Bert Freed: Rufe Ryker

Quotes 

• Rufe Ryker : I didn't come cryin' for help! I can take care of myself. Any sodbuster try'n ambush me is gonna end up six feet under. But this is somethin' else. He's gone loco. Shootin' at his own people!

  Shane : Why should that bother you, Ryker?

  Rufe Ryker : Fightin's one thing. I don't want an addled man on my conscience. He's one of your'n. You do somethin' about him.

• Rufe Ryker : I'm not a man who gets scared of much. I went through the war in '62. I fought the Indians in Arizona. I shot and I've been shot at. This ain't the same. It's like cattle. You can drive 'em, turn 'em, almost anythin' you want with 'em. Every once in a while you run into one. Eatin' locoweed or somethin'. Sometimes that steer will just come chargin' at ya, won't turn. Come chargin' at ya with a wild eye and its long, twisting horns, and it keeps comin'. And there's nothin' for you to do but shoot it right there. Shoot it dead.

• Rufe Ryker : Shane, in my time I've been as cocksure as any man. But you remember that loco steer I told you about? That's Tom Gary.