West of Thunder Page #3

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Well, I've got about two days

worth of work to offer.

Everyone on my crew

gets paid $1 a day.

Is that agreeable?

HENRY SEED:

Yeah, that's very agreeable.

Do the Lakota men get paid

a dollar as well?

CLARENCE O'LEARY:

Well, Just between you

and me...

I pay them $1.10 a day.

They're strong as hell

and smart as a Dickens novel.

By the look of your skin

are you a little Indian?

HENRY SEED:

I'm a little bit of everything.

CLARENCE O'LEARY:

Mr. Everything!...You're hired.

HENRY SEED:

Thank you....Mr. Everything.

I love the sound of that

but you may call me

Henry...Henry Seed.

CLARENCE O'LEARY:

Mr. Seed nice to meet

ya and you may call

me Father O'Leary or

Clarence or Jugsy.

HENRY SEED:

Jugsy?

CLARENCE O'LEARY:

Henry I am Irish...

well, we need to get

started here with this

windmill...

CLARENCE O'LEARY:

Boyos, grub is ready.

Come and get it.

Gather round...shut the hell

up...please.

Mrs. Grey Eagle has prepared

this meal for us and first

I'll say a little grace.

Heavenly Father,

thank you for this food.

Thank you for the

sun, and our strength.

Mitakuye Oyasin. We are

all related in your Holy

Name....Oh, I

almost forget...

...Thank you for the whiskey.

Amen.

CROWD OF WORKERS:

Amen.

CLARENCE O'LEARY:

Boyos... raise your water

mugs. We have been gifted a

bottle of the finest spirits

from Cork County. So after

work if you'd like to help

yourselves to a little

snigger... by all means. But I

shall be starting now...

you be in heaven a half hour

ore the devil knows you're dead!

HENRY SEED:

That is great! That is the type

of toast that's going to keep me

on my toes.

CLARENCE O'LEARY:

Well you've got

half an hour...enjoy.

SHERIFF CHAPMAN:

Henry I want to see you

in my office. Right now.

SHERIFF CHAPMAN:

What do you know about this?

HENRY SEED:

It is a bullet. It is my bullet.

SHERIFF CHAPMAN:

I received this from

our mortician, he said he

found it in the brain of

Jonathan Brown....although

I know that he has become

sorely addicted to an opiate and

sometimes his judgment is

clouded.

HENRY SEED:

I believe that opiates add

thunder to a man's clouds.

SHERIFF CHAPMAN:

Henry how did your

bullet get mixed up

with the offending bullet?

HENRY SEED:

It came in with the deceased.

SHERIFF CHAPMAN:

You mean that an

un-fired, pristine bullet

went through the skull of

Jonathan Brown and

scrambled his brains?

HENRY SEED:

Actually Sheriff, sometimes

self-inflicted trauma

is justice in its purest sense.

SHERIFF CHAPMAN:

How so?

HENRY SEED:

Twenty three men of

the 7th Calvary were

awarded the Congressional Medal

of honor for bravery during

the Massacre of Wounded Knee.

Twenty three men who shot

unarmed women and children.

SHERIFF CHAPMAN:

I'm very well aware

of the battle.

HENRY SEED:

Please let me finish...

The cowards behind

those Hotchkiss guns not only

shot and killed noble people.

They killed thirty of their

own cavalry men.

SHERIFF CHAPMAN:

It was tragic...

HENRY SEED:

Yeah tragic...Sheriff,

did Jonathan ever regale you

with his act of heroism that

garnered such

an august award?

HENRY SEED:
(voiceover)

After the melee, Jonathon on

his own accord, tracked

down two Lakotas who had

escaped the brunt of the

massacre... For about a mile or

so he tracked a 20 year old

squaw named Mary Two Horse.

...Jonathan shot her in the

back. She died immediately.

Her one year old son,

that she had been holding...

froze to death that night,

If I had to live with

that horror, if I had to live

with that raw unbridled

cowardice. I would kill myself

too.

