Blackthorne Episode 99

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Blackthorne

Cinemagenic Ninety-Nine

Outcast

"The most miserable outcast still hoards some
memory, or some illusion."--Joseph Conrad.

1(shot note) all of the scenes in this epic are shot

with three cameras, allowing for maximum

coverage--not counting the steadicam, crane

and drone shots.

2(one-shot) Johnny Eagle stood in the Buck

family graveyard; three graves, with plain

headstones, with a low white-washed fence

around them. There was ample room for

several more graves. 

3(sound cue) piano and cello.

4(slow pan) across the three headstones; left to

right, Martha May Buck--beloved wife and mother,

Jackson Tobias Buck--second son, and William

Tiberius Buck--husband and father.

5( one-shot) from behind the father’s headstone.
There was another Winchester cradled in his arms, 

a completely full shell belt of 30-30 brass strapped

around his thin brown waist, and the leather fringes

on his short vest and twin knife scabbards danced in 

the warm breeze that blew across the bluff.

6(sound cue) sweet coronet and guitar.

7(medium close-up) Johnny: Bill Buck, you were my

compadre, almost a brother. I miss your sad laughter.

8(tight close up). Now your son is like my son. Aye,

carumba, he is like you said. He is valiante. But I

must tell you, he distresses me. 

9(cut to overhead drone shot, near him, but slowly

rising) dialogue continues as Voice Over:

He wants to try and make peace with Bronson. You

know how foolish that is. Bronson is like a scorpion

with its tail erect. You can not reason with a scorpion.

10(overhead shot) levels out into a wide shot of the

ranch: But he is the Buck now, and I will do as he

wishes. Things change here, brother. Soon it will be

a grand rancho again, with lots of fine horses. Perhaps

there will be a woman here again, new blood, new life.

I think I will die here, and I will rest with my brother,

and his wife that I never met, and his youngest

muchacho, whom you said was always pale, who

never felt any warmth from the sun.

11(flashback) sepia photograph of Bill, Mary and

Jack on the front porch.

12(cut to close-up) But not today, old Buck. Not

today. There is so much to do. There is this pinche

Bronson, and your son needs me. I am his man.

13(sound cue) Spanish chords on guitar.

14(overhead medium wide low drone shot) the

Eagle ambled down the trail behind the barn.

15( a series of flashbacks)

Johnny, a stranger in Blackthorne, befriended by

Bill Buck. They liked to sit by the fireplace in

Pedro’s Cantina. Bill would play his banjo.

Johnny: They say I am too white to please the

Indians, and too red to please the white eyes.

Bill: Fuck ‘em, you’re just right for me.

***Johnny had scouted for the Army, and had

killed Indians, Navaho, Apache, Comanche,
Sioux, Kiowa and Crow.

***He ran with the Mescaleros for a winter, and

he had killed soldiers.

***Wherever he went, no one could break horses

like he could. At first he did it for nothing, for the

thrill of it .

***Then he teamed up with a black ex-cavalryman,

a Buffalo Soldier. They caught wild horses, broke

them and sold them to the Army.

*** one night at Ft. Riley, there was a drunken brawl,

and three soldiers ganged up on the black man, and

cut him to pieces with their bayonets. Johnny escaped

, knifing a guard on the way out.

*** He rode into Blackthorne, and got cat piss drunk

in the China Doll. Ramos had tossed him into a horse

trough in front of the saloon. Bill Buck pulled him out

of the tepid water, and half carried, half dragged

Johnny over to Pedro’s. He fed him beans and hot

coffee as their friendship began.

  

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub OLN