"(PROPELLER WHIRRING)" "(MAN CHATTERING ON PA SYSTEM)" "Professor Vernor?" "Yes." "I'm Sidney Endermann." "Oh, hello." "I thought you'd be wearing a suit and tie." "(CHUCKLES) Yeah." "It's too hot." "This way." "Thank you." "Ten days, right?" "How's that?" "The time you said you needed to decide whether or not you'd take the assignment." "Oh, yeah, that's right." "I read Virginia Genesis." "How'd it sell?" "Miserably." "Oh." "What's your latest one?" "Great Lakes Ordeal." "All about iron, steel." "A lot of immigration, of course." "How's it doing?" "It's holding its own in paperback, just barely." "Well, Professor, your books may not sell, but you have a hell of a rep in the profession." "I guess the brains in this country know a good man when they read his research." "Thanks." "Oh, and it's Lew, okay?" "Okay." "Sid." "Sid." "Yeah." "You live around here, Sid?" "New York." "Oh, I'm sorry, I..." "No, don't be sorry." "Unless, of course, it's about my living in New York." "SIDNEY:" "What's your hang-up about writing the article?" "For openers, it's already been written." "They just want some letters from me giving my understanding of what went on in this part of Colorado between the years 1844 and 1978." "Not much more than a house report." "You know, "Prepared with the help of Professor Lewis Vernor," ""Department of History, Georgia Southern."" "And you feel like you're selling out, huh?" "Well, it's not exactly the kind of in-depth research I'm used to." "Well, I'll tell you one thing." "It's all first-class with U.S. Magazine." "Your limousine awaits." "SIDNEY:" "That's how a magazine like U.S. stays in business." "We work like demons for months on a project." "Greatest writers in America." "But in the end, they want someone with real brains to vet the piece." "Facts are important, but understandings, like they want from you, that's vital." "Oh, I don't know." "I do." "Your vanity's been destroyed and your intellectual integrity's been humiliated." "But they offered to pay you twice as much as you'd make teaching for the same period of time, so you thought you'd come and check it out, right?" "Something like that." "(LAUGHS)" "So what's your involvement, other than chauffeuring around bruised egos?" "What did they tell you?" "That you'd meet me, show me around, and that the magazine is publishing a double issue on one American community." ""The soul of America in microcosm," I believe, is the way your managing editor put it." "What did you say when they told you the town they'd picked was Centennial?" "That I'd never heard of it." "Which is exactly what they wanted to hear." "Well, that and the fact that I told them" "I couldn't believe that anyone would seriously consider the South Platte River as the..." "The focus of an article on the development of American culture." "Too thick to drink, too thin to plow?" "Exactly." "Well, there's the Platte." "Not much of a highway of empire, is it?" "Used to be." "It was a hell of a highway once." "It brought Pasquinel here." "And Alexander McKeag." "Who?" "You'll find out." "If it weren't for them, there wouldn't be any Centennial." "Hey, Nate." "NATE:" "Hey, Sidney." "Mexican food tonight?" "You bet. 6:00?" "Sounds good." "All right." "I thought an historian would want to stay where a lot of history's been made." "Sounds reasonable." "We'll get you registered, and then we'll get you oriented." "Okay." "SIDNEY:" "Zendt's Store." "That's where it all started." "VERNOR:" "Zendt?" "Mmm-hmm." "Levi Zendt." "You're gonna love him." "And his wife, Elly, and his second wife, Lucinda McKeag." "You mentioned that name McKeag before." "Wait a minute, I seem to hear a distant bell going off." "Was he a trader?" "A mountain man?" "He was a legend." "One worth knowing and recording, so that the rest of the country can know, too." "Come on." "Manolo Marquez and his family live down the other end of this street." "That's another whole story." "And then there are two more places that really count." "The Wendell place..." "Yeah." "...and Paul Garrett's spread, The Venneford." "That's the cattle ranch." "Mmm-hmm." "It was owned by Earl Venneford of Wye." "The greatest cattle-rancher in the West." "Does the earl have a place in my story?" "Only if you want him to." "The ranch is really the heart of the story." "This is cattle country and there wasn't a cow north to Wyoming or east to Nebraska that didn't bear the Crown Vee brand for a long time." "(TRUCK RUMBLING)" "VERNOR:" "There's your truck." "No, that's his truck." "Who's he?" "Cisco Calendar." "Calendar, the singer?" "Yeah, that's him." "What's he, uh..." "What's he doing here?" "He lives here." "I know, he could afford to live anywhere, but this is where his family's always lived." "Cisco!" "I thought you were in Chicago." "I just got back." "Well, I'd like you to meet somebody." "Lew Vernor, Cisco Calendar." "Hello." "Howdy." "Saw the truck down at the hotel." "I thought you might come looking for it." "Um, I borrowed the truck to pick Lew up at the airport." "I was just giving him a tour." "CISCO:" "I saw." "Think we might take a trip up to Blue Valley again?" "That's a wonderful idea." "Lew, would you like..." "Oh, no, no thanks." "I'd like to look around some more." "You go ahead." "You're sure?" "Oh, absolutely." "Nice to meet you." "Same." "Bye." "I've been working on a song about you." "You haven't." "I have." "# I guess she'd rather be in Colorado" "# I guess she'd rather be out where the sky looks like a pearl" "# After the rain #" "(MOTOR RUMBLING)" "Howdy." "Hi." "What're you doing?" "Going to build a bridge over the creek, so the big trucks from the West can make it to the plant easier." "Oh." "MORGAN:" "That's enough!" "I said, that's enough." "Hey, damn it." "I said that's enough!" "What is it?" "What?" "The hole here." "What is it?" "I don't know." "I don't want this fool getting hurt on my property." "I said that's enough." "You're gonna get yourself killed." "They told me to work here." "Well, I'm telling you to work over there." "Who are you?" "Morgan Wendell, and I own this property and I'm telling you to work over there." "Okay." "What is that?" "Sinkhole." "Watch your step." "It could be hollow through here." "No sense in poking around here." "Are you all right?" "All right?" "I'm fine." "I'd just appreciate it if you'd stay clear." "I don't want anyone getting in any accidents around here." "My family made it big here by picking the right place to be at the right time." "Now, the man who gets this office can write his own ticket in this state for the next 20 years." "I want you both to start working on the governor." "Tell him that we're singing his praises every inch of the way, but we want to know that we can count on him to do the same for us." "Now, if you need any help, the names on this list should carry enough clout..." "Mr. Wendell, he's coming." "Oh." "Thanks, Eddie." "There you go." "Thank you, Mr. Wendell." "See you boys later." "You bet." "MORGAN:" "Professor Vernor?" "I thought that was you." "I'm glad to bump into you again." "Morgan Wendell." "You were out to my place earlier this morning when that workman nearly ran his rig into that sinkhole." "Oh, right." "Well, I didn't realize who you were then." "I just wanted to apologize for my manners." "Oh, that isn't necessary, Mr. Wendell." "Well, you see, it's just that we have a lot of kids fooling around down there." "Sometimes they hurt themselves." "It's inconvenient having somebody come after you all the time when it's something you have no control over." "You know what I mean?" "Certainly." "I understand you're doing a piece on Centennial." "I may, yes." "Well, I've got deep roots here, Mr. Vernor." "Real deep." "And I can't tell you how proud I am that they picked our town to write about and for you to do the writing." "Thank you, Mr. Wendell." "I haven't absolutely decided that I will write the article as yet." "You don't think they're going to let you get away, do you?" "A magazine as important as U.S. ?" "They need people like you to keep on top." "So people like me can be sure that when I read a fact, it's a fact." "Anyway, I want you to know I'm available anytime to give you the facts on how this town got started and how my grandfather helped put it on the map." "You'll forgive me, I hope, but as yet, I know nothing of the town." "No history, no names." "Well, that's the way it should be, shouldn't it?" "No prejudices, no preconceptions." "Let me give you my card." "I don't mean to crowd you, but this town is the most important place in the world to me." "My grandparents came here during real hard times and they found the American dream." "(MARIACHI MUSIC PLAYING)" "Hi, Sid, Nate." "Hey, Paul." "Join you?" "Sure, sit down." "I haven't seen Cisco around lately." "Nobody has." "Except Sidney here." "He's been writing." "He's had a parcel of inspiration, I can tell you that much." "You're terrible." "Lew!" "Hi." "Say hi to Paul Garrett." "Paul, this is Lew Vernor." "Mr. Vernor." "We're trying to get him to do the real work on our story about Centennial." "This is Nate Person." "Sit down." "VERNOR:" "Hi." "Howdy." "We're just going to have a couple of beers, thank you." "SIDNEY:" "And Nate may not be the greatest barber in the world, but this is the man who knows where all the bodies are buried." "And our host, Manolo Marquez." "Lew Vernor." "Do you like Mexican food?" "I don't know." "It's not all that popular in Georgia." "Well, this is the place to find out." "I'll bring you an order." "The best of everything." "Nothing for me, Manolo, I've gotta get back." "I'm sorry I'm late." "I ran into a fellow I couldn't get away from." "Oh, who?" "Who else?" "Had to be Morgan Wendell, right?" "How'd you know?" "Well, you're writing an article for a high-powered magazine, he's going heavy into politics, won't hurt him none to have folks all around the country reading about him and his family." "'Course, depends on what they read." "His version or my daddy's." "Nate." "Lew, what did he want?" "Well, nothing." "Just said he wanted to help out any way he could." "He didn't mention anything about politics or a campaign." "Of course not." "Anything a Wendell does is only out of concern for somebody else, right?" "They sure know how to sell, that's for dang sure." "And old Morgan's trying to sell himself right into the state capital and who knows what else." "Washington, maybe." "Wouldn't it beat all?" "A Wendell in Washington?" "No editorials from me." "It's their town you wanna write about." "What's he running for?" "Well, it's a new office." "Commissioner of Resources and Priorities." "The idea is to elect a person that will help the governor make the right ecological and industrial choices." "I've never heard of that one." "We're a pioneer state, Mr. Vernor." "People around here have always been willing to try a new approach to things." "Even politics." "We led the nation in old-age pensions, proper funding of education, liberal labor laws." "Turned down the '76 Winter Olympics because we thought it might be destructive to the environment." "Well, Wendell didn't." "I'm not defending Wendell, Nate." "Just his right to change his mind about the way he feels." "Are you gonna vote for him?" "A Wendell?" "Far as I know, his is the only name on the ballot." "NATE:" "Well, yours could be." "And I know for a fact that the governor asked you himself to run." "Well, I've got a ranch to run." "Takes up all my time." "Manolo, when Flor comes in, tell her I'll call her later." "Paul..." "I wish