[wind whooshing]
[windmill creaking]
[thunder clapping]
[flames crackling]
[distant coyote howling]
[door opens, closes]
[pig oinking]
- Come on...
[wood squeaks]
Come on...
[pigs oinking]
[soft music]
One day, a man went to take a walk into town.
On his way home he saw a little dog which had hurt his leg
The poor dog was so lame
he could not lift his foot off the ground without great pain.
[distant crow cawing]
[Lucas sighs]
- Aren't you gonna eat, Lucas?
- [Lucas] I'll have mine later, Jacob.
[water dripping]
[gentle music]
[chicken clucking, pig oinking]
[chickens clucking]
- Lucas, look!
[suspenseful music]
[distant horse neighing]
[gun cocks]
[clanks]
[solemn music]
[market chatter]
- [Man] Get your *** over here!
[loud thud]
[man grunts]
[pigs oinking]
- Sorriest God damn hogs I've ever seen, Christ almighty.
2 and 25 per... 4 and 50 for the both of 'em
it's the best I can do.
- In October you was giving 5 per.
- It ain't October no more.
Christ, this Gilt's as scrawny as you are.
- What about one of the horses?
- 4 and 50 for the hogs...
25 for the swayback in addition. Deal?
- [Lucas] I'll take that cornmeal right there
and the rye flour...
Some beans and that hard bread.
- Okay... let's see...
That's a quarter dollar for the bread times two.
Even dollar for the beans
and 3 and 50 for the meal and the flour.
Say uh, Tom Langtry come by...
Tom the older, not his boy up in Stafford.
Remarked that he might be in the market for some land nearabout.
- No, thanks, Mr. Cochrane.
- You sure, Lucas? - [Lucas] We're fine, sir.
- [Cochrane] It could be a lot of money--
- I'm gonna need another pound of that salt beef...
A couple cans of molasses and three sacks of that Indian corn.
- All right, well that's 20 cents on the beef...
I keep the corn down in the cellar
if you wanna bring your wagon around
I'll go down and get it for you.
- Okay.
- Say uh... you think the little one could
help his self to a candy stick?
Red Bird peppermint, I believe.
- Okay. But you can't have it til after supper, okay?
Jacob!
Heard his mama wasn't nothing but a dried up old *****...
- [Oldest Boy] Killed herself all crazy from syphilis.
Shit!
That little son of a ***** just bit me!
I said hold him, damnit!
You little *******!
- [Cochrane] All right that's enough!
- [oldest boy screams]
- [Cochrane] That's enough!
- [Gantry] What have you done here?
What did you do to my boy?!
- That's enough, I said!
- Like hell it is!
That little grubstake damn dear brained my son!
- We didn't do nothing to him pa, he just come at us--
- You shut your coward mouth!
- Charles!
You will not be beating this or any other child in my store,
do you understand me?
- Just let go... let go of me.
- Lucas...
You better get on home now.
Go on, get your brother and go, both of you.
Go!
Hey.
- [door opens] - Get your boys.
[door closes]
- They took my peppermint stick.
[thunder rumbling]
- [Jacob] Lucas?
Someone's coming.
- Stay put, you hear me?
- That old Springfield's as liable to blow up in your hands
as it is to fire off a shot.
- You ain't got business here.
- The hell I don't.
You laid that hickory to my boy, you took on a debt.
I come to see it satisfied.
- [Lucas] They was beating on my brother.
- One arm, I'll get down off this horse
- and I'll whoop your ***-- - You keep quiet!
- I ain't going with you.
- The hell you ain't.
I got two hundred beeves on contract...
You're gonna have to work off what his broke arm
can't if'n I gotta drag you outta here.
This is a hard land, son.
You might be between the hay and the grass
but that don't make it no less the case.
I'll come back 'round to collect you in the morning.
[distant crow caws]
- Get to sleep now.
- Lucas?
What did Mama look like?
- I can't remember.
[Lucas sobbing]
[birds chirping]
[brooding, tense music]
[Lucas panting]
[rhythmic, intense music playing]
[Lucas groans]
[gun fired echoes]
[Gantry agonal breathing]
- Lucas Hollister...
As you have been found guilty
of the murder of Charles Edward Gantry
by a jury in good standing in Sedgwick County
on this day, 4th April, 18 and 82.
And though taking into account, your youth and circumstances
by virtue of your prior history with the deceased,
this court has no recourse
but to find this heinous act premeditated.
As such, Lucas Hollister, I hereby sentence you to hang...
Sentence to be carried out upon construction of a suitable venue
and disptach of the Hangman from Lincoln.
This court is adjourned.
[gavel thuds]
[emotional music playing]
- [Town Father] I can appreciate that you've come
quite a distance, Ms. Bassett,
but we can't just--
- [Evelyn] Do not speak to me as if we are acquainted,
Mr. Tyrell.
- [Town Father] I do apologize, Ms. Bassett, but again--
- The distance I have traveled is of no consequence
to this discussion.
- [Town Father] The boy's been tried, Ms. Bassett,
- he's been convicted-- - In Hayesville.
Yes but--
- A saltlick backwater to say the least.
- [Town Father] Please try and understand, Ms. Bassett--
- I will hire a lawyer. I'll appeal to the state court.
- [Judge] I am a judge of the state court, Ms. Bassett...
Duly appointed by Territorial Governor John Geary
in 18 and 54.
27 years on in Sedgwick.
And while I esteem your call
- to plead the boy's-- - To hell with your esteem.
Psalm 82:3...
Give justice to the weak and to the fatherless.
[door opens] [footsteps]
Do you know me?
- No, Ma'am.
- Look at me when you speak.
Barely a sprout you are.
They tell me I'm kin to you.
Your mother was Wilhelmina Hollister?
My name is Evelyn Bassett.
Bassetts of Sheridan County.
I was Aunt to your mother.
Though it's been some years since we had occasion.
I thought it only proper to come.
- Can you help me?
- It appears my entreaties have fallen upon deaf ears.
- What'll happen to my brother?
- Arrangements will have to be made.
- A boy's home?
- I expect.
- Can you take him?
- Certainly not.
- He won't have no one once I'm gone.
- I'm an old woman, Lucas.
This is simply the way of things.
- Why'd you come then?
- To see for myself.
