Cimarron Strip (1967–1968): Season 1, Episode 4 - The Battleground - full transcript
When Congress cancels government leases on range land used by the cattlemen, a range war breaks out between the ranchers and would-be settlers.
♪♪
Hey, watch it.
What about the cupboards?
Yeah.
All of them?
Not quite all of them.
MacGregor?
- Lunch.
- Yeah, lunch.
Have you done the attic?
After lunch.
Food will be served
when you've finished doing
the attic and all the cupboards.
Oh, lassie, have a soul.
What's the matter
with you people?
You want to live here like pigs?
- Aye, we want to.
- Yeah.
Until the place is cleaned up,
there will be no food and
not one old shoe before.
Gunfighter, gambler, parson.
What is this?
"Indian Scout in the Southwest."
That was supposed
to be thrown out.
- Here, let me see.
- No, please, it's mine.
Oh.
Oh, Francis, would you
ever have guessed it?
Please, MacGregor, please.
I want it back.
The lassie has a taste
for the wolf and the wicked.
I said give it back!
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
(train whistle blowing)
- Bear.
- Yeah.
(cowbell dinging)
(train whistle blowing)
Uh, cast your shade
if you don't mind.
The sun's on the lady.
Ain't nothing worth
seeing out there anyhow.
You just hold onto that thought.
♪♪
(train whistle blowing)
(gunshots firing)
(cowbell dinging)
Hi-yah!
(chickens clucking)
(screaming)
(screaming)
(squealing)
(screaming)
Somebody stop them!
Why don't you do something?!
(cowbell dinging)
Gunfighter, lawyer, gambler.
Uh-uh.
No, miss.
Marshal.
♪♪
♪♪
(bleating)
♪♪
(horse neighing)
man: Hi-yah!
(cows mooing)
Papa?
Papa?
Conductor... I was supposed
to meet my father here.
I sent him a telegram, only I
don't know what he looks like.
His name is
Charlton Coopersmith.
- But wait a minute, I have a letter.
- Go to town, miss.
Someone will help you.
(horse whinnying)
You're what they sent down?
I'm the one.
Eight cut-back punchers.
- How many?
- (all shouting)
Bullying my people,
scatter their stock,
brawl and bust and all
you can cage is a... a pig.
Whatever he is, he's mine.
Well, it's been quite a
while since I ate pork.
What a night, boys.
No shaking beans.
Just watch the gristle.
Keep your eyes on me.
(gun cocking)
Well, that's an ugly
sound, Marshal.
It always has been.
But you don't even know me.
William Payne, the
farmer's messiah.
Now you're beginning
to understand.
Had a heel shot off.
They tell the story
you can't back up.
That's it.
Took a chest full of lead
going against a Winchester
armed with principle.
That's a way to put it.
- Guts and gall.
- Now you know me.
(chuckling)
Take him.
Huh?
Ten years living in
shacks out of wagons.
Tents up and
down this territory.
Roughed up...
Well, how'd you put it?
Brawl and bust by every cowboy
crossing that Cimarron
River for a Saturday night.
Well, here he is, Payne.
All 2,000 of them
rolled into one.
Roast him.
(cowbell dinging)
What kind of US
marshal are you anyway?
- Man: Let's get him!
- 10 million acres across that river.
The Cherokee Outlet.
The last free homestead
land left in America.
For ten years, we
fought to open it.
Our plows to our homes.
We've taken abuse.
We've suffered abuse
while the cattlemen cut
and squander their land.
Land they don't even own
except by government lease.
Now... we're going to have it.
We've finally done it.
We've got a bill in Congress
that's gonna decide once and for all
who owns it, cattlemen or us.
They're voting on that
bill in Washington now.
And I'm not about to
jeopardize it by violence.
And you know it.
Now you know me.
- A purveyor of peace.
- That's it.
Half of Oklahoma going
up like hell in a cauldron
when that bill comes out,
no matter which side wins.
An army division won't stop it.
You think you're
going to stop it?
That's the way to put it.
Marshal...
you weren't even
able to take care of
eight corn-liquored
hellcats hazing a train.
Mr. Payne.
That government
can go against you.
The cattlemen may win
this land permanently.
- If that happens...
- It can happen.
Then there'll be weeping.
And my people will
come to me and cry out,
"Payne, what is our direction?"
And I'll say, "Cross the river."
Don't stand in the way.
(horse neighing)
(laughing)
Oh, mister, you're gone.
You breathed your
last breath of air.
Between him and old ugly Bear,
they're gonna strip your
hide up for gewgaws.
Yes, sir.
Hello?
♪♪
Papa?
Anybody home?
Papa?
It's me, Dulcey.
(gunshots firing)
(men whooping)
(gunshots firing)
(men whooping)
(men whooping)
It's Bear and the boys
on the howl, honey!
Bustle up!
Who's watching that jail?
(horse neighing)
There's where he's
coming, up from the train.
And I'm gonna ream him.
Kate!
Kate!
Are you sure he's a marshal?
He's got Mobeetie locked
up in a hog pen, I hear.
Here, come here.
(men laughing)
Ha!
Katie!
(gunshot firing)
Kate!
- Watch the tray, watch the tray.
- (screaming)
- Katie!
- (gunshot firing)
Have them put a
rose in their hair.
And they're lonely, Katie.
And petticoats and beads.
(laughing)
I'm gonna carve that
marshal with a Bowie knife
and fertilize the cactus.
Hogtie and cage
one of my people?
Nobody...
(cowbell dinging)
You gonna carve me with a what?
With a steer horn.
An Arkansas toothpick.
You couldn't carve the
cork off a jackass brandy.
I can carve it
and I can drink it.
(slurping)
- You miserable...
- Dog-eared...
- Bear!
- Jim Crown!
You son of a gun.
Hey, Fifth Calvary,
Fort McGinny.
- Five years ago.
- Seven.
Sev... '81, yeah!
Last I saw you...
You had six arrows
sticking out of your heart,
tied to a stake
and a sizzling squaw
looking to light the fire.
