Days of Heaven Page #8

BILL:

Yeah. We've been together since we were kids.

You like her, don't you?

(pause)

She likes you, too.

Chuck looks down, feeling transparent in the pleasure he

takes at this news.

89TIGHT ON ABBY

The camera moves back to reveal Abby listening

in from the other side of the barn. Her eyes are full of

tears. How can Bill prize her so lightly?

BILL (o.s.)

Don't get the wrong idea, though.

90ISOLATED ON BILL - LATERI

Bill sits on the ground reading his Police

Gazette. Abby walks up and without a word of explanation,

slaps him. He jumps up and protests but quickly tapers off.

She turns on her heel and leaves.U

Bill sits down feeling misunderstood and abused. Does she

think all this pleases him?

1

91EXT. FAIRY RINGS (PRAIRIE)

Chuck, out for a stroll with Abby and Ursula,

shows them a fairy ring--a colony of mushrooms growing in a

circle thirty feet across.

URSULA:

I heard you farmers were big and dumb. You

aren't so big. Where do they learn how to?

ABBY:

They're so darling! Can you eat them?

Chuck nods. Abby snaps the mushrooms off flush at the

ground. The music underscores this moment. She smiles at

Chuck as she eats the dark earthy flesh.

92EXT. POST

They pitch rocks at a post and exchange

intimacies. Abby has grown more lively.

ABBY:

You know sometimes I think there might have been

a mixup at the

hospital where I. was born and that I could actually be the

interesting

daughter of some big financier. Nobody would actually know.I

(pause)

Are you in love with me, Chuck, or why are you

always so nervous?

CHUCK:

(Stumbling)

Maybe I am. I must be.

ABBY:

Why? On account of something I've done?

CHUCK:

Because you're so beautiful.

ABBY:

What a nice thing to say. Look, I hit it. Did

you see?

She goes right on with their game, as though she attached no

great importance to his momentous declaration.

93TIGHT ON CHUCK AND ABBY - LATERI

Chuck takes Abby's hand for the first time.

Abby, startled, gives him a gentle smile, then lets go.

ABBY:

What about my shoes? Aren't they pretty?U94EXT.

SWING:

94EXT. SWING

Bill sits in a swing and plays a clarinet. The

music flows out across the fields like a night breeze from

the city. Abby, passing by, glowers at him, as though to

ask if things are going along to his satisfaction.

95ASTRONOMICAL SIGHTS (STOCK)

Jupiter, the Crab Nebula, the canals of Mars,

etc.

CHUCK (o.s.)

It turns out that people might have built them.

Does that surprise you?

ABBY (o.s.)U

No.

96EXT. RIDGE - DAWN

They are on a ridge opposite the Belvedere

looking at the heavens through Chuck's telescope. Abby

tingles with a sense of wonder. Chuck has opened a whole new

world to her.

ABBY:

You know so much! Would you bring my sister up

here and tell

her some of this stuff?

97EXT. FATHER'S GRAVE - NIGHT

Nearby the grave of Chuck's father stands in

helpless witness to Abby's deception. A cottonwood tree

rises against the cold blue sky, still as a statue.

98TIGHT ON BOOK - FLASHBACK

A hand turns the pages of a book from Chuck's

childhood. The text and VOICE reading it are in Russian, the

picture of Russian wood folk and animals.

99EXT. VIRGIN PRAIRIE - FLASHBACK

Chuck's father rushes around marking off his

property with stakes.

100EXT. UNFINISHED SOD HOUSE - FLASHBACK

Chuck, ten years old, scours up the blade of a

scythe. Family effects -- a big green stove, a bird cage, a

table stacked with melons and a mirror--stand waiting in

front of their half-finished sod house. We see no sign of

Chuck's mother.

101EXT. PLOWED FIELD - FLASHBACK

A plow folds back the earth. The roots of the

prairie grass twang like harp strings.

The plowing done, his father sows the seed. Poverty requires

that for a harrow he drag a tree branch in back of his ox.

Over his shoulder he carries a rifle.

Chuck blows a horn to chase the blackbirds off the seed.

A scarecrow is rigged to his back, to make him more

intimidating.

102CHUCK AND FATHER - FLASHBACK

Chuck's father has caught smallpox. His face is

covered

with sores. Chuck wants to embrace him, but the father

wards him off with a long stick as he passes on some last

instructions in Russian.

103EXT. RIVER - FLASHBACK

The father stands on a ledge above the river,

filling his pockets with rocks to weight him down.

CHUCK (V.0.)

My father caught smallpox when I was eleven. I

fished him out of the river and buried him myself.

104EXT. SAND BAR - FLASHBACK

Chuck drags his father's drowned body across a

sand bar with a rope.

105EXT. FATHER'S GRAVE - FLASHBACK

Chuck heaps the last bit of earth on his

father's grave. The stove stands as a marker.

ABBY (o.s.)

So who raised you?

CHUCK (o.s.)

Nobody. Did it myself.

106CHUCK AS BOY - WITH COYOTE, INDIANS -

FLASHBACK:

Famished, Chuck eats from the carcass of a

coyote. Some INDIANS watch him from a ridge.

ABBY (o.s.)

From the time you were a kid? How?

CHUCK:

Worked hard, didn't fool around. I never saw a

city. Never had

time. All I ever did is work.

He digs a post hole with a shovel twice his size.

107PAN OVER HILLS-DAWN

The camera pans across Chuck's vast domain.

CHUCK (o.s.)

I gave my life to that land.

But what do I really have now? It'll still be here when I'm

gone. It won't remember me.

(pause)

I'd give it all up for you. I could make you

happy, too, I think-if only you'd trust me.

The camera settles on Ursula, playing with a dog on a seesaw

Chuck

has built her, then begins to move again, to a long shot of

Chuck and

Abby on the ridge by the telescope. Chuck is proposing.

108EXT. DORM

Abby has told him of the proposal. Bill broods

over an unlit cigarette. Is this a great blessing or a great

misfortune which has befallen them?

ABBY:

He's asked me to marry him.

BILL:

I never really thought he would.

ABBY:

I thought you wanted me to.

BILL:

Before I did. You cold?

Abby is shivering. Bill takes off his jacket and slips it

over her shoulders.

BILL:

What're you thinking?

ABBY:

We've never done anything like this.

BILL:

Who'd know but you and me?

ABBY:

Nobody.

BILL:

That's it, Ab. That's all that matters, isn't

it?

ABBY:

You talk like it was all right. It would be a

crime.

BILL:

But to give him what he wants more than

anything? Two, threeI

months of sunshine? He'll never get to enjoy his money

anyway.

What're you talking about? We'd be showing him the first

good

times of his life.

ABBY:

Maybe you're right.

At each hint of consent from Abby, Bill feels he must press

on.

BILL:

You know what they're going to stick on his

tombstone? "Born

like a fool, worked like a mule." Two lines.

Abby cannot say the proposal is devoid of principle. The

idea of easing Chuck's imminent death gives them just the

shade of a good motive. This would be a trade.

ABBY:

What makes you think we're just talking about a

couple of months?U

BILL:

Listen, the man's got one foot on a banana peel

and the other

on a roller skate. What can I say? We'll be gone before theI

President shows up.

He straightens his coat and smooths back his hair, to make

her smile, without success.

BILL Hey, I know how you feel. II

Hey, I know how you feel. I feel just as bad. Like I was

sticking an icepick in my heart. Makes me sick just to think

about it!

heart. Makes me sick just to

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