Blackthorne--Episode 107

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Blackthorne

Cinemagenic 107

Brotherhood

“We have never preached violence, except the

violence of love, of brotherhood, which left Christ

nailed to the cross.”--Oscar A. Romero.

1(two-shot) Johnny: Yes, it hurts to talk, but without

the talking, there is only the pain.”

Buck: Do you have a woman somewhere?

Johnny: Am I not a man?

Buck: Muy bueno.

Johnny: Mucho senora, and sons--but none like you.

Buck: I am honored.

2(sound cue) harmonica and Indian branch flute.

Johnny: The pain dulls, but I tremble with chills

and sweat. I do not want to close my eyes.

Buck: I will hold you and share my light.

Johnny: Yes, yes, for the darkness closes in, and

it is full of red eyes and white fangs.

Buck: I am here.

Johnny: You know I love you.

Buck: And I love you, brother.

3(steadi-cam shot during the conversation,

slowly circling the pair)

Johnny: I waited for you. I promised your father,

with the freight wheel tracks across his chest, 

with his dying breath.

Buck: Voices on the wind compelled me to

return, to pick up the pieces of the past, to

rebuild this rancho.

Johnny: He knew you would come, and I knew

it too; besides, I had nowhere to go. Waiting for

you became my sunshine.

Buck: You had never met me, how could you wait?

Johnny: I had met you in my heart, through your

father’s stories. But you are wrong--I did see you

once.

Buck: When?

4(sound cue) piano and guitar.

Johnny: It was after the death of your father. I was

camped near here when you showed up. I watched

you visit the graves, and I followed you into town--

but I never approached you. If you were to

stay, you would have, but you didn’t. You drank

and then rode like hell into the night on a black

horse. I had already been where you were

going, so I waited for you to come back.

Buck: Thank-you.

5(medium close-ups) lantern light flickering in

their faces, shadows dancing in their eyes.

6(sound cue) coyotes yipping and howling.

Johnny: Some men are together for ten minutes,

and things are in balance, blue sky in an eternity

of blow sand.

Buck: So true for us, and you are a poet.

Johnny: We see the same buffalo, we share the

same pain.

Buck: You may close your eyes, old one...rest.

I will let nothing pull you from my arms.

Johnny: Never, I will not even close my eyes at

death. I will see past death. I will watch the 

vultures pick at my body on my scaffold.

Buck: You talk much of death

Johnny: Because it is near.

Buck: It comes for these scum we have killed. 

They lie all about us like slaughtered sheep.

Johnny: Put me with your family.

Buck: I tell you that you will live to put me with my

father. Do not befriend death; not yet.

Johnny: For you, I cannot die. I need to take your

sons fishing.

They laughed, but it sounded like a whimper. He

relaxed, and put his own head on the saddle next

to Johnny. Suddenly he was very tired. He could

hear a chorus of coyotes over the faint crackle of

hot embers. The smell of charred flesh was in the 

air. Buck closed his eyes.

7(medium close-up) Johnny stared unblinkingly,

as he lie cuddled in Buck’s arms. He slowly let

his heavy lids flutter, then close. He had a small

smile on his lips.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub OLN