And the rest of them were trailing
you up that box draw with buffalo guns.
Hairy as a devil's rump
until I lassoed that eagle.
Believe it, believe it!
Wasn't a thing that man
couldn't do with a rope.
(laughing)
Marshal Jim Crown.
What's the matter with you boys?
You do partake, don't you?
Bloody law dog.
- Where'd they hid you?
- Abilene.
The devil!
Three years.
You put the lid on Abilene?
The prettiest ice cream
parlors you ever saw.
Roller skating every Friday
night with a cowboy band.
They used to have to
walk that town in fours
when they had men like me,
and you, you
bull-winded fantail.
You know, I heard they were
sending federal law down here,
but I never thought
it'd be on my side.
- Boy, can we use you.
- I'll drink to that.
Anybody hate the sight of
barbed wire worse than me?
Boys, raise 'em high!
Oh, let's all get paid.
We're gonna bury 'em, Jim.
To the cowboys!
To what it was
and what it's gonna be, a
thousand miles of turn-around!
God's own!
You know, he can fancy up to
them Washington people all he wants.
That Payne, he ain't gonna take
those farmers across that river.
Lay down that fence
and all that hog wallow.
To the man on a horse!
Boys!
To the cowboy!
All: To the cowboy!
That'll do nicely.
Now the other hand up.
(popping)
All right, everybody
out that door.
Right face.
And on your way
out, drop your guns.
Move!
(gunshots firing)
Left, right, left, right.
Come on, move.
Let's go, move!
Come on!
(gunshots firing)
That's it, move it along!
- Hi-yah!
- I'm going, I'm going!
Move 'em now, step it up.
Let's go!
Hup two, left, right.
(yelping)
All right, inside, in the jail.
Move it.
(yelping)
♪♪
'Tis the mash of
great and not the grain.
To heat with water
to make the starch.
Or is it reverse?
And plenty of yeast.
Speak to me, you
corroded partition.
'Tis whiskey, the brew
of my granddad, you defy.
♪♪
'Tis not a jail break
man may fear.
My still blew up.
(laughing)
all: Yeah!
- A brand on his...
- all: Yeah!
- Build a house in the...
- all: Yeah!
- And that...
- all: Yeah!
(cheering)
(laughing)
Hey, hey, Bob, look who's
come to join the party here.
No, man, no.
Don't you know?
- Scotchmen eat grass.
- Is that right?
I thought they was part human.
(laughing)
When I laugh, you
miserable heathens,
that's when you worry.
Oh!
Oh!
(laughing)
(glass shattering)
I fancy the jail
you've improvised
unworthy of my own credentials.
Late of Her Majesty's forces,
BC, DSO, colonel, retired.
But I think it due to inform you
there's a bottle or two
of vintage going to waste.
McDougall, let's hear it.
MacGregor.
MacGregor with
a roll of the "R."
- That was the jail, huh?
- Aye.
Aye, a wee miscalculation.
Though I'm daft if I know where.
What happened to the sheriff?
Groomed the grain
to water the starch.
I said where's the sheriff?
Aye, there's the
blaggard leaving me to rot.
Locked in prison
with only my still.
- Gone, huh?
- Two days ago.
Quaking in his
boots, the coward.
Didn't know when to find
himself in the middle of a fight
between cowboys and farmers.
I ask you in truth, you
examine the combatants.
Ha-ha!
How much of a brawl could it be?
You.
What is it?
- Francis Wilde.
- Go away.
- Photographer, writer.
- A sassy lad.
Port and reporter
at your service.
That telegraph office
open this time of night?
That land bill coming out
of Congress any minute,
there's 400 people down
there at that shack right now.
I want to get a message off to
all the sheriffs in Cimarron Strip
from Beaver City to
Shadewell to Ciman...
Hardesty, Grand Valley, right.
I want them to muster up
all the deputies they can,
men that know the
proper end of a gun.
- Pay will be double.
- Done.
No, not you... him.
I want you watching Payne.
Aye.
He's gonna be taking his
farmers across that river.
You think you can track 'em?
You're talking, man, to the
laddie who taught the Sioux.
He'll be moving heavy stock.
It'll take him about
a day to draw up.
Just where he's
gonna cross that river,
exactly where,
that's what I've got to know
before I talk to those deputies
and sheriffs, otherwise
there's gonna be a run of coffin.
Where do I get a bath?
Second floor,
right off the landing.
So what were you locked in for?
Accused of stealing a horse.
I never did.
'Twas the barley I stole.
Now you don't hang a
man for a bushel of barley.
♪♪
That message goes tonight.
I'll hit every magazine
in the country with him.
"Harper's Weekly,"
"The Police Gazette."
You get your grubby
hand near him...
They'll gobble him up like nothing
they've seen since Buffalo Bill.
It'll be Marshal Crown, the
last living legend of the west.
It's worth a million
dollars, I tell you.
He's mine!
I've got my own plans for him.
Over my dead body.
(laughing) Yeah!
That can happen!
♪♪
♪♪
Mmm.
(sighing)
MacGregor!
MacGregor!
MacGregor!
A blanket!
Get me a blanket!
♪♪
There's a Cooperman.
Cooperman.
The iron monger, aye.
- No, Coopersmith.
- Any luck?
Charlton Coopersmith, who...
I can't understand it.
The Wayfarer's Inn
was the place I was told.
- By who, lass?
- In Providence.
I lived with my mother.
I never knew my father, he
came west when I was five.
My mother died last month
and I found these
letters from my father
saying that he was in Cimarron
and he had this place,
the Wayfarer's Inn.
Charlton, Charlton.
Charlie.
English Charlie!
You didn't say you
were English, lass.
Well, I was born there.
English Charlie,
my partner, aye.
Well, I worked for him.
Not exactly his partner.
The two of us,
we run this place.
The finest lasses
you'd want to see...
Charlie's run over by a
beer wagon two weeks ago.
Shut up, MacGregor.
And the Moynihans,
the creeping Irish.
But we gave Charlie
a funeral, aye, lad.
I remember the honeybees
a-buzzing around the whiskey.