I could tell her you've changed your mind about running against Wendell." "Excuse me." "Any chance you could carve out some time for Lew?" "Tomorrow morning?" "Fine." "You an early riser, Mr. Vernor?" "Sure." "It'll take some time to see the Venneford." "Thanks, Paul." "NATE:" "You really want to do something for this part of the country, Professor?" "Well, you and Sidney go to work on that man and get him into politics himself." "And you tell me that I'm not right, Manolo." "You're right, amigo." "Wendell should be stopped." "And Paul Garrett is the only man who could do it." "That's right." "It won't take you a long time to find out." "He is Colorado." "VERNOR:" "A breeding book." "History of the Venneford bulls." "Over there inside the back of the book it's got the family, too." "All the way back to the fifth generation." "The Garretts came down from Montana." "They were English stock." "The Messmores and the Bucklands were, too." "The Lloyds were Welsh." "They emigrated to Tennessee and then Texas." "And old Patrick Beeley was a hard drinking Irishman." "Amazing." "Pasquinel..." "Yeah, he was French." "Zendt, Skimmerhorn and Bockweiss were Germans." "Deal was Dutch." "Red Wolf and Pale Star were full-blooded Arapaho." "And Lucinda McKeag was Pasquinel's half-breed daughter by a squaw named Clay Basket." "She was the daughter of a great Arapaho leader." "Pretty mixed up." "It was damned near incestuous." "You want some more coffee?" "No, thank you." "If you turn to the front of the book, you'll find the history of some of those great old bulls had some pretty close breeding in it, too." "Come on, bring it with you." "We gotta get airborne if we're gonna see this ranch." "Okay." "(BIRDS CHIRPING)" "Lucinda McKeag." "You say she was Pasquinel's daughter?" "Yeah, she was one of them." "The other was Maxwell Mercy's wife, Lisette." "She was born to Pasquinel's St. Louis wife," "Lise Bockweiss." "Then Pasquinel is responsible for the development of the whole area?" "And Alexander McKeag." "But Pasquinel came first." "He paddled a birch bark up the Platte all the way from St. Louis." "He was a courier du bois." "One who runs in the woods." "A Frenchman from Quebec." "And the first white man the Arapaho had ever seen." "He traded with them for beaver pelts." "And Lame Beaver let him know he was welcome to come back." "He traded with the Pawnee, too." "And he won their respect." "Because he came to them without fear." "He found McKeag in a Pawnee camp, and he was able to save his life because the Indians believed he was a man of his word." "A man they could trust." "McKeag stayed with Pasquinel." "And they explored a virgin wilderness together." "And Pasquinel taught McKeag how to survive." "Don't fire." "(GUN FIRES)" "You were way high both times!" "I hit what I wanted." "Yeah, the wind." "If you give an Indian a fair chance, you can avoid killing." "They're going to charge again." "We'll give them this one and then they'll be gone." "In years to come they will sit around the campfire and talk about the coup they made on the two white men." "And the whistling lead." "And you will sit in Scotland and talk about the tomahawks and lances." "PAUL:" "Their story's an important story." "The story of men who lived a life of freedom not many others have ever known." "And what McKeag learned from Pasquinel, he passed on to another important man in this part of the country." "His name was Levi Zendt." "He'd been headed for Oregon, but like a lot of others, he had to turn back." "Levi, a wheel give out?" "After we did." "What?" "We turned around." "Why?" "I saw the elephant." "Oh, I don't believe that." "Why not?" "Well, a man doesn't spin a tale that tall unless he's hiding a mountain of fear." "I don't see that in you." "Well, it doesn't matter." "Fact is, we quit." "I was wondering if..." "No, I don't suppose you'd consider it." "What?" "Oh, just an old man's foolish dream." "It wouldn't be fair to a young one with the makings you have." "What?" "Well, I told you I wanted to start another store for trading with the Indians." "On that land down south of here near Beaver Creek." "The place you trapped with your partner?" "Pasquinel." "I just had a funny feeling maybe you'd take to it the same way he and I did." "I don't even have to see it to know that for a fact." "PAUL:" "Levi and his wife Elly headed south with McKeag and his family and camped at a place called Rattlesnake Cliffs." "McKEAG:" "There it is." "(SNAKE RATTLING)" "What is it?" "Snake bite." "She was down low." "Elly?" "Elly!" "LEVI:" "Elly!" "It's God's mercy, son." "I've seen them die slow." "Believe me, it's better this way." "Levi..." "Elly!" "Elly..." "Ellie died." "But Levi stayed on with McKeag and they built a trading post together." "McKeag went to St. Louis and brought back goods and they made a real go of it out there alone." "Because McKeag had learned from Pasquinel that the secret was to show no fear." "And Levi Zendt learned the same lesson from McKeag." "Why?" "He was Pawnee." "He was a boy." "He was warrior prepared to die." "Are you?" "Before I'll watch you commit another murder." "Don't you let Pawnee on our land again." "Ever!" "This land is McKeag's and mine." "Clay Basket's!" "And when she dies, ours." "His and mine." "If you want the exact figures, Jake, 40% is mine." "And when I marry Lucinda, it'll be half." "Marry Lucinda?" "(SCOFFS)" "You going to marry Lucinda?" "This land is ours and when we tell you to get off, you get off." "Otherwise, it will all go." "We kill you all!" "It's easy to kill with a dozen others behind you." "Your father was a brave man, they say." "I figure if he'd seen what just happened, he'd have been sick." "You keep the trading post." "No harm." "One white man alone who understood the Indians couldn't stop others who didn't take the time to learn, though." "And when the men who came looking for gold got there, they were in too big a rush to want to learn anything." "They're the ones who really started the Indian wars." "And it cost a lot of good people dearly." "The trading post Zendt built with McKeag was burned down." "But he and Lucinda built a new one." "Right on the spot where it sits today." "Another important man came along about then." "His name was Hans Brumbaugh." "He was a Volga Deutschman." "And he was the first white man to really make use of the river since Pasquinel." "This is my land, huh?" "Mine." "And I'll grow potatoes." "And I'll be king of potatoes." "Potatoes Brumbaugh." "That's me." "That's good, huh?" "Potatoes Brumbaugh." "(LEVI LAUGHING)" "VERNOR:" "So the river really was the highway of empire." "PAUL:" "Sure was." "Now it's being treated like a sewer in some places and being sucked dry at that." "PAUL:" "Until I tell you different, everything you see down there once belonged to Earl Venneford of Wye." "VERNOR:" "Incredible." "It's so vacant." "I guess it's never been good for much but running cattle." "Yeah, and barely good for that." "It takes about 60 acres to support one cow and calf unit." "(WHISTLES)" "Sidney says you bought some of it." "(CHUCKLING) Yeah." "Only about 130,000 acres." "Maybe it's the best part." "It's a challenge." "And back east, how many acres to a unit?" "Well, my uncle in Virginia needs one acre for what you call a unit." "But, see, it's bottom land along the river." "That's the difference between Virginia and Colorado." "One to an acre your way, one to sixty our way." "I guess it makes your land 60 times better than ours, but we work 70 times harder, so we come out a little bit ahead, huh?" "How much land was there?" "Well, 180 miles east-west," "50 miles north-south." "About six million acres." "(WHISTLES)" "When my great-grandfather, Jim Lloyd, was foreman, he said that he could inspect about 10 miles a day." "About 18 days to cover just the middle." "Forget the north and south borders." "You said the Lloyds were from Texas?" "Yeah." "He came north on the first drive." "The Skimmerhorn drive?" "No, Skimmerhorn went to Texas to get the cows." "But R.J. Poteet made the drive north." "Do you mind if I turn this on?" "No, go ahead." "R.J. Poteet drove them north." "That'd be 1868?" "That's right." "Jim Lloyd was just a boy." "Did he tell you about it?" "Well, he claimed he grew old telling me." "You can imagine what it was like for a kid about eight or nine years old, listening to his grandpa telling him stories about adventures he had." "Adventures he knew he was never gonna see in his lifetime." "(CATTLE LOWING)" "Can I help you, son?" "Yes, sir, I'm looking for Mr. R.J. Poteet." "You found him." "Mr. Poteet, my ma says to please ride over and see her." "Who's your ma?" "Emma Lloyd." "You Tom Lloyd's boy?" "Yes, sir." "Well, how is ol' Tom?" "He's dead." "He didn't get back from the war." "What's your name, son?" "Jim." "(BIRDS CHIRPING)" "Emma." "R.J.!" "Bless me, you look just fine." "Just fine." "Jim here told me that Tom didn't make it back." "Him and too many others." "What can I do for you?" "I need you to buy my cattle, R.J." "Well, Emma, we just got about every head that we need." "Well, I'm sure of it, R.J, but, well, we haven't had a cent of spending money in over a year and I just gotta sell my cattle." "How many kids you got?" "Three boys." "Jim's the oldest." "Could I see the others?" "Boys, come on out here." "This is J.C. and this is little Tom." "He does favor him some." "Boys, this is Mr. R.J. Poteet." "A good friend of your father's for many years." "And of mine." "Howdy." "J.C." "Now, the reason that I'm here, is because your brother told me about your pa, and I reckon that if it was me that didn't make it back instead of him," "I'd like to think that he'd look in on my family, if they ask." "I'll take your cattle, Emma." "How many you got?" "A hundred and fifty." "I'll take them on consignment." "Two dollars a head now, plus whatever I can get at Fort Sumner." "Oh, thank God." "God bless you, R.J." "Jim..." "There's one more thing." "Now what's that?" "Would you consider taking Jim with you?" "I've seen you ride." "Can you throw a rope?" "Yes, sir." "It's a deal." "But when the trail's over, you don't get any wages." "Why not?" "Because I'm giving them to your mother now." "VERNOR:" "Tough way to grow up." "Well, he didn't have much choice." "The north was hungry for beef and Texas was just plain hungry." "Did he ever go back?" "He told me that after he saw Colorado, there was nowhere else on earth that he wanted to live." "And I grew up around here and I think I pretty much feel the same way." "Mmm." "You mentioned a fellow named Nate." "Mmm?" "Any relation to Nate Person?" "Yeah, his grandfather." "He was Poteet's right-hand man." "He was the only black man that ever rode point on the Skimmerhorn trail." "Gap's dead ahead." "Fourteen miles past it's the Pecos." "How's the water?" "Sweet in one spot." "North and south, it's all stagnant." "Pure alkali." "Kill every cow that drinks it." "Is it marked?" "There's a sign says Horsehead Crossing." "A line of skulls tell you why." "(SHOUTING)" "(WHOOPING)" "Watch where you pass!" "(SHOUTING)" "Bring it up!" "(SHOUTING)" "Dust, hell." "That alkali weren't nothing to what me and ol' O.D. Cleaver come through when we was finishing up an Indian scout one time." "Nothing could have been worse than that alkali." "I don't see how." "I'll tell you how." "The wind never stopped blowing, that's how." "For three days and three nights." "The sand covered up every blade of grass, even the mesquite bushes." "We was riding down through the