Klondike Page #18

Other miners are carried off like sticks in a waterfall.

Bill struggles frantically up the hill.

THE ENCAMPMENT:

We’re in the first moments after the disaster. CHAOS

everywhere. The injured SCREAMING. Miners pulling other

miners out of the mud. OUR VIEW whips to...

A MAN COVERED HEAD TO TOE WITH MUD standing stock still (a

mud snowman) a jagged piece of wood piercing his shoulder. He

doesn’t appear to know where he is.

A mud-covered Bill (barely recognizable) claws through the

mud at the structure where he saw mother and child engulfed.

28.

Grabs a hand. Pulls A WOMAN out from under a heavy blanket of

mud. Barely alive. She gestures frantically. Her eyes the

only thing human in her mud visage.

WOMAN:

My boy! My boy!

She stares frantically at Bill.

WOMAN (CONT’D)

I was holding his hand! I couldn’t

hold on! He slipped away!

Bill pushes aside feet of mud... sees a broken structure

beneath. Slides down.

ON BILL:

looking through a disaster of broken pilings and thick walls

of mud. He hears A CHILD’S SHOUTS. The kid’s alive.

Bill plunges deeper. Reaches through a hole in the cedar

smaller than a head.

FINGERS touch his fingers. It’s the kid, stuck in a blocked-

in crawl space. The kid is CRYING.

OUTSIDE THE COLLAPSED STRUCTURE

OTHER MINERS have gathered, trying to console the hysterical

mother.

MOTHER:

I can hear him! He’s alive!

Bill rises up. All action now.

BILL:

(eyes wild)

I need oil. Something slippery.

Anything.

Most of the miners are too stunned to react. Bill goes over

to a gunnysack, rummages through it.

WOMAN MINER’S VOICE

I have mineral oil.

Bill grabs it, starts to strip while heading back to the

collapsed structure. Doing a dozen things art once.

BILL:

Caves in Vermont. Folks got stuck,

we got ‘em out like this.

29.

MOTHER:

(hysterical)

I don’t hear him no more.

Looks desperately to Bill who, completely naked now, lowers

himself into the shaft. It’s true, we no longer hear the

child’s SCREAMS. He might not have made it.

ON BILL:

wriggling his way through the underworld of mud toward the

crawl space. A CEILING OF WOOD cracks audibly above him.

Bulges downward. Mud oozes through the crack.

In seconds the structure will cave in. Bill wriggles further.

He’s made it to the crawl space. He fumbles for a match.

Breathing heavily. Lights the match.

THROUGH THE SMALL HOLE IN THE CRAWL SPACE

we see A LITTLE BOY OF SEVEN sitting hunched against a

cracked cedar wall. In his underwear. Terrified. Big eyes

staring at Bill.

BILL:

Listen to me. I need you to listen

to me, okay?

The boy nods at Bill. He’s in shock.

BILL (CONT’D)

I need you to come toward me.

The boy inches toward him. Bill hands him the mineral oil

through the hole. Something behind Bill collapses. F***. Bill

turns frantically back to the boy.

BILL (CONT’D)

Pour this over you like it’s water.

That’s right, that’s right.

The boy has obeyed, drenched in oil now.

BILL (CONT’D)

Now you’re going to have to push

yourself through that hole.

The boy stares terrified at the hole. It’s so small.

BOY:

(pale)

I can’t fit.

BILL:

Yes you can. It just looks like you

can’t.. You ever see a sea otter?

(MORE)

30.

BILL (CONT'D)

(off the boy’s confusion)

A sea otter’s bigger than you, but

it can get through gaps in rocks

you don’t think a guppy can get

through. You’re a sea otter.

The boy stares at Bill. Bill holds the boy’s gaze. Can see

the boy trusts him.

BILL (CONT’D)

Say it, “I’m a sea otter. I’m a sea

otter.”

Tentatively the boy moves toward the hole. Scrunches his head

into it. Grimaces in pain.

THE CEILING OF THE CRAWL SPACE

CRACKS OPEN behind the boy, dropping down a huge mass of mud.

More to follow in seconds.

Bill grabs the boy’s ears, using them like handles... and

using every ounce of strength... scrapes him through.

THE CRAWL SPACE:

caves in with a CRASH behind him.

OUTSIDE THE STRUCTURE

Everyone waiting and staring. There’s not a sound from

underground.

And then... there’s a movement in the mud. An arm. The boy’s

father rushes over and pulls his son to his feet.

The boy emerges from the sunken mine to tears and applause.

BOY:

(smiling)

I’m a sea otter.

A DOZEN MINERS:

rush over to help Bill out of the mud.

EXT. ENCAMPMENT - LATER

The camp is in a frenzy of work. Bill working amongst them.

People shoveling mud into the roiling river. Getting as much

mud out of there as possible.

Everyone mud-sludged. A uniformity of being.

31.

AERIAL VIEW - CAMP

Miners place sandbags in a triangle ABOVE the camp. If the

mountain crumbles again, the mud will SLIDE around the

settlement. Hopefully.

CUT TO:

A TIN PLATE:

filled with hot steaming brown goop is handed to a miner.

MINER’S VOICE

Sh*t on a plate.

That’s exactly what it looks like. The miner who just spoke

hoovers it down though. We are:

INT. GORNA’S CABIN - LATE NIGHT

Bill sits with a dozen other half-cleaned-up miners. The

place is cramped, stained with smoke. Bill’s bright eyes

taking everything in.

GORNA (the owner) moves through the structure handing out the

food--a small ageless woman with a thick Kentucky accent.

Hands a tin plate of food to Bill.

GORNA:

Wolf!

Like it’s an order.

GORNA (CONT’D)

I like eatin‘ critters that wanna

eat me.

LAUGHS a too loud laugh. Shrewd brown eyes cracks in shoe leather.

GORNA (CONT’D)

Open that winder! Warm as spit in

here.

The miner she just yelled at quickly opens a slat in a

makeshift window. Gorna queen of her domain in here.

A miner hands Bill a mason jar filled with a clear liquid.

Bill takes a sip. Winces.

MINER:

Home made moonshine, brother. From

Spruce bark. Special Yukon recipe.

32.

BILL:

Back home we gotta word for that.

MINER:

What’s that?

BILL:

(grins)

Turpentine.

The miner LAUGHS and LAUGHS.

MINER:

Turpentine.

Saying it in his native southern accent now. Making it sound

even funnier. Spits some of the moonshine into the fire and a

gust of flame rises.

MINER (CONT’D)

Maybe so. Turpentine.

Bill turns from him, his bright eyes taking in everything

about this brave new world.

Notes A GAUNT MAN staring at him with the saddest eyes we’ve ever

seen. A RAW RED SCAR goes down his face. His name is GOODMAN.

Goodman sees he’s got Bill’s attention. He pushes a kit of

mining tools toward Bill.

GOODMAN:

You might get some use of these.

Belonged to my son. He don’t need

it no more.

Goodman’s eyes are filled with warmth... and liquor.

BILL:

Why’s that?

GOODMAN:

(quiet)

He didn’t have a guardian angel like

the boy you saved. He just had me.

The mug of moonshine drops from Goodman’s right hand. He

scrambles, embarrassed, to pick it up with his left.

ANGLE ON RIGHT HAND

Goodman’s thumb is gone. From the scars, it looks like it had

been exploded off his hand.

33.

BILL:

(quiet;compassionate)

What happened to your thumb,

friend?

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