HENRY SEED:
(voiceover)

The bullet didn't kill him

sir...

Justice killed Jonathan Brown.

SHERIFF CHAPMAN:

Henry...I am asking

you to go back

from whence you came.

HENRY SEED:

And if I don't....

SHERIFF CHAPMAN:

I will arrest you.

HENRY SEED:

You have no cause to

hold me and I,

sir, have unfinished business

to attend to.

SHERIFF CHAPMAN:

You have 24 hrs...

do you understand me?

LITTLE THUNDER:
(in Lakota)

My dream today has

the healing power of the

Great Spirit and

my grandfathers...

but it comes in equal measure

a seed of great destruction.

FLUTE PLAYS:

FLUTE PLAYS:

MINOR RUNNING CLOUD: (in Lakota)

RED WOLF:
(in Lakota)

LITTLE THUNDER:
(in Lakota)

INTERIOR TAVERN:

HENRY SEED:

I give each one many chances

to show change, I extend

mercy in a

merciful fashion.

WANDA:

Your new friends should

inspire more

raindrops of mercy.

Gusty and Elizabeth are

proof that things may change.

HENRY SEED:

Elizabeth Jane's father

died in vain.

WANDA:

He died defending and

protecting a Lakota woman

from being savaged by two

gun-slinging idiots.

HENRY SEED:

He died and the Lakota

woman also died from

her wounds. They both lost,

nobody won...they all lost.

WANDA:

Gusty and Elizabeth are

proof...that he won...

BARTENDER ZEKE:

You know Henry you can either

spread the truth or you can

spread sickness.

HENRY SEED:

and sometimes I can parcel out

both with pinpoint accuracy

KATHRYN RODGERS:

Where is Dr. Bernhagen?

SHERIFF CHAPMAN:

He's just north of

Eagle Butte.

He should be back on Thursday

What was he muttering?

KATHRYN RODGERS:

He kept pointing to this

picture right here.

He kept saying thunder, Thunder.

SHERIFF CHAPMAN:

Did Matthew do these?

KATHRYN RODGERS:

No. They were given to

us by a gentleman

just a couple of days ago.

SHERIFF CHAPMAN:

Did he give you anything else?

KATHRYN RODGERS:

These blankets. He said

that they were....

umm... Indian made.

SHERIFF CHAPMAN:

Kathryn you need to

burn these

blankets right away.

SOUND OF WIND:

MINOR RUNNING CLOUD:

RED WOLF:

MUSIC STARTS - MELANCHOLY

IN NATURE.

COLIN:

Miss Wanda, did I tell you

that my pop now owns

1600 acres and I am our ranch's

leading cow puncher.

MISS WANDA:

I could see you

punching cattle...

COLIN:

Yes ma'am

KIPPY:

Now Colin, that is

impressive...but I am

the 12th in command of

the South Dakota Railroad

Division number 245.

COLIN:

Kippy that is not impressive,

there's only 13 people

that work in your office.

KIPPY:

That is true Colin but let me

tell you something,

I am climbing right up that

ladder...

COLIN:

Well I am friends with world

famous people.

WANDA:

Like who, pray tell?

COLIN:

Like Mr. Thomas Ederson...he

happens to consider me a very

close friend and confidant.

KIPPY:

What?

THE Thomas Ederson?...the

inventor of the vacuum pump.

COLIN:

Well the vacuum pump,

the candle under

glass...which I think I

invented anyway and he took

it from me...Well I was a

guest of his, right, about 5

or 6 years ago in 1893 back

at the Chicago World's Fair.

KIPPY:

What that one in Chicago?

COLIN:

Yeah, the very same one...where

he showed me his latest,

greatest invention. As a

matter of fact Miss

Wanda I think I'm the first

person in the world to see

his "moving pictures"...

and Mr. Ederson liked to

refer to it as watching his

"flim"

WANDA:

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