Unforgiven

INT. ALICE'S ROOM - NIGHT

NIGHT IN ALICE'S ROOM. A little bit of moonlight coming in

through the tiny window might make a highlight here and there

but that's about all. Words begin to crawl across the screen:

WRITTEN WORDS (CRAWL)

Of good family, albeit one of modest

means, she was a comely young woman

and not without prospects. Therefore

it was at once heartbreaking and

astonishing to her mother that she

would enter into marriage with William

Munny, a known thief and murderer, a

man of notoriously vicious and

intemperate disposition.

We can HEAR STRAWBERRY ALICE and DAVEY BUNTING breathing

heavily and the bed creaking.

WRITTEN WORDS:

They were married in St. Louis in

1870 and they traveled North to Kansas

where he engaged in farming and swine

husbandry.

Davey and Alice are picking up speed now, breathing faster

and even snorting a little, and it's cold as Jesus in Nebraska

in the winter so when the blanket slips, Alice snarls and

gasps.

ALICE:

The blanket, for chrissake, cowboy,

the blanket.

There are six of these little rooms... one for each whore...

behind Greely's Beer Garden and Billiards and the walls are

just boards so you can hear what's happening in the other

rooms and right now, from DELILAH'S room, you can hear a

high-pitched, merry little giggle and that's important.

WRITTEN WORDS:

She bore him two children in the

eight years of their marriage and

when she died, it was not at his

hands as her mother might have

expected, but of smallpox. That was

in 1878.

DELILAH'S VOICE (O.S.)

No, please... No, no goddamn you.

Alice and Davey have stopped f***ing and started listening

but they don't move.

WRITTEN WORDS:

It wasn't until 1881... three years

later... that a cowboy named Mike

cut up a whore in Big Whiskey,

Nebraska in the Niobrara River

country.

(end crawl)

MIKE'S VOICE (O.S.)

Davey, come a runnin' lad an' hold

the thieving c*nt...

A blur of action as Davey leaps from the bed and dashes out

of the room naked...

MIKE'S VOICE (O.S.)

...brand you like a damn steer,

b*tch...

And Alice is right behind him, wrapping herself in a blanket

as she goes.

INT. DELILAH'S ROOM - NIGHT

DELILAH is backed up against the wall, her face bleeding,

and she is throwing the contents of her chamber pot on MIKE

who is advancing on her with an open barlow knife and Davey

busts into the room naked and Alice follows him and people

are shouting in other rooms.

MIKE:

(wiping sh*t off

himself)

Hold the b*tch, Davey, hold her.

The one coal oil lamp in the room gives off just enough light

that you can make all this out. Certainly you can see that

Mike, who is wearing leggings and no shirt, is a big tough

man, unshaven, eyes inflamed with whiskey...

MIKE:

HOLD HER, DAMMIT, DAVEY! If you don't

hold her I'll cut her tits off.

LITTLE SUE, a fifteen year old whore, is in the doorway,

eyes wide with terror and Alice screams at her.

ALICE:

Get Skinny, for God's sake! SKINNY!

Davey is reluctant about the whole thing but he is afraid of

Mike and he gets behind Delilah and grabs her.

DAVEY:

Wh-what you gonna do, Mike?

Mike is doing it now and Delilah is screaming while he carves

her face with the barlow knife and blood is all over,

splashing on Davey and Davey, who is just a kid, after all,

nineteen with a big shock of unruly red hair and innocent

blue eyes, is horrified.

MIKE:

Thieving c*nt, I'll...

DAVEY:

Mike, don't, Jesus, don't...

ALICE:

SKINNY! Bring your gun.

Alice can't wait for Skinny and she jumps on Mike's back and

brings the big man down and she fights him though she's not

a big woman. Alice is twenty-five but she's been around some,

whored some tough cow-towns, and she has too much bone and

character in her face to be outright pretty but she attracts

men like flies. Sure she has some smallpox scars on her face,

but they're common and there are only a few of them, not

like on Skinny whose mean little face is eaten right up with

them.

VIEW ON SKINNY DUBOIS

STANDING THERE IN THE DOORWAY, his nasty face eaten with

smallpox scars and he is looking at Delilah who is a fountain

of blood, looking at her coldly, and looking down at the

melee on the floor and, pointing the big Navy Colt in his

hand, he says,

SKINNY:

Get offa her, a**hole.

And he says it so cold and with such authority that everything

goes quiet.

EXT. MAIN STREET - DAY

SNOW/MOONLIGHT/THE SHADOWY BUILDINGS and the silence of the

Nebraska winter except for the sound of the snowshoes.

The snow has obliterated the Main Street of Big Whiskey giving

the impression that the dark, low buildings are scattered at

random. The only structure with any sign of life is Greely's

Beer Garden and Billiards which shows a glowing window and

two horses out front and that is a hundred yards away from

the struggling silhouettes of the two men on snowshoes. The

big one is LITTLE BILL DAGGETT and he is very big, wrapped

in a huge bearskin robe.

The smaller one is CLYDE LEDBETTER who isn't small though he

has only one arm.

LITTLE BILL:

...wouldn't let you settle it, huh?

CLYDE:

Hell, you know how Skinny is. Says

he's gonna shoot 'em... an I says,

"Skinny, you can't do that," an' he

says, "Well, then get Little Bill

down here an' let's settle this" an'

I says, "Bill's sleepin', Skinny,"

an'...

They make their way in silence through the snow, getting

close now, close to Greely's and the lights.

INT. DELILAH'S ROOM - NIGHT

DELILAH ON HER BED, her face covered with blood-soaked rags

except for her eyes. Alice has hot water and is ministering

to her and Little Bill is looking down at her from his

enormous height, still in his bearskin. He looks disgusted.

LITTLE BILL:

She ain't gonna die, huh?

You can now see fear in Delilah's eyes, and the other

whores... CROW CREEK KATE with crazy pop-eyes and frizzy

hair, and LITTLE SUE who is fifteen and meek even when she

isn't terrified, and FAITH who is the oldest of them and not

very attractive and SILKY who is blonde and the prettiest...

are watching from vantage points in the doorway or in the

room.

ALICE:

(determined)

She's gonna live.

(Little Bill turns to

go)

She didn't steal nothin', She didn't

touch his poke.

LITTLE BILL:

(stopping and turning)

No?

ALICE:

All she done was... when she seen he

had a teensy little pecker... she

gave a giggle. That's all. She didn't

know no better.

Little Bill turns away, disgusted, and starts out of the

room and Alice gets up and follows him.

ALICE:

You gonna hang 'em, Little Bill?

INT. BAR ROOM - NIGHT

Davey sitting naked on the floor of the bar room and Mike is

sitting near him, still in his leggings and both men are

shivering because they are fifteen feet from the potbellied

stove where Clyde is standing watching them.

It is a big room, with a crude bar and four tables and some

moose and elk heads on the wall. The door near the rear where

it says "Billiard Room" leads not to a Billiard Room but to

the six little "rooms" that are the whorehouse and and now

you can hear Delilah groaning from there.

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