Your mother was very dear to me when she was a child.
I'm afraid I have to take my leave of you.
I'm sorry I couldn't have done more.
[door opens, closes]
[unsettling, tense music]
- [bell tolling] - [market chatter]
[distant coughing]
[Wood sighs]
[soft, emotional music playing]
[distant coughing]
[coughing]
- Shhhh...
My little Angel...
I know...
Mommy knows.
- [Benjamin coughing] - My little Angel.
It's okay, my darling.
Dear Lord, please take mercy on this child.
[Benjamin coughs hard]
You hate him for it, don't you?
- What?
- For dying.
For making you hurt.
[Benjamin coughing]
- Don't say that in front of him.
- You think you can fix anything, Wood...
But you can't fix this.
Why can't you look at him?
Why can't you look at me?
[Benjamin coughing]
[door closes]
[gun cocks]
- I wanna bring these sons of *****es in clean, Drum.
- Don't bother me none.
Should we bring Pete along?
- Why wake the Sheriff?
[door opens, closes]
- They's up there a piece outside the hotel.
Looks to be four or five of 'em.
Charlie Blake, Frank Leslie...
Rest of 'em's Mexicans and Half Breeds.
- Anybody put eyes to the girl?
- [Enlgish] Not that I seen, Marshall.
- [Blake] Y'all come for piece of Charlie Blake?
- [Enlgish] God damn Bullwhackers...
- They been at it all night in there...
Liquor and every other damn thing.
- Drum, you got the left,
Tom, stay right of me.
Keep your head.
If anything happens, get low.
Put that gun down, Charlie Blake.
We just come to disarm you.
- Y'all the ones been hitting them cowtowns
and Shoshone villages
on the Northern trail up from Nebraska, Charlie?
Huh? don't even bother robbing 'em no more
you just go straight to killing 'em?
- I'll tell you square...
This ain't a country I recognize no more!
White man made to answer for taking a heathen scalp?!
- Don't you do it, Charlie.
[gunfire]
- [rapid gunfire] - [Blake grunts]
[rapid gunfire]
[grunts] They got me, Dan!
[groans] Those cocksuckers got me.
- [Drum] Christ's sake, somebody get the Doc!
[distant horse neighing]
[emotional music]
(non-English speech): I am alive. I am not dead.
[door opens, closes]
- Little one can't fall asleep unless he's with his brother.
Just keeps cryin' and cryin.'
Come on, little one.
- [Jacob] Lucas...
- I wish I could--
We just can't raise up a little one.
Not with Mrs. Cochrane's ailments.
- Yeah. That's all right, Bill.
Come on.
[door opens]
- [Drunk Cowboy] Son of a ***** calls me on the prod?...
I don't care a continental that's meant for play...
- Soon as that boy swings, this one's going in my scabbard
I'll tell you that right now.
You ever seen a filigree like that?
And hey, what do you figure them letters is for, huh? That C.R.?
- Shut your damn mouth, Charlie Culliver!
That ain't but a boy in there, you addle-headed son of a *****!
- Okay then, Bill.
- Damnit, I am unwell!
[distant dog barking]
[platform squeaks]
[Long sighs]
- Can I get you anything, Lucas?
You hungry?
All right.
[door opens, closes]
[unsettling, tense music]
[floor creaking]
[gun cocks]
[gunfire]
[rattling]
[overlapping grunting, clanking]
- [loud thud] - [man grunts]
[footsteps approaching]
[keys jingling]
[gate clanks]
- You don't look like much.
Come on outta there.
- Mister, I don't know you.
No, no, wait! Sheriff!
[punch thrown]
[weak, hoarse breathing]
[distant horse neighs]
- Who the hell's cuttin' the wolf loose out here?
You get away from that boy, Mister.
God in Heaven.
- Put it down.
You tell any son of a ***** who comes after me...
That he will shake hands with the devil himself.
- Harland-by-God-Rust
[horse neighs]
[horse snorts]
[Lucas shudders]
- What'd you do to me?
Mister, what do you want with me?
Did you kill those men?
Are you gonna kill me?
I-- I can't leave my brother...
I gotta go back.
[Lucas groans]
- There ain't no going back.
We're taking to the tall timbers.
Straight to the Blackfoot Highlands til nightfall.
Now you do what I say...
And you might still be alive when we get there.
- Who are you?
- This ain't no game, boy.
I say ride, we ride, I say eat, we eat
I say sleep, we sleep. That's who I am.
Now get on that horse.
[eagle screeching]
- I'm calling for six men to come forward
and light a shuck after the Hollister Boy...
And that murderous son of a ***** what shinned out with him.
That's 25 dollars for any man that posse's up, plus expenses.
Tom Long!
Charlie Culliver!
There's not one man in this town with the grit to call to account
for what's been done to these fine men?!
[lively music]
[party chatter]
- Drink with me, Marshal!
Tanglefoot Mash.
- Go away.
- Do I offend, Marshal?
Do I cause umbrage?
Does the idea of bending an elbow
with a Bullwhacker like me cause recoil?
Is that what you're saying?
- I'm saying take your air elsewhere.
- Shame them cowboys what got Buck English and Tom Skinner
wasn't up to task with you last week.
Wood ****ing Helm.
- You just can't shut the **** up, can you, huh?!
It ain't in your nature.
- Wood, Wood!... Hey, buddy, I got you...
Harley, you get the hell outta here!
Come on, Wood.
- All right, God damnit...
What the **** are you all lookin' at?
Et invinies in omnibus...
What the ****ing Jesuits taught me, ****ing martyrs...
You know what that means?
You will find God in all things.
That's a good one, ain't it?
- Come on, why don't you get yourself
out of the main thoroughfare, huh?
You're gonna get yourself hit, Wood.
- Can you explain to me where God is
up in that bedroom with my boy?
Can you explain his part in that to me?
- No, I can't. I'm sorry, Wood.
The shit I seen...
The shit I done.
I knew a long time ago there ain't no God.
Woulda been nice to have been wrong though.
[pensive music]
[horse neighing]
- You stay put.
What part of stay put don't you savvy?
- It ain't even dark yet, why are we stopping?
- We're gonna sage hen it right here.
- Who in the hell are you, mister?
Mister, I asked you a question.
- Name's Rust.
