- Sheriff Hardy Collier: Sheriff Potts paid me a visit this morning.
- John Wallace: Yeah? Wha'd he want?
- Sheriff Hardy Collier: What he wants is the man who killed Wilson Turner.
- John Wallace: Is that what's go you so bothered?
- Sheriff Hardy Collier: Real bothered!
- John Wallace: Well, Turner was nothing but thieving, weasely, white trash. What kinda man gonna go breakin' a sweat over the likes of him?
- [chuckles to himself]
- Sheriff Hardy Collier: Lamar Potts.
- John Wallace: The man was insolent ... stole from me. I let him get away and every dirt farmer I got's gonna wanna start helping himself to my possessions. I had to kill Turner, it was business, Potts oughta understand that.
- Sheriff Hardy Collier: Don't see things that way, John. Now if you don't walk right, Potts'll come atcha, and he keeps coming ... hey, you member the field hand that killed his wife and chopper her legs off? Now, Potts tracked him all the way to Kansas and yanked him outta a wheat field!
- John Wallace: That was a nigger!
- Sheriff Hardy Collier: It don't make no difference to him, John!
- John Wallace: I don't believe you know who you're talking to! This is the Kingdom, this is Merryweather! Nobody round here gonna say a word against me!
- Sheriff Hardy Collier: Except you didn't kill him in Merryweather! You killed him across the line, where there's Coweta wittnesses and a sheriff that won't quit. Now, I'm tellin' ya John ... if Potts can find a nigger in Kansas, he can sure find white trash in a swamp! Now, I don't know ... and I ... I don't wanna know where you dumped the body, but wherever it is ... better be hid good.
- Lamar Potts: Hello John. I'm about ready to leave. Thought I'd drop by and see if there's anything you might need?
- John Wallace: Ya mean, like a fancy last meal? No, I wouldn't want you to go hunting fried chicken and strawberry pie today, and then, tomorrow I wind up eating supper at my own house. It ain't gonna happen, they ain't gonna kill me. There'll be a phone call, always has been.
- [pauses]
- John Wallace: You know, Lamar ... we're a lot alike ... each running his own county, having power over other men ...best feeling in the world! Make ya do anything ... except give it up.
- Lamar Potts: How powerful is the man who can't control himself?
- John Wallace: You're still down on me for my murderin' ways? I've only killed ... four men in my whole life, and each one of 'em had it coming.
- Lamar Potts: Those lives didn't mean anything to you?
- John Wallace: [gives Potts a strange look] I'm the head of the Kingdom. I was raised for that. My momma always told me, "Do what you have to do! Never let your conscience get in your way."
- Lamar Potts: I'm gonna pray for you, John.
- [shakes John's hand]
- John Wallace: Good bye, sheriff.
- Lamar Potts: Bye, John.
- J. C. Otwell: But Lamar, John Wallace . . . he just about owns Meriwether County.
- Lamar Potts: This ain't Meriwether.
- Lamar Potts: [to the Strickland family] The first one that touches one of my deputies... I'm gonna kill him. Now I want Tom Strickland... You can bring him out, or I'll go in after him.
- Strickland Cousin: We're all Stricklands... If you want to take him, you're gonna have to take us.
- Lamar Potts: Well that's just fine with me... all you gotta do is stand in my way!
- J.H. Potts: In 1948 in rural Georgia, there was a vast estate known as "The Kingdom." Ruled by one man, his power was absolute and beyond the law. His family legacy was one of exploitation, corruption and ruthless violence. This is the story of the man who ran the Kingdom. And the man who brought him down.
- Lamar Potts: [to the posse crowd in the courtyard] There's a man who thinks he's above the law. Killed a fella in our county. Thinks he's gonna get away with it. We're gonna see that he don't.
- Lamar Potts: [to John Wallace who is behind bars in jail] I don't know, John. Looks like the kingdom is beginnin' to crumble.
- Deputy #2: Sheriff! Elzie just checked in. He thinks he found something!
- Lamar Potts: [to John Wallace who is behind bars in jail] You remember Elzie Hancock don't you, John? He's the one that got your uncle.
- Informant: Is it true what they said about that five hundred dollars?
- Lamar Potts: It's true.
- Informant: I been wanting to talk to you. First time you've been out here by yourself. I'm the one that called you and gave you Strickland's name.
- Lamar Potts: I appreciate that. But the reward is for Turner's body.
- Informant: You know who I am?
- Lamar Potts: [Nods]
- Informant: But you wouldn't go tell nobody, would you?
- Lamar Potts: Not if you didn't want, no.
- Informant: Now you understand, if I's seen anywhere near you...
- Lamar Potts: I'll have somebody else deliver the money.
- Informant: Not to me. Not in Meriwether. To my folks, over there, across the line.
- Lamar Potts: You have my word.
- Informant: Well, Wallace burned the body. Throwed it in a liquor still pit and doused it with shine and set it off. Had two colored field hands a-helpin' him. Albert Brooks and a feller named Robert Lee Gates. You could see them flames for miles!
- Lamar Potts: Albert and Robert Lee?
- Informant: They's back there in the fields, a-workin'.
- Lamar Potts: Thank you.
- Informant: Now sheriff, I want you to understand right now - I just put my life in your hands.
- Lamar Potts: [to Hardy Collier who is in bed covered with a blanket] Don't even breath! Atwell, pull the blanket off of him, real slow.
- [Atwell turns down the blanket, revealing a revolver in each of Sheriff Collier's hands]
- Lamar Potts: Kind of a warm day to be all covered up, ain't it Sheriff?
- Sheriff Hardy Collier: You ain't hauling me off like no dirt dog criminal! I'm an elected official of this county! I'm a sheriff!
- [Points to his badge]
- Lamar Potts: You sold that badge! The same badge that I stand behind!
- J.H. Potts: [after a local store owner refuses to divulge any information on and defends John Wallace] Seems that John Wallace is a real generous soul.
- Lamar Potts: John Wallace didn't buy any pews or barns... he bought people!
- John Wallace: [as the body of Wilson Turner is being burned] Alright Sheriff Lamar Potts... come get me now!