Klondike Page #29

But...Bill steps into the light. From his neighboring claim.

BILL:

Me, Goodman. What're you doing

still out here?

GOODMAN:

Keepin' the thieves on the right

side of that claim line.

BILL:

Go on. Get into Dawson before it’s

impossible. You don’t got the wood

to do another night out here.

GOODMAN:

I skip this claim...them shitcakes

gonna take anything not nailed

down. And I worked too damn hard.

BILL (RE HIS GUN)

.410 birdgun like that won't even

give em a shave. Just piss em off.

Make em all the more certain to

kill you.

He approaches. Nods matter-of-factly:

BILL (CONT’D)

Go on now. I'll watch it. Along

with mine, I'll watch it.

GOODMAN:

And why are you so noble?

BILL:

'Cause I got wood coming and you

don't.

Goodman eyes him uncertainly. Smiles slightly despite

himself.

32.

GOODMAN:

Makin’ it real hard for me to hate

you, Bill Haksell.

Off them, an understanding--CUT TO-

EXT. BILL’S CLAIM / ENCAMPMENT - LATER

--Goodman, mounting a pair of horses with another CLAIMANT.

Looking back to Bill. Nodding. Heading off into the night.

Bill watches them go, turns back to his own fire. Sits down.

Lays his bolt-action single-shot rifle in his lap.

Listens. Hears the hoots and cackles of the thieves out there

in the night, getting ever closer...

JACK LONDON (V.O.)

Problem with an idealist is he

tries to have it all ways. Keep his

dignity. His wood. His mine. His

life. Sooner or later...one of

those gives.

EXT. BILL’S CLAIM - LATER

CU:
The 8x8s in Bill’s sagging bench mine...one of them

giving slightly...a large chunk of mud sliding down.

Bill rushes up. Tries to steady the tilting, sagging wood-Sh*t.

Mud courses in. Threatens to snowball, fill the shaft.

He needs wood! Something to stem the flow--a stopgap!

ANGLE. HIS CAMPFIRE. All his remaining wood now committed to

the life-giving flame.

Decision time...

Bill yanks two planks from the fire--tosses them into the wet

mud to arrest the flame.

TIME CUT-Bill,

forcing the two planks into the gap in his bench mine-

stopping the mud’s flow, if only temporarily...

Behind him:
the fire, dying...

EXT. BILL’S CLAIM - LATER

CU:
Bill’s fire, diminishing to embers.

Bill:
shivering, struggling against fatigue--must stay awake,

stave off the thieves howling unseen in the night.

The last flame of the fire: winking out.

33.

Bill’s breaths punch the air in tiny frozen clouds. His body

temperature starts to plummet.

He makes a decision. Grabs an ax. Slings his gun over his

shoulder. And stomps up into the dark, muddy hills-

EXT. BONANZA CREEK - NIGHT

FOLLOW Bill on his slog. Through the denuded landscape.

Stumps everywhere. He alternates his attention on the fallen

wood--the stumps picked clean--and the creek far below--where

thieves surely must be descending upon his claim.

Interminable shivers that wrack his body. He needs wood. Now.

EXT. BONANZA HILLSIDE - NIGHT

Which he comes upon. A pathetic, soaked, fallen trunk someone

left behind in their own clear-cutting efforts. It’s like

week-old carrion to a vulture. If the vulture’s desperate

enough, he’ll tear into it. Which Bill does.

He slams his axe into it. Cuts chunks away. Then stops...

...sees, approaching, what may as well be his doppelganger.

Another MINER. Muddy, desperate. Keyed in on that wood.

MINER:

I’m stronger than you.

Said in a way that he hopes the words will avert what will

otherwise come next. In the Miner’s hand, an axe.

A long beat with Bill. Freezing.

BILL:

There ain’t enough to share.

MINER:

I never killed no man...but if you

don’t get wide of that wood, I

might have to start.

BILL:

Don’t make it about that.

Nothing doing. The Miner circles. Hefting his axe in a way

that isn’t about cutting wood.

As the two men lock up--as muddy, desperate predators might

over a fallen carcass--their axes quickly neutralized, the

two men slamming down into the slippery mud, trying

desperately to claw each other’s eyes--camera racks slowly

through the melee to that sad, water-logged piece of wood...

END ACT TWO:

34.

ACT THREE:

EXT. BONANZA HILLSIDE - CONTINUOUS

The struggle continues.

Bill comes out on top. But the desperate miner, with nothing

left in the tank, persists. He’s that distraught.

MINER (GASPING, STILL FIGHTING)

You...gonna have to split me wide

open to stop me.

Bill, axe in hand, knows that for the most part, that’s true.

He hefts the axe. Then flips the head around.

And drills him in the temple with the flat of the axe.

The Miner--wham--out like a light.

Bill dithers, as if to go about his business. Then, you can

see it on his face. Son of a goddamn b*tch. Can’t just leave

the guy up here in the mud to die.

PRE-LAP:

FATHER JUDGE (O.S.)

Fear’s fear only so long as it

makes you wanna run and you listen.

But you wanna do the right thing,

you do the opposite: you sit your

ass down right in the middle of it.

INT. JUDGE’S CHURCH - NIGHT

Judge, ministering to Sabine. Looking up at the Cross.

FATHER JUDGE:

‘Tween us...I think Hell’s

bullshit. Ain’t no fiery brimstone

cave under our feet. No devil.

(taps chest)

If Hell’s real, it’s in here. When

we’re believin’ that fear’s

something other than just a

feeling. And that’s all it is. A

feeling. Your bones buzzing, your

blood pumping. And once you see

that--you’re through the looking

glass. It can’t steer you no more.

(meets her gaze)

And if there’s only 2 things in the

world--love and fear--what’s left?

She smiles, knowing the answer, but not necessarily buying-

35.

SABINE:

Love. But I ain’t seeing it.

FATHER JUDGE:

But maybe you do see the fear. Why

people are doing the things they

do. ‘Cause they’re scared. That

they don’t got enough. That they’ll

lose.

She shrugs. She’ll buy that.

FATHER JUDGE (CONT’D)

And if you see someone afraid, they

ain’t no different than seeing a

kid that way, right? You can’t have

anything but love for them.

Sabine absorbs this. Wants to believe it. Judge eyes her:

FATHER JUDGE (CONT’D)

What’re you afraid of?

A genuine look of dread on her face.

SABINE:

That man finding me. Making me pay

for making him look little.

(polite, but frank)

And for him, I’m seeing the fear,

Father. Why he doesn’t want to look

that way in front of the others.

But that doesn’t mean he won’t

still slit my throat. And I have a

tough time loving any man that

wants that.

Judge nods. His prudence equal to his idealism.

FATHER JUDGE:

Understandable.

SABINE:

Then what am I gonna do?

Beat. Judge deciding.

FATHER JUDGE:

You’re gonna stay here.

Off Sabine--getting her mind around the idea of staying with

a man--albeit a priest--in his private space-

EXT. BONANZA HILLSIDE - NIGHT

Close on that LOG, now cut into pieces, being dragged on a

tarp. The fallen, unconscious miner next to it.

36.

Widen to Bill. Straining against the increasing rain and mud,

trying to get this impossible payload down the hill.

Rate this script:5.0 / 1 vote