- I ain't ever heard of nobody called Rust.
- Your ma Wilhelmina was my little girl.
She run off when she was young and married your pa.
- That's a damn lie.
My mama didn't have no pa, said hers died in the war.
- Your ma was a Rust to the manner born.
Just like you.
That lever belonged to my Grandaddy Coleman Rust.
He left his mark right there on the hilt.
- Don't come no closer.
- Give me that rifle, boy.
- You're a murderer.
- Well, that's something we have in common.
- You can go to hell.
- Next time you wanna kill somebody,
you make sure you lever one in there.
- Go twice then for all I care.
- First one's gentle.
Next one won't be.
- What were you looking at up there?
- This is Shoshone territory.
That scrub cypress there's a warning sign.
What's left of the Northern Shoshone been warring
with the settlement militia
all up and down the Big Horn Plateau ever since Bear River.
Be a shame if we wandered onto their territory
and they mistook us for Syracuse Minutemen
and we ended up losing our scalps.
We'll go around 'em in the morning.
Anybody ever teach you to set a snare?
- Yeah.
- Let's go then.
Trail coming outta the briar patch,
you look close.
[rabbit whinning]
Hold this.
- Have you ever seen a man hang?
- [Rust] Once or twice.
- What was it like?
- Ain't the kind of thing a man should dwell on.
[rabbit bone cracks]
[Rust panting]
Skin this.
Then throw him on the fire.
[distant horse neighs]
- Elwood.
- [clears throat] Laurence.
Thank you.
God damn.
- You're the one made it, I'd reckon.
- I miss your telegram, Laurence?
- Just rode in this morning.
What's the salt up in Hayesville?
- A man come to town,
kill't Tom Long and two Deputies...
Sprung the boy, what I understand he didn't go willing.
- Harland Rust.
- So they claim.
- The same Harland Rust what murdered Hick Roberts
up in Lincoln back in '67...
Dynamited all them banks up and down Arkansas,
what was that, '72?
- Yeah.
Done that robbery down in Crowley too.
1868, him and the Alvord Stiles Gang,
killed five men.
If I had to guess, he's headed for the Southern Plains.
- [Stilwell] Injun territory.
- Yeah. Settlement's are scarce.
Only jurisdiction belongs to the U.S. Government.
The boy had an Aunt on his Mother's side come calling
on his behalf two days prior.
Evelyn Bassett, up from Sheridan County.
- That mean something?
- Probably it don't.
- I want this son of a *****, Wood.
It's been going on eight years
since anyone's seen hide nor hair.
I'll give you men, resources, whatever you need.
- Be best if I travel light.
- At least take **** Miller along.
He's gonna be riding in this afternoon.
- Christ's sake, Laurence...
- If it's getting to where you can't throw a rope out there
without catching it on someone
I'd prefer you had more backup than just Drum
and them two Shitkickers out of Atchison.
I never met nobody hunted a man like you, Wood.
Never met nobody who kept files and used forensics
and whatnot
instead of just relying on good old fashioned pursuit
and capture.
How's your boy?
All right then, Wood.
[door opens, closes]
[flames crackling]
[intense music builds up]
[Lucas panting]
- You just got yourself killed, boy.
You really think you stand some kind of a chance
out here alone, instead of with me?
You know what happens when a man hangs?
If he's lucky, his neck snaps clean and that's that.
And if'n he ain't, well... he dangles for a spell.
Messes his trousers, eyes pop out,
go coal black while he chokes to death...
Might not die straight away neither.
Might take an hour...
Or two.
You really in such an all-fire hurry to back to that?!
- What do you care?
- I'll tell you what...
You show me all the folks you got lined up that do,
and I'll leave you be.
[pensive music]
[melancholy music]
[water dripping]
- It's a Godless thing,
keeping a man from burial like this.
- You can bury him now.
- You sure you don't wanna stop off any place else, Wood?
I'm sure Rust would appreciate getting out of Wyoming quick
as we can let him.
- Shut your ****holster.
- You don't look like her.
Her manner wasn't nothing like yours neither.
My mother was a spirited woman.
My pa used to say a man that looks over his shoulder
on a straight piece of road
ain't a man that led an honest life.
Might as well be talking to your horse as much as you got to say.
Better traveling companion too.
- He doesn't ask as many questions as you do,
I'll give him that.
Let's stop here.
- Ha! - [horse neighs]
- What'd you do that for?
- He was spent. You could tell from his breath.
Panic'll take hold and he'll run for miles then he'll drop.
Anyone coming for us'll have to account for those tracks.
We'll ride two up.
- I don't know what to call you.
- [Rust] Call me how you like.
- Will you at least tell me where you're taking me?
- New Mexico. South of the Mescalero Reservation,
town called Masilla.
- What's in Masilla?
- Man, I used to ride with.
I send word, he'll take us to the Mexican side
of El Paso, Guadalupe.
There's an Anglican school there.
- I can't speak Spanish.
- So we should go back to Hayesville?
These folks are from up North.
Teach wetbacks how to speak English proper and the like.
No lawman North of El Paso can come for you...
No bounty hunter would think to look there either.
- I don't want to go to Mexico.
- Want don't enter into it.
There's alive and there's ain't. Try to focus on the former.
- What about you? Will you stay in Mexico?
- The food don't set with me. Come on.
- She never mentioned you. My Mother, not once.
- [Rust] I expect.
[unsettling music]
[Tolliver laughs]
- [Fenton] Tolliver.
- Preacher!
Christ, look at this sorry rawheel.
- Man from the railroad'll be by tomorrow to collect him...
Take him back to Missouri to hang.
- Now what's an old reb like you
doing this West of Kentucky anyhow?
- ****in' your mother. [laughs]
[Reb grunts]
- Oh, a telegram come in for you.
Thousand dollar bounty just went out.
That name mean anything to you, Harland Rust?
He is the formidable sort.
- To merit a thousand dollar's I'd reckon so.
God bless the wicked.
For they continue to pay my bills.
[Tolliver chuckles]
[solemn music]
- Come on. Come on...
Don't be scared...
Don't be scared now.
- Hey.
- [Boone] Come on. Hey, you got it.
- Hey, shithead.
- Hey!
The devil what stuck me with you!
- Yonder come three riders.
- [gun cocks] - State your business!