sand hills between El Paso and Alamogordo." "Now you know what that's like." "I'll take it to that alkali." "Well, that's 'cause you wasn't there when we found the hat." "The hat?" "Yes, sir." "A man's hat lying there on top a sand dome when the wind died down." "Real nice hat, too." "Like someone cared for it real good." "So ol' O.D., he climbs down to pick it up, don't you know." "And smack underneath it, there's a head." "A head?" "What'd you do?" "Well, I climbed down beside ol' O.D." "We started scratching the sand out of the eyes and the ears, and the mouth with our fingers." "Then danged if that ol' head didn't look right smack up at both of us and started talking." "It talked?" "That's right." "What did it say?" "It says, "Get a shovel, boys, I'm on horseback."" "PAUL:" "But it wasn't all yarn-spinning and eating trail dust." "There was danger, too." "The outlaws and Indians." "(WHOOPING)" "POTEET:" "All right, boys." "Hold your fire." "You held them, boys!" "You held them!" "They won't be coming back." "You all right, Mr. Skimmerhorn?" "Yes, sir." "Good work, Nate." "You all ought to have seen old Jim." "He dropped that chief when he was right on top of me." "I killed him?" "I sure as hell didn't." "Somebody else's bullet, maybe." "No, sir." "Chief was yours, Jim." "Quite a breed of men." "Yes, they were." "You know, Nate and Bufe Coker the rebel died not far from here." "They were fighting side by side in the range war." "Cisco Calendar's great-grandfather, Amos, he was a buffalo hunter for a while until he started to herd sheep with Nate and Coker for my great-grandfather on my father's side." "Messmore Garrett." "Sheep?" "Yeah, he started with sheep but he had the good sense to switch to cattle." "The cowboy made this state." "He carved out the trail we're flying over now." "(HORSE SNUFFLING)" "Coker, they're straying over there." "Yes, boss." "Jim, well, this is the trail's end." "I heard." "I'd like..." "I'd like for you to hear something from me." "Sir?" "You know, if I was your own pa," "I couldn't be prouder of the way that you've come through." "I'd like to shake your hand." "Thank you, Mr. Poteet." "You betcha." "I'd like to give you something, too." "Oh, no, sir." "That wasn't our deal." "All right, son." "Well, you think you'll be sticking with this kind of work?" "Yeah, if I can find it." "Well, the trick is finding men like you that will do it." "It's a big, wind-blistered world we're riding through, Jim." "I just hope it'll last a little while longer." "Why wouldn't it?" "Well, because when men like you and me point the way to where a town can be built, then other men come along and they build it." "Settlers that want a home, or a title, a piece of ground." "And they'll kill to keep it." "But if you're as much like me as I think you are, you won't fight for that." "You'll only care about what you're responsible for." "Your horse and your herd." "I don't know, Jim." "Maybe..." "Maybe we're just too restless to inherit the earth." "Hmm?" "(WHISTLES)" "PAUL:" "He did inherit it, though." "A large part of it, anyway." "How did he wind up owning the ranch?" "Luck of the draw." "A wealthy widow fell in love with him and made him a wealthy man." "Your great-grandmother." "That would be Charlotte Buckland?" "Quite a lady." "And quite a story in her own right." "Sidney said I'd need a lot of tape." "Well, we got a lot of history." "But the men that followed that herd north, those are the men you gotta focus on here." "Without the cattle, there wouldn't be a Colorado." "DENNIS:" "Morgan, Vernor's just trying to get a slant on the story, that's all." "Besides, what could he possibly do that would hurt you?" "That's an important magazine, Dennis." "It's got millions of readers." "And what they write about my family can affect what I'm after in the next couple of years." "Are you talking about that gossip of how your granddad got started?" "Morg, my daddy used to tell us that one when we were just little squirts." "Hell, in a town like this, everybody's got a story or two they're not proud of." "Well, I'm proud of my family." "Damn proud." "I don't want that story turning up in print right now." "Simms and Riggs have been watching him." "Said he hasn't done anything out of the ordinary." "He's been with Paul Garrett." "Garrett's got a big story to tell, Morg." "You know that." "If I were writing for that magazine, I'd be pumping his well dry myself." "You afraid ol' Paul might still wanna jump in on this seat?" "I'm not afraid of Paul Garrett." "I just don't want anyone upsetting my plans right now." "We've got a perfect setup going here." "A campaign for a real public service showcase." "A chance to push an image the public wants to buy." "Now the right words about me and my family in that magazine can put us over the hump." "The wrong words can flush it all." "Understand?" "VERNOR:" "That's got to be good food." "It always tastes better after than it does going down." "Thank you." "Sort of puts your stomach in synch with the rest of the world, doesn't it?" "Yeah." "So tell me, are we in synch?" "I've still got eight days, right?" "Just didn't think it would take you that long." "How long did it take you?" "To do what?" "VERNOR:" "Write the story I'm here to fortify." "They did tell you." "Your friends did." "The way they treat you." "So, how long did you do research here?" "Five months." "Disappointed?" "No, it was just that at first I thought you were someone who, you know..." "Yeah, that was helping somebody else out?" "Someone more important than myself, huh?" "I'm sorry." "But your magazine has asked me to spend a lot of time doing something you've already done." "Can I ask you a question?" "Sure." "I expect it." "I know how important this is to you." "What's your judgment of the Skimmerhorn massacre?" "Oh, no." "That's your job to tell us what you think." "Have you done any work on the reports of Maxwell Mercy?" "Lew, you're an ace." "You're a real ace." "I did my master's thesis under Allan Nevins at Columbia University on some unpublished letters I found of Captain Mercy's." "And on my bedroom wall at home," "I have an old photograph of him taken by Jackson at Fort Laramie." "And for your personal information," "I got damn near straight As at Illinois and honors at the University of Chicago, where I took my doctorate." "Well, Doctor, you really love this, don't you?" "Yeah, I do." "And I really need you to make things hum." "To make them work." "To make them live." "VERNOR:" "What about the creek?" "Anything important happen here?" "What makes you ask?" "A little something I came across when I first got here." "This is the spot where Pasquinel and McKeag set up camp the first time they traded with the Arapahos." "How long ago was that?" "They were the first white men to come down the river." "That was nearly two centuries ago." "You're supposed to be getting this information from other people." "Could Morgan Wendell tell me?" "About Pasquinel and McKeag?" "No." "His family didn't get here until the 1880s." "Ah." "What's their connection with the creek?" "Oh, you've been doing your homework." "You heard about the scandal, hmm?" "Scandal?" "Yeah, the murder." "On this land?" "Their land?" "It wasn't theirs at the time." "But that's what some people say, that's how they got their money to pay for it." "They killed for it?" "That's what Nate Person said." "And Manolo says it's true, too." "What about Paul Garrett?" "No, he just sort of disregards anything that doesn't concern him directly." "What happened?" "Lew, I'm supposed to be making you do your own research." "Okay, how's this?" "What is it?" "What does it look like?" "Is it human?" "I'd say so." "Did you find it here?" "No." "It's just something I carry around to startle bright young journalists" "I meet in small Western towns." "No, I'm serious." "Did you find it here?" "Right there." "They were digging a hole to pour a foundation for the bridge abutment." "They must've broken through an old cave." "Then Dumire was right." "Dumire?" "He was the sheriff here when the territory became a state." "Axel Dumire was his name." "He swore that the Wendells got their start by committing a murder." "But he could never prove it because he couldn't find the body." "(BELL RINGING)" "SIDNEY:" "Morgan's grandfather, Mervin, did arrive without a penny." "But according to Sheriff Dumire, the fortune he made here was founded on blackmail and blood money." "Mr. Wendell, ain't it?" "Sheriff." "What a surprise." "Maude, for heaven's sake, look who's here." "Yes." "MERVIN:" "Well, how have you been, old man?" "Your trunks are on the cart, sir." "Oh, thank you, lad." "Here you go." "Oh, Lord." "I don't suppose you'd be able to change a $20 gold piece?" "I don't suppose I would." "Oh." "Well, no matter." "I'll catch you next time." "There it is, the Railway Arms." "See it, dear?" "MAUDE:" "Oh, yes." "Have them send someone for the trunks." "Yes." "Come, Philip." "How long are you planning to stay with us in Centennial?" "Two performances, sir." "And of course there will be a free pass for you at the box office." "And of course you're planning to pay your bills before you leave." "Sheriff." "SIDNEY:" "I told you the Railway Arms had seen a lot of history." "Well, it saw the first performance in Centennial by the Wendells." "Bravo!" "But some of their better performances were held for private audiences." "At least, Dumire thought so." "Like the one for Reverend Holly, the local minister, who let the Wendells move into a house he owned, rent-free." "A performance Dumire called the badger game." "MERVIN:" "Maude?" "Maude, I'm home." "Are you here?" "Maude..." "Mr. Wendell, listen to me, please..." "You filth!" "Mr. Wendell, I'm so sorry." "And so pious!" "So sanctimonious!" "Where's your Bible now, Pastor?" "About goodness and innocence and trust." "Oh please, you can't say anything to me that I haven't already said to myself." "How did this happen?" "I don't know how this happened." "It's as much my fault as it is his." "If you're going to shoot, then shoot both of us." "Yes, don't worry about that, madam." "You'll pay!" "Please, we've admitted our guilt." "We'll do anything." "Yes, anything." "Shut your mouth, sir!" "If for one second you believe that there's anything more important to me than honor..." "Oh no, no." "Of course not." "I didn't mean that at all." "But to scar your son like this..." "He's right." "Why..." "Why should you want to punish Philip?" "Please let me..." "Let me try to make this up to you somehow." "Let me..." "Let me give you something." "Something for Philip's sake." "(STUTTERING) I don't have very much, but..." "Well, I don't know, perhaps..." "Some kind of security for his future." "The deed." "The what?" "I want the deed to this house." "That would be something permanent for him." "That's scandalous." "Scandalous?" "You talk to me of scandal?" "I'll show you scandal, sir." "No, wait!" "The house is yours." "(LAUGHING)" "Shh..." "VERNOR:" "The badger game." "That isn't murder." "No, the murder came when a man named Sorenson saw through what they were up to." "But Dumire couldn't prove it." "Well, he couldn't find what you found." "Well, Sidney, we..." "We're not..." "Lew, Dumire swore that Sorenson's body is buried somewhere in that creek." "Yeah, yeah." "But first, we don't know whether this thing I found is actually human." "Second, we don't know how old it is." "And third..." "Then I will go to New York." "I will take it to a lab and have it examined," "I will call