Klondike Page #4

EPSTEIN (PROFFERS MONEY)

Sign us up-

Bill coolly guides Epstein aside-

BILL:

No, no. Hold up. We've got to think

about this. I'm serious.

EPSTEIN:

So am I. You wanna wait here til

it's summer, be my guest. But I'm

buying that kit, even if I got to

separate out my own money to do it.

BILL:

Oh don't do that. We're doing this

together. That was the agreement.

16.

EPSTEIN:

Then you better put on your

climbing shoes. 'Cause I am going

up that, today.

Said with a nod toward Chilkoot. Upon which a thin river of

ascending miners can be seen.

EPSTEIN (CONT’D)

Every miner up there stakes a plot

ahead of us. First guy chooses the

best claim, second guy the second

best...all the way down the line

til we get there. You really want

the hundredth best claim? The

thousandth?

(to Vendor)

I'll take the kit.

Bill simmers. Knowing he can’t stop Epstein’s impulsiveness-

BILL (TO VENDOR)

We'll take half the kit. For 150.

EPSTEIN:

'Hell you talking about? Now's not

the time to be saving money-

BILL:

Full kit's gonna slow us down. And

if you want to go up that...we're

gonna have to hustle our ass. Less

time we're on that mountain, better

chance we have at actually living.

He shakes his head. More to himself than anyone else:

BILL (CONT’D)

Goddamn I don't believe this.

EXT. CHILKOOT PASS - LATER

XCU...the skids of a sled, as it's slowly dragged up a snowy

slope. Very slowly dragged. Widen. Find Bill & Epstein

straining to pull their heavy kits up the mountainside.

BILL:

You're a son of a b*tch, you know

that.

EPSTEIN:

If it weren't for me, You'd be

sitting behind a desk somewhere,

selling stocks. Getting old and

cynical before you ever even lived.

BILL:

And if it weren't for me, you'd be

dragging that crap up the mountain.

17.

Said with a nod ahead to the Society Lady and her Servant,

the latter struggling mightily to coax the heavy fully-kitted

sled up the mountainside.

BILL (CONT’D)

Sitting goddamn ducks for the

storms.

EXT. CHILKOOT PASS - DAY

More strain. More struggle. Bill & Epstein have left a number

of the more heavily-kitted groups behind. Ahead, they spot

Judge and his female colleague. Putting up a tent in the

shelter of a solid rocky crag.

BILL (RE TIME OF DAY)

Folding up early there, Father.

FATHER JUDGE:

You put a month's worth of snow up

on that ridge, sooner or later it's

coming down. Heat's sinking into it

by the hour. Best travel at night.

When the snow's frozen back up.

Less likely to come roaring down on

you.

Bill & Epstein smile, continue onward.

EPSTEIN:

See you on the other side, Father.

FATHER JUDGE:

Assuming that’s the ridge you’re

talking about.

A nod and a smile as Bill & Epstein move on.

EXT. CHILKOOT PASS - NIGHT

A string of lights is distributed sparsely up the

mountainside. Hikers, climbing at night according to Judge’s

logic. Come in on one of those lights...the lantern clasped

in Bill’s hand. Epstein’s gassed by the cold and altitude.

EPSTEIN:

I'm shot.

BILL:

Keep moving. Every hour we move is

an hour sooner we're off this

mountain.

As they move on, someone comes into view, appearing at the

peripheries of their lamplight. A HALF-MAD MINER, blackfaced

and ghastly in the night. His tattered kit beside him.

Rubbing something again and again over that blackened face.

BILL (CONT’D)

You all right there?

Miner looks up. Sees the looks of consternation.

18.

HALF-MAD MINER (RE HIS FACE)

Charcoal. And I’d do it too if I

were you. ‘Less you wanna lose your

lips and nose to the cold.

EPSTEIN:

Get the sense you been out here for

a while, boss-

HALF-MAD MINER

Shh...

(beat)

Hear that?

EPSTEIN:

Hear what?

HALF-MAD MINER (REVERENCE)

The sound of life.

(beat)

The sound of nothing. And that’s

exactly what you wanna hear on

Chilkoot. Nothing. Soon as you hear

a rumble up there in the darkness,

you got about 10 seconds til you’re

dead. You gotta listen. Otherwise

the mountain’ll eat you in the

night.

BILL:

Sure you’re all right?

HALF-MAD MINER

Sooner you shut up and start

listening I will be.

He glares at them. Bill nods. He & Epstein move on.

EXT. CHILKOOT PASS - DAY

“June 13, 1897. Chilkoot Pass.”

Beneath a cluster of rocks, Bill & Epstein’s tent. The latter

inside, stirring uncomfortably in his sleeping bag.

EPSTEIN:

Goddamn half-kit. Coulda had real

blankets. Instead, I’m an ice cube

in an old wet sock. I’m serious,

Haskell. This is a deal-breaker for

me.

Bill’s outside. Eyeing the train of ascending miners below.

BILL:

You’re the guy that wanted to get

there first. I’d say on that

front...we’re doing a pretty good

job.

He turns his gaze then from the miners to the sky. To the sun

burning brightly there.

19.

Lastly, he turns to look up at the cornice high on the ridge

above. It looms there, wind-swept, way-too-steep and high.

Off it, glistening in the heat...

EXT. CHILKOOT PASS - NIGHT

“June 20, 1897. Chilkoot Pass.”

The slope:
now a near-impossible 45 degrees. Bill & Epstein:

persevering, their faces frozen constellations of beard,

charcoal, and snow.

Below, the ever-present string of lights in the night,

connoting the other miners as they climb.

Bill’s eyes are on the sloping darkness above. His ears, per

earlier wisdom, are trained on the silence. It’s different

out here in the wilderness. Illimitable. Behind him:

EPSTEIN:

10 days we been on this hill.

(beat; off Bill’s look)

And you thought I couldn't count.

BILL (DISTRACTED)

Nope. Yesterday you told me it was

9. Day before that, 8. You're a

counter.

EPSTEIN:

Feel like that Greek king--the one

pushin the boulder up the hill for

eternity--what's his name-Syphilis...

BILL:

Sisyphus.

(eyeing mountain above)

Difference is we chose to be here.

For him it was punishment-

EPSTEIN:

Sure as sh*t feels like punishment

about now, Haskell--

BILL (LISTENING TO DARKNESS)

Shh....

Epstein pauses. Sees Bill listening...

BILL (EAR UPSLOPE) (CONT’D)

Hear it?

EPSTEIN:

Hear what-

And then it comes. The rumble.

Half-beat. No doubt about. Something above. Roaring down

toward them unseen in the darkness. Something massive.

20.

Epstein turns to run downslode. Bill, though, spots, 15 feet

above, a rock outcropping-

BILL EPSTEIN *

**

Not down. Not down! What?! *

**

BILL:

UP! UP!

RUMMMMBLLLLEEEE!

EPSTEIN:

You outta your head-Bill

yanks Epstein upward. They scramble up toward the rock

outcrop-

--JUST AS THE AVALANCHE HITS. A HUGE WAVE OF SNOW ROARS PAST-CRESTING

OVER THE ROCK OUTCROPPING-It

just gets a hold of Epstein’s shoulder, spins him away-BILL

EP!

But for a moment, all he can do is press himself against the

outcropping-

--then it’s past.

Bill leaps into action. Pushes downhill through the swirling

mist, his light refracting eerily in the snowy haze.

Epstein’s visible--his legs are, anyhow. Half-buried.

Bill descends on him. Feverishly begins digging...

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