That's far enough, Mr. Williams.
Miss Seger.
Mrs. Seger.
Mrs. Seger, would you please put that rifle down?
I came here without any guns, without any means of force whatsoever.
You come here with force.
Now, Mrs. Seger.
Come here to force me out of my house, off my land.
Mrs. Seger, please.
Nobody shoves me off of my land, Mr. Williams, nobody.
This land is mine.
It's free and clear every inch of it.
I have no doubt.
My husband staked this land twenty-five years ago.
He homesteaded it and raised cattle on it every year till he died.
Every year till he died, he raised cattle on this land.
I have every respect for you.
And nobody takes me off this land, Mr. Williams, you or your filthy railroad or anybody else.
My husband left me this land and he said, Libby, this is your land and you keep it.
I said hard, I swear by everything decent, nobody will ever take this land away from
me.
A solemn and a holy oath, Mr. Williams, to a dying man.
Mrs. Seger, now listen to me for just a minute.
Well, I know what you're going to say.
Just a minute.
One minute, Mrs. Seger.
You said it a hundred times, if you said it one.
Please, Mrs. Seger, just one minute.
Well, go on, go on, talk then, talk and get it over with.
One minute.
That's right.
I represent the railroad.
I know that.
And we have reserved from the United States government a right of way of land across the
United States for our railroad, Transcontinental Railroad, Mrs. Seger, Transcontinental.
The United States government.
United States government, I heard you.
What do you want to do, scare me or something?
Transcontinental, it's progress, Mrs. Seger.
You can't hold back the time.
That's what you always say, you can't hold back the time.
Your land, Mrs. Seger, is directly in the right of way.
Now we're willing, more than willing, we're happy to pay you three times the worth of
this land.
I said I wouldn't sell, Mr. Williams.
How many times I got to repeat it?
It's not a matter of...
Mrs. Seger, please, I wish you'd lower that carbine.
It's making me nervous.
I noticed you shaking.
The minute's almost up.
The point is, you've got to sell your own public land to be reconverted.
Now we sent you a check and a notice to get off the land.
No, not us.
The United States government.
That makes it mandatory, compulsory.
It's a free country.
Progress, Mrs. Seger, for the common good.
It's a free country.
I can live where I want, and this is where I'm living.
And let me tell you something, Mr. Williams.
I'm staying right here.
You could have orders from the President.
I'm just as good a citizen as he is.
Now you just scoot off on this property.
I'd hate to have to call the United States Marshal.
Now Mrs. Seger, I don't like to use force when reason will do.
Get off this property, Mr. Williams, or I'm going to remember the United States government
has a law about trespassing.
Did you hear me?
Scoot!
You can't hold back the times.
That's what I told her, Marshal.
She held that rifle on me every second.
It seems funny to you, I suppose.
No, I didn't mean to laugh at you, Mr. Williams.
Well, Libby Seger's quite a woman.
I've known her a long time.
I knew her husband.
Anybody could be married to that woman.
Now what you've got to understand about Libby is, Mr. Williams, that Libby isn't an ordinary
woman.
That's sure.
No, Libby is, well, she's kind of like the West.
Now I mean by that she's got her ways, and her ways are free, and she's hard to tame.
Well I'll tell you this, Marshal, in the railroad business, when we come to a mountain, if we
can't go around it, we blast right through it.
Yeah, well, I'm not so sure I'd try that with Libby if we're—
Marshal, I've tried talking to her.
I've sent her letters.
I've tried everything.
There's no movie.
Yeah, I know, I know, but you've got to keep in mind that Libby's lived there for almost
a quarter of a century.
I've got a job to do.
Look, can't you go around her land?
Oh, fine, fine, a straight line track for a few hundred miles, then all of a sudden it
juts out for a few little acres, and then back to another straight line for another
hundred miles.
I would break it up a little, wouldn't I?
Marshal, I want you to get out there with this order.
It's an order to vacate.
Every time we send her a check, she sends it right back.
So here's a check to go with the order.
