Thunderheart Page #11

RAY:

Crow Horse.

The Indian turns. The wind moans. Ray scrutinizes him,

deliberating.

RAY:

F*** you.

Crow Horse grins and waves, and ambles away. DOWN IN

THE BADLANDS:

Ray stands, sweating under his suit jacket, and not sure if

he's amazed or pissed off.

EXT MAISY BLUE LEGS HOUSE – BLACK TAIL DISTRICT - DAY

A trailer sits off from the river in beaten solitude. There

are two junked cars and one burned black.

Wind blows across deep bald tire tracks. Ray walks slowly

beside them, surveying, following them to a place where they

become puckers and skids next to a dilapidated outhouse.

There is a shotgun blast in the side of it. Ray studies it,

enters the outhouse. Exits, and walks the rutted gumbo earth

to where it meets rolling hills of golden grass. He stands

here, mesmerized.

CHICKENS scratch around in the dirt.

Like so many far-off res homesteads, this is a haunting place.

Made more so by a persistent SQUEAKING, a rusty, metallic

squeal coming from --

A WATER PUMP:

across the yard, where MAISY BLUE LEGS, a Sioux elder, works

the handle. She wears thick bifocals and keeps her hair under

a bandanna. No water comes forth from the pump, and she tries

again and again until she breaks a sweat. And then she sees

the waal'cu standing out there.

Urgently, she turns and starts back to her trailer with an

empty coffee can.

Ray starts after her.

RAY:

Mrs... Blue Legs? Can I ask you a

few questions --

MAISY:

(1/3 res speed)

-- go away. Leave us alone...

RAY:

Ma'am, Please --

She mounts the metal steps. Ray is losing her. He gets a

foot on the bottom step, and attempts something he does not

want to do.

RAY:

Mrs. Blue Legs. I'm Indian.

Halfway through the screendoor, Maisy turns and looks at the

young man in suit and shades.

RAY:

I'm Sioux.

Maisy lowers her bifocals, studies him. Then walks in, slaps

the door shut, and locks it. A towel hung as a shade folds

down.

Ray lingers at the bottom of the steps.

RAY:

Yeah, right.

And he walks around the side of the trailer, looking at the

ground. In the gaping space between the trailer blocks, and

the grass, there is much junk stored, and Ray kneels to look.

He is drawn to a pair of cowboy boots, caked with dried mud.

He picks up a boot, looks at the sole, then touches the mud.

His fingers break through the hardened crust and come back

moist and blue. He looks at this sniffs it. There is a tense,

water-torture like tempo coming from the old pump where water

barely drips onto a hub cap in the dirt. Ray sets the boot

down. Goes to grab the other boot and --

a WESTERN DIAMOND BACK RATTLER coils out from the shade of

the boot, RATTLING and HISSING from white mouth and three-

inch fangs, and Ray has done a backflip and roll, slapping

his shoulder holster and pulling lead and BLAM! BLAAAM! he

unloads two, and the reptile is so dead, there's not even

enough snake left to make a truck-stop key chain.

He kneels there, flushed in the face, holding his breath and

double-clutching his gun. The SHOTS ECHO through the Badlands

like the aftermath of dynamite. From inside the trailer, he

can hear CRYING. A low moaning. Praying softly.

RAY:

Sh*t. Mrs. Blue Legs! It's okay!

Then his RADIO CRACKS IN.

RADIO (COOCH)

X21, give me a 20.

RAY:

(yelling)

Black Tail District, X22. You ready

for this? Leo wasn't killed in the

Badlands. I... I found the location.

COOCH:

Maisy Blue Legs place?

RAY:

How'd you know?

COOCH:

I got one up on ya.

RAY:

Go ahead.

COOCH:

I've got the doer. I know who he is.

Ray looks relieved.

COOCH:

Meet me at base. Over.

RAY:

Cooch. You're my hero.

Ray looks down at the dead snake, still rushed from it, and

he hurries out of there.

IN THE SHADE OF THE TRAILER

the snake's RATTLE moves spasmodically, still kicking with

reflex.

EXT. LOOKS TWICE HOUSE - BEAR CREEK RES - NIGHT

CLOSE ON an AMERICAN FLAG, flapping in the hot night wind.

But something is wrong about the image. The flag is hung

upside lit by --

A full moon that also illuminates an overgrown field that

fronts a small, one-level house where the flag hangs. Three

old cars decorate the front yard. A busted screendoor creaks

in the wind, and somewhere off in the hills, a DOG BARKS

away his boredom.

COOCH (O.S.)

Jimmy Looks Twice.

INT. LE BARON

SA Couture and SA Levoi sit inside the car, staking out this

little place far down a dirt road on the outskirts of the

settlement.

Cooch has the suspect's file on his knee.

RAY:

Who is he?

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