you..." "And third, if those two guys in the pickup truck are friends of Wendell's, it wouldn't be the smartest thing either one of us could ever do to make a lot of noise about this thing right now, anyway." "Don't look at 'em." "How long have they been there?" "Well, when we came out of Manolo's they were there." "And this is the third time they've been by here." "Why?" "Maybe Wendell has more parts to the puzzle than we do." "Lew, I don't know what you're talking about." "I saw him take out of there what could have been a complete skeleton." "That's how I got this little number in my pocket." "Just laugh a little, and act interested in anything besides that cave." "Who do you suppose they were?" "Probably a couple of researchers doing a piece on Centennial." "Funny." "Not so funny if they go to press before we do." "We?" "I'm afraid I'm hooked." "On doing the assignment, or playing Sherlock Holmes?" "Both." "I hate leaving you here alone." "I wish you would at least talk to the sheriff." "Is he related to Axel Dumire?" "You're impossible." "Look, Sid, It's the 20th century, right?" "Men have walked on the moon and are headed for planets beyond." "A murder that may or may not have been committed 100 years ago isn't going to place us in jeopardy." "It was 90 years ago, and it did happen." "According to Dumire's diary, he had everything but the corpus delicti." "SIDNEY:" "He was on to them from the beginning." "You Mervin Wendell's boy?" "Yes, sir." "What's your name?" "Philip." "Come down to see your dad do his job?" "Yes, sir." "Well, he's a real hard worker." "Job don't pay much." "Only about four dollars a week." "Hardly enough to keep a bird alive." "You look like you're eating all right, though." "Got some new clothes?" "Yup." "Well, I think someone gave them to us." "Good talking to you, Phil." "SIDNEY:" "Morgan's father, Philip, was just a boy then." "But he had to make a man's decision soon." "The night of the murder, Paul Garrett's grandfather, Messmore, was throwing a party for his wife." "(CHAMBER MUSIC PLAYING)" "Pa, I..." "Yes, lad, later." "Well now, let me guess." "Doctor?" "The black bag?" "No, I'm just a businessman." "Here looking at some properties." "Oh, I see." "Go and play with Beeley." "MERVIN:" "Maude..." "Maude..." "(GIGGLING) Oh!" "Um..." "Excuse me, sir." "I'm terribly sorry." "I've just spoken to Higgins." "He insists I come to Denver tonight." "Tonight?" "Now, precious, there's nothing I can do." "You know that." "I've just got time to catch the train." "Oh, no..." "Please forgive me." "I'll see you tomorrow." "I promise." "Oh, this is the end!" "I mean it!" "That's the last time that man's gonna run out on me!" "Are you all right?" "(GASPING)" "Would you take me home?" "Please?" "Of course." "Thank you." "I just feel so ashamed." "Surely not for crying?" "It seems to me you're certainly entitled to a few tears." "I mean, but I have no right to put my burdens on your shoulders." "Oh, I think they're broad enough." "Yes, they certainly seem to be." "Oh, Mr. Sorenson..." "Maude," "I'm back!" "I missed the train." "(EXCLAIMS)" "Be still, man." "For God's sake, nothing's happened." ""Be still"!" "What earthly right have you got to tell me to be still?" "You wait until my back is turned, you creep into my house..." "There isn't a judge or jury who wouldn't honor me for killing you!" "Sir..." "The old badger game." "I should have known." "I must be getting silly in my old age not to see through an act like yours." "You're very good." "Now, we'll see what your sheriff has to say about this." "Mervin?" "Now, sir, just one moment." "Put that down, you fool, I've had enough." "Sir, I'll have..." "Maude!" "He's breathing, isn't he?" "No." "Oh, my God, we'll hang." "They won't hang us." "MAUDE:" "Nobody knows he's here." "We'll bury him." "What?" "We'll put him in the well." "That's the first place they'll look." "Philip?" "Dad, I tried to tell you at the party." "Sheriff Dumire knows what you did to the minister." "So the minute he finds out you were dancing with this man, he's gonna be out here." "He's gonna be looking down that well and he's gonna be digging up that cellar." "Philip, how did you know about the minister?" "I guessed." "I knew he didn't give us this house for nothing." "Oh, dear God." "What are we gonna do?" "What are we gonna do?" "What have we done to this poor boy?" "Mervin, be quiet!" "He won't collapse." "He's his mother's son." "Aren't you, dearest?" "I guess I must be." "'Cause I know where we can hide him." "In the creek?" "It won't work." "Yes, it will." "Now come on." "They'll know he didn't drown." "Someone's bound to remember he left with me." "Look, nobody will ever find him." "Come, come on." "Phillip, come." "Come." "(SOBBING)" "Where?" "Where did you hide him?" "Cave." "Some beavers made it, I guess." "It was my secret hiding place." "Now, I guess it..." "Now, I guess it's got to be ours, huh?" "Mervin." "Look!" "Look!" "It was in his black bag!" "It's a fortune!" "Five and a half thousand dollars!" "(BOTH LAUGHING)" "Do you know what this means?" "Do you know what this means?" "It means we can go to Europe." "It means we can invest." "We can have a business." "We can have a theater." "No." "Maude?" "Not yet." "What are you talking about?" "Sheriff Dumire." "He'd want to know where we got the money from." "We're going to be very patient." "We're gonna quit the badger games." "We'll take on extra work, all of us, even Philip." "And then, when the time comes, we'll be able to invest our savings." "Dumire again." "He's always the fly in the ointment." "MERVIN:" "What if he finds the body?" "He won't." "SIDNEY:" "That's how it happened." "Dumire knew it, and that's how it happened." "But he could never prove it." "Nobody could prove it." "Lew, you know what you found?" "A piece of the past." "Maybe a piece of the future." "How's that?" "Morgan Wendell." "If the rest of that skeleton could be found, then..." "Aw, damn." "Damn." "What?" "Well, I wanted to use this for our story." "But I think we should leak it to the papers first so it comes out just before the election." "Why?" "To stop Wendell!" "Morgan Wendell hasn't done anything wrong." "He represents everything that's wrong in this country." "His family made a fortune on other people's misfortunes and their miseries." "Their land development scheme at Line Camp was enough to..." "Well, that's information that you should get from other people." "I just think that we should do something about what we're sitting on." "Wait a minute." "What I'm sitting on." "Lew, that's evidence." "Have you ever heard of the statute of limitations?" "I'm not trying to send anybody to prison." "What are you trying?" "Blackmail?" "Character assassination?" "A smear campaign?" "Lew..." "I shouldn't let you take this to New York." "Oh, you just try and stop me." "Rattlesnake Cliffs." "It's too bad they can't talk into your recorder." "They've seen things no man's ever seen, and right over there is where the first American dinosaur was found." "Huh." "Diplodocus." "Professor from Harvard dug it out in about, now, 1875, I guess." "It was about two miles up beyond the cliffs, that's where they found the Clovis points, about 1935." "They proved that man had been here at least 11,000 years." "We'll ride out there tomorrow." "Maxwell Mercy wrote about those cliffs in his journal." "Is this where it happened?" "We're flying over Lost Eagle's camp right now." "That was a camp with no warriors and no weapons." "PAUL:" "Over there at about 10:00 is where the Colorado state militia sat waiting for the sun to come up." "Colonel." "Captain, everything in order here?" "Ready and waiting, sir." "I trust you grasp the importance of your position?" "You're not to let one single redskin slip through these lines." "I understand, sir." "Will they be heavily armed?" "Armed?" "They're Indians." "Shoot them down." "Of course, sir." "What I meant to say was will they be mounting an attack in my direction?" "Captain McIntosh, listen to me." "When those cannons fire, there's gonna be a great deal of confusion." "I intend to compound that in the center." "In all that confusion, many of those Indians are gonna attempt to run off in your direction." "And it's your duty to gun them down." "All of them." "(HORSE SNUFFLING) I do hope you understand." "Yes, sir." "SKIMMERHORN:" "We can't let them live to fight another day." "It'll be sunrise soon." "Gentlemen, we're engaged in a great venture." "We have it in our power to make this glorious nation safe forever from these predators." "God is on our side." "Remember that always." "LIEUTENANT:" "Fire!" "(CANNON FIRING)" "(GASPS)" "Fire!" "(PEOPLE SCREAMING)" "Full ahead!" "(ALL WHOOPING)" "We have no guns!" "Stop!" "We have no guns!" "(CHANTING)" "(GUNS FIRING)" "(SOBBING)" "(CHILDREN CRYING)" "What are you doing with them?" "Captured prisoners, sir." "Nits grow into lice." "Kill them." "They're slipping away to the right." "Colonel's compliments, sir." "And why isn't the right flank engaged yet?" "Because the right flank refuses to slaughter unarmed civilians." "Are you all right?" "You look a little pale." "I'm trying not to be sick, sir." "We should all be sick this day." "We should all be sick forever." "But somehow it's been an easy thing to forget." "Except for the Indian." "Paul." "Morgan." "Mr. Vernor." "Hello." "Checking out the cattlemen's heritage, are you?" "Oh, more than that." "We've been in a real time machine." "All the way back to the first dinosaur." "Well, you remember, when you get up to where things are really happening around here, let me know." "Paul, can I have a couple of minutes of your time to talk some 20th century business?" "All right, Morgan." "Lew, why don't you go down to the corral and pick us out a couple of horses?" "All right." "You remember, now." "Paul, you and I have never really gotten along too well, but I need your help." "I need it badly." "With what?" "Well, it looks like I've got this election into the bag." "And if I win, I'm going to need some first-rate brains to help me." "Now, don't interrupt me." "Brains aren't my long suit." "But sensing what's happening is." "Knowing what people are looking for." "And how does that involve me?" "Directly." "You see, the great problem for Colorado in the next decade is going to be to save the state." "I mean that." "To save the forests, the trout, elk, and especially things like the rivers and the air we breathe." "Sit down, Morgan." "You know, for the first time in your life, you're beginning to make sense." "I learned from men like you, Paul." "And I know how you feel about politics." "I want you to accept an appointment as my deputy, effective the day I take office." "Now, it's a real public service position." "And it's an appointment." "No politics involved." "Morgan, I certainly appreciate it." "A job like that, my conscience wouldn't let me turn it down." "But I won't take the job just to provide a facade for you." "You talk about ecology." "That's a popular word today." "That's the in thing to say if you want to get elected." "But it's not just a word to me." "It's my whole life and my family." "I might not be an easy man to live with." "I know that." "But I believe in your strength, Paul." "As much as I do in my own." "I think we could put up with each other a couple, three years, just to get the job off on the right foot, huh?" "Might be a workable arrangement." "And you accept?" "You got the buggy before the horse, Morgan." "No." "No." "I want you to say yes