head. Most of you men have come back to Texas from the war. You came back to nothing. You find your homes gone, your cattle scattered, and your land stolen by carpetbaggers. Well there's no money and no work because there's no market for beef in the South. But there is in Missouri. So we're goin to Missouri...Cumberland didn't make it. No one else has. That's the reason I'm here. I want you all to know what you're up against. You probably already know, but I want to make sure you do. We got a thousand miles to go. Ten miles a day'll be good. Fifteen will be luck. It'll be dry country, dry wells when we get to em. There'll be wind, rain. There's gonna be Indian Territory - how bad I don't know. When we get to Missouri, there'll be border gangs. It's gonna be a fight all the way. But we'll get there. Nobody has to come along. We'll still have a job for ya when we get back. Now remember this! Every man who signs on for this drive agrees to finish it. There'll be no quittin along the way, not by me and not by you! There's no hard feelings if you don't want to go. But just let me know now.

Tom Dunson: [to Meeker] All right, we rounded up some of your stock and some of Diego's and some of everybody else's around here...I haven't got the time or the inclination to cut em out. So I'll drive em to Missouri and give you two dollars a head when I get back.

Tom Dunson: The big house will be down by the river and the corrals and the barns behind it. It'll be a good place to live in. Ten years and I'll have the Red River D on more cattle than you've looked at anywhere. I'll have that brand on enough beef to feed the whole country. Good beef for hungry people. Beef to make em strong and make em grow. But it takes work and it takes sweat and it takes time. Lots of time. It takes years.

Tom Dunson: Wherever they go, they'll be on my land. My land. We're here and we're gonna stay here. Give me ten years and I'll have that brand on the gates of the greatest ranch in Texas.

Tom Dunson: I'm startin my own herd. I've watched the land south of here since we left the Salt Fork. It's good land, good grass for beef, so I'm goin South where it is.

Tom Dunson: I signed nothing. If I had, I'd stay. You'll remember I joined your train after you left St. Louis.