Johnny Cash credited as playing...
Lamar Potts
- Lamar Potts: Hello John. I'm about ready to leave. Thought I'd drop by and see if there's anything you might need?
- John Wallace: Ya mean, like a fancy last meal? No, I wouldn't want you to go hunting fried chicken and strawberry pie today, and then, tomorrow I wind up eating supper at my own house. It ain't gonna happen, they ain't gonna kill me. There'll be a phone call, always has been.
- [pauses]
- John Wallace: You know, Lamar ... we're a lot alike ... each running his own county, having power over other men ...best feeling in the world! Make ya do anything ... except give it up.
- Lamar Potts: How powerful is the man who can't control himself?
- John Wallace: You're still down on me for my murderin' ways? I've only killed ... four men in my whole life, and each one of 'em had it coming.
- Lamar Potts: Those lives didn't mean anything to you?
- John Wallace: [gives Potts a strange look] I'm the head of the Kingdom. I was raised for that. My momma always told me, "Do what you have to do! Never let your conscience get in your way."
- Lamar Potts: I'm gonna pray for you, John.
- [shakes John's hand]
- John Wallace: Good bye, sheriff.
- Lamar Potts: Bye, John.
- J. C. Otwell: But Lamar, John Wallace . . . he just about owns Meriwether County.
- Lamar Potts: This ain't Meriwether.
- J.H. Potts: [after a local store owner refuses to divulge any information on and defends John Wallace] Seems that John Wallace is a real generous soul.
- Lamar Potts: John Wallace didn't buy any pews or barns... he bought people!
- Lamar Potts: [to the Strickland family] The first one that touches one of my deputies... I'm gonna kill him. Now I want Tom Strickland... You can bring him out, or I'll go in after him.
- Strickland Cousin: We're all Stricklands... If you want to take him, you're gonna have to take us.
- Lamar Potts: Well that's just fine with me... all you gotta do is stand in my way!
- Lamar Potts: [to the posse crowd in the courtyard] There's a man who thinks he's above the law. Killed a fella in our county. Thinks he's gonna get away with it. We're gonna see that he don't.
- Lamar Potts: [to John Wallace who is behind bars in jail] I don't know, John. Looks like the kingdom is beginnin' to crumble.
- Deputy #2: Sheriff! Elzie just checked in. He thinks he found something!
- Lamar Potts: [to John Wallace who is behind bars in jail] You remember Elzie Hancock don't you, John? He's the one that got your uncle.
- Informant: Is it true what they said about that five hundred dollars?
- Lamar Potts: It's true.
- Informant: I been wanting to talk to you. First time you've been out here by yourself. I'm the one that called you and gave you Strickland's name.
- Lamar Potts: I appreciate that. But the reward is for Turner's body.
- Informant: You know who I am?
- Lamar Potts: [Nods]
- Informant: But you wouldn't go tell nobody, would you?
- Lamar Potts: Not if you didn't want, no.
- Informant: Now you understand, if I's seen anywhere near you...
- Lamar Potts: I'll have somebody else deliver the money.
- Informant: Not to me. Not in Meriwether. To my folks, over there, across the line.
- Lamar Potts: You have my word.
- Informant: Well, Wallace burned the body. Throwed it in a liquor still pit and doused it with shine and set it off. Had two colored field hands a-helpin' him. Albert Brooks and a feller named Robert Lee Gates. You could see them flames for miles!
- Lamar Potts: Albert and Robert Lee?
- Informant: They's back there in the fields, a-workin'.
- Lamar Potts: Thank you.
- Informant: Now sheriff, I want you to understand right now - I just put my life in your hands.
- Lamar Potts: [to Hardy Collier who is in bed covered with a blanket] Don't even breath! Atwell, pull the blanket off of him, real slow.
- [Atwell turns down the blanket, revealing a revolver in each of Sheriff Collier's hands]
- Lamar Potts: Kind of a warm day to be all covered up, ain't it Sheriff?
- Sheriff Hardy Collier: You ain't hauling me off like no dirt dog criminal! I'm an elected official of this county! I'm a sheriff!
- [Points to his badge]
- Lamar Potts: You sold that badge! The same badge that I stand behind!