Days of Heaven Page #5

BILL:

(suspicious)

What's going on? Who sent it?

She nods up toward the Belvedere and sets it down.I

BILL:

What for?

She withdraws with a shrug. She does not appear to relish

this duty. Bill watches her walk back to the buggy she

came down in. Benson waits beside it.U

BILL:

(to Abby)

She's the kind wouldn't tell you if your coat

was on fire.U

49NEW ANGLE - MAGIC HOURI

Abby, with the look of a child that has wandered

into aI

magic world, digs in. Bill looks on, suspicious of the_

motives behind this generosity.

50EXT. FIELD WITH OIL WELL - URSULA'S THEME

- MAGIC HOUR

A bank of clouds moves across the moon. Ursula

roams the fields, keen with unsatisfied intelligence. The

stubble hisses as a hot wind blows up from the South,

driving bits of grain into her face like sleet. From time to

time she does a cartwheel.

Equipment cools in the fields. Little jets of steam escape

the

boilers of the tractors.Ursula stops in front of a donkey

well. It nods up and down in ceaseless agreement, pumping up

riches from deep

in the earth.

51EXT. BEDROOM WINDOW - MAGIC HOUR

The camera moves through the bedroom window to

find Chuck

asleep on his pillow. The wind taps the curtain into the

room.

52EXT. FATHER IN CHAIR - QUICK CUT

Chuck dreams of a Biblical figure with a long

plaited room.U52EXT. Chuck dreams of a Biblical figure with

a long plaited

beard, in a frock coat and Astrakhan hat, sitting in a_

chair on the open prairie, guarding his land with a brace

of guns. This man will later be identified as his FATHER.

53EXT. FIELDS - DAY

The next day Benson yells through a megaphone

from atop a stool.

BENSON:

Hold your horses!I

The huge tractors start up with a bang. Despite Benson's

warning a team of Percherons breaks free. Threshing, the

separating of the wheat from the chaff, has begun.

54EXT. SEPARATOR - SERIES OF ANGLESI

Sixty foot belts connect the tractors to the

separating machines, huge rattletrap devices that shell the

wheat out at deafening volume. Benson tosses bundles down

the hissing maw, squirts oil into the gears, tightens belts,

chews out a MAN who's sliced a hand on the driveshaft, etc.

Bill works on the straw pile at the back of the machine, in

a soft rain of chaff, spreading it out with a pitchfork.

Ursula helps stoke the tractor with coal and water. When

nothing is required of her she sneaks off to burrow in the

straw.

Gingerbread on the eaves of the tractors gives them a

Victorian appearance. Tall flags mark their position in the

field.

Abby moves quickly, without a moment's rest, sewing up the

sacks of grain as they are measured out at the bottom of

the separator. A clowning WORKER comes up and smells herU

like a flower.

55EXT. GRAIN ELEVATORSU

Fully laden wagons set off toward distant grain

elevators.U

56EXT. COUCH ON RIDGE

Chuck and McLEAN, his accountant, sit on a ridge

away from the chaff, in the shade of a beach umbrella.

Chuck keeps track of operations through a telescope. Our

last view of Abby, we realize, was from his POV. A plush

Empire couch has been drawn up for his to rest in. At a

table beside it, McLean computes the yield.

McLEAN

This must be wrong. No, dammit, nineteen bushels

an acre.

Chuck sails his hat out in the stubble with a whoop.

McLean leans over his adding machine, cackling like a thief.

McLEAN

Say it goes at fifty-five cents a bushel, that

means a profit of

four dollars and seventy-five cents per acre. Multiply by

twenty

thousand and you're talking over six figures.I

CHUCK:

Big year.

McLEAN

Your biggest ever. This could make you the

richest man in thePanhandle.

(pause)

You ought to get out while you're this far

ahead. You'll never do

better. I mean it. You have nothing to gain by staying.U

nothing to gain by staying. I

CHUCK:

I want to expand. I want to run this land clear

to the Oklahoma border. Next spring I will.

McLEAN

And gamble everything?U

(he nods)I

You're crazy.

CHUCK:

I been out here all my life. Selling this place

would be like

cutting my heart out. This is the only home I ever had.

ThisI

is where I belong. Besides, I don't want to live in town.

I couldn't take my dogs.I

57CHUCK'S POV - TELESCOPE MATTE

Chuck takes another look at Abby through the

telescope.

25

58EXT. BUGGY

Bill drinks from the water barrel at the back of

Benson'sU

buggy, his eyes fixed on Chuck's distan

BILL:

Big place here.

BENSON:

The President's going to pay a visit next time

he comes West.U

BILL:

Got a smoke?

BENSON:

No.I

Bill puts his hat back on. He keeps wet cottonwood leaves in

the crown to cool himself off.

BILL:

Why's that guy dragging an expensive piece of

furniture out here? Reason

I ask is he's going to ruin thefinish and have to strip it.I

Benson hesitates, uncertain whether he might be divulging

a confidence.

BENSON:

He's not well.

BILL:

What's the matter with him?I

Benson immediately regrets having spoken so freely. He

checks his watch to suggest Bill should get back to work.

This uneasiness confirms Bill's sense that Chuck is gravely

ill.

59EXT. SEPARATOR - DUSKI

Abby is sewing up her last sacks by the

separator that evening when Chuck walks up, still in the

flush of McLean's good news.

The others have finished and left to wash up. He sits down

and helps her. Shy and upright, he does not know quite how

to behave with a woman.

CHUCK:

Probably be all done tomorrow.

(pause)

You still plan on going North?

She nods and draws her last stitch. Chuck musters his

courage. It must be now or never.

CHUCK:

Reason I ask is maybe you'd like to stay on. Be

easier than now. There's hardly any work after harvest. The

pay is just as good, though. Better in fact.

ABBY:

Why're you offering me this? My honest face?

Chuck takes a moment to compose his reply.

CHUCK:

I've watched you work. Think about it.

ABBY:

Maybe I will.

She backs off toward Bill, who is waiting in the distance.

CHUCK:

Who's that?

ABBY:

(hesitant)

My brother.

Chuck nods.

60NEW ANGLE - DUSK

She joins Bill. He gives her a melon, wanting to

pick up her spirits.

BILL:

This is all I could find. You feeling better?

(she shrugs)

What'd he want?

They look at each other.

61EXT. RIVER - DUSK

As Bill and Abby bathe in the river that

evening, he tells her what he seems to have learned about

Chuck's state of health. Down the way Ursula sits under a

tree playing a guitar. Otherwise they are alone. They all

wear bathing suits, Bill a shirt as well.

BILLU:

It must be something wrong with his lungs.

(pause)

He doesn't have any family, either.his lungs.I

(pause)I

ABBY:

So what?

Bill shrugs. Does he have to draw her a picture? A shy,

virginal light has descended over the world. Cranes peer at

them from the tamarack.

BILL:

Tell him you'll stay.

ABBY:

What for?

Bill is wondering what might happen if Chuck got interested

enough to marry her. Isn't he soon to die, leaving a vast

inheritance that will otherwise go to waste?

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