Wagon Train (TV Series)

The Widow O'Rourke Story (1963)

Robert Fuller: Cooper Smith

Quotes 

• Christopher Hale : What did you say?

  Cooper Smith : I said I can tell you where we're going and what's up ahead. Easy country, no hostile Indians. Nothin' much to worry about... except maybe the Widow.

  Christopher Hale : Widow? What are you talking about?

  Cooper Smith : I spent a lot of time around here, Chris, about five years ago. I was looking for land to homestead, and I found it, too, in a big valley. Land as green and rich and sweet as I've ever seen, except it had already been claimed by a tough red-headed Irishman named O'Rourke. Over 200,000 acres of it. In fact, when I got to the nearest town he was dead. His widow was claiming his body.

  Christopher Hale : Coop, I'm not in the mood just now to listen to a lot of fanciful yarns.

  Cooper Smith : And she came to town - the Widow O'Rourke, I mean - in a coach that made the one Queen Victoria of England rides in look like a mud wagon. I never saw anything so grand. But no one saw her. No one had ever seen Mrs. O'Rourke.

• Princes Mei Ling, The Widow O'Rourke : [Coop brandishes a rifle in the Princess' court]  A weapon in my presence is an insult. And a menace. Are you threatening a defenseless woman, sir?

  Cooper Smith : Now I'd call you about as defenseless as a tornado, ma'am.

• Princes Mei Ling, The Widow O'Rourke : [discussing Ming Lu]  She is Chinese and she is family. She will do as I tell her.

  Cooper Smith : She's your slave. Just like the men in your fields. How could a red-headed Irishman with a name like O'Rourke get tangled up with a self-made goddess like you?

  Princes Mei Ling, The Widow O'Rourke : He bought me for one thousand dollars in gold in the slave market on the Island of Macao.

• Cooper Smith : [in flashback as Terence O'Rourke, at the slave auction, in a bidding war with an old Chinese man]  What do you want with her anyway, an old croc like you?

  Kwan : I want to feast my eyes on her loveliness and remember my youth. Also, she is one of my people. She must not go to this rabble!

• Cooper Smith : [in flashback as Terence O'Rourke, takes Mei Ling in his arms and pulls her close]  I may be common! And I may be an oaf and a ruffian! But you, my highborn lady, are my slave. Never forget that!

  [presses his lips against hers in a passionate kiss, flashback blurs back to the present] 

  Princes Mei Ling, The Widow O'Rourke : From that moment on I was his, as much as any human being can possibly belong to another. We were married. He brought me here. I never again saw my homeland, and never regretted it. I was the obedient wife and lover of the man who bought me for one thousand dollars.

• Choon Fong : She'll beat you at any game. If it isn't with flattery and reward, it will be with force, starvation, solitude, even torture. Our people have the experience of centuries in such situations.

  Cooper Smith : Why? She doesn't have to run this place with slave labor.

  Choon Fong : She uses slaves because to a princess of Chinese royal blood the rest of the world is composed of coolies. And coolies get fed and clothed and beaten, nothing more.

• Cooper Smith : Alright, what do you want me to do?

  Choon Fong : [hands Coop traditional Chinese clothes]  Put these on. You and I, Mr. Smith, are going to help the slaves issue their own Emancipation Proclamation!

• Cooper Smith : [alone at Mei Ling's grave]  You said you'd haunt me, Mei Ling. You are haunting me, every minute. But it's a gentle haunting. There's times where I think I feel your lips on my cheek, and the air is fragrant with the scent you used. I've forgotten all the wrong things you did. Forgot them deliberately. Everything except... you're the most unusual human being capable of a greater love for a husband than I've ever known. I'm glad I had the privilege of knowing you, Madama. Goodbye, Mei Ling.

  [puts hat on head and walks away briskly] 

• Princes Mei Ling, The Widow O'Rourke : You are a... I forget the exact term... a peripatetic cowhand?

  Cooper Smith : Peripa - ? Holy smoke, ma'am, you talk that kind of lingo around me, you and I are gonna have to use sign language. Now, if you're asking me am I a chuck line rider, a range bum, saddle tramp, the answer is guilty as charged.