Wagon Train (TV Series)

The Allison Justis Story (1960)

Michael Burns: Billy Justis

Photos 

Quotes 

• Billy Justis : I'm gonna kill the man that shot my Dad.

  Allison Justis : Billy-

  [She runs off, upset] 

  Flint McCullough : It's a fine looking rifle, Billy. You ever use it before?

  Billy Justis : Lots of times. Dad taught me. We used to go hunting and- I'm gonna use it on the man that shot Dad.

  Flint McCullough : That's not an easy job for a grown up man, let alone a little boy.

  Billy Justis : I'm big enough.

  Flint McCullough : Sure you're big enough to shoot the gun. You just did.

  Billy Justis : Give it to me.

  Flint McCullough : I'm not going to give it to you. This bullet went into the floor. What if it'd gone through the wall and into the kitchen and hit me or your mother? Ever think of that? If you had, you wouldn't be trying to pull it out of my hands. You'd want to throw it away as far as you possibly could. Believe me, you'd wish you'd never seen a gun in your life. Once a bullet is fired, Billy, you can't take it back, no matter how much you want to. No matter how much you wish you hadn't pulled the trigger. Once a bullet is fired, you can never bring it back.

  Billy Justis : I don't care what you say. I want the gun.

  Flint McCullough : Let me tell you about guns.

  [He draws his pistol] 

  Flint McCullough : You see this one? It's killed a lot of things, yet it's never broken the law. That's one of the terrible things about guns, about carrying one. You see a man go for his gun, you shoot him first because you figure he's going to kill you. In less than a second, a man can get the idea of drawing fire, one second. It's not very long to decide whether he's planning to wound you or threaten you, or kill you. So you kill him first. It's legal. It's honourable. But for the rest of your life, you wonder whether you've killed a man who didn't deserve to be killed.