James Cagney: Jeremy Rodock

Tribute to a Bad Man

Jeremy Rodock

Jeremy Rodock: One thing you gotta learn tho - horse is man's slave but treat 'em like a slave and you ain't a man.

Jeremy Rodock: You know, I ain't got you figured yet, McNulty. You act like a man with a lot of ideas. But all of them second rate... and not one honorable.
McNulty: Kee - rect.

Jeremy Rodock: [Explaining to Jocasta why he must go search out and hang the horse thieves, in spite of Jo's wishes to the contrary] Jo... you come as close to bein'... well, as close to bein' everything to me as anything livin'. But I still can't do what you want me to do. We're livin' in the middle of nowhere. Two hundred miles from any kind of law and order. Except for what I built myself. Ever since I started - and this you don't know - I've been badgered, skunked, bitten out and bushwhacked by thieves from everywhere. And now, one of my men's been killed. I find my horses, I find the killer. If I find the killer, I hang him. I gotta' keep my own reckoning, Jo. It's the way I built my life and half the transportation of the West. Goodbye, Jo.

Jeremy Rodock: [Explaining to Jocasta why he felt the hanging was necessary] I tell ya' Jo, it's the only way. It's FEAR that keeps men honest. And with that hangin' today, I laid fear like a fence ten feet high, around my property!

Jeremy Rodock: [Jeremy to Jocasta as Steve rides away on Jeremy's horse] A fella doesn't die of a broken heart from his first love, only from his last.

Jeremy Rodock: [to Steve] I ain't ready to die yet. I got too many good times left in me.

[Jocasta Constantine can be seen approaching Jeremy Rodock with a bottle of wine after having just finished speaking with McNulty]
Jocasta Constantine: Here, my good friend. My friend with no patience.
[Rodock looks at the bottle for a few seconds before looking up at Jocasta]
Jeremy Rodock: Did you know him in Cheyenne?
Jocasta Constantine: [holding the bottle up towards Rodock] My friend who asks questions.
Jeremy Rodock: [takes the bottle] Aw, forget it. He wasn't born the day I met you.
[Rodock smiles]
Jeremy Rodock: I'm kind of glad he wasn't.
[Jocasta laughs as Rodock holds up the bottle]

[Jeremy Rodock can be seen talking with Jocasta Constantine. As they are doing this, a door opens and Steve Miller can be seen entering]
Jeremy Rodock: You alright, Steve?
Steve Miller: [Nods] Fine.
[Rodock nods and exits the room as Jocasta approaches Steve]
Jocasta Constantine: Did you have enough to eat?
Steve Miller: Yeah.
[Jocasta takes a set of dishes at Steve is carrying]
Jocasta Constantine: You have not been taught to say thank you?
Steve Miller: You know? I bet you was a schoolteacher.
Jocasta Constantine: [laughs] I never went to school in my life. But my father was a scholar, and I was his best student. I knew French, and German, and Latin, and a little bit of English before I was sixteen.