- Boone. Clete.
You're lookin' prosperous as usual.
- Wood Helm. Drum.
What the hell you doin' out here?
- We're traking a couple fugitives headed South.
Man and a young boy, could use you if you wanna ride along.
- I don't know, Wood. We got these hogs now.
- Could pay you 200 each plus expenses.
You still uh... you still making that Lagu Pierre beef?
- I sure am.
Little clarified butter in the pan...
Rosemary, I'll splash in some of that Medeira.
I must confess, I've been trying my hand at a nice
vol au vent fianciere type pastry too.
- Main ingredient's bullshit.
- Bite your tongue!
Civilized men are conversatin.'
- So what do you say? You wanna come with?
- Well now I ain't had no kinda tender loving in a coon's age.
Maybe we could stop over if it don't slow you up too much
I could take my ease once or twice.
- Good Lord.
What kinda snaggle-toothed swamp donkey gonna let you
stick your pecker pole in 'em?
- You shut your mouth.
Come over here! Come over here and get your whoopin!'
- [Boone] Come get your whoopin' then! Come on, get it!
Come on! Come on!
[overlapping grunting]
[party chatter]
- Mr. Lang, have you met our Abigail?
Come down from Omaha last April.
- Hello, Abigail.
- Hello, Mr. Lang.
- Y'all play nice now.
- You traveling alone, honey?
- A man never travels alone
when he has the Good Book with him, Ma'am.
- That's how I come to call my son.
It's just him and me. He ain't but four.
Call't him Abel.
- Abel, son of Adam. - Mm-hm.
- Killed by his brother Cain.
Offered up the first born of his flock to the Lord,
that is a fine Christian name.
If I may...
I am Appalachian by way of being washed
in the blood of Christ
in the Loosahatchee River, 1851...
Name of Fenton Lang.
Langs of Tennessee, Polk County, third generation,
going all the way back
to my Great Grandaddy Preston Lang.
Though folks have taken to calling me Preacher
on account of me being filled with the word like I am.
You know I wonder at times if that ain't in fact
meant to be sharp in connotation.
[Abigail giggles]
[sighs] Oh Lord.
I am prone to the sermon I'm afraid.
[gentle music]
- Two weary travelers coming in!
- Identify yourselves!
- Merrit Cecil White here. Down from South Dakota.
My Grandson Pete.
- Cabin's full up.
We've been on the trail since sun up.
Boy needs a place to set for a while.
- You don't look like no kinda' road agents, I reckon.
- Willard LeRoy here.
This here chawed up scrap of weed's Emmett.
- Evenin.'
- Come on and warm yourself by the fire.
Help yourself to some of this Arbuckle's.
I find it to be an indispensable and unfailing beverage
more and more these days I must confess.
Serve it with every meal.
No, it'll just keep me up all the more.
So... where y'all headed?
- Arizona. Copper mine outside of Smith's Mill.
Promise of work there.
- Hell of a long way to come on one hoss.
- We had a nice Tennessee walking horse
tore a ligament outside of Greensburg,
we had to put her down.
[Lucas coughs]
[boisterous laughter]
- He's as green as salt cedar!
- Yeah... we're headed to Arkansas by way of Wyoming.
Changing world these days, you make your living as a trapper.
Fur done gone belly up,
what with the Bison being all hunted out
and waning appetites for beaver skins...
Ain't but a handful of trappers like him and me left.
Pretty soon, I'll be sittin' in some finery somewhere
Sellin' Ladies delicates. [laughing]
Well it's fixin' to get dark out.
Y'all feel free to lay them bedrolls out here by the fire.
[gun cocks]
Easy now, boy. Keep them hands from drifting.
- I don't understand...
It's a thousand dollars, boy. Don't take it personal.
- Relieve yourself of that longbore.
- I reckon you'll kill me even if I do.
- Skin yourself I said or I'll take the starch out right here!
- [Emmett] Willard!
[intense music]
[both straining]
[wet welch]
- [Rust] Don't come out til I say.
- Oh, shit. Can't believe it!
I'm shot!!
Please!!
Please... Mister, please please please please please no!...
Please!! Please please!!...
[gunfire]
- What did you do? - We gotta go now.
- What did you do?!
- What I had to do!
- [Lucas] He was barely older than I was.
- That Winchester was plenty old.
This is Indian territory.
Apache, Comanche, Arapaho...
Any one of 'em's liable to have heard that shot.
We gotta peel hide outta here now.
- I don't wanna do this anymore,
- I can't-- - Lucas--
- I don't wanna do this anymore!
I just want everything to go back to the way it was.
I wanna go back to the farm with my brother
and I want everyone to leave us alone!
- God damnit, stop it!
- [Lucas] I can't!
- Lucas, you ain't a boy no more!
My guess is you ain't been a boy for a while
now you might have been dealt a bum hand on that score
but that's the way it is
and cryin' don't make it no different.
It's just gonna make you weak to it.
Now come on.
[soft, pensive music]
[thunder roars]
[knocks on door]
- Ms. Bassett?
Wood Helm, Ma'am.
United States Marshals out of Sedgwick County.
Wonder if I could talk to you about Lucas Hollister.
- I suppose you'd better come in then.
- [Wood] Earl Bassett, he was your husband?
- He was.
Taken eleven years ago this April.
- This is your father?
- Along with my sister and brother and myself.
Taken in Chicago, we were born and raised.
I believe he was 36 at the time.
- I understand you went to Hayesville
to see the Hollister boy.
- I did.
He's kin to you?
His mother was my niece.
Daughter to my sister-in-law, Celia.
It seemed only proper that I go.
- Has the boy reached out to you, Ms. Bassett?
- His name is Lucas.
I expect that makes it easier for you, doesn't it?
The Hollister boy.
I expect that if you were to call him by his given name,
it would make him an actual living, breathing child
rather than another faceless bounty you're after.
- Not one to mince words, are you?
- The wise man speaks because he has something to say.
The fool speaks because he must say something.
- Aristotle?
- Plato. You're an educated man.
- Much as I need to be.
How do you know Harland Rust, Ms. Bassett?
- If you have any further inquiries, Mr. Helm,
I encourage you to direct them to my attorney,
Robert Clay Allison in Sherman.
- You weren't born a Bassett. You married the name.