But Mr. Williams, she's not going to move.
I know that woman, and she's not going to move.
That's a United States government order, and you're the United States—
Oh, please, Mr. Williams, don't remind me of my duties.
There's some things I don't like about this job.
Eviction and seizure.
Chester.
Yes, sir, Mr. Williams.
Eviction, Federal order.
Libby Seger, yes, sir.
You weren't listening at the door, were you, Chester?
Oh, no, sir.
My, absolutely not, Mr. Dillon.
It's just I am cursed with wonderful ears.
I come from so many nights out hunting.
My whole family—
Yeah, all right, all right, Chester.
Mr. Dillon, isn't there some way the railroad can go around that property?
I purely hate to see that woman—
He may be a villain when I'm just doing my job.
Yeah, yeah.
All right, Mr. Williams, I guess we all feel a little like that right now.
Come on, Chester.
Listen, this year—
Now, now hold it, Libby.
Saw you through the curtains.
Well, I saw you peeking.
Coward little railroad has to bring the Marshal.
Mr. Williams, I ask—
I had to, Mrs. Seger.
I told you before that—
Hot-bellied little railroad had to get the Marshal.
Libby, Libby, I want you to put that carbine down, and I want you to act like a human being.
Don't you start anything with me, that kind of talk.
Now, Matt Dillon, I knew you too long for that kind of talk.
Libby, what would Howard have said if he could see you standing there holding a carbine on
me?
You can say what you've got to say right here and right now.
Just leave my poor dead husband out of this.
You think he'd stand in the way of progress the way you are?
Progress?
That big, loud, steaming, dirty thing howling by, black smoke, bringing in the trash from
back east?
You call that progress?
I'll make a deal with you, Libby.
You put down your gun, and I'll send Mr. Williams and Chester back to town.
I've got nothing to say to you, Marshal.
Chester?
Yes, Mr. Dillon?
Here, take my gun, Chester.
Open this.
What?
What are you doing, Mr. Dillon?
You took off your star.
Take it back to the office with you, and take Mr. Williams with you, too.
Libby and I are going to talk.
Yes, sir.
Come on, Mr. Williams.
You can't hold back the times, Mrs. Seggers.
Get him off here, Barry!
You'd better go, Mr. Williams.
I'll see you back in town, Marshal.
Well, Libby, aren't you going to ask me in?
I told you, Marshal.
Them names still Matt, Libby.
No star.
See?
Now, can I come in?
Well, I...
I suppose.
Thank you.
Huh, looks just about the same.
Yeah, it's going to stay that way.
Nothing's going to come a-steaming through this sitting room.
Sit down, Matt.
Libby, I'd give anything not to have to give you this order, but... here.
Well, Howard took me out here to this piece of land.
He staked it out here because it had a creek for the cattle and some old grassland.
We just got married.
Took me out here and stood me right about where you're standing now.
And he said, Libby, this is ours, yours and mine.
He built this place, Matt.
Every board he split with his own hands.
Every board of it, every nail in it.
Yeah, I know.
You don't know.
Three days and three nights, just the two of us.
A hunt up South Wagon, caught out there in the attack.
All they'd have burned the house down, but we held them off.
All of them Indians, a-hooping and a-hovering.
Wasn't until the second day they got him.
Yeah.
Oh, that arrow must have been terrible inside him.
It was like something in my own chest, Matt, I swear.
It couldn't have hurt no more.
I held him in my arms.
I was crying, I couldn't help it.
He looked like a little boy.
I swear, it seemed like he wasn't a man anymore.
It was just a little boy in my arms there.
He said, Libby, you gotta hang on to the land, Libby.
It's all there is.
I said, I know it, Howard.
He said, don't let nobody drive you off here.
I said, Howard, I won't.
And I didn't.
I stayed there, no food, no water.
Two days more.
They waited, but they'd gone.
And the place was still mine.
Libby.
Now, you'll think I'm gonna get off of this land now just because of a little piece of
paper.
