- William Bonney aka Billy the Kid: How come a man that don't think no more of a gun than you do can shoot like that?
- Deputy Sheriff Pat Garrett: To a man wearing a badge, a gun is just a tool, but he has to know how to use it.
- William Bonney aka Billy the Kid: I think it means more than that to me. I don't know why. Maybe, it's because I'm not a big man - a lot of men are bigger and tougher than I am. This gun seems to somehow sort of even up everything.
- Deputy Sheriff Pat Garrett: I wish you didn't believe that, Billy.
- [first lines]
- Narrator: This is Lincoln, New Mexico Territory in 1880 as seen through the eyes of one man. His name was Pat Garrett. He was an officer of the law. He was a man who never backed down from anything or anyone in his life. He had only one weakness - his love for a half-wild boy who he regarded almost as a brother. The boy was William H. Bonney - known as Billy the Kid - and Pat Garrett knew how it must end for one of them if their friendship ever failed.
- [the sound of gunshots rings out]
- Mason Henchman: Well, maybe this will give you an idea what kind of man Pat Garrett is. He's the only lawman who tossed Billy the Kid in the pokey and kept him there until Billy got this Englishman, Tunstall, to give him a job on his ranch.
- Paul Mason: Well, how does this kid feel about Garrett?
- Mason Henchman: I don't know, but he's driving in that 100 head of beef you asked Tunstall to move, so maybe you ought to ask him.
- Paul Mason: I'm Paul Mason. Buy you a drink?
- Deputy Sheriff Pat Garrett: Is that *all* you want to buy, Mr. Mason?
- Paul Mason: You're the first gun-toter I ever saw who turned his back to an open room.
- Deputy Sheriff Pat Garrett: When a man faces trouble, he doesn't have to worry about his back.
- Paul Mason: I don't mind a man being honest as long as he minds his own business.
- Deputy Sheriff Pat Garrett: My business is the law of this county and I intent to mind it.
- Judge Riley: Sorry, Pat, that the law has to shield a man who has no respect for it.
- Deputy Sheriff Pat Garrett: My fault, Judge, not yours. I reckon there are as many ways to make the law work as there are to break it. I just picked the wrong one. It's a mistake I won't make again.
- [last lines]
- Deputy Sheriff Pat Garrett: Billy!
- William Bonney aka Billy the Kid: You mad, Patrick?
- Deputy Sheriff Pat Garrett: No - just worried about you, Billy. Can't you stay out of trouble?
- William Bonney aka Billy the Kid: Trouble? Who? Me?
- Deputy Sheriff Pat Garrett: If you go too far, I'll have to come after you.
- William Bonney aka Billy the Kid: When you do, you better come shootin', Patrick.
- Deputy Sheriff Pat Garrett: I don't want it ever to come to that, Billy.
- William Bonney aka Billy the Kid: That makes two of us.