Dances with Wolves Page #13

The lieutenant is finishing shaving his moustache. He stares

onto the surface of the water trying to get it just right.

Once again he glances up at Two Socks.

Two Socks' attention has been diverted. He's on guard, staring

intently across the river.

Dunbar looks quickly at the bluff nearest the fort. Everything

is still. He looks back at Two Socks.

The wolf is gone.

The lieutenant hears something now. Hoofbeats. Hoofbeats

coming in a rush.

He bursts from the water and scrambles up the incline.

EXT. CORRAL - DAY

They're streaming past him. FIVE MOUNTED WARRIORS bunched

around Cisco:
raw, powerful men on painted, feathered ponies.

Wind In His Hair is one of them.

Their faces are streaked with colorful designs, their weapons

slung around the shoulders, their nearly naked bodies all

sinew and bone. They are the full and breathtaking glory of

war.

Dunbar is struck dumb. He stands still as the pageant passes

in front of him.

The sight of Dunbar troubles Wind In His Hair, so much that

he pulls up a hundred yards away. He sits a moment on his

whirling pony, trying to decide if he should confront this

white god.

He makes a warrior's choice. Wind In His Hair shouts to his

fellows to go on and charges down the slope... straight for

Dunbar.

Dunbar's eyes are fixed on the closing horseman. He can't

move.

Wind In His Hair is coming flat out, his lance extended. At

the last moment he pulls up so hard that the black pony skids

to a sit. The horse is up quickly and hard to manage. He

pitches back and forth only a few feet in front of Lieutenant

Dunbar.

WIND IN HIS HAIR

I am Wind In His Hair. Do you not

see that I am not afraid of you?...

Do you see?

Dunbar stares expressionlessly into the Sioux's eyes. He

doesn't blink.

Wind In His Hair suddenly turns his pony and whips after his

comrades. A big smile breaks out across his face.

Dunbar stares after the disappearing horse and rider. He

feels the weight of the gun and lets it drop to the ground.

For two or three steps he staggers toward the quarters, but

his legs give way and he falls face first in a dead faint.

EXT. PRAIRIE - DAY

Wind In His Hair is riding hard and happy. He really fixed

that white god. But as he clears the brow of a rise, a

riderless horse blows past him, running in the opposite

direction.

Cisco's running back, to the fort at full speed, the lines

of two ropes flying behind him.

The big warrior's smile is gone. He wheels his pony and

charges over the rise, nearly colliding with another warrior

who has been in hot pursuit of Cisco. The warrior pulls up

and looks helplessly at Wind In His Hair. But Wind In His

Hair's attention is focused on the rest of his party. The

three remaining warriors who rode with him are all on foot.

One is bending over a man lying unconscious on the ground.

The third is limping badly, trying to catch his horse.

Wind In His Hair glances back in the direction of the fort,

but the buckskin is already gone.

He starts down the incline to help his friends.

EXT. PRAIRIE - DAY

Wind In His Hair and his friends, two of them riding double,

are going slowly home when they see a COURIER coming in their

direction. They rein in waiting for the young man cantering

toward them.

He speaks directly to Wind In His Hair.

COURIER:

The party that went against the Pawnee

is coming in...

Wind In His Hair says nothing.

COURIER:

There are many hearts on the ground.

EXT. INDIAN CAMP - DUSK

Several travois are parked in a clearing. It's a scene of

terrible woe. On the travois are dead bodies. Women members

of several families are grieving as they collect the dead

men.

Some are shrieking, some are crying softly, and some are

beating themselves.

One group is just beginning to hoist a body off its litter

when a strange looking woman appears in the clearing. She's

been running. Her light, cherry-colored hair is tangled.

Her face is creased with pain and disbelief as she rushes

forward, crying out in Sioux. She pushes through the other

women and tackles the body, taking it to the ground.

She climbs atop the dead man, cradles his head against her

face and says a single word softly.

It is his name and she whispers it again.

Of course there is no answer. With each saying of the name

she is more desperate, her voice growing louder and louder.

She arches her back eerily and wails the name to the heavens

before flinging herself back at the lifeless face.

At last the other mourners feel compelled to drag her away.

The little woman does not go easily.

Her name is STANDS WITH A FIST.

EXT. SEDGEWICK - NIGHT

The lieutenant rides, a silhouette against a harvest moon.

DUNBAR (V.O.)

I realize now that I have been wrong.

All this time I have been waiting.

Waiting for what? For someone to

find me? For Indians to take my horse?

To see a buffalo?

INT. QUARTERS - NIGHT

Lieutenant Dunbar has gotten a beautiful shine out of his

best boots. He's putting the finishing touches on one of the

toes.

Dunbar places the boot next to its mate and turns to inspect

a dress tunic laid out on the bunk. His open journal is lying

next to it. He picks at little pieces of lint and brushes at

the smudges.

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