Probing us... Ow!
What do you think
you're doing kicking?
Oh, lass.
Excuse me.
♪♪
There's a train heading
back in the morning.
Do you have any money?
I'll leave a ticket for you.
I'm sorry.
♪♪
(groaning)
Jim.
Jim.
You're making me look
bad in front of my boys.
I'll tell 'em what it is, huh?
The joke.
Like it always was
with you and me.
Yeah, we had a
lot of good laughs.
(laughing)
And you boys said
he threw away the key.
Like that time we stole
that mare from those crows
and you swapped
me to save your hide.
And then he won me back,
cold Jack in poker!
(laughing)
Open up, Jim.
And turn this bunch
loose on the prairie
on a black night like this?
Why, you'd end up
shooting eight good horses.
Jim.
In the morning, Bear.
You're the same man, aren't you?
You don't sell out old Bear.
Nobody sells out Bear.
♪♪
♪♪
(mooing)
(cows mooing)
♪♪
(horse whinnying)
♪♪
Ahh!
(horse whinnying)
A man blows a half-month's
pay buying himself a drunk
and you come along
with a hat full of water.
Virgo, where's
that canvas needle?
Crazy lop-eared steer.
I'll have that.
Something?
(cow mooing)
14 dozen chickens, six turkeys,
pottery smashed, tools broken.
45,000 yards of barbed wire.
Two coaches
wrecked, three plows.
128 bottles of whiskey.
That comes to $2,300.
Bank note or cash?
I'll make the point.
(cow mooing)
Anything your boys
do my side of the river...
Haze a train, bust
up a settlement...
I'm holding you accountable.
There's gonna be no war, Miller.
It stops right here.
I'm pulling teeth.
This is government-leased
land you're living on.
We're cancelling those leases.
You don't get 'em, the
farmers don't get 'em,
nobody gets 'em yet.
Congress decided.
Came out this morning.
Now, that means there's gonna be
a cold-eyed hell
across that Cimarron.
And nobody knows how long.
My job is to cool things off.
Now what you do with your
people here in the outlet,
I have no authority.
But just take it as a warning.
I've got 80,000 head
of cattle out here.
Any 20 worth more
than you make in a year.
340,000 acres of land.
You couldn't ride it in a week.
160 men.
I've had congressmen
to my house.
The president of Mexico.
You're warning me.
You and every other rancher
in the Cherokee Outlet.
(bell dinging)
You've been waiting to hear it.
The government just
decided who gets this land.
Nobody.
That's what it says.
Says it's gonna cool
things off for a while.
Well, that's fine.
I can wait.
Payne can't.
(chuckling)
- McCall.
- Yo!
Pick ten men, fire the rest.
Have them pack their
gear and clear out.
They got no jobs here
until I know this land is mine.
♪♪
(horse neighing)
You don't say it.
That one lousy word.
Bear, come on.
Pig, you, when you
suckered me last night.
You know what Miller's
doing as well as me.
Mr. Payne is coming,
that's what I know.
Miller's cut you
loose to fight for him.
That's what he wants,
you doing his dirt.
And Payne is doing yours.
That is a lie.
Bear, know who you hate.
♪♪
Like locusts...
they're gonna follow
Mr. Payne across that river
and you...
you, you're gonna let 'em in.
I know who I hate.
♪♪
I'm gonna turn
that Cimarron red.
♪♪
Hey!
♪♪
Who's the commanding officer?
Major Covington.
I'd like to see him.
If you'd like to leave your
name, sir, maybe tomorrow.
High-level conference, sir.
Mm-hmm.
Major, I want every
available troop you've got
armed and ready
for trail in two hours.
You better have more
behind that brass than a badge.
Provisions and bedding.
Three-day supply.
Sir, I tried to stop him.
It's all right, Corporal.
This map accurate?
By presidential
directive August 14th.
You're to make your men
available to me if needed.
Well, they're needed.
For what?
This Miller's land?
That's Miller's.
Those settlers want
to try to cross that river.
Miller's cut loose
40 men to stop them.
You want me to hold them off.
I'll have my men there to keep
them from crossing that river.
You keep those cowboys
from turning them into sieves.
It's 4:00.
Still time to reach district.
They'll have to
contact regional.
War Department office
closes at noon on Friday.
There's a weekend.
Hope to have the
directive Monday.
I need you at the
river in the morning.
Red tape, Marshal.
I didn't invent it.
Major, I'm riding
a short fuse bomb.
Those settlers don't know
what they're walking into.
More along a 50-mile front.
One breakout
like this, just one.
- That's all it's gonna take.
- You want me to try to stop it.
That is the point.
There's a field out there
behind that hill, Marshal.
- You know what's there?
- No.
Neither do those farmers.
There are 400 stones
out there, Marshal.
Dead boys with Kiawah
arrows in their backs.
15 years of bloody Indian wars,
laying out the territory,
making the peace.
You know what they won for it?
Meat once a month.
The rest beans.
Weaponry outmoded, foul.
An expert couldn't hit a target.
We're understaffed,
we're underpaid,
we've got recruits so raw they
don't know the difference between
a dull-grim mortar or a coehorn.
Or old men who've forgotten.
Forgotten heroics, battles.
Remembered?
I'll tell you what's
remembered, Marshal.
The noble redskin
always battling one against 40.
The rape of the Sioux,
the Trail of Tears.
The Indian never
breaking a treaty
and the soldier always lying,
deceiving, dispossessing dirt.
We broke this land!
You're asking me to
send more men back
maybe to be killed all for the sake
of a band of whimpering pig cutters
who assume that the Almighty Lord
spread it out just for them to take?
You're handing me a massacre.
Your massacre,
Marshal, not mine!
You're the one they
called to Washington.
Civilian rule.
They want it?
You sleep in it.
This outlet's your authority.
That is fact.
In the event of insurrection,
you're supposed...
In the event.
I do not anticipate
without a directive.
If those farmers want this land,
then they'll bloody well
taste what it's like to fight for it.
Marshal?
You do know where
they're crossing.
