Thunderheart Page #14

A SMALL TRAILER that has thirty junked cars in its yard and

serves as a reservation parts store is crawling with FEDERAL

MARSHALS; car doors are being opened, trunks. TRACKING DOGS

run through the cars. WARPATH DRUMS...

-- A BELL UH 1-B "HUEY" HELICOPTER chutters low over the

grasslands, over the Badlands, flattening wheat. It swings

down over the main settlement. CHILDREN gather in the street

to look up at it but then run when --

-- SIX FEDERAL CARS come down the main road. They pass by --

-- THE FRONT PORCH OF THE TRADING POST where Ray stands,

talking to the elders. A few of the same from earlier but

several new ones.

He is sweat-drenched, and has shed his jacket and tie. He is

showing them photos of Jimmy but getting no response. And

then, for a little iodine on top of that, a MOTORCYCLE ENGINE,

spitting and choking and coughing comes around the corner,

Walter Crow Horse, manning the handlebars.

He pulls up to Ray and just looks at him. DRUMS FADE.

CROW HORSE:

You're an easy man to track, Ray. Ya

walk like a penguin with a hard-on.

RAY:

Is that right? What are the trees

saying today?

CROW HORSE:

They're sayin' that nobody's gonna

talk to you cuz they don't give away

one of their own. But they did say

there's somebody way across the Little

Walking River who wants to talk to

you.

Ray soaks sweat off his forehead as he eyes the Indian on

this one. He sees himself in the polaroid shades.

CROW HORSE:

He sent me to find ya. He says he's

got information.

RAY:

Let's go.

Ray quickly leaves the porch.

EXT. GRANDPA SAM REACHES TRAILER - OUTSIDE SETTLEMENT - DAY

Silent. The unnerving silence of the Great Plains filled

only by FLYS, big horseflies, buzzing around drying sage

that hangs from the rafters of a shade arbor. A GOAT stands

under it, just gazing across --

the vast spread of grass and dry land where an ancient

Airstream trailer sits lop-sided. Sheets are hung as curtains.

Six old cars -- two from the early 50'a -- sit stripped to

the hubs on blocks in the overgrown grass. The air is dry

and heavy and the only sound is --

FLYS. Ray swats at them as he steps over a truck seat that

lies in the grass, stuffing and springs hanging out. Crow

Horse walk. a few steps ahead, toward the trailer.

CROW HORSE:

(with reverence)

Grandpa Samuel Reaches. Heavy duty

medicine.

RAY:

Medicine. As in medicine man?

Crow Horse nods slowly, looking at Ray in a very serious

manner

RAY:

Why does he wanna see me?

CROW HORSE:

Good question. Hardly sees anybody

anymore. Hasn't left this place in

twenty years. Did you bring some

tobacco?

Crow Horse stops walking, making Ray do the same.

CROW HORSE:

When you go see an elder, you always

bring some tobacco as a gift.

Ray reaches into his shirt pocket and fishes out a pack of

Marlboro. Crow Horse glances at it, and shrug-nods. They

continue on toward the trailer.

INT. GRANDPA REACHES TRAILER

Grandpa Samuel Reaches sits in a taped and tuckered easy

chair, his alert black eyes moving from side to side. We

recognize him from the sweat lodge ceremony at Looks Twice'

although today he wears a straw cowboy hat giving him a more

youthful look despite a face like a map of the Badlands.

He wears a vest over a western shirt, baggy work slacks, old

cowboy boots.

His brown wrinkled hands run over the top of the Marlboro

pack as if he's reading braille.

Crow Horse sits across from him on a stool. Ray leans on one

of the plain green walls, looking uncomfortable. A three

foot adhesive fly strip hangs from the ceiling, thick with

dead ones. There is a black and white TV with Sesame Street

wailing, honking and guffawing through static.

Grandpa fixes his eyes on Ray for only split seconds at a

time but one gets the feeling he's doing an incredibly deep

reading of the young man. Slowly, he sits up -- focusing

intensely on Ray.

He begins to speak. A hoarse, strained, string of LAKOTA,

spoken like it used to be, gesturing toward Ray. When he

finishes, he sits back in his chair. Ray looks intrigued.

RAY:

What did he say?

CROW HORSE:

He wants to know if you ever watch

the Cookie Monster. He says the Cookie

Monster is not to be trusted -- a

trickster.

Ray looks puzzled. Crow Horse laughs bull-wild as Grandpa

takes up a fly swatter and takes out a big horsefly. The old

man begins speaking Indian again.

CROW HORSE:

He says there's something wrong with

Big Bird -- he's crazy,

(stops laughing)

He says you stopped the Inipi ceremony

last night...?

Crow Horse turns a questioning look at Ray. Ray doesn't

flinch.

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