* MTV *
* slow, melancholy music *
***
[insects buzzing]
[flames crackling]
***
You suppose I did something to make the Almighty angry?
He just teaching you.
[scoffs] That I ain't a farmer?
Or that it's hard and takes patience.
Patience ain't gonna put money in our pocket.
[flames crackling]
I ain't about to quit this.
* strong, melancholy music *
***
[birds singing]
* slow, contemplative music *
[chicken clucking]
***
[insects trilling]
Step up.
Come on around. Come on around.
[insects trilling]
Whoa.
I suspect you know who I am?
Don't matter, seeing as you're fixing to tell me.
Name is Sherrill Lynn.
Deputy U.S. Marshal.
About 15 days ago,
me and another deputy, Horace Lee,
we went to serve a writ in Choctaw Nation.
[Sherrill clears throat]
[Sherrill spits into cup]
We lit out after this red named "One Charlie."
Charged with introduction of whiskey.
One Charlie popped Old Horry right through the lung,
and he lay there for a good hour or so,
dying... bad.
And I take things like that personal.
It's a dangerous job.
Judge Parker got his hands full.
He does.
But just yesterday,
we got a lead on an unruly broad
who's putting a roof over One Charlie's skull.
His wife.
Fiercer than Mother Nature herself.
And you need somebody who knows Choctaw.
That...
and someone who could shoot better than dear old Horace.
What's your offer?
Now, I spoke with Parker directly.
And he said to sign you up as a posse man.
-Whose posse man, now? -Mine.
Appreciate you, Deputy, but I'm a farmer.
How many mouths you got to feed with no harvest?
You can keep the cup.
Why not do it?
Figure I got a good reason right in front of me,
four more upstairs.
Maybe five by tomorrow.
When we had nothing, we dreamed of everything.
This land, you...
That is everything.
Bass... [chuckles]
A man rode up here and asked for you.
By name.
A man with an opportunity, a choice.
[scoffs] We don't get many of those, now, do we?
A white man with a gun
and all that come with it.
A gun is just a thing, a tool, an instrument.
What matters is who plays it, and you Gabriel.
Honey, you only seen me shoot wild turkeys and feral hogs.
Without a bullet wasted.
I'm content to farm.
I'm free.
Are you?
* majestic music *
***
You got three types of rogues around these parts.
There's the kind that steals horses,
the kind that supplies whiskey,
and the kind that's happy to cut your heart out over both.
Welcome to the Dead Line.
You best load that antique of yours.
Out here, there ain't no laws, only outlaws.
[indistinct chatter]
Beautiful.
Excuse me?
The piano, ma'am. It's beautiful.
You play?
I'm sure your soaps or liniments
or tonics are marvels, but I don't have time.
Do you have a sense if it's a boy or a girl?
I have a sense you want something from me.
No.
I want something for you.
Let us seize the promise of Reconstruction.
Black paradise.
An entire state to call our own.
There's only one paradise,
and that's the one above.
-[entry bells jingle] -[laughs softly]
* majestic music *
***
Eyes up, Posse Man.
We're in it now.
Check that mess.
[wind whistling]
* slow, suspenseful music *
***
[horse sputters]
[shallow breathing]
[gasping]
Run.
[gunshots]
[gunshots continue]
[grunts]
Yah!
[birds begin singing]
[horse snorts]
Heavenly Father,
I pray You meet his soul with Your abundance of love
as he enters Your Heavenly Kingdom.
[harness jingling]
Amen.
Hmm.
You still believe in a Lord
that let you spend half your life in chains?
Man made those chains.
It was God who gave me the hope
to believe in a future without 'em.
Look what hope got him.
Prayers don't hurt.
Yeah. They don't help much, neither.
Let's go.
Where there's one crooked vulture,
there's soon to be more.
* slow, somber music *
***
[clicks tongue]
[Bass] That bitter
and hasty nation,
which shall march through the breadth of the land,
to possess the dwelling places
that are not theirs.
They are terrible and dreadful:
their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves.
They shall come all for violence.
Their faces shall sup up the east wind...
...and they shall gather the captivity
as the sand.
-[insects trilling] -[campfire crackling]
[Sherrill] Not hungry?
