Blackthorne--Episode 104

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Blackthorne

Cinemagenic 104

Triage

“My life is triage.”--Andrew Vachss.

1(sound cue) violin and branch flute.

2(tight two-shot) Buck: I have never seen

such courage, old one; touching the Indian’s

shoulder lightly.  

      Johnny looked up, moving his head

slowly, painfully. You are wounded...don’t

worry about me. Muerto waits.

Buck: It is nothing, a flesh wound...but they

have shot you to pieces.

3(sound cue) seed rattle & cello.

Johnny: I see it again.

Buck: See what again? as he gently wrapped his

arms around the Eagle’s quivering shoulders .

4(close-up) Johnny: El Blanco.

5(voice over) Buck: Where?

6(sound cue) coronet over buffalo hooves.

7(cut to a wide shot) the great albino bull bison,

alone on a bluff. As the men speak in voice over,

the camera dollys quickly toward the animal,

halting with a close up of its eyes.

Johnny: When I close my eyes, there he is,

my totem. The biggest buffalo I have ever seen.

He stands on a knoll and watches me.

Buck: And he is all white ?

Johnny: As white as a bank of dirty snow, with

small pink eyes and black horns. I think, I fear,

he waits for me.

8(close up) Buck: He waits for us all, my

brother. Rest now...we will get a doctor for your

many wounds.

9(three shot) I’ll go, Salina said, suddenly standing

beside him. Buck rose, wiped the blood from his

eyes, put his hands on his guns, watching the

ranch house crash in on itself, his mother’s room

and his mother, gone forever. He pulled his

hunting knife from its sheath, and handed it to

Salina, handle first.

Buck: Cut your palomino loose, girl. There isn’t

any other available horseflesh.

Salina: These bastards, her small right

hand waving over the many bodies, must

have rode up here on something!

Buck: Their broncs will be picketed and

hidden. I’ll find them later.

10(medium wide shot) Salina cut her palomino

gelding loose. She grabbed a handful of thick

mane, and swung up on its back. Buck squatted

down next to Johnny.

Buck: Hurry.

11(sound cue) French horn, guitar and castanets

12(overhead traveling drone shot) Salina jerked

the horse North toward town, kicking its golden

flanks all the way past the great gray boulder,

her skirt and hair, and the horses tail flying in

the wake of the hard gallop.

13(cut back to two-shot) Johnny stared glassy-

eyed at the inferno in front of him. The grand

rancho tumbling into embers and ash--and he

looked beyond, to the evening sky, also on fire

as the sun of blood smeared across the prairie’s

rim behind the house, fleeing west from the

fists of darkness pressing against it. A blood

moon made its entrance.

14(sound cue) piano & violins.

Johnny, with his cheeks wet with tears: My Buck.

Buck: Yes.

Johnny: It hurts.

Buck: I know, compardre, I know.

Johnny: Not my wounds, no, they are numb. The

pain is in my heart as I watch all your dreams and

hard work go up in owlhoot smoke. 

Buck, one tear rolling down his blood-stained cheek:

They are loco if they think this defeats us. Hell, no.

Together, we will dream new dreams, better dreams.

Johnny: Uh-huh, together, new dreams.

Buck held him in his arms in silence.

But for now, let me treat some of these holes in

your tough hide.

Johnny: Yes, go. I will be right here when you 

return.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub OLN