I'll know.
You better.
♪♪
Esta bueno.
With this one, you
could shoot a train.
Yeah?
You're right, it's no good.
(laughing)
There is the one.
Want touch, like woman.
Caress it.
How kind it is to the hand, no?
Esta bueno.
Esta bueno.
(gun cocking)
Hey, lookee here.
(cowbell dinging)
Innkeeper, ale!
Jump, you hear?
I've important information
for the constabulary.
Ah, that's grand.
(cowbell dinging)
Which when revealed will sour
the milk of some cows that I know.
Ahh.
Seven rifles.
480 rounds.
If you get off a shot.
(cowbell dinging)
You wickerbill.
Bushwhacker.
Way belly.
Bug.
(cowbell dinging)
(clanking)
♪♪
(cowbell dinging)
♪♪
(cowbell dinging)
♪♪
♪♪
(cowbell dinging)
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
(gunshots firing
in the distance)
(horse neighing)
(gunshots firing
in the distance)
man: And in fact...
(men laughing)
(men shouting)
man: I object!
Man: Your honor!
That way belly called
Your Honor a bug!
Man: Your Honor, I object!
You ain't got no
right to get a lawyer!
- (cowbell dinging)
- Mobeetie: Order!
Order, I said, in the court!
Order in the court!
Now we're conducting this
here trial according to legal.
Mr. Persecutor, you
recite that there charge.
Thank you, Your Honor.
Ladies and gentle... gentlemen!
(laughing)
Charge against this here feller:
bad-mouthing the
judge, calling him names.
(all shouting)
And putting on airs.
(all shouting)
And worst of all...
worst I say...
the crime of all time...
trying to act like
an honest man!
(all shouting)
man: Hold on, hold on!
Your Honor, I go with
everything, Your Honor,
the persecutor said
except one thing.
My client ain't... I say
ain't an honest man.
(all shouting)
He is to the poor!
That's a lie!
He don't kick dogs.
So darn trustful
it's evident to all!
He's a scallywag.
Makes tame girls wild.
Why even goes
to Sunday School...
four times a week!
(laughing)
He steals from widows.
Ain't no Sunday School boy...
Order in the court!
(laughing)
What the heck...
Order!
Now we's had this here trial
and there ain't no
congressman and ain't no senator
that could have
done it more fair.
(all shouting)
I object.
Hear ye, hear ye.
Jury, what say you?
All: Guilty!
Been a while since
I had roast pig!
- Roast him!
- Cook him on a spin!
Scotty.
Hey, is that cotton
to your notion, huh,
you all trussed up like a hog?
Boys, are you ready for him?
(all shouting)
You walked right into it,
didn't you, Scotchman?
You're numbering your days.
All: Oh!
You could have been back there
sleeping off the whiskey
in that blowed-up jail,
but, no, you gotta be out
tracking down farmers, don't you?
I can only assume
you're weary of living.
(all shouting)
Who's gonna be telling the marshal
where they're crossing now, huh?
- Yeah!
- You ain't.
You paltry flea!
(laughing)
(grunting)
He'll squash you like a gnat!
(all shouting)
Bug!
He's a bug!
(all shouting)
He called me a bug!
(chuckling)
Yeah.
That old ugly Bear, he'd
strip my hide if I cut you out.
Cut him loose.
Cut him loose.
You bet, Marshal.
Loose.
That old Bear
stoking up on alkali.
They even drawing straws on you.
That cowboy, he gonna light
up the sky with you hisself.
You're his.
Yes, sir.
"Unlessing" he misses.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
I thought I'd stay.
Well, listen, I began to think.
We could partition the room.
It could be your office
and, well, the wine
cooler is fine for a jail and...
Well, for us, there
are the rooms upstairs.
Where are they?
40 cowboys gonna chop
those settlers into kindling
if I haven't got the
men to stop them.
Where are my sheriffs?
Resigned.
All five.
No deputies available.
♪♪
♪♪
Can I come in?
Why not?
All belongs to you.
It's awfully small
of course for a jail,
but... well, perhaps there's a
way we can cut out the wall.
And the dining room
will be where the bar is.
And I'm an awfully good cook
and, well, half the
place would be yours
and the other half
I'd run as an inn.
- What do you think?
- Go home.
This is my home.
With the finest lasses
you'd want to see?
I know what it was,
I know what it is.
There isn't a thing in the
place that doesn't need fixing
and the kitchen's all over
with dirt and grease and dust.
But I know what it can be.
How old are you?
20.
20?
Nobody's 20 anymore.
You're right, I lied.
- I'm 18.
- Yeah.
How old are you?
35.
Well, that isn't so bad.
What do they call you?
Dulcey.
Dulcey, go back to Providence.
I don't want to go back.
- Get yourself a job.
- I had a job.
- Okay.
- A servant.
Is that what you
want to be here?
You want to feed people
and scrub up floors?
But it would be mine.
I never owned something
that was mine before.
I'd have a future.
A future?
Well, there'd be tables inside
with linen and...
candles in bottles like these,
glowing ever so softly.
(glass shattering)
Look at it!
That is the future here, Dulcey!
It's vicious and it's raw.
Why, you're trying to feed
sugar to a horse that's crazy,
wild with fear and full
of blind, stupid hate.
They're not even
going to see you
or know what you have to offer
until one day, you're standing
right next to a fire or a shooting
or some liquored-up
rousers tearing up the town.
And all at once, they'll be
standing over you, saying,
"I never even saw
that she was there."
But it'll be done.
No.
You're gonna get hurt
around here, Dulcey.
And no one's
gonna mean to do it.
That can't happen.
Can't it?
You're here.
♪♪
- He will.
- He won't.
Face it, man, you have no
sheriffs, you have no posse.
- You're beat.
- He is not.
But you can make the best of it.
- And I'm the man to show you the way.
- Don't listen to him.
- Barley!
- What barley?
He's crazy.
Listen, you don't need sheriffs.
Get yourself a white
hat and pearl-handled...
Think of it.
Them fields out there
are swaying in the freeze.