now, so I can make an announcement this afternoon." "I don't think you wanna make that announcement today." "Why not?" "You know about Floyd Calendar's trial." "What, for hunting eagles?" "From a plane." "Well, Paul, every hunter in the state's going to side with Floyd." "Not this one." "I'm hoping that doesn't mean you're going to testify against him." "I sure as hell am." "Paul, uh, that could be a sticky case." "Couldn't you..." "Couldn't you duck it?" "You know, Morgan, before you can even get me appointed, you're asking me to draw back." "Well, it's just that..." "It's just that we don't see eye to eye on things." "We never have." "Floyd Calendar's case is the very heart of what we were just talking about." "Well, maybe I could postpone the..." "You postpone, and I won't accept." "You just said you'd accept." "I said, Morgan, that the protection of this state is always gonna irritate people you want to placate, need to placate." "It'd be a dogfight between us every inch of the way." "It doesn't have to be." "We both know where we stand." "Your job'll be protecting all the good natural things and mine will be to make sure that industry gets a fair shake, so there'll be jobs and tax rolls." "You conserve the water." "I want every drop I can get for new cities and factories." "It'll be hard, sure, but it won't be half so hard if you don't go getting mixed up in that Calendar case." "Do you know who one of my favorite Americans of all time is?" "Warren Gamaliel Harding." "Because he came along at a time when this country still had a comfortable margin of error." "And he proved just how bad an elected official could be." "He's the benchmark for every politician since." "On the day they take office, they ought to think of President Harding and say to themselves," ""I'll never allow myself to be that bad."" "So you see, Harding keeps the ballgame honest, and I judge him to be one of the most useful Americans that ever lived." "And if I ever get into politics, even by an appointment," "I'm not gonna turn out to be the Colorado Harding." "I wanna tell you, Morgan," "I can't work with a man who's beginning to make noises like he might be just that himself." "Well, that's just one more thing we don't agree on, Paul." "And I'm sorry." "For you, for me," "but especially for Colorado." "PAUL:" "He's a technician." "He can perform." "He can keep things from getting tangled, but in a crisis he won't have any base to operate from." "VERNOR:" "Because he doesn't believe in anything?" "I don't want to be misunderstood, Lew." "He's a reliable businessman." "He did well in college but he never..." "But he never took any classes that made him think." "Worked his way in with the right people, professors, coaches, fraternity leaders, but nobody ever knew what he stood for." "He never crossed anybody, he just kept climbing." "Yeah, well, I don't remember you being at Boulder when we were there." "I live on a college campus." "The faces change every semester, but most of the students don't." "Let me ask you something." "Sure, go ahead." "You believe this position to be an important one?" "Very." "But you refuse to do what the governor asked." "You'll just let Wendell walk right in and take it." "Well, public office is not something I want to chase after." "Let me put it another way." "If Lost Eagle had it to do over again, think he'd fight?" "He did what?" "He filed for the primary." "He's running against you." "That phony son of a..." "All right." "When's Calendar's trial?" "Next Wednesday." "Good." "We're gonna take Mr. Garrett out of the race before he even gets into it." "Make sure the press covers his testimony and get a hold of Calendar's attorney." "I'm going to coach him myself on a few questions" "I want Mr. Garrett to answer publicly." "Mr. Garrett." "Hey, Mr. Garrett, look over here." "Smile." "DISTRICT ATTORNEY:" "The defendant, Floyd Calendar, has been an acquaintance of yours for how many years, then?" "GARVEY:" "Oh, I'd say maybe eight, ten years." "And what kind of work was he doing then?" "He was a guide." "What kind of guide?" "Well, he put hunting parties together." "To hunt what?" "Prairie dogs." "Prairie dogs." "Are they edible?" "GARVEY:" "No, you don't eat them." "You just shoot prairie dogs for the fun of it." "(ALL LAUGHING)" "I see." "Mr. Garvey, are you a pilot?" "That's right." "And you fly a helicopter out of Fort Collins?" "Yes, sir." "When, in your opinion, Mr. Garvey, did Mr. Calendar first direct his attention to eagles?" "Oh, well, we was flying one day, about five years ago, I guess, and we see this old baldy come out of this dead tree." "And we both watched him flying for a while, and then Floyd, he turned to me and he said, "Hell, Hank,"" "he said, "With the right attention," ""a man could get on that old eagle's tail" ""and blast him right out of the sky."" "So for a week we made dry runs, you know, seeing if we could spot an eagle and get close to him." "And we found out that it was downright easy." "Those eagles don't fly near as fast as they show 'em in them cartoons." "(ALL LAUGHING)" "When did the idea..." "I mean, whose idea was it to do this commercially?" "Oh, I think that kind of came natural." "Floyd and I, we knew about hunters, especially Floyd, him being a guide and all." "And we knew how tough it was for a hunter to bag an eagle." "I mean, a lot of good shots, they'd try for years without even coming close to one, much less hitting one." "And that used to bug 'em, you know." "Maybe on their walls they'd have a big-horned rhino from Africa, or a tiger from India, but they didn't have our national bird." "Well, when did the commercial aspect begin?" "Sir?" "Your first customer." "When was that?" "Well, uh..." "We were making dry runs this one day, and I got real close to a big bird and old Floyd, he really got excited." "And he said, "Hell, a man don't even have to aim." ""If he can just point a gun he can get an eagle this way."" "And there was this dude from Boston and he had all kinds of trophies in his trophy room except an eagle." "I mean he even had a Kodiak bear." "And so he wanted an eagle so bad he could taste it." "And so this one time before we were taking off, why, he said to Floyd, he said, "Now, I don't think you can get an eagle this way," ""but if you can get me onto one, I'll give you $500."" "Then he turned to me and he said," ""Of course, there'd be something in it for you, too."" "So boy, we flat-out natural were gonna get that man an eagle." "So, did you?" "Well, we cruised around for a while, you know, west of Fort Collins, didn't scare up anything." "And then we just sort of, kind of drifted down over the Rocky National Park, and we spotted a big, beautiful bird." "Of course, this dude, he wanted to shoot him right away, you know." "But I said, no, let's not do that, not over the park, you know." "'Cause we're liable to get into trouble when we go down there to pick him up." "So he didn't shoot?" "Oh, no, sir." "Not then." "So I swung the plane south of that old boy and we worked him up north, out of the park." "When he was over open land, then I moved in real close." "Now, the eagle and the chopper, they, they fly at about the same speed, so it was just like the bird was standing still." "Or like you were on a platform in the sky standing right beside him." "Yes, sir." "And that's where we made our big mistake on that first try." "I got too close." "Hell, you could have killed that eagle with a broom." "So what happened then?" "Well, the dude fires." "Well, he practically disintegrates his eagle." "Took us the best part of an hour to pick up the bits and pieces." "So we take it in to the taxidermist and he takes one look at that pile and he says," ""Well, boys," he says, "How do you want this job made up?" ""Duck or an eagle?" ""I can play it either way."" "Mr. Holmes, as a state naturalist, you and your associates had been watching" "Mr. Calendar for some time, then?" "Uh, yes, sir, we have." "The national publicity on that eagle deal, sort of scared him off that line, we haven't seen the helicopter since then." "Have you had further contact with him?" "Yes, sir." "We had further contact when he turned his attention to bears." "To bears?" "Yes, sir." "You see, there's about as good a market for bears as there are for eagles." "Well, he devised him this sure-fire plan to help an eastern hunter bag himself a bear." "And how was that?" "Well, he'd just trap them." "Trap them?" "Yes, sir." "He'd trap them, put them in cages and then he'd take the cages and put them deep in the woods." "He'd take some sportsman out to a cabin nearby." "And, well, he'd sneak out about 5:00 in the morning and he'd go turn the bear loose." "5:15, they'd be on the trail and, well, by 5:30, you got yourself a dead bear." "And this was for profit?" "Boy, I'll say it was." "He charged $100 for the hunt and $200 if the sportsman bagged a bear." "He wasn't taking any chances." "There wasn't any doubt about that, 'cause he had starved those poor animals, and he knew the first thing they'd do is stop to eat when he set them loose." "Mr. Garrett, would you tell us, please, how long you've known the defendant?" "All my life." "I knew his father, I knew his grandfather, and his great-grandfather and mine came north from Texas on the first cattle drive." "Tell us, please, about your most recent contact with..." "It all had to do with the turkeys." "Turkeys?" "About 10 years ago I lured a family of wild turkeys on the north edge of my ranch, and we fed them and protected them, and pretty soon we had a big colony." "The wild turkey is a very sensitive bird." "Almost extinct in these parts, and that's a crime in itself, because that's our real national bird." "You kept a close watch on these birds, then?" "So did Floyd Calendar." "Well, how do you know that?" "Well, after they increased in number, they began to decline." "Objection, Your Honor." "Sustained." "Let me rephrase the question to the witness, Your Honor." "Mr. Garrett, did you have evidence to show that Mr. Calendar had taken an active interest in the number of turkeys you had on your ranch?" "DEFENSE ATTORNEY:" "Objection." "Your Honor, I want it noted that Mr. Garrett stated that these were in fact wild birds that he lured onto his land and not birds that he had purchased or bred or raised." "So noted." "Continue, Mr. Garrett." "After we noticed the number of birds declining, and we couldn't find a reason for it..." "I mean, there was no disease, no attacks by coyotes, we began to worry, until I got this letter from a friend of mine in Boston." "He enclosed a copy of a form letter he received from Colorado." "Is this the letter?" "That's the letter." "Exhibit F for the prosecution, Your Honor." "Will the clerk please read the contents of the letter to the court?" "It's addressed to Mr. Daniel Mahoney, 1212 Riverdale Drive," "Boston, Massachusetts." ""Dear, Mr. Mahoney," ""Your name has been referred to me by a mutual friend" ""as a man who enjoys the challenge and excitement of big game hunting." ""Here in Colorado, we offer two trophies in one trip" ""that are a magnificent addition to any sportsman's collection." ""I can guarantee you what no other guide in America can guarantee." ""Come to the Rockies, and I'll show you" ""how to bag both of our national birds," ""a baldheaded eagle and a wild turkey."" "It's signed, "Floyd Calendar, Centennial, Colorado."" "Mr. Garrett, where did Mr. Calendar get the turkeys that he guaranteed in that letter?" "From my protected