It was gunfire, and it came from your saloon.
Al SwearengenHas not the press a duty, Merrick, qualifying its accounts in time of war?
Are we at war now here in the camp? Has that fact been suppressed as well? Absent formal declaration, Al, information which affects this community is not my prerogative to disseminate. To do so is my sacred responsibility.
Al Swearengen
Whores currently disseminating a dose, for example?
To inform within decency's limits. We've had this discussion before.
Al Swearengen
Citizens better die postulating than touch indecent ink.
Make a list of the infected whores and account for this morning's gunfire, and I'll publish it all.
Al Swearengen
I won't, fucking Merrick, because neither's to my fucking interests.
I just.. I feel shunted aside or the like, not involved as much as previous.
Al Swearengen
Adams, you were busy with Star.
That you sent me off to see.
Al Swearengen
Thinking you'd be back before time for the murders.
So it wasn't like a decision you made to have the murders while I was signing the papers?
Al Swearengen
You've no idea how fuckin' badly you're boring me. [Knock at the door] Yeah?
That captain's brought over another envelope.
Al Swearengen
[To Silas] Won't you see with me what this might portend?
These last months have made me expert. It was gunfire, and it came from your saloon.
Al Swearengen
Has not the press a duty, Merrick, qualifying its accounts in time of war?
Are we at war now here in the camp? Has that fact been suppressed as well? Absent formal declaration, Al, information which affects this community is not my prerogative to disseminate. To do so is my sacred responsibility.
Al Swearengen
Whores currently disseminating a dose, for example?
To inform within decency's limits. We've had this discussion before.
Al Swearengen
Citizens better die postulating than touch indecent ink.
Make a list of the infected whores and account for this morning's gunfire, and I'll publish it all.
Al Swearengen
I won't, fucking Merrick, because neither's to my fucking interests. Just as you owning a print press proves only an interest in the truth, meaning up to a fucking point, slightly more than us others maybe, but short of a fucking anointing or the shouldering of a sacred burden - unless of course the print press was gift of an angel. I'd want to be there for that hand-off myself. Maybe you should print an extra saying the speeches are on again.
Erm, it occurs to me Al, as you and he are so evidently well-acquainted, the decent interval that Mr. Langrishe is owed to make his domestic arrangements I might spend hearing you talk of him.
Al Swearengen
Ever wonder if you expressed yourself more directly, Merrick, you might fucking weigh less?
I see no logic in that whatever.
Al Swearengen
I don't want to talk of Langrishe, he makes me fucking nervous.
A. W. Merrick, Mr. Langrishe, publisher of the Deadwood Pioneer.
Ah! Accounting for the halo I see above you.
Al Swearengen
Shit blizzard's early today.
He takes his tone with you as a familiar.
Oh, we're well-acquainted, Mr. Swearengen and I.
Mmm, new friends, old campaigners.
Al Swearengen
The infrequent bloody win.
Always superfluous, bloodshed. The deeper damage is best.
Al Swearengen
[Giving Jack a tour of the camp] The Ellsworth house, richest claim next to Hearst, that woman.
What sort of plays does she favor?
Al Swearengen
Oh, Christ, she told me and I fucking forgot. Goes through her men like Sherman to the fucking sea.
Al Swearengen
I did not shame myself. I keep an open mind in that area. Kid yourself about your behaviour, you'll never learn a fuckin' thing. I knew it was comin' too. Fuckin' Captain, holdin' me down. I knew what the fuck was next.
DDolly
When he chopped off your finger?
Al Swearengen
He didn't chop off my finger! Hearst chopped my fuckin' finger off; the other fuck held me down! They hold you down, y-you can't get at 'em to help yourself. Fuckin' cold in here anyway, isn't it?
DDolly
You want a blanket?
Al Swearengen
If I do I'll put it round me, you ain't boss of the fuckin' bedclothes! They hold you down from behind. Then you wonder why you're helpless. How the fuck could you not be?
DDolly
I don't like it either.
Al Swearengen
Another one that held me down, that fuckin' Proctor when I tried to get to that ship. He fuckin' held me, fuckin' wouldn't let me go. Fuckin' in my mind, y'see, she was being restrained, couldn't get back off, that had got on the boat to fuckin' New Orleans to go suck prick in Georgia. She changed her mind, and I was bein' restrained by that fat, bastard orphanage Proctor! Anyway, that's it, that's the end of it, that's the fuckin' conclusion ... CHRIST, I'D'VE WISHED TO- [catches himself] Though probably she'd'a thrown be overboard anyway, but I'd'a wished to get to that fuckin' ship. But I was bein' restrained. I couldn't get from where she'd left me. He held me to that bed, her callin' from the ship that had changed her mind.
Dolly [quietly]: I don't like it either.
Al Swearengen
No, huh? ... What?
DDolly
When they hold you down.
Al Swearengen
I guess I do that, huh, with your fuckin' hair?
Al Swearengen
No?... Well, bless you for a fuckin' fibber.
Al Swearengen
Where the fuck have you been?
I was looking for someone whose name you told me never to say again.
Al Swearengen
Amongst further instructions including not to look for him when he's fucking disappeared.
Well, I held off saying where I was.
Al Swearengen
I can repose no truth in someone who traffics with that type douche bag.
I don't think Hawkeye's a douche bag. [Al slaps him]
Al Swearengen
Who you believe you can salvage, Adams, is the douche bag you must avoid and no effort of yours can preclude at some point finding past help. And you yourself, being his consort in similar fucking straits. And all the energies I've poured into you gone for naught. I vow on that fucking subject, I find you dead 'cause of him I'll kick your corpse in the ear for the waste of my fucking time.
Anyways, what'd you want?
Al Swearengen
I've named you to represent me in my dealings with fucking Hearst. Tolliver too, in that connection.
Tolliver in connection with Hearst?
Al Swearengen
As he's put us in tandem, fucking Hearst.
Al Swearengen
If I sought an echo, Adams, I'd now be addressing a fucking mountain. I'm in waters I don't know, nor soundings I can take. To bring me the knowledge I need, my second needs to seem capable of disloyalty.
If that's supposed to be a compliment, thanks.
Al Swearengen
Which is to say, being loyal he can forego loyalty's display. Like not searching out a friend who don't want to be found, just hoping he makes his way back, hmm?
How's Dan gonna take your choosing me?
Al Swearengen
That's my fucking problem to deal with.
I wish you'd look in on Dan, boss. Not for being poorly as... down.
Al Swearengen
Johnny... some shit's best walked through alone.
Dan's killed people before. You have too. But neither've been solitary after
Al Swearengen
A fair fight, something Dan and I have always struggled to avoid, is different. You see the light go out in their eyes. It's just you left, and death.
EBE.B. Farnham
It's Hearst. Hearst: is he Caesar, to have fights to the death for diversion? Murder his workers at whim? Smash passages in the fucking wall? A man of less wealth would be in fucking restraints.
Al
We're in the presence of the new.
Fuck the fucking new! Jesus Christ, Al. Is it over for us here?
Al Swearengen
That they're armed and awake don't have to mean they're fucking hired.
Yeah, and when I feel a shit coming on I'll remember to drop my pants.
Al Swearengen
The obvious merits utterance. Character is fucking pertinent.
If I'm to go, I'd as soon get started before the darkness.
Al Swearengen
Going means the darkness is upon us.
Deadwood · 249 quotes