And you and I are
cornering the market.
Barley.
An ancient grain of Scotland.
Whiskey.
'Tis riches we'll make
beyond your conception.
- He's mad.
- Ah, with my invention
and your cunning,
we'll grab it for a tune.
One man against 200 screaming,
hating farmers, the cowboys...
I'll feed you to the yetis!
We'll have your picture in every
newspaper east of Mississippi.
Partners, down the middle!
60/40.
You'll need a name for me.
Maybe Doc.
He's staying!
Ah, don't listen.
- Doc Crown.
- The legend of the Cimarron!
- Heroic tamer of the West.
- Like Masterson.
Cartwright, Ben Thompson.
Stoudenmire, Hickok.
Cartwright was a
trigger-happy gun sharp.
Thompson was a drunken
animal who'd kill on a dare.
Stoudenmire liked to
club Mexicans to death.
They'd make their laws
and then they'd break them.
They'd cheat, steal, lie.
They trusted nobody
and nobody trusted them.
That's the stuff
that makes legends.
You want a legend?
You're gonna be part of it.
I want deputies.
Knock out that lamp.
I never shot one
of these in my life.
Go on, try... the lamp.
♪♪
(horse neighing)
(laughing)
Now you'll learn.
And you.
The laddie that
taught the Sioux.
Oh ho, oh ho.
I don't come cheaply, man.
I can have that jail
rebuilt in a week.
You found the price.
Well...
you, me and him.
Us three.
Could be worse.
It's gonna be.
♪♪
♪♪
(horse whinnying)
(horse whinnying)
(horses approaching)
(horse whinnying)
(horse whinnying)
Any one of those boys down there
would jump you in a minute.
- Would they?
- Oh, yeah.
Horse trail, gun, knife.
Just that.
That's all I'd have to do.
I guess.
And I like knowing that.
How many quarter
moons we put to bed
sitting the night before a fire?
Runyon Creek.
You remember?
Yeah.
Caught that raving
party of Blackfeet.
Buried 80.
And 200 of our own.
After we broke 'em.
What's happened to you?
There's an old trapper up
in Abilene called Crazy Will.
You ever hear of him?
No.
He hangs around,
looking for handouts,
talking your ear
off about his...
His days in Sawtooth
Mountain back in the '40s.
He tells stories about
beating the rapids
and riding point
for old Jim Bridger,
doing his Christian
work with a Winchester.
After a while, nobody
listens to him anymore.
I'm afraid that's what's
gonna happen to you, Bear.
That or the end of a rope
or shot up at some river.
No, not to me it won't.
A year, maybe two.
You got no more stomach
for these farmers than I do
and you never did.
What's happened to you?
We used to take
on 50 of anything.
Men, grizzlies.
You name me one
time we ever lost.
Never, Bear.
- Well?!
- Not once.
But what did we win?
As well as you, I want
this to last forever,
but it can't.
It's gonna change.
This is 1888.
It's the last of the old
and the golden West
and it's gonna change.
Now why don't you help
me change it proper?
Now, I'm gonna
need men like you.
People, sheriffs.
No.
Then you kill me, Bear.
♪♪
We've always been on
the same side of things.
You belong with me.
You're gonna have to kill me
'cause I'm gonna
be in the middle.
There ain't no middle.
Not in this.
That's the answer.
♪♪
♪♪
Well, this is it.
Fort Dodge supply trail.
Nobody.
I thought you said Payne
was to go up here and cross.
Aye.
This trail hasn't been
used in over a month.
I cannot understand.
- 'Tis what I was told.
- What you were told?
Didn't you see?
No, man.
I found these obliging laddies.
What laddies?
Farmer boys, bonnie chaps.
And I asked where
Payne would be crossing
and they eagerly offered
the Fort Dodge trail.
Your Honor, they'll have to...
Upstream, downstream.
One of two choices.
Make it.
- Upstream.
- Downstream.
You're right.
I could be wrong.
Upstream.
♪♪
Upstream.
I said I could be wrong.
♪♪
Tell them people riding drag
to keep the wagons up tight.
We're about ready to cross.
(cows mooing)
(horse whinnying)
(goats bleating)
There's another pothole here.
That makes two right here.
Mr. Payne!
(horses approaching)
(horse whinnying)
(gun cocking)
Mindy, get the kids down!
Watch them potholes.
Stay out from the sticks.
There's quicksand
a few yards down.
Once the wagons hit
the water, keep going.
All right, move 'em out!
Any man sets foot in that water,
either side, I'll kill 'em.
Wagons across!
(all whooping)
(guns cocking)
Hi-yah!
(gunshot firing)
Women and children, Mr. Crown?
Really?
You'll shoot them?
We will cross, Mr. Crown,
and stay across.
Others will come after us.
Thousands.
You won't stop it.
This land, don't you
see, won't be civilized!
Not a place to be wasted.
Not a refuge for
a failing world.
It would be planted,
even with graves.
All right, we'll cross and file.
People on foot,
stay upstream from the wagons.
Wagons across!
Move them!
♪♪
(gunshot firing)
Hi-yah!
(horse neighing)
(grunting)
♪♪
Bear!
Bear!
Bear!
Bear!
Bear!
Bear!
♪♪
♪♪
Francis, you get down here!
Boy, I give you 15 seconds.
- You better fly!
- How do you like your eggs?
I'll kill him.
- Over easy or up?
- What?
Breakfast.
Boy!
Good morning.
- They didn't.
- You bet they did.
(bottles clanking)
Let me see it.
They did it.
They really did it.
Doc Crown.
Doing a nutty thing like this.
Boy, you got a wheel loose
in your head, you know that?
- Well, that was the deal.
- What deal?
You said I get a
legend, you get a deputy.
Yeah, but I didn't mean...
Now, what do you
think you're doing?
Taking off your boots.
I don't want mud on this floor.
This isn't going to be
a saloon, you know.
It's going to be the
Skillet and Skittle.
- The what?
- Coffeehouse.
Coff...
You're crazy.
You know, you people are crazy.