Matt, you go on back.
Tell that railroad I'm here for good, dead or alive.
Next time, you better keep your guns.
Marshal?
What'd she say, Marshal?
Talk didn't do any good, did it?
I knew it wouldn't.
Mr. Williams, you did your job.
Now why don't you go back to the hotel and we'll get in touch with you, huh?
Sure.
Marshal?
Yeah?
You sure you don't need me for anything?
I'm sure.
Okay.
Well, hello, Mr. Williams.
Hello, Chester.
Where's he going, Mr. Dillon?
I sent him back to the hotel, Chester.
Uh, hand me that chamois there, will you?
Yes, sir.
Here.
Oh, thank you.
Mr. Dillon, if she don't leave Peaceable, you gonna carry her out?
Well, we'll see what happens, Chester.
I mean, if she don't come out Peaceable.
Look, Chester, that railroad's gonna be here for a long time.
A long time.
Now, there's gonna be a lot of people dependent on it for beef and for, well, for everything
else.
And Libby's just one person, just one person.
One person, yes, sir.
That's right.
That's right, Mr. Dillon.
Mr. Dillon, I've never seen you like this before.
Chester, I can't do it.
Now, you gave her ten days to give you an answer, Mr. Dillon, and the order come down
almost a month ago.
You did everything you could, if you asked me.
You aren't gonna feel bad.
You just got to do it, that's all.
Never hurt anybody, paid all her bills.
Now we gotta run her off her land.
Well, it wasn't nobody's fault that Howard Sager homesteaded on what was gonna be a railroad
track.
Wasn't his fault, nor her fault, nor your fault.
Wasn't even the railroad's fault.
I know you're right, Chester.
You're right.
And Mr. Dillon, she'll have enough money she can live anywhere.
Yeah, yeah, sure, sure.
Anywhere except where she really wants to live.
Well, I...
Yeah, I know, Chester.
Well, it's almost ten thirty.
We gave her the whole noon today.
I guess we better get packing.
I guess we better.
Ho.
Well, that was...
Ho.
Well, sir, here's the gate.
Go ahead, Chester.
Where you, Mr. Dillon?
Matt Dillon?
Love her.
There she is, Mr. Dillon, on the porch.
She's got her carbine.
Yeah, I see her.
Get off my property!
Libby!
Now, we gave you plenty of notice.
Get off my property, Marshal, or I'll shoot!
Now, you know me, Matt.
I don't just talk.
Libby, you got your check.
Now, why don't you...
I'm counting three.
You're not starting off with this land by the count of three.
I'm gonna shoot.
I swear it, Matt.
You're a perfect target.
Now, I'm warning you.
Libby, why...
One, two, three!
Come on, Mr. Dillon!
That big rock over there.
Way over our heads.
Yeah, she meant it that way.
Makes me feel a little silly running cover from a woman.
I got a decent respect for Libby's eye, Chester.
Well, what do we do, Mr. Dillon?
Well...
We can't just stay here forever.
Look, maybe we can sneak up from the other side.
You think you could work your way around?
I imagine so.
All right.
And Chester...
Now, don't worry, Mr. Dillon.
I'm not gonna use no gun.
All right.
Now, if you can get in the house and get that rifle away from her, I'll just stay out here
and try to keep her attention.
Yes, sir.
Okay, good luck.
Libby!
I'm gonna shoot to kill, Matt.
Next man tries to get me out of here is shoot to kill!
Hot.
That's right, Sam.
Here's to you, Williams.
Sure.
I must be getting drunk even this stuff tastes good.
Sam...
I can't help admire that woman.
But then I'm always the one to boost the underdog.
We gotta start construction on the 18th to keep the schedule.
You haven't even had a chance to start serving.
One woman standing alone against a whole mess of us.
Spikes, cruel rail.
It's inspiring.
Ties all creosoted.
I'll get bounced, sure.
Let me tell you, Williams, she's one out of a million.
Quite a woman.
Yeah.
