Remember Paladin? The old TV show? It was based on an amusing conceit, a highly civilized and cultivated man with a secret past who lived in San Francisco in the 1870s and who periodically went on the trail, his six-gun for hire, bringing justice and vengeance to a savage land. We never learned Paladin's real name, we would usually see him at the beginning of the program, dressed to the nines at the opera house, a casino, or in the lobby of the Carleton Hotel (which still exists, by the way). He was usually accompanied by a beautiful woman (never the same one!) and amused himself by quoting Racine or Moliere in wry asides, commenting on the decadent society he moved in.

Richard Boone played the title role, Gene Rodenberry wrote the scripts, it was a staple prime-time western of the late 50s and aired just before Gunsmoke. Before the first commercial, Paladin would be seen fiddling his silk cravat, peering from under the lid of his fancy hat, reading the newspaper. A story would catch his eye, something happening on the frontier that piqued his interest, and he would pull his calling card, "Have Gun, Will Travel -- Wire Paladin, San Francisco." The next scene would find him riding alone far from the City, dressed completely in black except for the silver chess piece decorating his holster, the same knight embossed on his card.

Every week was a new adventure, a damsel in distress, a sodbuster being pushed off his land by a cattle baron, a range war in which he was forced to intercede--or take sides. Sometimes his client would turn out to be the villain, but Paladin was always ready to change sides if justice so required. The plots were off-the-wall, quirky, bizarre characters and strange situations. Once he championed the cause of a samurai (Sessue Hayakawa, not the same as S.I. Hayakawa, the Berkely semanticist) on some hopeless mission of his own on the American plains. Another time he played Sancho Panza to a madman in armor, a Don Quixote seeking his Dulcinea and tilting at windmills in the stark landscapes of Monument Valley.

His foes were not always the stock heavies of of Western fiction, sometimes they were crooked lawmen, or lynch mobs, or fanatical preachers. And sometimes his clients were Mexicans, Indians, or Chinese immigrants. But Paladin could handle them all with his fists, his incredibly fast custom-made Colt, or the Derringer he concealed in his belt buckle as a last resort. And of course, he knew his way around a poker table, or a bottle of whiskey. But mixed in with the stock melodrama was always an interesting philosophical conundrum, a whimsical idea, a germ of truth imbedded in the standard horse opera. And when the action was over, there was always a touch of sadness, perhaps a nostalgia for a frontier that never was, but will persist forever in the American imagination.

THE BALLAD OF PALADIN As recorded by Johnny Western
Written by Johnny Western, Richard Boone and S. Rolfe

[C] Have gun will travel, reads the [G] card of a [C] man
A knight without armor in a [G] savage [C] land
His [Am] fast gun for hire, heeds the [F] calling [C] wind
A [F] soldier of fortune, is a man called --- Pal-a-[C] din [C]
Paladin, Paladin, [F] where do you [C] roam
Paladin, Paladin, [F] far, far from [C] home [C]
He travels on to where-[G] ever he [C] must
A chess knight of silver is his [G] badge of [C] trust
There are [Am] campfire legends that the [F] plainsmen [C] sing
Of the [F] man with the gun, of the man called --- Pal-a-[C] din. [C]
Paladin, Paladin, [F] where do you [C] roam
Paladin, Paladin, [F] far, far from [C] home [F]
Far from [C] home, [F] far from [C] home.