Lloyd Bridges credited as playing...
William Colton
- [first lines]
- William Colton: [voiceover] A lot can happen between a sunup and a sundown. In this case, I found a boy named Johnny Sharp with his life wasting away. And I spent that day with him, listening to the way he lived, and stayed by his side during the process of his dying. He asked me to bring his body to an undertaker he called Doc, and then to contact two other men and a woman to be his mourners. And to tell them that at 11 o'clock tonight, from the slab in the undertaker's room, he'd pay back the one who killed him. That's my mission: to assemble the mourners for Johnny Sharp.
- William Colton: You raised him, didn't you, doctor?
- Doc Fritchman: No, no, I didn't raise him. I fed him, clothed him intermittently. Had no parents. Down through the years took three bullets out of his hide. Sutured up a knife cut in his cheek. Opened that door for him more than a dozen times, let him in here when he was running away from the law or another gunman or his enemies, who were legion and myriad. He was a violent young man.
- Doc Fritchman: Well, here we are, Mr. Colton, the mourners four. Now that you've heard our deficiencies as human beings, do you have any comment?
- William Colton: I have a question. Why in the name of anything holy or unholy would young Mr. Sharp want to waste even a fraction of his eternity to rise up at 11 and see any single one of you?
- William Colton: [Benneke roars with laughter] I wouldn't laugh if I were you, Mr. Benneke. A couple of the dirtier pages of Mr. Sharp's book you authored. In fact, every dirty trick he learned came from you.
- Harry Benneke: Well, Johnny Sharp, rise and shine, haunt or accuse, or... do somethin'.
- William Colton: He already has. He already has. He's picked out his murderers. You, Miss Woodward. You, Mr. Philby. You, Mr. Benneke. And you, Doc. You all had a hand in it.
- Doc Fritchman: Indeed we did.