- Red Hand: The governor won't listen to me.
- Jason McCord: How can the governor listen if you don't speak?
- Jason McCord: Have you ever seen an animal cry? A tear is a fact, Major. Proof. Only a human animal has a soul that can make him cry. Red Hand has proven he's a person. And now his wife and his child can stand up in any court of law and make you answer for this.
- Jason McCord: If you shoot Red Hand down, you'll be taking a shot at every Apache from here to the Pecos. You may be starting another Sand Creek massacre. Only this time, Major Lynch, the Apaches will be doing the killing. Because, whether you know it or not, there are far more Apaches in this territory than there are troopers... Seems this calls for a little more strategy and a little less frontal assault.
- Judge Markham: You've met Major Lynch? Do you honestly Red Hand would ever get back to the Reservation alive?
- Red Hand: You gave me this gun for my land. But no buffalo and no deer to shoot. You made me a helpless crawling animal in the eyes of my son, in the eyes of my people. Well, I take back my land as it gives me strength. And I will die for it. Would you do the same, Major?
- Maj. Lynch: The squaws are just as bad as the braves. Two of 'em once bushwhacked a cousin of mine and half killed him. Who cares about the squaw.
- Jason McCord: A lot of people, Major. For one thing, a few thousand Apaches are going to care.
- Maj. Lynch: Well, now, I just don't happen to be very worried about hurting their feelings.
- Jason McCord: You should be. You're not dealing with any Indian who happened to wander off the reservation. Red Hand is the chief...
- Maj. Lynch: I know who I'm dealing with.
- Red Hand: But here we die quickly from the soldiers' bullets. At Mescalero we die slowly from disease and hunger. The white man took away the buffalo and deer, and gave us lizards.
- Judge Markham: The Courts of this country have ruled that an Indian is not a person.
- Jason McCord: Then what is he?
- Maj. Lynch: I heard a lawyer say to a judge that, because a young Kiowa Indian buck could talk and walk on two legs and read, that proved he was a human being. Do you know what the judge said to the lawyer? He said that he once had a parrot who could talk, and he had seen a bear walk on his hind legs, and he'd read about a mule who'd obey written commands. So if that Kiowa Indian was a human being 'cos he could walk, because he could talk, and because he could read, then it stood to reason that parrots were human beings, and jackasses were human beings, and bears were human beings. Huh. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.