sanctuary." "Objection." "Your Honor, if Mr. Garrett may be allowed to answer, I believe you'll be satisfied." "Go ahead, Mr. Garrett." "When I got the letter from Dan Mahoney," "I staked one of my men out on the preserve, and sure enough, after a while, here comes Floyd with a hunter from Wisconsin shooting my turkeys." "Objection." "The turkeys I tried to protect on my own land." "Mr. Garrett, there's been a lot of ugly rumors circulating about the incident in question." "Would you mind telling the court just what you did when you confronted Mr. Calendar about the turkeys?" "Yes, I was angry." "I was real angry." "And I caught up with him at the Flor De Mexico..." "Flor de Mexico, what is that?" "A restaurant." "A Mexican restaurant?" "A cantina?" "That's right." "Is that in Centennial and is it owned by a" "Senor Marquez?" "Manolo Marquez." "His father owned it before him." "Thank you." "You're on quite good terms with the owner, aren't you?" "And his sister." "Objection, Your Honor." "Irrelevant." "Mr. Prescott, I'm afraid I don't see the relevancy, either." "The relevancy is, Your Honor, that an incident occurred involving my client and Mr. Garrett." "Mr. Garrett chose to pick a spot where he knew he was under protection of his closest friends." "The Mexican cantina owned by Senorita Marquez and her brother." "Marquez." "You may answer the question, Mr. Garrett." "The question was..." "I know the question." "Miss Marquez and her brother are close friends of mine." "And you do pay regular visits there?" "That's right." "Was it on one of your regular visits to this Mexican cantina owned by your close friends that you accosted Mr. Calendar?" "Your Honor, I have to object." "It's all right." "I'll answer the question." "It was in the cantina." "And I did accost him." "Did you lay hands on him physically?" "You bet I did." "What'd you say to him at that time?" "I think I said something like..." "We're not interested in "something like," Mr. Garrett." "We wanna know exactly what you said." "I said, "Calendar, if you ever step foot" ""on my turkey range again, I'll kill you."" "You threatened his life?" "You bet I did." "I told him if I was there when he came, I'd do it there." "I said if I missed him when he was sneaking around," "I'd hunt him down and drop him where he stood." "And we have witnesses who will testify, Mr. Garrett, that you also said if he ever set foot in the Mexican cantina owned by your close friends, you'd kill him where he sat." "That's what I said." "And I think he knew I meant it." "Since then we haven't lost any turkeys." "(ALL LAUGHING)" "Here's a shot of the two of them coming up the steps together." "They're gonna print it on page one." "Perfect." "Perfect." "He writes off half the hunters in the state and a whole horde of Anglo bigots at the same time." "You know something, Paul was right." "He's not cut out for politics." "(DOG BARKING)" "Morning." "See the paper?" "No." "Guilty?" "Yeah." "Guilty of operating a zoo without a license." "What?" "He kept the bears in cages for periods of over 30 days." "I can't believe that." "For killing 413 bald eagles, 200 bears and 81 of my turkeys," "they fined him $50." "How can they do that?" "You had proof." "The state had proof." "That's the trouble." "All we had was proof." "Calendar had tradition." "A man isn't guilty of anything around here unless he's an Indian, or a Chicano." "They actually acquitted him of every major count." "And they put Flor and me on the front page." "Just in case somebody missed the point that Calendar's lawyer was trying to be so subtle about." "(BIRDS CHIRPING)" "I can't tell you why, but whenever I have something to think out," "I think it out best on the reservation." "Oh, Paul, it's your Arapaho blood." "Maybe that's the most important part of me." "You have Indian heritage, too?" "If you trace it back, it's only five thirty-seconds Arapaho, but I visit the family out here two or three times a year." "I visit them ever since I was a little kid." "I appreciate you letting me come along." "You can't write your story without it." "I'm not an Indian apologist, but I guess if I were 20 years younger," "I'd be one of those gun-toting activists." "Damn Shoshone." "What's the trouble now, Aunt Augusta?" "Government says we can have a recreation hall." "Well, that's good, isn't it?" "Shoshone say it has to be on their land." "I see, you want it on your land." "We may have to go to war." "You see, the Shoshone and the Arapaho have been enemies as far back as anyone can remember." "And some people don't want to forget." "She's not serious about war?" "Ask the agent." "He knows." "He sleeps in town." "That's true." "Paul, what does she mean?" "She means, the Indian Affairs agent sleeps in town because he doesn't want to spend his nights out here." "But I thought..." "Everybody thinks the Indian lives in peace on the land that they love." "For some, that's true." "I can't get her to live anywhere else." "It's also true that they haven't lived in peace since President Arthur, and all the white man's wisdom moved the last of the Arapaho from Colorado up here on this reservation in Wyoming, that already belonged to the Shoshone." "Arthur?" "That'd be 1880." "1883." "There is enough land here for two tribes, but not when they're mortal enemies." "They're still fighting?" "Because they made General Custer head of Indian Affairs." "Custer didn't govern Indians, he fought them." "In 1876, General Custer left his office to go to the Little Big Horn." "And he said," ""Don't do anything until I get back."" "Yeah, and they haven't done a damn thing since." "Now you take care of yourself." "Paul, did you hear what happened to Sam Loper's son?" "He died." "No." "Drowned in a ditch." "A ditch two feet deep." "He's not the first, Paul, and he won't be the last." "I see too many drunk." "Too many dying or killing someone they don't even know because they're driving on the wrong side of the road and they don't know that either." "Or like my boy, they just stumble in a ditch and drown." "I'm sorry, Sam." "I am, too, Paul." "And what good is that?" "To be sorry." "To wake up sorry." "To go to bed sorry." "To live each day sorry." "To die sorry." "The boy left a wife and three children." "She's a heavy drinker." "Hasn't been sober in days." "Where are the children?" "They're with Sam's daughter." "That's one thing that hasn't changed." "The Indian has a strong sense of family." "They look after their own." "But, damn it, there's no reason for life to be wasted like that." "Paul, what can we do?" "Go to the mission and raise hell, and watch it happen all over again." "What is it, Paul?" "What causes the pattern?" "It's what Aunt Augusta said." "The men who sleep in town." "PAUL:" "The awful problem is that no girls in America, and I mean none, are better brought up than these Indian girls." "They get traditional teaching at home, they study here at the mission." "They're clean, devout, filled with the excitement of life, and then they marry." "Now, who do they marry?" "They marry the tall, good-looking young men on the reservation." "And what happens to these young men who play basketball so well when they're 19?" "Some find a place for themselves." "Well, more than ever before, actually." "It's over 30% on this reservation go to college now." "But too many of them drift." "Lose interest because they feel no one's interested in them." "They feel they have no future, no hope." "So they start to drink." "After the first baby, the husband starts beating his wife." "Actually, the only contact she can have with him, is to join him drinking." "Look at it." "What in the hell can a man say?" "Think about the way they were once." "Proud and strong." "They ruled this land." "It was theirs in a way it's never been ours." "The Indian never intended to mold himself into white man's ways." "Why should he?" "His ways made sense for centuries." "So our great plans of fitting him into white society were doomed from the start." "He formed an indigestible mass in the belly of progress." "And he had to be regurgitated." "Like Jonah." "He came out about as well as he came in." "It was inevitable that his land would be taken away from him." "The white man was in motion." "The Indian wasn't." "The whole thrust of our national life puts us in conflict with his simple needs." "(WHOOPING)" "And even though we asked him to gather his nations together to come and meet with us in peace, to come with understanding hearts and minds, even though they believed we wanted peace as much as they did," "and came to celebrate the great treaty that would last for as long as the eagle flies and the waters flow, the land treaties we offered with the best of intentions couldn't last." "At the very moment of signing, the wisest of men knew the papers weren't worth a damn." "Before the ink was dry, the Indian was dispossessed." "No." "(PEOPLE SCREAMING)" "Full ahead!" "We have no guns!" "Stop!" "(CHANTING)" "(CHILDREN CRYING)" "What are you doing with them?" "Captured prisoners, sir." "Nits grow into lice!" "Kill them." "(HORN HONKING)" "I'm sorry." "Lew," "I may not know what I think about Watergate or Wendell, but I know what I think about the American Indian." "And I suppose it's a smaller, less important problem than equality for the black people," "but a lot of the world has had to deal with slavery and its consequences, and the American Indian is this nation's unique moral headache." "You're a history teacher, Lew." "Can you think of anything in the world that parallels our treatment of the American Indian?" "The English killed off the Tasmanians, the Australians kept the aborigine debased," "Brazil was the same." "Only in America did we show total confusion." "One day we treated the Indians like sovereign nations." "The next day we treated them like uneducated, uncivilized savages that had to be exterminated." "Our policy today is still confused, but I'm not." "What about the land?" "I'll give it to them." "Divide it up equally." "The ones that still want to live in the communes, let them, encourage it like they did with the Pueblos in New Mexico." "And the others?" "Well, the others are gonna have to jump in with both feet." "Sink or swim." "Like my family had to." "And like yours had to." "A lot could be lost." "The best will survive." "In legend." "In remembered ways of doing things." "In how they treated the land." "Just look at the land." "The best part of America." "No houses, only the road we came in on." "No fences, no boundaries, just the wall we've built around those people." "You know, you can preserve natural resources, you can't preserve human beings." "Thank God they're not whooping cranes to be kept alive until the last one's dead." "And they are not freaks of nature to be kept away from the rest of us." "They're human beings." "Human beings." "(WIND WHISTLING)" "You know, for a man who doesn't want to be a politician, that was quite a speech." "I'm just trying to be myself." "My own man." "Baby, I don't think anyone's ever had any doubt about that." "I have." "What in the hell am I doing living alone in that castle when I should be living with you?" "I'm a respectable widower of eight years." "My kids are grown and gone." "You ever been to a Mexican wedding, Lew?" "No." "The lady I love's Mexican." "Paul, no." "Not now." "Not before..." "Flor." "Flor, whatever Wendell thinks of Chicanos, or whatever he thinks Colorado thinks of Chicanos, doesn't mean buffalo chips to me." "I know who you are and I know