Who'd you say your father was?
Who's Harland Rust to you, Ms. Bassett?
- Marshal...
I'm afraid this conversation has reached its dispatch.
- He's kin to you,
ain't he?
Your brother?
Good day, Ms. Bassett.
- He wasn't always like this, the man he became.
You don't know him.
- Did you tell him about his Grandson, Ms. Bassett?
- Please go.
- Ma'am.
[door closes]
- Who are they?
- Kiowa.
- [Lucas] They hostiles?
- Depends on who you ask.
- What's that paint on the horses?
- Means they're a raiding party.
Ain't bound by no reservation.
They'll be hunting Ute and Navajo clear down to Mexico.
- So what do we do?
- We wait.
We give them their way, they'll give us our way.
[indistinct chatter]
I'm gonna send word on to Masilla.
Scare us up some chuck too,
you're lookin' a little narrow around the equator.
What's that?
- What?
- What just come outta your pocket.
- [Lucas] Nothing.
- Give it to me. - I said it ain't nothing.
I said give it to me.
"Dear Jacob. I want you to know that I am fine..."
- Listen, I was just--
- Damnit, boy!
- I was just trying to let him know I'm all right.
- Have you lost your damn rudder,
you send this, it would draw a line straight back to us.
- We ain't seen nobody coming--
- There's always somebody coming.
Them two at the cabin, they knew who we were,
that means there's money out on us,
dead or alive, you savvy that?
- Who cares anyway, you cranky old mule...
- Hey, let me tell you something, I'm not your Daddy...
It's not my job to take care of you,
it's to keep you alive.
Now you tuck them horses away,
if anything happens you ride outta here and you ride fast.
You understand?
Do you understand?
- Yes.
[market chatter]
[distant harmonica playing]
- Y'all are taking your last looks at Henry Clay Pickett.
Was whiskey done him in.
Whiskey and *****s.
Never let it be said he turned a crooked card...
nor that he done a man a bad turn clear eyed and sober.
That's all I got, I guess.
- Into your hands, oh Lord, we humbly entrust this man.
Deliver him now from evil. And bid him eternal rest.
[crowd gasps]
- All right, that'll be 12 cents a word, dollar 56...
Thank you.
[dog whimpering]
- Hey. I thought I told you to stay put.
Now come on.
[soft, brooding music]
- Will you stroll with me in the promenade, my darling?
Voulez-vous marcher... avec moi de l'eau... ma chérie?...
- What the hell are you going on about?
- It's called bettering yourself, you dusty possum.
French as she is spoke. A jest in sober earnest.
I dead myself in envy to see her.
Je meurs d'envie de...
If brains was knives you couldn't cut hot butter.
That's good cornmeal you're wasting.
- Do you take umbrage?
- You takin' umbrage?
l'air n'est-il pas charmant à cette de la journée?.
Isn't the sky lovely this time of day?
Yeah.
You're wasting it again, I'm warning you, Clete.
- Do you take umbrage? - You take umbrage?
Defend yourself, you muley lipped ****sucker!
Hiya!
Grease bellied ****sucker I will do you harm!
- [Miller] Hey God damnit. Knock that shit off.
- [Boone] I'm gonna beat you to a pulp!
- You know, we ain't got time for such nonsense.
By all means.
- [Boone] You take umbrage?! Huh?!
I'm tired of your shit!
[overlapping grunting]
- I said pull in your horns God damnit, now!
- I wouldn't do that if I was you, no,
that's just gonna rile him up.
This one bucks close to the ground,
he'll fight you til hell freezes over.
Then he'll skate on the ice.
- Then what would you recommend, Drum?
- I don't know, Miller.
You're the one that got off your horse.
- Hey, Boone.
[gunfire echoes]
Don't make me tell your ma you two was scrappin.'
- Yeah...
Dead as corned beef these two.
- A couple Apache come across 'em, brung 'em here.
County'll pay 20 dollars per so
as to discourage folk from trading the teeth
and the eyeballs and the like.
- [Drum] Blue River trail area, you say?
- That dugout hollow in that dog leg,
two day's ride from Windy Hill.
- Oh yeah...
Got a little bite to it.
See here?
Bowie knife. Got them jagged little teeth on the spine.
Same pigsticker kill't Tom Long, I had to venture a guess.
- Buzzards startin' to gather out yonder.
- What do you mean?
- Scavengers. They come for the bodies.
- The hell you say.
- Fella from the county's supposed to come out
with the mail wagon Wednesday...
Take them trappers and the post on to Garfield.
Looks like them fellers ain't gonna wait.
- Say hello, Clete.
[Drum laughs]
- Damn, Clete, you could back a buzzard off a gut wagon,
but that was a damn fine shot.
- God damn wind kicked up,
otherwise I'd have taken the feather right off that bowler.
- Well... Goodbye old paint, for I am leaving Cheyenne.
- Got an appetite like a Coyote for a little scrap.
Like having a third man riding along.
You all right?
- I was just thinking about my Mother.
It's funny, I can remember every single thing about her dying
but I can't seem to remember her face.
- It's hard watching someone getting taken slow like that.
- I was the one kept care of her.
Think I was ten maybe, Jacob was barely walking yet.
The fever just kept taking little parts of her day by day.
- Let's eat up.
Got a long day's ride ahead of us tomorrow.
We keep up a good tilt, we'll make New Mexico by nightfall.
- What happened to you?
- How do you mean?
Why are you so full of hate?
You know where I'm from?
- Wyoming?
- [laughs]
I'm from Chicago.
- No. - Yeah.
My father was a newspaper man, Harland Senior.
After my time with the Fifth Regiment,
I come down to Oklahoma to farm
had me a hundred acre corn, another fifty hard durum...
We got flooded out in '65...
Smith Norton Bank took my land...
I dynamited those sons of *****es in '66.
And two more banks up the Ottawa Trail in '67.
I have not been on speaking terms
with the law ever since.
My grandfather Coleman Rust, he fought in the Apache Wars...
Kill't himself 38 Apaches using this very rifle.
Used to stay with us when I was a boy.
Taught me the Ozark back county. Jicarilla.
How to stalk deer in the Chautauqua Hills.
That cedar line...
Like hunting a whisper in the wind.
Not much paw and heller in that anymore, not for an old man.