[Bass] Not hungry enough.
[Sherrill] Food gets scarce around these parts.
Last winter, I plucked me a crow,
and I got a good taste
of what he was scrounging on the day before.
You pay me an extra five dollars,
I'll scrounge you up something better than crow.
Well, you've got yourself a hell
of an entrepreneurial spirit, Bass.
Now what I want to see is some of that mystical bullshit
them savages taught you.
I don't see no savages.
Just men.
No different than you or me.
They're all killers, all thieves.
That ain't true, Sherrill.
Oh, you want to know the truth?
Thick of fighting, June 1864.
We was sailing the J.R. Williams up the Arkansas.
Big old sturdy steamboat.
And a whole herd of them animals, they bushwhacked us.
They had a whole cadre of, uh, cannons hidden
high back up there in the timber,
overlooking the river.
The pilot house took the first ball,
then the boiler,
then the smokestack, and then
we were just all drowning in the blood and the river.
* slow, suspenseful music *
***
Most of us didn't make it out of that iron coffin.
And those of us who did, we didn't get very far.
Watie and his reds,
they were waiting for us up on the muddy bank.
I was nearly dead myself.
About a half-second before I got a glimpse
of my eternal damnation...
...pain just as bright as the sun
just ripped me back into life.
And I've got a knee on my throat.
And this unruly red bastard,
he's sawing away at my scalp
like he's a goddamn fur trapper.
***
It's hard for a man to put fear and hate behind him.
Oh, hell, Bass, I ain't even trying.
Black, white or red,
we all just men.
[Sherrill] Shit.
[crow cawing]
[insects trilling]
Why this man called "One Charlie"?
'Cause there ain't another Charlie like him.
* slow, suspenseful music *
***
-[indistinct chatter] -[insects buzzing]
[indistinct chatter]
***
[indistinct chatter continues]
You do the serpent's tongue.
I do the roughhouse.
Go on.
* slow, gentle music *
***
[speaking Choctaw]
I see you.
Step aside, Posse Man.
[grunts]
[groans]
Open the goddamn door!
Get more bees with honey, Sherrill.
Or I might get stung.
-Whoa! -[clicks]
[chuckling]
Hey, get your damn hands off me!
Let me talk to her.
Just give me five minutes, alone.
* slow, haunting music *
***
[sighs]
***
[birds singing]
Yes, ma'am.
* slow, gentle music *
***
[insects trilling]
What is it?
Something I've been waiting to call my own.
Watch the legs now. She a precious thing.
Get inside, little girl.
What's your name?
Arthur Mayberry, ma'am.
Well, Arthur, get to it.
Yes, ma'am.
[birds singing]
[insects trilling]
She's likely leading us straight into an ambush.
She ain't.
Ride easy, Sherrill.
[man] Oh, shit.
[panting]
-Ride hard, Bass! -Whoa!
* dramatic, energetic music *
***
[horse neighs]
[guns clicking]
Come on out with your hands up.
Might not understand you.
[gunshot]
[bottles clinking]
[Sherrill] Let's boom back, Bass.
[gunfire continues]
Your arm.
Lay down cover, and I'll go around back.
You got some brass balls, Bass.
Ready?
Yeah.
[gunshots]
Charlie!
[Charlie] Dead today, dead tomorrow.
What's the damn difference?!
Dignity, that's what.
Lay them irons down,
and I'll escort you all the way to Fort Smith myself.
[Charlie] Ah, Sherrill won't let that happen.
You have my word.
Keep him talking, Bass!
Charlie? Charlie?
* intense, pulsing music *
***
[Charlie screaming]
Charlie?!
-[doorknob rattling] -Charlie!
[Charlie continues screaming]
Charlie?
Hold on now!
Charlie?
Charlie!
[yelling]
[yelling continues]
What the hell'd you do?!
[Charlie yelling]
Saving us time.
[yelling]
He ain't worth the bullet.
[yelling]
One Less Charlie, I suppose.
[flames crackling]
[insects trilling]
[match strikes]
* gentle, haunting music *
***
[distressed lowing]
[quiet growl]
[insects trilling]
[animals lowing]
[low growling]
[animal lowing]
[pained lowing]
[growling]
[whimpering, barking]
* slow, ominous music *
***
[calf chuffing]
Hush now.
