Dances with Wolves Page #20

It's easier to see now that she was once white.

Suddenly she looks in his direction. The lieutenant quickly

tips his hat, but she turns her shy eyes away before he has

finished the motion.

Kicking Bird is riding down the line. The medicine man

gestures Dunbar forward and the lieutenant guides Cisco out

of line.

Through her tangled hair, Stands With A Fist watches the

soldier and the medicine man ride up the line.

EXT. PRAIRIE - DAY

Dunbar and Kicking Bird are riding together at the flank of

Ten Bears' entourage.

Far in the distance, the lieutenant sees something strange

on the prairie... pink bumps are dotting the landscape up

ahead. And black specks are moving about on the bumps.

EXT. KILLING GROUND - DAY

Beneath droves of scavenging black birds lies the body of a

buffalo. His hide has been peeled off and his tongue has

been cut out. The rest of his body has been left to rot in

the sun.

The column, so noisy and happy before, winds its way through

the killing ground in silence. There must be twenty-five

buffalo like the one we saw close up, all of them stripped

and rotting.

Dunbar looks queasy. The lieutenant glances at the medicine

man riding next to him. Kicking Bird looks sick too. Dunbar

looks away. The entire column is stretched along the killing

ground, looking.

A naked cow, covered with birds, lies on her side. Her new

born calf, doomed to death, cries for his dead mother. And

next to the calf, Dunbar sees something else. He sees wagon

tracks and the booted footprints of white men.

EXT. KILLING GROUND - DAY

The column is clear of the killing ground and heading deeper

into the prairie. They have left everything untouched.

EXT. TEMPORARY CAMP - DAY

While Kicking Bird's lodge rises behind her, Stands With A

Fist digs out a firepit. She looks up from her work.

Watching bashfully from several yards away is Lieutenant

Dunbar. Now that she has seen him he starts forward, perhaps

to try some more talk.

KICKING BIRD (O.S.)

Loo ten tant...

Dunbar turns to find Kicking Bird sitting on a pony just

behind him. Two dozen mounted BUFFALO SCOUTS are gathered

around him. Kicking Bird points at Cisco, indicating that

Dunbar should join them.

Tipping his hat to Stands With A Fist, Dunbar hustles away

to his horse.

Stands With A Fist faces the pit she's digging, not bothering

to look up as hoofbeats drum their way out of the temporary

camp. She seems to have lost herself in her own hands... the

hands that are digging out the soft prairie earth.

There is crying but when Stands With A Fist looks up there

is just one of Kicking Bird's children standing there smiling

at her. She goes back to her digging.

INT. HOLE - DAY (FLASHBACK)

The first light streaks through the burrow entrance.

Christine is exerting herself mightily in an effort to move.

But she can't and again she begins to cry.

More sounds from down below in the canyon. Hoofbeats. And a

whinny or two. No way to tell whether this is friend or foe.

But she can't stay in the burrow.

CHRISTINE:

Help...

She listens. The hoofbeats are gone.

CHRISTINE:

(louder)

Help me...

(screaming)

Please... I need to get out.

Someone is coming up the slope.

A moment later, hands are clawing at the walls of the burrow

and she is looking into three, surprised Sioux faces. The

face in the center is recognizable. A YOUNGER KICKING BIRD.

EXT. BUFFALO DRAW - DUSK

Two dozen riderless Indian ponies are tethered at the base

of the draw.

EXT. BUFFALO DRAW - DUSK

With Kicking Bird and the other buffalo scouts, Lieutenant

Dunbar is sneaking up one side of the draw. They all reach

the summit together and peer over.

They are there by the thousands, grazing quietly in the

twilight. The buffalo.

EXT. PRAIRIE - NIGHT

The buffalo scouts, Dunbar included, are galloping back to

the temporary camp. It looms ahead of them, the hide-covered

lodges glowing like candles in the last light of day. A big

fire is blazing in the center of camp.

Dunbar hangs back as the other riders go into the noisy camp.

A special event of some kind is taking place. As he looks

this scene over, Dunbar sees something remarkable.

Back in the shadows, behind the fire, is a wagon.

Dunbar and Cisco pace back and forth on the fringes of the

camp. The lieutenant searches for any sign of the white people

who came in the wagon, but finding none, he focuses on the

dancers moving in a circle around the big fire.

One of the men waving his lance is Wind In His Hair. Dunbar's

eyes track up the lance and there he finds the white people.

Hanging from Wind In His Hair's lance tip is a fresh scalp,

blonde and wavy. Several of the other men have scalps too.

None of the hair is Indian.

Dunbar can see into the wagonbed now. A couple of dozen fresh

buffalo hides are stacked in the wagonbed. It's all come

clear. The white men who killed the buffalo for hides and

tongues have themselves been killed.

Dunbar slowly retreats into the shadows.

EXT. PRAIRIE - NIGHT

Cisco has been hobbled nearby, and with the temporary camp

glowing on the plains a half-mile away, Dunbar spreads his

blanket on the open plain.

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