image from westernpulpcovers.com
Blackthorne
Cinemagenic 141
Counting Coup
“It is better to have less thunder in the mouth and
more lightning in the hand.” --Lakota Sioux Saying.
1(sound cue) Indian seed rattle over bones breaking.
2(two-shot) Buck bashed the thin face with a heavy
right fist, and the cheek caved in, and began to swell.
Paul sobbed pitifully. Buck raised his fist again.
Buck: Who hired them?
Paul: I don’t know!
Buck: That’s bullshit, Dandy Dan!
Buck jerked the gambler to a semi-sitting position,
pushing a fence post into his bony back. He buried
his knife into the wood inches from Paul’s face, and
slapped him again and again.
3(close-up) Paul: For God’s sake, Cash done it! Cash
hired them from down in the county! But I think you
already knew that.
Buck: I needed to hear you say it.
Paul: So now what?
Buck: Were you there?
Paul: Yeah, I was there. I held the horses.
Buck: Was Thor there?
Paul: Yes, goddamn it, yes...but we both lit a shuck
when you showed up.
Buck: You’re a gob of shit!
Paul: You’re a fucking nightmare.
Buck: Not yet.
Paul: You need to be put down like a rabid dog.
Buck: Not by the likes of you!
Paul: What?
Buck: Did you get a piece of ass tonight?
Paul: Don’t kill me.
Buck: You’re going to wish I had.
4(sound cue) bass drum and saxophone squawk.
5(tight two-shot) Buck punched him squarely in the
rib cage, breaking several. Then he smashed the
weak chin. Paul passed out. Buck felt at the big
artery in the gambler’s neck. Paul was still alive.
He extracted his thick knife from the fence post.
He split Paul’s nose, and then cut off both his ears;
slipping them into a medicine bag.
6(medium wide shot) To Buck’s left, the big
bunkhouse was lit up, but it looked empty.
Lights were lit in the main house, but the
upper floor was dark. The quieter backside
of the ranch house beckoned to him.
7(sound cue) guitar and harmonica.
Buck lunged from the corral, and sprinted
across the vulnerable space between him
and the shadows. He halted beneath an open
window. The thick shrubbery hid him. He
holstered his weapon, and put his ear to the
wall. No one seemed to be moving inside.
8(cut to wide shot) Monolith flames were raging,
as thirty men fought the fire.
9(one shot) Buck hoisted himself up, and crawled
through the window.
10(cut to interior) He had crawled into a vast library.
Expensive leather-bound colorful books filled three
walls, floor to ceiling. Two reading chairs and a
naturally-stained roll top desk furnished the room.
A tall pair of sliding doors sealed off the space. He
moved cautiously toward the exit. He slid one open
slowly. It revealed a dark hallway. He glided into
the thick shadows.
A great archway stretched out to his right. There
was a grand staircase leading to upstairs. The arch
led into a big living room, littered with several
cowhide-covered chairs and couches. There was a
mammoth fireplace cold with ash. Over it hung a
painting of the triple “B”s. the Bronson brothers--
Cash, Thor and Paulie, all in their finest church-
going threads, all smiling like royalty. The room had
tall bay windows that were steamed up and streaming
with sweat as the fire’s heat danced across the cold
glass.
Behind Buck was the kitchen. Two gaslights lit up
the room. Uneaten plates of food were spread out
on a linen table cloth atop a long table. The room was
empty. He strolled in and snagged a chicken leg from
a platter of tangled poultry. He munched it slowly as
his boots found their way back into the shadows.
Glenn Buttkus
Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub OLN
