The Big Valley (TV Series)

The Jonah (1968)

Marty Allen: Waldo Deifendorfer

Photos 

Quotes 

• Waldo Deifendorfer : Hi, Eli. What you doin' here?

  Eli : Oh, nothin'. Just passing through.

  Waldo Deifendorfer : I heard down in Salinas they'er lookin' for hands up here.

  Eli : Oh, you can't believe everything you hear, Waldo.

  Waldo Deifendorfer : Hey, look. "welcome, harvest hands. Best pay. Come in. Sign up now."

  Eli : No, I--I just been in there. They all signed up. Have been for days.

  Waldo Deifendorfer : Yeah, but those men there.

  Eli : Oh, poor fools. They're gonna get the same sad story I got.

  Waldo Deifendorfer : Yeah, but...

  Eli : I oughts tell 'em to take this sign down. I just oughta do it. But I hear that there's another place right down the street that's got a couple of openings. Now, why don't you hurry on down there, Waldo, and get 'em before they all taken up? I'll run back in here, I'll tell this feller to take his sign down. I'll meet you down there. Now, go on, go on, go on hurry up.

  Waldo Deifendorfer : Thanks, Eli. Gee, thanks. You sure are swell to put me on to this. Thanks, Eli.

  Frank MacGarrett : Hey, what's the big idea? That man's lookin' for work, isn't he?

  Eli : That's right. You hire him, and I quit. There ain't a ranch in California big enough to hold the two of us.

  Frank MacGarrett : He looks harmless to me.

  Eli : Yeah? He's worse than any gunfighter you ever heard of, 'cause with a gunfighter, you got a chance to draw. With him, there's now way to defend yourself, 'cause you don't know when nor where nor how it's comin'.

  Frank MacGarrett : What's his game?

  Eli : His game is bad luck. He's a Jonah. Last town he worked in burned down the very day after he arrived. And the last ranch he worked on, the steers got mixed in with the neighbor's sheep. There had been peace in that county for 10 years, and the day he left, there was a full-scale range war goin' on.

  Frank MacGarrett : You don't say.

  Eli : Oh, Mr. MacGarrett, I sure do. Everywhere he goes, there's trouble, and nobody in his right mind would work anywhere near him, and that's a fact.