Lone Star Page #5

BEN:

I hear they're closing that post

down.

SAM:

September '97, that's all she

wrote.

BEN:

Gonna pull a lot of jobs out of

this county.

SAM:

Yeah, we'll have folks swimming

over to Mexico to work in the

sweatshops.

Sam looks at the folder of reports.

SAM:

That the word on our boy?

BEN:

Yeah, this is Skinny.

SAM:

Skinny?

BEN:

We find a body, it's either Skinny

or Stinky, depending on how much

meat there is on the bones.

SAM:

Nice job.

BEN:

(Opens folder)

Male, 40 to 50 years old, five-

foot-eleven, chewed tobacco--then

we get into the dental records--

SAM:

Charley Wade.

BEN:

(Nods)

That badge--

SAM:

--it didn't come out of a cereal

box.

BEN:

Yeah.

SAM:

You know the popular version of

how he left town.

BEN:

Everybody on the border knows

that story.

SAM:

You got a cause of death?

BEN:

Skull was intact, no soft tissue

left--not much to go on.

SAM:

So he could have gone out to the

base, hopped the fence, dug down

into the dirt on the old rifle

range and had a heart attack.

Ben smiles, closes the folder--

BEN:

You uhm--you remember what old

Buddy carried for a side arm?

SAM:

Colt Peacemaker.

BEN:

A .45--

SAM:

He swore by it.

(Ben frowns)

What?

BEN:

Just wondering.

SAM:

So is Buddy on your short list?

BEN:

If it was some poor mojado, swam

across at night, got lost in the

scrub and starved out there, we

wouldn't go any further. But

this is a formerly prominent

citizen.

SAM:

You got to investigate. No

question about it.

BEN:

What I will do is keep names out

of it till we got some answers or

hit a dead end. You know how the

press is with a murder story--

even if it's forty years old.

SAM:

Yeah, it's a pretty cold trail.

They sit in awkward silence for a moment. Ben feels bad

about it.

BEN:

I remember Charley Wade come to

my father's hardware store once

when I was a little boy. I'd

heard stories how he shot this

one, how he shot that one--man

winked at me and I peed in my

pants.

(Shakes his head)

Winked at me.

INT. CLASSROOM -- DAY

Pilar stands at the blackboard by her outline of 19th century

Texas history.

PILAR:

Okay, we have the fight against

the Spanish with bloody conflict

for dozens of years till they're

finally defeated in 1821 and

Mexican independence is declared.

Anglo settlers are invited--

CU DRAWING:

Somebody making a skillful pencil drawing on the corner of a

sheet of lined notebook paper. A bald, muscular shotputter

after releasing the shot, his hand large in the f.g.

PILAR (O.S.)

--to colonize the area and by the

time they begin the movement

against Santa Anna they outnumber

the Mexicans here by four to one.

The war between Mexico--

CHET:

Drawing intently. He takes the notebook and lays his thumb

over the corner

PILAR (O.S.)

-and the Anglo forces ends in

1836 with the formation of the

Texas Republic. Texas joins the

United States as a state where

slavery is legal in 1845--

NOTEBOOK:

Chet "flips" the corner of the notebook and the series Of

drawings he's made form a brief cartoon of the shot-putter

blowing his cheeks out and heaving the shot right past us.

Extremely well-drawn--

PILAR (O.S.)

-after the so-called Mexican war

and then secedes to join the

Confederacy in 1861. The

Confederacy is beaten, and the

Reformation period here is marked

by range wars and race wars--

PILAR:

Looking out at the class --

PILAR:

--and all this paralleled by

constant battles between both

the Mexican and Anglo settlers

and the various Indian nations in

the area. What are we seeing

here? Chet?

CHET:

Startled, he hides the notebook under his hands --

CHET:

Uhm--everybody is killing everybody

else?

EXT. LAKE -- DAY -- CU FISHING LURE

A nasty-looking thing. Only a bass would want to eat this.

Hollis leans in to peer at the thing dangling before his

face.

WIDER:

Hollis sits in the swivel chair of a bass boat tied to a

dock at the lake, going through his box of lures. Sam appears

on the dock and steps down.

SAM:

I always wondered what you Mayors

do when you're not cutting ribbons.

HOLLIS:

Sam! Hey podner! You caught me

playing hooky--

SAM:

(Looks across lake)

Floating around out here, playin'

hell with them bass--play a little

cards, play a little golf, drink

some beer--

HOLLIS:

Sounds great. Where do I sign

up?

SAM:

I haven't been out here for a

while.

HOLLIS:

You go by your old house?

SAM:

No.

HOLLIS:

Just as well. The new people

just painted it some God-awful

color--

SAM:

We found a body out by the Army

base yesterday. Been there for a

long time.

Hollis squints at a rubber lure, rejects it--

HOLLIS:

Was it Davy Crockett or Jim Bowie?

SAM:

(Smiles)

You recall if Charley Wade was a

Mason?

HOLLIS:

Charley? I believe he was. Used

to go for lodge meetings over to

Laredo. What's he got to do with

your body?

SAM:

All it was wearing was a big old

Masonic ring and a Rio County

Sheriffs badge.

Hollis reacts. Sam puts a foot on The gunwale of die boatSAM

You don't remember anything else from that last night you

saw him, do you?

HOLLIS:

I told the story enough times--

hell, we were just in the car, he

was stewing about the fight with

Buddy while we drove over to

Roderick Bledsoe's--

SAM:

Bledso

HOLLIS:

He owned the colored roadhouse

before Big O--

SAM:

He still living?

HOLLIS:

No. I think his widow's still in

their place in Darktown, though.

(Shakes his bead)

You think it's Charley Wade, huh?

SAM:

Forensics people are sure of it.

You have any idea who might have

put him there?

Hollis makes a great show of considering--

SAM:

Besides my father, I mean.

HOLLIS:

There's no call for that, Sam,

Fella made himself a pile of

enemies over the years.

SAM:

And Buddy was one of them.

HOLLIS:

We got that dedication tomorrow.

This is a hell of a time to be

draggin' up old business

SAM:

People have worked this whole big

thing up around my father. If

it's built on a crime, they deserve

to know. Now I un derstand why

you might want to believe he

couldn't do it

HOLLIS:

And I understand why you might

want to think he could, This is a

low blow, but accurate enough to

shake Sam.

SAM:

Thanks for your time, Hollis.

Hollis holds up a double handful of lures--dozens of rubber

and plastic worms and shiners and frogs and spinners--

HOLLIS:

Look at all this, would you? My

tackle, the boat, all to catch a

little old fish just minding its

business on the bottom of the

lake.

He gives Sam a look--

HOLLIS:

Hardly seems worth the effort--

does it, Sam?

Sam walks away--

INT. CLASSROOM -- ARMY BASE -- DAY -- CU ATHENA

Athena stands at attention, trying to keep her composure --

CLIFF (O.S.)

So you knew this young man before?

ATHENA:

From back in Houston. We both

come up on Fifth Street.

PRISCILLA (O.S.)

Did you know he was going to be

there last night?

ATHENA:

If I had I wouldn't have gone in.

PRISCILLA (O.S.)

And you and Private Graves--

ATHENA:

We were just dancing--

WIDER:

Cliff leans against a desk, a blackboard covered with radar

diagrams behind him. Priscilla sits nearby, both of them

focused on Athena

PRISCILLA:

We're not running a dating service

here.

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