who I am." "And I know where you belong." "(BAND PLAYING MARIACHI MUSIC)" "(PEOPLE CLAPPING)" "(ALL CHEERING)" "(SINGING IN SPANISH)" "Mr. Garrett?" "What is it?" "What's happening?" "It's a serenade, ma'am." "I know, but what for?" "For the lady I'm gonna marry." "Is that an announcement, Paul?" "That's a Mexican custom, Morgan." "I make the serenade, the lady makes the announcement." "If she's willing." "Si." "Como no?" "(ALL CLAPPING)" "I want a picture of the bride, I want a picture of the groom," "I want a picture of the interior of the restaurant," "I want a picture of all of them together, pronto." "I've always admired the romantic side of Paul's nature." "But politically, he could be sealing his own grave." "That could be true, I guess." "But then he wouldn't be the only one around here sealing graves lately, would he?" "PAUL:" "Now you boys know how I feel about skiing." "The mountains are a good place for recreation." "A good place to get away from pressures." "A resort like this that doesn't scar the landscape is a good thing." "It brings the rewards of nature to more people." "You wanna build some runs along the highway, okay." "But start commercializing the back valleys, I'll fight you." "That's if I'm elected." "PAUL:" "The Mile High City just might not be high enough anymore." "The University of Boulder has copies of the letters that Elly Zendt wrote when she came west with Levi in 1845." "I remember reading where she said that when they were 105 miles away, she could see the Rockies so clearly" "that they could pick out the valleys." "Now look at them." "That just might be the saddest sight in America." "We're 10 miles away and you can't see anything." "Just that lens of filth." "Could be that one day when you wanna see the unspoiled grandeur of Colorado," "you'll have to go to Wyoming." "FINCH:" "This is an analog." "It shows you the whole Platte system as it is today." "But it can also show you what could happen five years from now if we continue to increase the demand for water." "Now, for our purposes we'll consider the precipitation remains constant." "You see, that first red light represents increased demand by communities of new people." "Have a look at the oscilloscope now." "That shadow line was the even flow of the river." "And you can see it drops dramatically." "Proving what we predicted." "Now, if you'll look downstream, real shortages down there, but we still have a river." "What happens if you increase the demand for industry, too?" "It means that agriculture is gonna be hurting like hell." "And if we crank in five years of drought like we've just been through..." "The Platte stops flowing." "Maybe forever." "Has Wendell seen this?" "Oh, yes." "And given us lip service." "But you know as well as I do, Paul." "He wants to bring new industry into the state." "Do we have options?" "A few." "But they have to be explained to people in hard-nosed terms." "Like, if we keep stealing water away from our farms, onions are gonna have to cost $10 apiece." "PAUL ON RADIO:" "I thought the job was making sure we had good air to breathe." "Now it includes making sure there's water to drink." "After we meet with the soil experts, we'll probably find out the main thing is making sure we have earth to till." "This nation is running out of everything." "(KNOCKING ON DOOR)" "We gotta get back to a sense of res..." "Oh, Sid, come in." "I bring thee good tidings of great joy." "They like the material so far?" "They love it." "Well, we can thank Paul Garrett for giving us the feeling of what the westerner is doing today." "If you really want to say thanks to Paul, I have some other news, too." "The lab?" "How does the year 1889 grab you?" "They can be that specific?" "Mmm-hmm." "So can we." "That was the exact year that Soren Sorenson disappeared from the face of this earth." "Or got himself buried by the Wendells." "Then it's all true." "And a very timely press release, I thought." "Well, I don't know." "W-What do you mean you don't know?" "Paul Garrett's the kind of fellow that likes to make decisions that affect his life, and I'd say this is a choice that belongs to him." "Paul?" "Company." "Hello, Paul." "Morgan." "Well, I'll leave you two alone." "Excuse me." "Mr. Wendell, would you like some coffee?" "No, thank you." "Paul?" "No, thanks, Flor." "What can I do for you, Morgan?" "Well, I heard what Calendar's attorney did to you at the trial, and a couple of the boys that work for me told me something that I just don't believe." "What's that?" "I chewed their tails out pretty good when they told me," "I can promise you that." "What for?" "Well, you know how young people are in politics sometimes." "It was just a couple of kids, they went to Calendar's attorney and told him that you were going with Flor." "They knew that he'd jump at the chance, of course, to discredit you with the people that were following Calendar." "The damn little fools, they thought they were going to be of help to me, too." "Playing all the bigots in the state." "It's gonna cancel out votes for you." "They even hired those photographers and helped push the shots of you and Flor to a couple of the papers." "Paul, I want you to know something," "I'm really embarrassed about this." "I called the papers, I told them what happened," "I told them what I thought of them for printing the pictures." "And I sent those two little rattlesnakes packing." "Well, I appreciate it, Morgan." "But it wasn't necessary." "Meaning that you figured it was something out..." "Meaning it wasn't necessary." "The pictures of our wedding announcement appeared in the paper a little after that." "They didn't need any pushing." "So you're not sore, then?" "I'd only be sore if you put them up to it." "Well, I just wanted to make sure that you knew what happened." "You see, I got wind that you were planning a little reprisal." "Reprisal?" "Through that fellow Vernor." "You lost me." "You know, for a fellow who doesn't have any place for politics in his life," "I get the feeling that you're learning pretty fast." "All right, point-blank then, Paul." "Telling the history to the world of that old beaver cave is gonna be a source of great embarrassment to my whole family." "Not to me personally, but to Emma and the kids." "Maybe even their kids." "I know how much that rumor used to hurt me when I was growing up." "But for them to read proof that it really happened, and for their friends to read it in a national magazine..." "Well, I'm asking you to not let that happen to them." "Let's have a drink." "No." "I'd like you to give me your word that you won't let Vernor print anything about it." "I see." "I know it's not going to come out till after the election, but I don't think that ancient history like that has any more place in influencing people's minds about issues than that kind of racial prejudice" "that my boys were trying to dump off on you and Flor." "Will you give me your word, Paul?" "You should know, Morgan, I wouldn't do anything to hurt you or your family." "I do." "But I can only trust a man I know." "And I don't know Vernor." "And I'll tell you something else, and I mean it." "I would rather withdraw from this race right now than worry for a minute about him printing something that could destroy the reputation that my family built developing this area." "Withdraw?" "Yes, sir." "I don't want that, Morgan." "Your word, then?" "You have it." "Withdraw?" "Yeah, he said, he'd pull out if I approved something that Lew might want to use in your article." "That's wild." "What's wild?" "That he is so scared." "Scared of what?" "A skeleton." "A skeleton?" "It might not go down as as big a find as diplodocus, but it does look like it's changing the course of history in Colorado." "Throw in the towel, huh?" "No, no, no." "But you just said..." "He offered to." "And you're not gonna let him?" "No, to tell you the truth, I didn't know what in the hell he was talking about." "I still don't." "I'm not sure what you two are talking about." "It's a bigger find than diplodocus, skeletons..." "Oh, are you trying to tell me that you found some bones and Morgan believes..." "You didn't find the body of the man that his grandparents supposedly murdered?" "He did, and I saw him." "I didn't know why he was so terrified." "Sid told me the story." "Lew found part of it." "I took it to New York, and I had it analyzed." "It's human, it's close to a century old." "And the unsolved murder was 1889." "You walk around with that tape recorder on all the time." "You must have known about this." "Why didn't you tell me?" "I have to work from facts." "Sid just verified it, and we were going to tell you tomorrow." "I'll be damned." "What?" "All this time Morgan's been trying to manipulate me by telling me that the past has no relationship to the present, but what the hell are we if we're not the product of the past?" "And what kind of future are we going to have if we don't realize we're creating it right now?" "That's what this campaign is all about, isn't it?" "You know, there've been a couple of times in the last week or two when I felt like kicking your can back to Georgia because you got me involved in this race." "Now, I'm damned glad to be in it." "I don't even know if I'm the best man but I know the state of Colorado can not survive many more people like the Wendells." "MAN ON TV:" "Today we are going to hear the views of two candidates for a unique and innovative office, an office which is going to seek ways of dealing with an age-old problem." "Now, that problem is survival." "The office is known as the Commissioner of Resources and Priorities." "The candidates are two men from the same part of the state," "Mr. Morgan Wendell and Mr. Paul Garrett." "Mr. Wendell, your involvement in politics to date has been that of support for various interest groups attempting to lure industry to Colorado." "Do you feel you can satisfactorily walk the tightrope between the industrialists and the conservationists?" "Well, Mr. Kinsman, I was hoping someone would open up with that one." "I am dedicated to growth for Colorado." "But as a member of a family that pioneered land development in this state," "I am very aware of the risks involved without careful controls and proper planning." "I've been working for some time with the leaders of industry to create a responsible program that makes careful and constructive use of the vast open space and the untapped natural resources that we have here at our disposal." "Mr. Garrett, you were a last-second entry into this contest." "Would you tell us why it took you so long to announce your candidacy?" "I guess I felt that people deserved a choice." "Well, it wouldn't seem your views are that different." "You're both conservative businessmen from the same community, and I understand you grew up together, went through school together, and even graduated in the same class at the University of Colorado." "I think you'll find that Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee went to school together, too." "The differences between you are that great, then?" "I'd say they were basic." "Could you define them more specifically?" "Well, Morgan has always been more interested in the future." "And I have had more contact with the past, I guess." "Well, we are headed toward the future, Mr. Garrett." "And we're living in what used to be the future right now." "I think we ought to compare that with the past before we go on racing straight ahead like we are." "Mr. Wendell, it seems there's an