Wait 'til you see the
curtains I got for your office.
Curtains!
I'm not going to
have any curtains.
I'm going to have dirt!
And no punk kid is going
to be creeping around
grabbing pictures, not of me.
And that crazy
Scotchman, well...
Look, let me tell you what
it's gonna be like here.
I heard what it
was going to be like.
You heard but you didn't listen.
Now do you think what happened at
that river yesterday ends this thing?
Well, it don't.
Those cowboys are out of work.
Men who know guns.
Some desperate enough
to use 'em, turning outlaw.
Start shooting,
stealing, looting.
They got 10 million acres in
that Cherokee Outlet to hide in.
And what about them farmers?
What do they got to go back to?
Nothing.
They're hungry, broke, angry.
What do you think
they're going to do
while they sit around
here, maybe for years?
I'm going to have every
bad guy in the nation
pouring in here like leeches...
Con men, jayhawkers, tinhorns,
washed-up red-eye losers.
I got a jungle here
and every son of a jackal's
going to be going for the spoils.
My brew!
My brew, it is done!
Do you feast your eyes?
Your whiskey, MacGregor.
Ah, the fragrance.
Symbol of your life
and achievement.
The lasting
monument to your time.
Ah.
(laughing)
Ooh.
(coughing)
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
Hey, watch it.
What about the cupboards?
Yeah.
All of them?
Not quite all of them.
MacGregor?
- Lunch.
- Yeah, lunch.
Have you done the attic?
After lunch.
Food will be served
when you've finished doing
the attic and all the cupboards.
Oh, lassie, have a soul.
What's the matter
with you people?
You want to live here like pigs?
- Aye, we want to.
- Yeah.
Until the place is cleaned up,
there will be no food and
not one old shoe before.
Gunfighter, gambler, parson.
What is this?
"Indian Scout in the Southwest."
That was supposed
to be thrown out.
- Here, let me see.
- No, please, it's mine.
Oh.
Oh, Francis, would you
ever have guessed it?
Please, MacGregor, please.
I want it back.
The lassie has a taste
for the wolf and the wicked.
I said give it back!
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
(train whistle blowing)
- Bear.
- Yeah.
(cowbell dinging)
(train whistle blowing)
Uh, cast your shade
if you don't mind.
The sun's on the lady.
Ain't nothing worth
seeing out there anyhow.
You just hold onto that thought.
♪♪
(train whistle blowing)
(gunshots firing)
(cowbell dinging)
Hi-yah!
(chickens clucking)
(screaming)
(screaming)
(squealing)
(screaming)
Somebody stop them!
Why don't you do something?!
(cowbell dinging)
Gunfighter, lawyer, gambler.
Uh-uh.
No, miss.
Marshal.
♪♪
♪♪
(bleating)
♪♪
(horse neighing)
man: Hi-yah!
(cows mooing)
Papa?
Papa?
Conductor... I was supposed
to meet my father here.
I sent him a telegram, only I
don't know what he looks like.
His name is
Charlton Coopersmith.
- But wait a minute, I have a letter.
- Go to town, miss.
Someone will help you.
(horse whinnying)
You're what they sent down?
I'm the one.
Eight cut-back punchers.
- How many?
- (all shouting)
Bullying my people,
scatter their stock,
brawl and bust and all
you can cage is a... a pig.
Whatever he is, he's mine.
Well, it's been quite a
while since I ate pork.
What a night, boys.
No shaking beans.
Just watch the gristle.
Keep your eyes on me.
(gun cocking)
Well, that's an ugly
sound, Marshal.
It always has been.
But you don't even know me.
William Payne, the
farmer's messiah.
Now you're beginning
to understand.
Had a heel shot off.
They tell the story
you can't back up.
That's it.
Took a chest full of lead
going against a Winchester
armed with principle.
That's a way to put it.
- Guts and gall.
- Now you know me.
(chuckling)
Take him.
Huh?
Ten years living in
shacks out of wagons.
Tents up and
down this territory.
Roughed up...
Well, how'd you put it?
Brawl and bust by every cowboy
crossing that Cimarron
River for a Saturday night.
Well, here he is, Payne.
All 2,000 of them
rolled into one.
Roast him.
(cowbell dinging)
What kind of US
marshal are you anyway?
- Man: Let's get him!
- 10 million acres across that river.
The Cherokee Outlet.
The last free homestead
land left in America.
For ten years, we
fought to open it.
Our plows to our homes.
We've taken abuse.
We've suffered abuse
while the cattlemen cut
and squander their land.
Land they don't even own
except by government lease.
Now... we're going to have it.
We've finally done it.
We've got a bill in Congress
that's gonna decide once and for all
who owns it, cattlemen or us.
They're voting on that
bill in Washington now.
And I'm not about to
jeopardize it by violence.
And you know it.
Now you know me.
- A purveyor of peace.
- That's it.
Half of Oklahoma going
up like hell in a cauldron
when that bill comes out,
no matter which side wins.
An army division won't stop it.
You think you're
going to stop it?
That's the way to put it.
Marshal...
you weren't even
able to take care of
eight corn-liquored
hellcats hazing a train.
Mr. Payne.
That government
can go against you.
The cattlemen may win
this land permanently.
- If that happens...
- It can happen.
Then there'll be weeping.
And my people will
come to me and cry out,
"Payne, what is our direction?"
And I'll say, "Cross the river."
Don't stand in the way.
(horse neighing)
(laughing)
Oh, mister, you're gone.
You breathed your
last breath of air.
Between him and old ugly Bear,
they're gonna strip your
hide up for gewgaws.
Yes, sir.
Hello?
♪♪
Papa?
Anybody home?
Papa?
It's me, Dulcey.
(gunshots firing)
(men whooping)
(gunshots firing)
(men whooping)
(men whooping)
It's Bear and the boys
on the howl, honey!
Bustle up!
Who's watching that jail?
(horse neighing)
There's where he's
coming, up from the train.
And I'm gonna ream him.
Kate!
Kate!
Are you sure he's a marshal?