[calf grunts]
***
[yelling echoes]
[Sherrill groans]
Sometimes you got to be judge,
jury and executioner.
Charlie shot first.
If that devil had just done what I told him to do,
you wouldn't have had to pump lead into his thick skull.
Better than being a dead one.
Or a poor farmer.
-*** -[dialogue inaudible]
[Sherrill groaning]
[insects trilling]
[Sherrill groans]
[Sherrill grunts]
You leave here,
don't you be thinking you gonna get one thin cent
of what I promised you.
That scar on your head?
It's got chains around your heart.
Spoken from a man who knows.
You like the man you are, Deputy?
* slow, melancholy music *
***
[cattle lowing]
[insects trilling]
[sighs]
Didn't mean to disturb you, ma'am.
[chuckles] And yet, you slip over?
I did see that your piano needs fixing.
I could maybe help with that.
You're a sweet boy, Arthur,
which is why I'm going to do you the service of saying,
don't come back here again.
Not till Sally's older.
* slow, tender music *
***
Hmm.
-[indistinct chatter] -[hawk calling]
-[playing piano slowly] -[rocking chair creaking]
You're hurting my ears.
[stops playing]
Spare your mama the honesty just once and come sit with me.
What's so special about this old thing?
Nothing yet, but you and I are gonna resurrect it.
Why can't Harriet?
'Cause when you were growing in my belly,
I played all the time.
-You did? -Mm-hmm.
Mistress on the plantation fancied herself kind
by teaching me how.
-I'd never play again, then. -Mm, see,
the piano was hers, but the music?
[plays a few chords]
That was all mine.
Always have something that's yours
and yours alone, baby.
[insects trilling]
* slow, suspenseful music *
***
[bird squawking]
-Daddy! -Daddy!
-Daddy. -Dad.
Daddy.
Hi, Bass.
How the one I haven't met?
Restless like my granddaddy.
Thought if he's a boy, we should name him "Bennie" in his honor.
[Bass chuckles softly]
Man in town tried to sell me paradise, so,
I bought that piano instead.
With what?
With the promise
that my husband was making a decent payday.
About that...
About what?
Um...
...I hit another white man.
Not that deputy?
I'm sorry.
I'll figure a way to pay for the piano.
[sighs]
Hup, hup.
[birds singing]
[chickens clucking]
Come on around. Come on around.
-Step up. -* dark, suspenseful music *
Whoa.
Take the kids inside!
Get your brother and sisters in the house.
-But Mama-- -Girl, I'm not asking.
Come on.
No need to puff your chest in front of my family.
Hmm.
[Sherrill] Just so we're clear,
I would've done One Charlie the same way
and not think twice about it if it meant it was you and I
walking away from there with air in our lungs.
And I'm not looking to take anything back, either.
Christ, Bass.
You are the most earnest man I have ever met.
Which is likely to get you killed one day.
You got sand for this.
Most men don't.
What you saying?
I had a, uh...
revelation, if you will,
and I took some of your earnestness to Judge Parker.
And?
And he wants to make you
a goddamn Deputy U.S. Marshal.
* dramatic, swelling music *
***
You think you can handle the weight of the badge?
[Bass] I know I can.
[insects trilling]
Hey, handsome.
Sally okay?
Let's just say we got a whole new wolf to worry about.
-[sighs] -She'll be fine.
[Jennie chuckles]
She listens to you.
[sighs] She dream of faraway places.
I can't fault her.
One day, them dreams gonna take her far away,
and she won't come back the same.
We didn't.
But our love held strong.
* dramatic, optimistic music *
Hers will, too. That won't change.
Mm.
God showed us the way.
And now?
Do His will.
Justice.
***
[Parker] I need a man
with a good gun and a straight spine.
You up for the task?
[Garrett] Billy Crow.
Wanted in connection with a stagecoach robbery.
Well, I can help you with that, Deputy Reeves.
Gonna hold you to that.
[Parker] It's hard work.
It exacts a toll.
Few men survive long enough to be good at it.
You gonna shoot me?
No.
But they will.
* gentle, haunting music *
***