issue right in the community both of you gentlemen were born and raised in, the town of Centennial, that gets to the core of the kind of developmental issues you'll be facing." "Central Beet?" "Yes." "Could you give us your comments, please?" "Well, Central Beet has dominated life in Colorado since I was a little boy." "As late as 1936 it dictated to banks and school boards and sheriff's offices." "For thousands of farmers and small-town business," "Central Beet has been Colorado." "But the whole point of this new office is that times are changing." "The sugar beet industry isn't doing that well anymore, so it isn't that important to us anymore." "But the plant in Centennial is still pumping out the kind of industrial waste that pollutes our air, and I think that has to be stopped." "Mr. Garrett?" "The beet industry isn't doing well because so many people use the land for other purposes." "The farmer can't afford to reserve it for beets." "So he sells to land developers, and they build little towns for the people back east." "And that drives up the price and leaves the farmer no alternative." "But he won't be the loser, that's the whole point." "He'll make money from the land and Central Beet will make a profit, too, from the same kind of development you just mentioned." "Ninety-seven little Colonial houses all in a row, huh?" "Well, they've been building those a lot longer than ranch houses, Paul." "What about the feedlots, Morgan?" "They depend on the sugar beet pulp and the molasses." "If you close Central Beet, people like Harvey Brumbaugh are gonna have to go somewhere else to afford the cost of shipping." "It's better than a whole community having to continue absorbing all that air pollution from the plant." "How about the cattle industry?" "They depend on the feedlots." "Ah, there's the rub, isn't it?" "The cattle industry." "Morgan, I'm not the only cattleman in the state of Colorado." "No, that's true." "Only its most eloquent spokesman." "Thank you for that." "The simple fact is, and it's gonna be a tough one for men like yourself, Paul, to handle." "A whole pattern of life is vanishing." "The time is at hand when the cattle industry may be forced to quit Colorado." "Quit?" "For land development?" "No." "For people who want to live where we do." "And why shouldn't they?" "Why shouldn't they be allowed to come out here the way my ancestors did, and yours, too." "Why shouldn't they have the same kind of freedom that we had?" "Yes, and wealth, too." "That the Wendells and the Garretts have known?" "Colorado needs cattle, Morgan." "Well, we won't ever be without cattle." "Just cattle ranches." "Look, the feedlot concept proved that." "You herd them into lots, stuff them with feed, send them off to market." "Not much romance to it, but it gets the job done." "And that's your idea of the future, huh?" "Gonna raise cows like they raise those new-style chickens?" "They never touch the earth." "In sanitized pens from birth to death." "We're gonna have cowboys with college degrees and little white aprons." "We're gonna ship the manure out in little desiccated pellets." "Well, I know it sounds a little like Buck Rogers, Paul." "But I believe the time is coming when we won't be able to afford cows in Colorado." "Our land is too valuable a commodity to the people." "We've got to look elsewhere for cheaper land." "For now, Wyoming and Montana." "It could be a state like Indiana." "It's close to a feed supply." "On the other hand, I was reading some reports the other day about how you can feed cottonseed cakes to Herefords." "Maybe the entire operation will be moved to Alabama or Georgia." "That's not as far-fetched as it sounds." "But I sure as hell don't wanna see it happen." "And I'm gonna fight to see that it doesn't happen." "You can't win, Paul." "No, you can't win, Morgan." "We can't let you win." "Everything has its limits, even land development." "What's it gonna profit this state if we overpopulate it to such an extent that we strip it of all its natural resources?" "The earth isn't something that you keep taking from, without giving something back." "The earth is something you protect every day of the year." "A river is something you defend every inch of its course." "The man that tried to save that river are all gone now, and look at it." "God, it's a public sewer." "Why?" "Because men like you and I haven't done a damn thing in the last 20 years except sit around getting fatter and richer, watching land development." "That's our disgrace, Morgan." "The Wendells and the Garretts." "We have to change all that." "Got to look to the past and get back to some basics, if we're gonna have any future that's worth having." "ALL:" "Yeah." "NEWSCASTER:" "Strong words from a strong man, spoken on a public service program last week." "But today is the day that the strength of each of the candidates is being tested." "Janice Welch now has some early results." "Jan?" "Yes, Paul." "I have the early tally here from the Denver area and as you can see, Morgan Wendell is running ahead of Paul Garrett at a little better than two-to-one." "The Fort Collins area is beginning to report too, and Wendell is opening with a strong lead in those precincts." "It's still far too early for..." "Where's Paul?" "He said he'd be here." "...Mr. Wendell's progressive platform concerning land development." "Give me another ditch, Randy." "I think you've had enough, Paul." "Bar bourbon and Platte water, what in the hell can be wrong with that, huh?" "Come on, give me another one." "Pour it." "Come on." "I've dug a deep enough ditch for myself, didn't I?" "Deep enough for the whole damned state." "Did you know Sam Loper's kid drowned in a ditch?" "Just a two-foot ditch." "Walking along, fell down and drowned." "This is your last one, okay?" "In a damn two-foot ditch." "(TRAIN HORN BLOWING)" "(HORN BLOWING)" "Over there." "(BELL CLANGING)" "I think that's him." "Yeah, I believe it is." "(DOG BARKING)" "Paul?" "Yeah." "You all right?" "(CHUCKLES)" "What are you doing?" "(SLURRING) Just spending some time alone." "It is the American condition, haven't you heard?" "Nathan Hale." "The Alamo and the Pony Express." "Our heroes." "Our symbols." "Paul..." "Pasquinel." "McKeag." "Mercy." "Zendt." "Seccombe and Brumbaugh," "Lloyd and Garrett." "All loners." "Calendar!" "What the hell, Cisco, you know what I'm talking about." "I hear you." "And we created" "Morgan Wendell." "We created all the ambitious resolute" "men in this world." "(TRAIN WHISTLE IN DISTANCE)" "Listen to that." "My God, that's lonely." "That's lonely." "But that's us." "That's America." "The loneliest people on the face of the earth." "Even the Eskimo banded together, right, Professor?" "But not us!" "We have to have the log cabin and sod hut and the line shack." "And a castle in the middle of nowhere." "Any man or any woman who couldn't make it on his own was a person to be pitied." "So we had to be ingenious, inventive." "Had to give up the old patterns of doing things to accept the new way." "So, I guess it's time for the Morgan Wendells to take over finally out here, too." "But what a painful price we had to pay to wind up like..." "Like that." "What a painful" "(SHUDDERING) price" "in loneliness." "(TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS)" "So, it's still Morgan Wendell running ahead of Paul Garrett with about 22% of the vote tabulated at this point." "The gap has narrowed considerably." "But Wendell..." "Paul." "(SPEAKING SPANISH)" "Hot and black, Manolo." "Cisco," "I said some sharp things about your uncle." "You know that was just between him and me." "Well, he's a mean one, I'm sure whatever you said was true." "The outlying areas are beginning to report now." "But it's too early to call it, with just 7% of that vote in." "Hey, I'm gonna turn that thing off." "(ALL GROANING)" "Showtime, ladies and gentlemen." "(ALL CHEERING)" "We tried, amigos." "The vote's still coming in, Paul." "The vote would be in good shape if I hadn't opened my big mouth." "Any time speaking the truth is out of style, we're all in a lot of trouble." "Hey, why isn't the box on?" "MANOLO:" "We don't want it on right now." "I do." "Nate." "I came in to drink with a winner." "And I gotta know when I can start buying for everybody in the place." "We're hearing from the people, Paul." "The ones who believe in you." "The ones who heard you." "The ones who know what we've got." "And they want you to help save what we've got before it's too late." "(ALL CHEERING)" "This was a county Wendell had counted on carrying, however." "And, at the moment, it doesn't look like he's going to." "Wendell appears to be in trouble in Dawson County, too." "Trailing there on a three-to-one basis." "Laramie County is voting on a 50-50 basis so far, showing no clear-cut favorite at all." "Let's have another look at the debate." "It seems to have given Garrett this unsuspected groundswell of support." "What about the feedlots, Morgan?" "They depend on the sugar beet pulp and the molasses." "You close Central Beet, people like Harvey Brumbaugh are gonna have to go somewhere else to afford the cost of shipping." "That's better than a whole community having to continue absorbing all that air pollution from the plant." "PAUL:" "How about the cattle industry?" "What happened?" "How can people vote against progress?" "MORGAN:" "Don't they understand that I can make the land serve them at a higher capacity and a greater profit?" "What's the matter with them?" "I don't understand." "I do not understand." "A whole pattern of life is vanishing." "Well, there's nothing quite like a good argument, is there?" "Unless, of course, it has the answer to peace." "I don't know how this is gonna end up, but I know how it's been for some friends of mine who had to choose how they wanted to live and wound up making a choice different from mine." "However the election turns out," "I think this song has a lot to say about how more than just a few of us feel." "I guess he'd rather be in Colorado" "He'd rather spend his time out where" "The sky looks like a pearl" "After the rain" "PAUL ON TV:" "Live in sanitized pens from birth to death." "We're gonna have cowboys with college degrees and little white aprons." "We'll ship the manure out in little desiccated pellets." "MORGAN:" "Well, I know it sounds a little like Buck Rogers, Paul." "But I believe the time is coming when we won't be able to afford cows in Colorado." "Our land is too valuable a commodity to the people." "We've got to look elsewhere for cheaper land." "For now, Wyoming and Montana." "It could be a state like Indiana..." "He'd rather play his banjo in the morning" "When the moon is scarcely gone" "In the dawn, the subway's coming" "PAUL:" "I sure as hell don't wanna see it happen." "I'm gonna fight to see that it doesn't happen." "MORGAN:" "You can't win, Paul." "No, you can't win, Morgan." "We can't let you win." "Boulder Canyon" "I guess he'd rather be" "In Colorado" "I guess he'd rather be in Colorado" "I guess he'd rather work out where the only thing you earn" "Is what you spend" "In the end, up in his office" "In the end, a quiet cough" "Is all he has to show" "He lives in New York City" "PAUL:" "The earth isn't something you take from without ever thinking about giving back." "The earth is something you protect every day of the year." "A river is something you defend every inch of its course." "We have to look to the past and get back to some basic principles if there's gonna be any future worth having."