He's got Mobeetie locked
up in a hog pen, I hear.
Here, come here.
(men laughing)
Ha!
Katie!
(gunshot firing)
Kate!
- Watch the tray, watch the tray.
- (screaming)
- Katie!
- (gunshot firing)
Have them put a
rose in their hair.
And they're lonely, Katie.
And petticoats and beads.
(laughing)
I'm gonna carve that
marshal with a Bowie knife
and fertilize the cactus.
Hogtie and cage
one of my people?
Nobody...
(cowbell dinging)
You gonna carve me with a what?
With a steer horn.
An Arkansas toothpick.
You couldn't carve the
cork off a jackass brandy.
I can carve it
and I can drink it.
(slurping)
- You miserable...
- Dog-eared...
- Bear!
- Jim Crown!
You son of a gun.
Hey, Fifth Calvary,
Fort McGinny.
- Five years ago.
- Seven.
Sev... '81, yeah!
Last I saw you...
You had six arrows
sticking out of your heart,
tied to a stake
and a sizzling squaw
looking to light the fire.
And the rest of them were trailing
you up that box draw with buffalo guns.
Hairy as a devil's rump
until I lassoed that eagle.
Believe it, believe it!
Wasn't a thing that man
couldn't do with a rope.
(laughing)
Marshal Jim Crown.
What's the matter with you boys?
You do partake, don't you?
Bloody law dog.
- Where'd they hid you?
- Abilene.
The devil!
Three years.
You put the lid on Abilene?
The prettiest ice cream
parlors you ever saw.
Roller skating every Friday
night with a cowboy band.
They used to have to
walk that town in fours
when they had men like me,
and you, you
bull-winded fantail.
You know, I heard they were
sending federal law down here,
but I never thought
it'd be on my side.
- Boy, can we use you.
- I'll drink to that.
Anybody hate the sight of
barbed wire worse than me?
Boys, raise 'em high!
Oh, let's all get paid.
We're gonna bury 'em, Jim.
To the cowboys!
To what it was
and what it's gonna be, a
thousand miles of turn-around!
God's own!
You know, he can fancy up to
them Washington people all he wants.
That Payne, he ain't gonna take
those farmers across that river.
Lay down that fence
and all that hog wallow.
To the man on a horse!
Boys!
To the cowboy!
All: To the cowboy!
That'll do nicely.
Now the other hand up.
(popping)
All right, everybody
out that door.
Right face.
And on your way
out, drop your guns.
Move!
(gunshots firing)
Left, right, left, right.
Come on, move.
Let's go, move!
Come on!
(gunshots firing)
That's it, move it along!
- Hi-yah!
- I'm going, I'm going!
Move 'em now, step it up.
Let's go!
Hup two, left, right.
(yelping)
All right, inside, in the jail.
Move it.
(yelping)
♪♪
'Tis the mash of
great and not the grain.
To heat with water
to make the starch.
Or is it reverse?
And plenty of yeast.
Speak to me, you
corroded partition.
'Tis whiskey, the brew
of my granddad, you defy.
♪♪
'Tis not a jail break
man may fear.
My still blew up.
(laughing)
all: Yeah!
- A brand on his...
- all: Yeah!
- Build a house in the...
- all: Yeah!
- And that...
- all: Yeah!
(cheering)
(laughing)
Hey, hey, Bob, look who's
come to join the party here.
No, man, no.
Don't you know?
- Scotchmen eat grass.
- Is that right?
I thought they was part human.
(laughing)
When I laugh, you
miserable heathens,
that's when you worry.
Oh!
Oh!
(laughing)
(glass shattering)
I fancy the jail
you've improvised
unworthy of my own credentials.
Late of Her Majesty's forces,
BC, DSO, colonel, retired.
But I think it due to inform you
there's a bottle or two
of vintage going to waste.
McDougall, let's hear it.
MacGregor.
MacGregor with
a roll of the "R."
- That was the jail, huh?
- Aye.
Aye, a wee miscalculation.
Though I'm daft if I know where.
What happened to the sheriff?
Groomed the grain
to water the starch.
I said where's the sheriff?
Aye, there's the
blaggard leaving me to rot.
Locked in prison
with only my still.
- Gone, huh?
- Two days ago.
Quaking in his
boots, the coward.
Didn't know when to find
himself in the middle of a fight
between cowboys and farmers.
I ask you in truth, you
examine the combatants.
Ha-ha!
How much of a brawl could it be?
You.
What is it?
- Francis Wilde.
- Go away.
- Photographer, writer.
- A sassy lad.
Port and reporter
at your service.
That telegraph office
open this time of night?
That land bill coming out
of Congress any minute,
there's 400 people down
there at that shack right now.
I want to get a message off to
all the sheriffs in Cimarron Strip
from Beaver City to
Shadewell to Ciman...
Hardesty, Grand Valley, right.
I want them to muster up
all the deputies they can,
men that know the
proper end of a gun.
- Pay will be double.
- Done.
No, not you... him.
I want you watching Payne.
Aye.
He's gonna be taking his
farmers across that river.
You think you can track 'em?
You're talking, man, to the
laddie who taught the Sioux.
He'll be moving heavy stock.
It'll take him about
a day to draw up.
Just where he's
gonna cross that river,
exactly where,
that's what I've got to know
before I talk to those deputies
and sheriffs, otherwise
there's gonna be a run of coffin.
Where do I get a bath?
Second floor,
right off the landing.
So what were you locked in for?
Accused of stealing a horse.
I never did.
'Twas the barley I stole.
Now you don't hang a
man for a bushel of barley.
♪♪
That message goes tonight.
I'll hit every magazine
in the country with him.
"Harper's Weekly,"
"The Police Gazette."
You get your grubby
hand near him...
They'll gobble him up like nothing
they've seen since Buffalo Bill.
It'll be Marshal Crown, the
last living legend of the west.
It's worth a million
dollars, I tell you.
He's mine!
I've got my own plans for him.
Over my dead body.
(laughing) Yeah!
That can happen!
♪♪
♪♪
Mmm.
(sighing)
MacGregor!