I mostly go from place to place now.
Worked as a Brakeman... Run mustangs in the Dakotas...
Mule skinner, foundryman...
- Must get lonely.
- A man makes his choices.
- Did you know?
About my mother I mean?
- I heard something last August, I dont know...
I always thought I'd have a chance to...
Some things in this life you can't get back, I reckon.
- [Man] Hey! Get back here!
Come here!
- Whoa...
- What's all the bother?
- It's that reward went out.
- Bunch of ditch riders and mail order cowboys couldn't find
their *** with two hands, you ask me.
Who's the reward on?
- Somebody thought they mighta seen
that Hollister boy yesterday
while they was hangin' Henry Pickett.
Him and Harland Rust.
Thousand dollars out on the both of 'em.
Bunch of hell for leather types
have been coming through here steady since.
- Thousand dollars, you say?
Well... Time to swap some lead
and have ourselves a horse race, I suppose.
- We best get a drag on.
- He used to go on and on about this rifle.
My pa.
He'd strip it down every week,
polish everything all the way down to the springs.
This Henry...
It's ruined the life of almost anyone it's ever come across.
Them Apaches... mine, Charles Gantry's...
My father's.
- How do you mean?
- [Lucas] He killed himself with this rifle
a year after my mother passed.
- You're lookin' poorly.
Gettin' ready to boil.
Man I used to ride with about a half day North of Arnett.
We'll go stay with him. Come on.
[gentle music]
Your pa about?
- What do you want?
- Lookin' for Chunk Bowdre.
- I remember you.
Figured you for dead.
- [Rust] Chunk about?
- You're five years too late.
Bunch of men in hoods come for him one night
for something y'all done up in Nebraska 20 years ago.
They strung him up from that Mexican Blue Oak out yonder.
Hoping they mighta' found what rock you was hiding under too.
- The boy needs a bed.
- Ain't no bed here. Not for you.
Not for any of you murdering *******s ever run with Chunk.
- My condolences.
- You can take your condolences the hell outta here.
And don't never come back.
- You look after him, all right?
- Appreciate it.
- Frank Bascom.
You old alkalied mule, how you keepin?'
Wood Helm.
Well I don't travel like a Colt no more but I ain't complaining.
- [Wood] I was wondering if you still had
that old 40 rod Sharps...
Heading into unorganized territory
and I'd like to have something with a little more range
than that old Remington Rolling Block.
- Laurence Stilwell sent word from Ledford...
Fella from the telegraph office brung it over.
I'm sorry, Wood.
- All right then.
[thunder roaring]
[Lucas panting weakly]
- Hey whoa...
- Lucas...
Whoa... Whoa whoa...
[thunder roaring]
[dramatic music]
Hah!
[Lucas shivering]
- Shhhh...
Be still now.
- I don't think it's Typhoid.
Cholera neither, his back ain't all rigid
and I don't see no spots. I got some things here...
see if I can make something maybe to break his fever.
- I'm sorry...
Mama...
- Quiet now...
- I'm sorry!...
Mama!...
[owl hooting]
- He is as ugly as homemade sin,
but he knows how to toss them pots around
I will give him that.
- Old Boone's outdone himself again.
Made some nice squab chicken...
some of these fried parsnip cakes...
Little milk butter on 'em...
You oughta eat something, Wood.
- No I'm good. Look, look. Look here, look...
Little town called Mosquero, other side of Dawes Pass...
Only place for a hundred miles Rust can supply up
before he heads South.
I figure he'll be there in two days' time.
Liable to be too many folks on the trail
so he's gonna head right up over this pass
Now we stick to the trail,
we'll beat him there by half a day.
First chance we get, I'll send word to Stilwell.
- Maybe we oughta wait a minute, Wood.
- You know it occurs to me that I...
I've survived just about every lawman I ever...
I ever worked with.
You realize that, Drum?
- Don't put me in the ground just yet.
- Apprehended 146 wanted men in my career as a U.S. Marshal.
- Yeah? - 18 of 'em I sent to hang.
- Never did no damn good neither.
Certainly never seemed to deter nobody.
- [Drum] Well the only order that exists in this world
is the order we impose.
A man loses sight of that, he's got nothing.
You taught me that.
- Last year, I brought Tom Bell his self,
head of the Tom Bell Gang to justice
for killing them two fellers in Marysville.
When they asked Tom his final words up on that scaffold,
he spoke with a peace
and a clarity I'd never heard from a man.
Here's a man for whom the long,
hard road was finally over...
And it was with certainty he was going off
to meet his great reward.
But the second they pulled that lever,
I knew that was it.
There was no great reward waiting on Tom.
Just eternity of nothing.
And that's all a man gets in this world.
Eight years old, Drum.
[soft music]
- [Mama] Lucas...
- Lucas! - [Lucas gasps, panting]
- See you got some of your color back.
- How long was I out for?
- Day and a half.
You were in and out for most of it til the fever broke.
- Thanks.
[Kate singing indistinctly]
- That's a fine pup you got there, little man.
- [Samuel] His name's Albert.
- How long you had him?
- [Samuel] Two days. Boy and his grandpa come by.
Boy let me keep him.
- Well ain't that a treat.
A boy and his grandpa you say.
- [Kate] Samuel, who you talkin' to?
- Afternoon Ma'am. Name's Fenton Lang.
Won't ask for but a minute of your time.
- You from the bank?
- [Fenton] No, Ma'am.
- We ain't lookin' to sell.
- Well, Ma'am, I wouldn't dream of asking.
You're widow to Chunk Bowdre, that right?
Heard he'd been took a few years back, my condolences.
- You a friend of Chunk's?
- Gosh, no Ma'am, quite the opposite if I am to confess.
I'm the sort generally plays Coyote to Chunk's jackrabbit
if you take my meaning.
- You the law?
Not per se, Ma'am,
but I am registered official with the State of Tennessee.
I am a bounty hunter by trade.
- Dandy thing like you?
- Truth be told, I'm just passing through en route
to Fort McKinnley...
Managed to find myself between watering holes
and wondered if I might take the liberty.
[Kate sighs]
Well's 'round back.
Much obliged.
- You hungry?
Some more of these Buckwheat cakes for you, Mr. Lang?
