Ride with the Devil Quotes

Mr. Evans: You ever been to Lawrence KS young man?

Jack Bull Chiles: [scoffs] No, I reckon not Mr. Evans. I don't believe I'd be too welcome in Lawrence.

Mr. Evans: I didn't think so. Before this war began, my business took me there often. As I saw those northerners build that town, I witnessed the seeds of our destruction being sown.

Jack Bull Chiles: The foundin' of that town was truly the beginnin' of the Yankee invasion.

Mr. Evans: I'm not speakin' of numbers, nor even abolitionist trouble makin'. It was the schoolhouse. Before they built their church, even, they built that schoolhouse. And they let in every tailor's son... and every farmer's daughter in that country.

Jack Bull Chiles: Spellin' won't help you hold a plow any firmer. Or a gun either.

Mr. Evans: No, it won't Mr. Chiles. But my point is merely that they rounded every pup up into that schoolhouse because they fancied that everyone should think and talk the same free-thinkin' way they do with no regard to station, custom, propriety. And that is why they will win. Because they believe everyone should live and think just like them. And we shall lose because we don't care one way or another how they live. We just worry about ourselves.

Jack Bull Chiles: Are you sayin', sir, that we fight for nothin'?

Mr. Evans: Far from it, Mr. Chiles. You fight for everything that we ever had, as did my son. It's just that... we don't have it anymore.

[Mr. Evans, a Confederate sympathizer, has Jack Bull and Jake as guests]

Jack Bull: Are you saying, sir, that we fight for nothing?

Evans: Far from it, Mr. Chiles. You fight for everything that we ever had... as did my son. It's just that... we don't have it anymore.

[Camping out, Jack Bull Chiles and Jake Roedel discuss Jake's finger, which was shot off in a skirmish]

Jack Bull: My father's under the dirt to stay. Like that's gone to stay, too.

Jake: My finger?

Jack Bull: Mmm-hmm.

Jake: Well, so it is. And it makes me notable by the loss.

Jack Bull: You sound pleased... as if that finger'd been pesterin' you for rings.

Jake: No. It was a fine finger and I'd rather have it still, but... it was took from me and it's been et by chickens for sure. And I say, what is the good side to this amputation? And there is one.

[discussing rumors of their engagement]

Sue Lee Shelley: So do you wanna marry me?

Jake: No, not too bad.

Sue Lee Shelley: Good. That's good news, 'cause I wouldn't marry you for a wagonload full of gold.

[Jake Roedel contemplating the Lawrence raid]

Jake: It's just bad luck citizens finding out just how bad luck can be.

Pitt Mackeson: Why you little Dutch son of a bitch. You do what I tell you or I'll kill you.

Jake: [pulls his gun a few inches from Pitt's face] And when do you figure to do this mean thing to me Mackeson? Is this very moment convenient for you? It is for me.

Jake: I say what is the good side to this amputation and there is one.

Jack Bull Chiles: Name it, Jake.

Jake: Well, you say one day some Federals catch up to me in a thicket. They would riddle me and hang me and no Southern man would find me for weeks or months and when they did I'd be bad meat pretty well rotted to a glob.

Jack Bull Chiles: That's scientifically accurate, I'm afraid. I've seen it.

Jake: I'd be a mysterious gob of rot. And people would say, "Who was that?" Then surely someone would look up and say, "Why it's nubbin fingered Jake Roedel." Then you could go and tell my father that I was clearly murdered and he wouldn't be tortured by uncertain wonders.

Jack Bull Chiles: And that's the good of it?

Jake: Yes sir, that's the good.

Southern Gentleman: That's Pitt Mackeson, ain't it? I here he'd soon as kill a man as mash a tick.

Jake: My, what a scary fellow he is.

Pitt Mackeson: Read us this letter, Dutchie.

Jake: That's somebody else's letter.

Pitt Mackeson: Was. I wanna hear you read it.

Jake: I don't think I'd care too.

Pitt Mackeson: Oh is that so? Well I think that if you think a little bit more, Dutchie, you'll think you do wanna read it me. Right now, too.

Jake: Where you headed?

Pitt Mackeson: Newport.

Jake: Hell man, there's two hundred Federals in Newport! We just rode through 'em. You can't go on in there!

Pitt Mackeson: Wrong, Dutchie. I am going in there. I'm for certain sure going in there. I want a drink, and they have drinks in Newport.

Jake: They'll kill you, you best stay clear out of there.

Pitt Mackeson: I don't think so Dutchie. I don't reckon I'll clear out of where I was born. You see that there was my hometown, and I reckon I'll go on in and have me a drink there.

Jake: Turner, you too? They'll kill you sure.

Pitt Mackeson: What a horrible fate! Oh what a horrible fate! Oh boy you got me now Dutchie, oh boy you got me now.

[first lines]

Title Card: On the western frontier of Missouri, the American Civil War was fought not by armies, but by neighbors. Informal gangs of local southern Bushwhackers fought a bloody and desperate guerrilla war against the occupying Union Army and pro-Union Jayhawkers.

Title Card: Allegiance to either side was dangerous. But it was more dangerous still to find oneself caught in the middle.

Jake: I've been thinking, Jack Bull, a wedding is a peculiar thing.

Jack Bull Chiles: No more peculiar, Jake, than slavery.

Jake: One mother's very much like another.

Pitt Mackeson: Remember one thing, her boys will kill you if they can.

George Clyde: Rodel... You want my bacon?

Jake: Yes, I could eat it.

George Clyde: Well, I'll shit it out by the oak tree in the morning, you just go and help yourself.

Sue Lee Shelly: [breast feeding] You always gonna stare like that?

Jake: Long as I can.

Jake: I thought you said you wouldn't want me for a wagon full of gold, cuz I'm a nubbin-fingered runt of a Dutchman. I remember you saying that.

Sue Lee Shelly: Well, I guess I lied.

Jake: Are you lying again now?

Sue Lee Shelly: No. I wouldn't lie to you, Jake.

Jake: You just told me you lied to me before...

Sue Lee Shelly: Well that's different, that was romance.

Jake: Now is what?

Sue Lee Shelly: The truth. This here now is the truth.

Evans: [finishing his haircut] There ya are, Dutchy, you're 21 again.

Jake: I'm just now 19, Nort.

Evans: Is that so.

[last lines]

Jake: [farewell] Daniel Holt...

Daniel Holt: Jacob Rodel...

Daniel Holt: [big wave and rides off]