Days of Heaven Page #18

URSULA:

What'd you do that for?

Bill wonders himself. To get revenge on Abby? He touches her

breast.

URSULA:

Don't.

BILL:

Why not?

URSULA:

Cause there's nothing there.

BILL:

I can be the judge of that.

URSULA:

Then ask first.

He kisses her neck.

BILL:

Nobody has to know but us chickens.

(pause)

What do I have to say to convince you? You tell

me, I'll say it.

URSULA:

What makes you think I would?

BILL:

Nothing.

She giggles and kisses him back. But guilt has caught up

with him. He cannot go ahead.

URSULA:

What's the matter?

No reply.

URSULA:

Maybe it would be wrong.

(disappointed)

You still love her, don't you?

Bill hums a rock off toward the horizon.

BILL:

I should've gone in the church, like my father

was after me to.

229BILL'S POV - OUTSIDE THE BELVEDERE - NIGHT

Chuck and Abby sit in their cozy living room

playing Parcheesi. The sound of their voices is muffled. The

camera draws back to reveal Bill outside the window,

watching.

She is comfortable with Chuck now. Apparently, he has lost

his place in her heart. He wants to rush in and drag her

away.

230EXT. BEDROOM WINDOW - NIGHT

Later that night he stands under the bedroom

window and wonders at the meaning of the shadows that

flicker across the ceiling. After a moment he withdraws into

the darkness.

231EXT. SMALL PRAIRIE TOWN (DUCK LAKE)

Bill has brought Abby into a nearby town to make

some purchases. Dressed in a chauffeur's gown and goggles,

he sits against the fender of the Overland watching her move

from store to store. Ursula is with her.

The TOWNSPEOPLE all speak German. Their peasant costumes are

freely mixed with Western dress. The signs are old German

script. Two MEN carry a huge bulb through the street, to put

atop a church.

232OVERLAND AUTO

Abby walks up with Ursula.

URSULA:

Listen, I'm going to stay and go back with the

laundry wagon.

Abby looks at Bill, then nods okay. Ursula runs off. Bill

opens the door, and she gets in.

233EXT. ROAD OUTSIDE TOWN (DUCK LAKE)

They are stopped on the road a hundred yards

outside the town.

Abby smokes as Bill checks the radiator. Something in his

behavior leads us to suspect he may have staged this stop.

BILL:

How you been doing?

ABBY:

Me? Fine.

BILL:

We don't talk so much these days.

ABBY:

I know.

She knows what he wants. She cannot give it anymore.

BILL:

I said a lot of stupid things before I went off.

ABBY:

(politely)

I forgot about it already.

Bill, trying his best to make peace with her, cannot help

seeing that she would like to keep things as they are--and

not because she harbors any grudge.

BILL:

You've forgiven me?

ABBY:

There was nothing to forgive.

He holds a bottle of liquor out to her.

BILL:

What're you worried about?

She takes a swig. He laughs. She laughs back.

BILL:

So how'm I doing with you?

ABBY:

Fine.

He takes her hand and holds it like a trapped bird.

BILL:

What's happened?

She shrugs, disengaging her hand to brush aside her hair.

She is painfully aware of his suffering but doesn't have the

heart to tell him how it all is.

BILL:

I probably ought to leave. I will.

ABBY:

Already? You just got here.

She hasn't really contradicted him. He leans forward as

though to kiss her. She lets him. She wishes that she could

give herself to him, but she doesn't know what is right.

Then, a sudden impulse of panic, she gets up and backs away.

BILL:

Where you going?

He reaches out to catch her. She breaks away and starts to

run. He walks quickly after her, cutting off any escape

toward the town.

ABBY:

Why'd you have to come back?

BILL:

I'm not going to hurt you. I only want to talk

with you.

She stops and hides her face in her hands. He gently pulls

them away.

BILL:

I didn't come back to make trouble for you. I

guess we were fooling

each other to think it could last. I mean, What was I

offering youanyhow? A ride to the bottom. Looking at you

now, in the right clothes and everything, I see how crazy I

was and--well, I understand. It's okay. I sort of cut my own

throat, actually.

Her eyes close and her legs give in. Bill lets her go and

backs off a step in surprise. She sinks to the ground, as

though in a trance.

234TIGHT ON BILL

Bill, taken by surprise, goes up and kneels down

beside her. He looks to see that she is okay. He picks a

fox-tail out of her hair. Her dress has worked up toward her

knees. He pulls it back down. He wants to caress

her face but hesitates.

BILL:

How'd we let it happen, Abby? We were so happy

once. Why didn't we starve? I love you so much. What have1

done? You're so beautiful. What have I done?

He touches his lips for a fraction of a second to hers,

notices another car approaching down the road. He picks her

up like a doll and carries her back to the Overland.

235EXT. BELVEDERE - CHUCK'S POV

They have arrived back at the Belvedere.

ABBY:

I'm sorry.

She touches his face in a surge of sympathy. What has she

done to him? He kisses her neck and leads her toward the

front door.

236CRANE TO CHUCK

The camera rises to the uppermost story of the

Belvedere. Chuck has seen them. Hot tears leap to his eyes.

Before Bill left for the winter he often observed such

intimacies between them. Now it all looks different.

237CHUCK'S POVS (HIGH ANGLES)

He looks around at his estate--his barn, his

auto, his great house and his granary. None of them is any

consolation now. Far a moment it seems to him as though he

lived here in some time long past.

238INT. BEDROOM

Abby notices Chuck watching her outside the

bedroom door.

ABBY:

You want something from me?

CHUCK:

No.

ABBY:

Will you hand me that magazine?

He gives her the magazine she wants.

ABBY:

What's the matter?

He seems for a moment to consider telling her, then shrugs

and goes downstairs.

239INT. LIVING ROOM

He stumbles into a bird cage but hardly notices.

The jostled birds raise a fuss.

240EXT. FRONT PORCH

He runs into Bill on the front porch.

BILL:

I've been looking for you. I have to take off

again, real soon here, and...

Chuck puts a hand on Bill's shoulder, stopping him. They

look at each other for a moment, then he passes on. Bill

seems puzzled.

241EXT. FIELDS

Chuck walks out into the deep of his fields. The

wheat, a warm dry gold, is almost ready to take in. He sits

down and rests his head against a

furrow, powerless to think. The wind makes a song in the

infinitude of sweet clicking heads.

He puts his hands over his heart and breathes in gasps, with

the dumb honesty of a wounded animal. He could not himself

quite say what it is that he knows.

242EXT. BONANZA - SERIES OF ANGLES

Late that afternoon disaster strikes as a swarm

of locusts sweeps down on the bonanza. We do not see where

they come from. They seem to appear out of nowhere,

unnoticed. Ursula works in the kitchen, Bill by the barn.

Chuck lies asleep in the field, Abby upstairs in bed.

243ANIMALS ON BONANZA

The animals sense it first. The buffalo move off

in a mass. The horses become uncontrollable. One runs around

the barn in a panic. Bill watches it, puzzled.

Two peacocks have a fight.

A dog in the treadmill races in vain to escape, driving the

machine to a feverish pitch. The shadow of a giant cloud

licks over the hills.

Rate this script:3.0 / 3 votes