- I couldn't possibly, Ma'am. I'm about ready to burst.
- It's been a spell since I cooked for a man.
- Must be hard just the two of you out here.
How long's it been?
- Five years now.
- Must get mighty lonesome sometimes.
- You sure you won't have just one more, Mr. Lang?
- Maybe just one.
[Kate laughing]
That is a nice laugh.
Good Heavens...
You have received the word.
- Yes, I have.
- He heals the broken-hearted...
He binds their wounds...
He's a father to the fatherless...
A defender to widows is God in his holy dwelling.
These last five years must have been a chore
for you and the boy.
- Chunk was no prize by any means, but...
I do miss him sometimes.
Miss havin' a man around the house.
- When's the last time someone's taken you to town...
Bought you a pretty dress or the like?
- No one's taken me to town in a long time.
Samuel.
Take Albert outside to play.
- [Samuel] Okay, Mama.
- And don't come back until I call.
[door opens, closes]
- What'd the old man want, Kate?
- Who?
- The old man that came by two days ago.
Had a young boy travelin' alongside him.
What'd he want?
- We ain't seen no one like that--
[clattering]
- Samuel told me a boy and his grandpa give him that pup
not just two days ago.
- He's imagining things.
- Oh, deliver my soul from lying lips
and a deceitful tongue.
- He was here. Two days ago, like you said.
I told him to leave and that was the end of it.
- Which way did they go?
- South.
Down the valley.
- Ma'am.
- [Man] Harland Rust!
- Harland Rust, present yourself!
Got me a seasoned gunhand out here, old man!
Do not be foolish!
You ain't chasin' the devil 'round this stump!
Show yourself I says!
[rapid gunfire]
Christ! God, I'm hit!
- [Rust] Lucas!
- I'm here!
- [Rust] Run!
Get the rifle!
- Rust!
You son of a *****!
- [Lucas] Come on.
- It's not so bad...
I just wanna rest here for a minute...
- Are you okay?
- I'm all right...
I've had worse...
Don't fret none.
It's all right.
We're gonna be all right.
[wind whooshing]
- You're bleeding pretty bad.
- I've been hurt worse.
- Yeah, but you're not...
- What?
I'm not young anymore?
- I didn't mean that.
- I may be long in the tooth,
but I haven't had my horns sawed off yet.
- Yeah, but if we can't stop the bleeding--
- Lucas. It'll be all right.
I just have to rest here for a spell.
You don't resemble your mama none.
- I know.
My father neither.
- It's Celia.
Your grandma.
I married her after the war.
I was 38, she was 19, your ma come the following year.
All went a cropper in '65.
Our boy Henry was born, the next day she was out there
sandbagging with the rest of us, trying to save the farm.
- The flood?
- Took everything we had.
Took my boy.
Bank come for the land soon after that.
Celia wasn't the same anymore.
One day, she walked into the South Grand River
and never come up.
Sent your Ma to live with Celia's kin,
I figured I'd just... [sighs]
Cut picket and drift.
- Why me?
- How do you mean?
- Why me and not her?
- I don't know.
I was never much good to her or anybody else, I guess.
- How many men have you killed?
- I don't remember.
- That you, Ike?
My guns are in their leather.
- You turn around and go back the way you come, Preacher.
- The old man do that to you?
- He's a curly wolf that son of a *****.
Ain't togged out in no sheep's wool neither.
- Don't suppose you might flush out a quail on my account.
- I said git God damnit.
We ain't in no sod pawing mood-- [gun fired]
- Which way?
- He's headed over Dawes Pass.
Got about a half day jump on you.
- God bless.
[Rust coughing]
[horse neighs]
[Kiowa Warrior sreaming]
- Don't come no closer!
- Aim co-BAH!!
Aim co-BAH!! Aim co-BAH!!
Aim co-BAH!!
- Trade...
This gun for the horse.
For the horse... Trade...
- Hay Stin ah-awn.
Hay Stin ah-awn!!
[Kiowa warriors screams happily]
- Strange boy.
[Kiowa warriors screaming]
- Come on, we're going in here!
- Now these sorrels are Injun broke mind you.
I'm tellin' you,
you ain't never seen a saddle tramp better on a horse
than these Cayuse outta Oregon.
What they name them horses for matter of fact.
Same as them Coo-e-tans...
Yeah, they's tryin' to make 'em all into farmers now,
you believe that?
Ain't never seen an Injun raise nothing but hell on a scalp.
Well, look what just blew in with the tumbleweeds.
- [Lucas] I'm gonna go find some help.
- I don't need any help.
- You're gonna die if I don't. - They's payin' 25
for a Kiowa scalp now,
50 for the whole kit and kaboodle.
And a Kaw'll get you 75 per.
- Is there a doctor nearabout?
- There was one with a line camp pulling up stakes
about half a mile West from here.
He might still be there.
- Stay here, I'll get back as soon as I can.
- Yeah I was there in Nebraska back in '79,
just outside Fort Robinson...
Them Northern Cheyenne got loose...
Them Winchesters set to rolling...
[imitates gunfire]
Kill't 75 of them scalp lifters.
[distant horse neighs]
We came across three of them Kiowa savages this morning
riding brush back through that
cross canyon six miles back.
One of 'em had the prettiest Henry rifle
I ever put eyes on...
Nice alkaline gold filigree...
[Lucas gasps]
Stubborn mule just couldn't let go of his Henry.
[laughter]
You know, supposedly there's an old man and a boy
traveling South through New Mexico...
They's offering a thousand dollars on the both of them,
y'all hear that?
Then in these two blow with the wind...
Hey, old friend, you look like a corpse forgot to fall over.
Why don't you let me buy you a drink?
Come on, a little coffin varnish
ain't gonna put your soul at risk none.
- Heaven ain't waitin' on neither one of us.
- Amen to that.
How about you cool that saddle for spell and stand up?
This thumb buster I got dangling at my side ain't no watch charm.
I don't pack it for bluff nor ballast.
I'm a high line rider, old man. I'm telling you to stand up.
[door opens]
- Harland Rust.
I want you to stand up nice and slow
and toss any shootin' irons you got.
- Whoa, whoa, whoa, we was conversatin' here.
- Conversation's over.
- Who's that sayin' so?
- The law.
- Ain't no law around here.
