Thunderheart Page #4

INT. LE BARON - MOVING

Cooch is at the wheel. Ray, passenger. His lap is a desk for

several folders, and he works through them as they drive.

Both agents eat a sandwich as they travel.

RAY:

Eight murders in less than a year.

All of them Indian. All of them

unsolved. Is the law a non-entity

out here or what?

Cooch opens a folder that sits between them, and taking his

eyes off the road for a dangerous five seconds, locates some

photos, and hands them to Ray. Ray's expression tells us

they are not pretty.

COOCH:

Those are two agents who went into a

reservation a few years ago to serve

a warrant. They were executed at

close range. That one there is a

police officer killed by the Mohawks

up in Canada more recently.

RAY:

Jesus...

COOCH:

The agents who have worked out here

say its like going into Nam.

Unfamiliar terrain, foreign language,

foreign customs... and you never

know when you might walk into a few

rounds. They hold a lot of old anger

for the white man out here.

Ray considers this as he looks out at the unfamiliar terrain

while on the RADIO, a D.J. speaks in LAKOTA LANGUAGE. Ray...

back at Cooch, studying his face.

RAY:

Were you in Nam?

COOCH:

Airborne. That's where they used to

get us agents from. Now we get 'em

from Carnegie-Melon, Ivy League.

Accountants and computer whiz-kids.

Yuppies with guns.

(lights a smoke)

That's scary sh*t.

Ray smiles, sets the AC on high.

RAY:

Not as scary as a Hoover man with a

computer.

Cooch throws a quick look Ray's way. And a smile. He

appreciates the sting of a right off a left.

COOCH:

Hey, hey, hey. J. Edgar would've

loved you. He'd love anybody who

joined the bureau to, what was it?

"To enforce the laws of my country

and protect her interests"?

RAY:

You crashed my file?

COOCH:

No. I consulted it. We're going into

Indian Country, I wanna know what

kind of individual is covering my

ass. Don't you?

Ray has finished his sandwich. He wipes his hands on a

kerchief while taking in the sight of chalky buttes cramming

roadside.

RAY:

You've been in the bureau for thirty

years. You survived The Hoov, the

Black Panthers and Abscam. I don't

see any bullet holes. That's good

enough for me.

Cooch looks at Ray, amused. He likes this guy. And then he

notices a look of growing consternation on his partner's

face.

RAY'S POV - MOVING

as they drive through the first settlement, a little, broken

and scattered community, littered with wrecked cars on blocks,

and overpopulated with hungry dogs. HEARTBEAT DRUM softly

under.

SIX INDIAN CHILDREN with dirty but beautiful faces and long

blue black hair run alongside the car, curious. One of them

YELLS SOMETHING we don't understand.

PAST the trading post -- a white man's store -- where SIX

OGLALA SIOUX -- four men, two women sit like wax figures,

only their eyes moving to light on the freshly waxed

government car.

A little house has a tipi erected beside it. And a satellite

dish. The house beside that one has been half chopped away

to feed the wood stove.

Poverty.

EXT. BEAR CREEK COMMUNITY - RESERVATION - DAY

The federal car drives out of the community and further into

vast bluffs and strange rock formations where it is swallowed,

leaving the ramshackle village in dust.

A lone dog -- all its ribs showing -- chases, BARKING.

EXT. BADLANDS - SHORT TIME LATER

We are on the Moon. Or Israel. But not America. Not any

America we've ever seen. A thirty-mile eroded landscape of

dunes and crevices, soft rock strata and fossils. Barren.

And eerie. A LAKOTA DEATH SONG underscores the otherworldly

ambiance of this place as --

SHOES scuff through the gumbo and multi-colored stones. Two

pair of black, spit-shined, lace-ups. Three. Tripping.

Scuffing. And then a fourth pair. But they are not loafers.

They are Georgio Brutini's and they belong to --

Ray, as he and Cooch follow two Special Agents from the

regional office. SA MILES is about Cooch's age, balding. SA

SHERMAN is closer to Ray's age but instead of a suit like

the rest, he favors an army-green jacket. Neither is a South

Dakota sh*t-kicker but transplanted field agents. All four

shield their eyes with dark glasses, and here in the Badlands

it is wise because the sun makes dunes shimmy and craters

become faces. It plays mischief on the eye, making Ray and

Sherman nearly trip on --

A DEAD BODY:

lying face down in the rainbow sand. Dried blood and horse

flies cover his blown out torso. The agents stand over him,

breathless from the rugged walk.

COOCH:

Who found him?

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