Klondike Page #11

FATHER JUDGE:

Proceed. Please.

A chuckle or two emanates from the crowd.

Tolstoy dithers. Discomfited by the nearness of a priest to

his homicidal intent.

Does he really want to gun two men down in the street? In

front of a man of the cloth?

The crowd begins to laugh, knowing what his intent will be

before he does.

Finally, Tolstoy lowers the gun.

People erupt into laughter, jeers, cheers. The public arena:

tickled, as always, by spectacle.

As everyone begins to disperse, Tolstoy lingers briefly.

Gives Epstein the stink-eye.

TOLSTOY:

God looks after you, does he?

(pure spite)

But even God, one day, must turn

his gaze elsewhere...then you’ll be

in God’s blind spot, my

friend...God’s blind spot...

He retreats with a glare. Epstein breathes for the first time

in about 3 minutes. Bill looks appreciatively to Judge

sitting there calmly.

50.

BILL:

That’s twice you’ve saved us.

Judge shrugs, stands.

FATHER JUDGE:

Saving a man’s hide’s not saving

him.

He smiles, bleeds away into the crowd. Leaving Epstein and

Bill there in the street. Epstein looks to Bill.

EPSTEIN:

What’d he mean by that? Saving a

man’s hide isn’t saving him?

Off Bill, faintly bemused--CUT TO-

EXT. DAWSON CITY STREETS - LATER

--Bill, tossing Epstein a satchel.

BILL:

We’ll get the rest of our kit once

we’ve staked.

(beat)

Best we put Dawson in our

wake...and get on with the business

we came here for.

As they head out into the dawn landscape, shovels and gear

clanking from their packs, a handful of people watch from

sidewalks and windows. People aware of them now before of

that earlier drama in the street.

A few we don’t know. But a few we do. Not the least of which

is Soapy Smith, who’s apparently made town. He considers the

young men with his usual opportunistic eye.

A few windows down, up in window, is another: a bleary-eyed

Tolstoy, watching. He gives them a twice-over, then closes

the curtains, turning in after the long night. Saving his

ire, and intentions apparently, for later.

Off the boys--oblivious to this--disappearing into the

landscape-

END ACT FOUR:

51.

ACT FIVE:

EXT. LANDSCAPE / “BONANZA CREEK” - DAY

The men move through the early morning swampy landscape,

fording rivers across fallen logs.

Bill surveys the landscape ahead. A knowing look on his face.

BILL:

“Just look for the cloud of smoke.”

Reveal, ahead:
the sprawling madness that is Bonanza.

10 miles of back-to-back claims. It’s a strange marriage of

the industrial and the primitive: windlasses, sluices, a

permanent haze hanging over everything from the ever-burning

fires thawing the permafrost. Dried food hanging in trees,

litter of empty tins. In microcosm, we are looking at Man,

butchering the land in search of resource...

EXT. BONANZA CREEK - LATER

FOLLOWING THE PAIR--further upriver--passing a claim. A

familiar face there. The Clerk from the hotel, visiting who’d

appear to be his brother.

Both men, no fans of the Semite, scowl at Epstein.

Bill & Epstein press on.

Everywhere, though, men look at them with gaunt, distrustful

eyes. A foreboding pervades. To these men, they are

competition. And they are not welcome.

Bill’s got the geology book in his hand, dog-eared by now

from travel and study.

BILL:

Look for alluvia. Natural dams. All

gold needs is a calm spot to rest.

Swiftwater’ll carry it for a bit,

but gold, I’ve learned, is 19 times

heavier than water, and as such,

it’s gonna wanna rest. And all it

takes is that calm little spot...

(beat)

That’s all we’re looking for,

brother. That calm little spot.

EXT. “BONANZA CREEK” / UPRIVER - LATER

Many hours later, Bill & Epstein arrive at the end of the

claims. It’s less than ideal. No more flatland. Just steep

rising knuckles of granite and scree.

The LAST CLAIMANT beside them, a bitter man hardened by too

much time work and too little reward, eyes them darkly. His

eyes survey them. Their nearness to the tattered string he’s

erected to demarcate the limits of his claims. Might as well

be the Great Wall of China.

52.

THE LAST CLAIMANT

You come to do some vulturin’ off

my claim, you ain’t welcome.

BILL:

Trust me. We respect the sanctity

of your claim. Which lies, if I’m

not mistaken, everywhere within

that finely expressed bit of string

you got there.

Motioning to their side of the string:

BILL (CONT’D)

Here now, if I’m again not

mistaken, is No Man’s land. Staked

by no one and thus available.

Bill turns his eyes to the jagged land, surveying.

THE LAST CLAIMANT

Flap em all you want. Doesn’t

matter no how, ‘cause there’s no

creek left anyhow. Not unless you

wanna haul up 100 tons of equipment

and do some lode mining up in them

cliffs!

Said with a motion up the impossibly steep slope beyond them.

THE LAST CLAIMANT (CONT’D)

Do everyone a favor and go back to

the Outside, you jackholes.

He goes back about his business. Epstein shakes his head.

Bill’s eyes, though, are intent upon what he was looking at

earlier.

He quietly guides Epstein’s gaze to a faint undulation in the

creekbed just upriver from the Last Claimant’s site. At the

foot of the escarpment. It’s...

BILL:

...a carve-out. Like there’s a turn

in the creek there...

EPSTEIN:

Even though there isn’t...

BILL:

Unless...there is.

He traces the carve-out in the streambed with his finger, the

way it arcs across the creek’s flow, as if joining the creek

at a 90 degree angle from an unseen source...

Both men’s eyes rise up the far bank...to the massive field

of scree there, sloping down from the high palisades above.

Unclaimed space. By all appearances worthless.

53.

BILL (CONT’D)

If there’s a flow under those

rocks, and we can get to it, we’d

be upriver from everyone else. With

God knows how much unexposed

creekbed waiting for us. Untouched

for God knows how many years.

Epstein looks at the daunting field of scree.

EPSTEIN:

If we can get to it.

EXT. “BONANZA CREEK” / UPRIVER - LATER

Hours later. Bill & Epstein, toiling. Struggling to clear the

sizeable chunks of scree. Back-breaking work, this. Last

Claimant casts a constant glare at them.

As they work, Bill’s thinking aloud:

BILL:

Figure, what, 100 years ago, 1000

years ago, there’s a landslide.

Covers the creek. Which by the

looks of it is pretty damn near its

source. And if run-off’s slowly

pulling gold out of the mountains

over the century...depositing it

along the creek...there are all

sorts of obstructions here...be

first stop for a lot of that

gold...gold’d sit right here, in

that calm little spot, waiting for

a couple of halfasses like us to

come around and show it the light

of day...

EPSTEIN (STRAINING)

You’re. Just. Guessing.

Bill nods downriver to the primitive-industrial string of

claims.

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