I said then and I say right now, nobody takes that woman off her land alive.
Nobody.
She's got more real stuff in her than you and me put together.
You're drunk.
Hanging on to the last breath.
Why, it's wonderful.
Woman like that can't hold back the progress of a whole nation.
Absolutely not.
Nobody can hold back the time.
Time and tide wait for no man.
If everybody felt like her, there wouldn't be any railroads.
There wouldn't be any progress whatsoever.
You need a drink.
Maybe I do.
Sam.
Hmm?
I don't think that Marshal's doing a thing out there.
Minion of the law.
Strikes me as sentimental, that Marshal.
Oh, I don't know.
Oh, it is.
There's a job to do.
I think we ought to go out there and prod him.
Well, you said he told you to stay in the hotel room.
I know.
No, that's what you said.
Well, if you want to go down there, it's fine with me.
But that's what you told me, he said.
Well, how does it look, the railroad representative taking the afternoon off at a time like this,
huh?
Hand me my holster.
Huh?
Well, what do you want guns for?
I'll tell you what I think, I think the woman's a little demented holding herself up that
way.
Her husband's death, years alone in that house, she's crazy.
Fanatic.
Yeah, yeah.
Here.
Thanks.
Hmm, fully loaded.
She's a wonderful woman, though.
Dead shot with that rifle of hers.
I'm not going out there unprotected.
I don't blame you a bit.
I think I'll take my holster, too.
Hey.
What?
One for the road, huh?
No more.
One for Libby, or what do you say?
All right, one for Libby.
To Libby Seger, the spirit of the Old West.
Right.
You know, they'll write a song about her, how the track was built over her soul, and
they'll write a song about us, too.
Oh, stop it, you're drunk.
How's it going, Marshal?
Didn't I tell you to stay back at the hotel?
I brought Sam with me, thought maybe you could use some help.
Sam, where's he?
Huh?
Hello, Marshal.
You don't mind if we just stick around, do you?
Well, stay back and keep quiet.
Where's your friend?
Trying to sneak in the back.
All the trouble is-
Marshal!
Right here, Libby.
I got my eye on you.
You either call him back, or I'm going to have to shoot him.
Chester!
Oh, coming, Mr. Dillon.
I'm sorry, Mr. Dillon.
It's all right, Chester.
It just didn't work, that's all.
I declare I can't figure how she spotted me.
You don't know how careful I am.
Yeah, I know, I know.
I know.
But there's only one thing to do.
Let's go in after her.
Now you're talking.
Fine.
Now you two just stay right where you are, and no guns, you understand?
Sure.
Libby!
Libby, we're coming in!
Now put your carbine up, Libby!
Come on, Marshal, just come on!
I'm ready!
Now let's go, Chester, and stay close to the ground.
We can weave over to that rock over there, and then behind the barn, maybe.
Yeah, that's a good idea.
Close, Mr. Dillon.
Yeah, all right, run!
You all right, Chester?
Just scared, that's all.
Why, that crazy fool!
What's the matter, Mr. Dillon?
That surveyor!
Sam, leave that rifle alone!
I'm just covering for you, Marshal!
She hit him, Mr. Dillon!
Well, he's gonna shoot back.
Sam!
Mr. Dillon, he got her, Mr. Dillon.
Come on, Chester.
Libby?
I wrote a shawl, Marshal.
It wasn't him, Miss Seger.
Lift up her head, Chester.
It's better this way, Matt.
Much better this way.
Marshal?
Oh, I didn't mean to, Marshal.
I told you to put up that gun.
I was trying to cover for you.
When she got me in my shoulder, I didn't think.
I just...
My...
You just lay quiet, Libby.
We'll send for the doc.
Now you let me be.
Say, Matt.
Yeah, Libby?
Matt, I bet you people...
Don't forget me so easy.
They won't, Libby.
You know, Matt, I'll bet they'll remember me every time.
Yeah.
Every time that train whistle blows.
My gracious.
You know, Chester, sometimes progress is hard to come by.