Shane (1953)

Emile Meyer: Rufus Ryker

Photos 

Quotes 

• Rufus Ryker : I like Starrett, too. I'll kill him if I have to. I tell you, I'll kill him if I have to.

  Jack Wilson : You mean I'll kill him if you have to.

• Shane : I came to get your offer, Ryker.

  Rufus Ryker : I'm not dealing with you. Where's Starrett?

  Shane : You're dealing with me, Ryker.

  Rufus Ryker : I got no quarrel with you, Shane. You walk out now and no hard feelings.

  Shane : What's your offer, Ryker?

  Rufus Ryker : To you, not a thing!

  Shane : That's too bad.

  Rufus Ryker : Too bad?

  Shane : Yeah, you've lived too long. Your kind of days are over.

  Rufus Ryker : My days! What about yours, gunfighter?

  Shane : The difference is I know it.

  Rufus Ryker : All right. So we'll all turn in our six-guns to the bartender. We'll all start hoeing spuds. Is that it?

  Shane : Not quite yet.

• Shane : I like working for Starrett.

  Rufus Ryker : Whatever he's payin', I'll double.

  Shane : It's no use.

  Rufus Ryker : What are you lookin' for?

  Shane : Nothin'.

  Rufus Ryker : Pretty wife, Starrett's got.

  Shane : Why, you dirty, stinkin' old man!

  Rufus Ryker : People don't usually talk to me that way!

  Shane : I'm talkin' to you that way!

• Rufus Ryker : [speaking of Joe Starrett]  Tell him I'm a reasonable man. Tell him things have gone far enough. Tell him I'm beat. Tell him anything but, by Jupiter, get him here!

• Rufus Ryker : I had somethin' I wanted to talk over with you, Starrett.

  Joe Starrett : Whatever business you and I got, we can talk over right here.

  Rufus Ryker : I'll just lay it on the barrel-head then. How would you like to work for me?

  Joe Starrett : I'm workin' for myself. I've done enough workin' for others.

  Rufus Ryker : Wait till I tell ya: I'll pay ya top wages, more than you can make on this patch of ground.

  Joe Starrett : Nope. I'm not interested.

  Rufus Ryker : I haven't said it all. You can run your cattle with mine. What's more, I'll buy your homestead. Set a price you think is reasonable, you'll find me reasonable. Is that fair?

  Joe Starrett : You've made things pretty hard for us, Ryker, and us in the right all the time.

  Rufus Ryker : Right? You in the right? Look, Starrett, when I come to this country, you weren't much older than your boy there. We had rough times, me and other men that are mostly dead now. I got a bad shoulder yet from a Cheyenne arrowhead. We made this country. Found it and we made it. With blood and empty bellies. The cattle we brought in were hazed off by Indians and rustlers. They don't bother you much anymore because we handled 'em. We made a safe range out of this. Some of us died doin' it but we made it. And then people move in who've never had to rawhide it through the old days. They fence off my range, and fence me off from water. Some of 'em like you plow ditches, take out irrigation water. And so the creek runs dry sometimes and I've got to move my stock because of it. And you say we have no right to the range. The men that did the work and ran the risks have no rights? I take you for a fair man, Starrett.

  Joe Starrett : I'm not belittlin' what you and the others did. At the same time, you didn't find this country. There was trappers here and Indian traders long before you showed up and they tamed this country more than you did.

  Rufus Ryker : They weren't ranchers.

  Joe Starrett : You talk about rights. You think you've got the right to say that nobody else has got any. Well, that ain't the way the government looks at it.Look

  Rufus Ryker : I didn't come to argue. I made you a fair proposition.

  Joe Starrett : What about the others?

  Rufus Ryker : Shane already knows he can work for me anytime.

  Joe Starrett : The other homesteaders.

  Rufus Ryker : Look, be reasonable! After all, there's just so many hands in a deck of cards.

  Joe Starrett : Then I've got to say no.

  Rufus Ryker : You don't give a man much choice do you, Starrett?

• Rufus Ryker : I'm through foolin', Grafton. From now on when we fight with them, the air is gonna be filled with - gunsmoke.

• Rufus Ryker : I don't want no trouble, Starrett. I came to inform ya. I got that beef contract for the reservation.

  Joe Starrett : Did it take this many of you to tell me that?

  Rufus Ryker : I mean business.

  Joe Starrett : Then you tend to your own.

  Rufus Ryker : That's just what I'm doing! I'm telling ya now, I'm gonna need all my range.

  Joe Starrett : Now that you've warned me, would you mind gettin' off my place?

  Rufus Ryker : Your place! You're gonna have to get out before the snow flies.

  Joe Starrett : And supposin' I don't?

  Rufus Ryker : You and the other squatters...

  Joe Starrett : Homesteaders, you mean, don't you?

  Rufus Ryker : I could blast you out of here right now, you and the others.

  Joe Starrett : Now you listen to me, the time for gun-blastin' a man off his own place is past. Why, they're building a penitentiary right now...

  Marian Starrett : Joe, that's enough.

• Morgan Ryker : [as Shane appears next to the menaced homesteaders]  Who are you, stranger?

  Shane : I'm a friend of Starrett's.

  Rufus Ryker : Well, Starrett, you can't say I didn't warn you.

  Joe Starrett : All right, you've told me. Now you get off my claim!