Ain't no iteration he's walking out of here with you.
- Damnit!... Damnit!
[Clete laughing]
- He hoorawed you good, didn't he?!
- Shut the **** up!
Put your ****in' teeth away!
- He's gonna die, you gotta help him!
- We're all gonna die.
- [gunfire]
- That bounty's mine!
[rapid gunfire]
[man grunts]
[rapid gunfire]
[horse neighs]
[rapid gunfire]
- Lucas!
- God damnit, Drum...
- Aw Christ that's a God damn two dollar shirt.
- Go on.
[Miller grunts]
[tense music]
[Rust panting]
- [Rust] Lucas...
- No...
Come on...
Come on, get up...
- [Fenton] You down there, old man?
[suspenseful drum tempo]
I don't like your chances much on foot...
I used to go hunting with my Daddy...
[Fenton howling]
- I want you to go now, boy.
And don't stop for nothing.
I'm gonna hold him here as best I can.
- I'm not leaving you...
[Fenton howling]
- You gotta go... - No!
- Come on!
- [Boone] Son of a *****!
God damnit!
****!
- Stay here and look after Drum!
- God damnit you're not going after him alone!
- Skin yourself of that weapon...
Or I'll put a hole in the boy's head.
I ain't one to make idle threats, Mr. Rust.
Formidable my ***.
[Rust grunts]
- [Lucas] No! No!
- You let go of that boy right now.
- Whoa now, Marshal...
Just take it easy, slow down now...
I'm on this bounty all legal and proper,
we's on the same side
now don't be a sore loser, I got here first.
- Turn him loose, we'll sort it out.
- [Fenton] Can't do that.
Now you put that head cutter down.
- I'm giving you a lawful order, turn him loose.
- Put it down...
Down, down, down, down...
There you go.
- Got more men coming.
Ain't no way out but the way I come.
- God will show me the way.
For I am his servant...
I am God's angel of wrath to bring punishment
upon the evil doer...
And this boy has sinned.
And he must pay the price.
Now let me do God's work.
Oh, shit. [groans]
[Fenton sniffles]
- Grandpa!
- [Drum] No, don't touch it...
- [Boone] Just keep pressing on it!
- Where's Harland Rust?
[gun cocks]
- [grunts] God damnit...
How bad you hurt?
- You're that Marshal Helm out of Wyoming.
- Nearly crossed paths once or twice.
Twelve years ago in Missouri...
then again in Sheridan County, '72.
- The Federal Bank in Kingman.
- That's right.
- Make a deal with you Marshal...
Let him go... And I'll come quiet.
- I can't do that.
- [Rust] He's not a killer.
- That ain't up to me.
- Thirteen year-old boy goes back there to hang
for something that never should have happened
in the first place?
Now where's the good in that?!
- It ain't my job to decide that.
- You got a son, Marshal?
You let the boy ride outta here...
And all the bad that come from what he done ends here.
Or...
You'll be the first man I truly regret killing.
You gotta go now, Lucas.
- Don't say that.
- Them other lawmen are gonna be ridin' up from Mosquero.
I want you to ride South
- a day to Masilla... - I can't...
You're gonna be looking for a man named Anselmo...
My sister she--
Everything's been arranged.
He's gonna take you to Mexico.
- I can't do this by myself...
- Yes, you can... yes, you can.
Now don't you cry no tears for me...
You understand?
Never.
A man chooses who he is.
Don't you ever forget that.
- Lucas.
Lucas. Go on.
Go on.
- Elwood.
- Laurence.
- You all right?
- Yeah.
- Christ almighty. So this is Harland Rust.
Where's the boy?
I asked you where's the boy, God damnit?
- He made a run for it.
Him and his horse went into the ravine,
fell a hundred foot.
Kiowa scavengers come for him before we could get to the body.
- So I guess that's it then.
- I reckon.
- Get this son of a ***** stitched up.
Ain't no point taking a dead man back to hang.
- [rooster crowing] - [bell tolling]
- You the Hollister boy?
Harland's grandson?
- Yes, sir.
- The old man about?
- It's just me now.
- Okay.
Name's Anselmo.
- I'm Lucas.
Lucas Rust.
[gate opens]
- Sure you don't wanna come with?
- Think I'll ride home alone.
- All right then, Wood.
Hell of a job.
See you back in Sedgwick.
- [Man] Hiya!
♪ Don't be afraid. ♪
♪ There's hole in change. ♪
♪ I am waiting I am waiting ♪
- [Stilwell] It's time, Harland.
Get him up.
[crowd clamoring]
♪ I am waiting I am waiting ♪
- Got a stiff rope and a short drop
waitin' on you, old man.
♪ You won't be long now ♪
- Go forth Christian soul from this world
in the name of God the almighty...
We pray Heavenly Father, this day,
for your divine justice, grace and mercy.
Amen.
- Um... uh...
I think this man's dead, Marshal.
- Kill him twice then.
- Lucas!
♪ There is breaking ♪
♪ The man I used to be ♪
♪ Older and love ♪
♪ Love is, love is an answer ♪
♪ I wasn't asking for ♪
♪ But my own feeling ♪
♪ I need a hero ♪
♪ Make believe you'll be the hero ♪
♪ I know ♪
♪ some things don't change with time ♪
♪ When you're on my mind ♪
♪ I've tried ♪
♪ So tell me ♪
♪ your story ♪
♪ I've been a killer ♪
♪ I've been a villain ♪
♪ But for a moment ♪
♪ I need a hero ♪
♪ Make believe, I'll be the hero ♪
[""Rest" performed by Decant]
♪ Blue Ridge Mountains ♪
♪ Great grey dessert ♪
♪ I will miss this place ♪
♪ Forever ♪
♪ Silver lining ♪
♪ Golden prayer ♪
♪ How I'll see your face ♪
♪ Forever ♪
♪ At last ♪
♪ When I lay my body down ♪
♪ I lay my old coat down ♪
♪ I lay the bottle down ♪
♪ I lay these old bones down ♪
♪ I let my body down to rest ♪
♪ I let my arms down ♪
♪ I let my guard down ♪
♪ I let my own heart down ♪
♪ I lay my body down at last ♪
♪ At last ♪
♪ I lay my body down ♪
♪ At last ♪
[ending music theme]