MacGregor!
MacGregor!
A blanket!
Get me a blanket!
♪♪
There's a Cooperman.
Cooperman.
The iron monger, aye.
- No, Coopersmith.
- Any luck?
Charlton Coopersmith, who...
I can't understand it.
The Wayfarer's Inn
was the place I was told.
- By who, lass?
- In Providence.
I lived with my mother.
I never knew my father, he
came west when I was five.
My mother died last month
and I found these
letters from my father
saying that he was in Cimarron
and he had this place,
the Wayfarer's Inn.
Charlton, Charlton.
Charlie.
English Charlie!
You didn't say you
were English, lass.
Well, I was born there.
English Charlie,
my partner, aye.
Well, I worked for him.
Not exactly his partner.
The two of us,
we run this place.
The finest lasses
you'd want to see...
Charlie's run over by a
beer wagon two weeks ago.
Shut up, MacGregor.
And the Moynihans,
the creeping Irish.
But we gave Charlie
a funeral, aye, lad.
I remember the honeybees
a-buzzing around the whiskey.
Probing us... Ow!
What do you think
you're doing kicking?
Oh, lass.
Excuse me.
♪♪
There's a train heading
back in the morning.
Do you have any money?
I'll leave a ticket for you.
I'm sorry.
♪♪
(groaning)
Jim.
Jim.
You're making me look
bad in front of my boys.
I'll tell 'em what it is, huh?
The joke.
Like it always was
with you and me.
Yeah, we had a
lot of good laughs.
(laughing)
And you boys said
he threw away the key.
Like that time we stole
that mare from those crows
and you swapped
me to save your hide.
And then he won me back,
cold Jack in poker!
(laughing)
Open up, Jim.
And turn this bunch
loose on the prairie
on a black night like this?
Why, you'd end up
shooting eight good horses.
Jim.
In the morning, Bear.
You're the same man, aren't you?
You don't sell out old Bear.
Nobody sells out Bear.
♪♪
♪♪
(mooing)
(cows mooing)
♪♪
(horse whinnying)
♪♪
Ahh!
(horse whinnying)
A man blows a half-month's
pay buying himself a drunk
and you come along
with a hat full of water.
Virgo, where's
that canvas needle?
Crazy lop-eared steer.
I'll have that.
Something?
(cow mooing)
14 dozen chickens, six turkeys,
pottery smashed, tools broken.
45,000 yards of barbed wire.
Two coaches
wrecked, three plows.
128 bottles of whiskey.
That comes to $2,300.
Bank note or cash?
I'll make the point.
(cow mooing)
Anything your boys
do my side of the river...
Haze a train, bust
up a settlement...
I'm holding you accountable.
There's gonna be no war, Miller.
It stops right here.
I'm pulling teeth.
This is government-leased
land you're living on.
We're cancelling those leases.
You don't get 'em, the
farmers don't get 'em,
nobody gets 'em yet.
Congress decided.
Came out this morning.
Now, that means there's gonna be
a cold-eyed hell
across that Cimarron.
And nobody knows how long.
My job is to cool things off.
Now what you do with your
people here in the outlet,
I have no authority.
But just take it as a warning.
I've got 80,000 head
of cattle out here.
Any 20 worth more
than you make in a year.
340,000 acres of land.
You couldn't ride it in a week.
160 men.
I've had congressmen
to my house.
The president of Mexico.
You're warning me.
You and every other rancher
in the Cherokee Outlet.
(bell dinging)
You've been waiting to hear it.
The government just
decided who gets this land.
Nobody.
That's what it says.
Says it's gonna cool
things off for a while.
Well, that's fine.
I can wait.
Payne can't.
(chuckling)
- McCall.
- Yo!
Pick ten men, fire the rest.
Have them pack their
gear and clear out.
They got no jobs here
until I know this land is mine.
♪♪
(horse neighing)
You don't say it.
That one lousy word.
Bear, come on.
Pig, you, when you
suckered me last night.
You know what Miller's
doing as well as me.
Mr. Payne is coming,
that's what I know.
Miller's cut you
loose to fight for him.
That's what he wants,
you doing his dirt.
And Payne is doing yours.
That is a lie.
Bear, know who you hate.
♪♪
Like locusts...
they're gonna follow
Mr. Payne across that river
and you...
you, you're gonna let 'em in.
I know who I hate.
♪♪
I'm gonna turn
that Cimarron red.
♪♪
Hey!
♪♪
Who's the commanding officer?
Major Covington.
I'd like to see him.
If you'd like to leave your
name, sir, maybe tomorrow.
High-level conference, sir.
Mm-hmm.
Major, I want every
available troop you've got
armed and ready
for trail in two hours.
You better have more
behind that brass than a badge.
Provisions and bedding.
Three-day supply.
Sir, I tried to stop him.
It's all right, Corporal.
This map accurate?
By presidential
directive August 14th.
You're to make your men
available to me if needed.
Well, they're needed.
For what?
This Miller's land?
That's Miller's.
Those settlers want
to try to cross that river.
Miller's cut loose
40 men to stop them.
You want me to hold them off.
I'll have my men there to keep
them from crossing that river.
You keep those cowboys
from turning them into sieves.
It's 4:00.
Still time to reach district.
They'll have to
contact regional.
War Department office
closes at noon on Friday.
There's a weekend.
Hope to have the
directive Monday.
I need you at the
river in the morning.
Red tape, Marshal.
I didn't invent it.
Major, I'm riding
a short fuse bomb.
Those settlers don't know
what they're walking into.
More along a 50-mile front.
One breakout
like this, just one.
- That's all it's gonna take.
- You want me to try to stop it.
That is the point.
There's a field out there
behind that hill, Marshal.
- You know what's there?
- No.
Neither do those farmers.
There are 400 stones
out there, Marshal.
Dead boys with Kiawah
arrows in their backs.
15 years of bloody Indian wars,
laying out the territory,
making the peace.
You know what they won for it?
Meat once a month.
The rest beans.
Weaponry outmoded, foul.
An expert couldn't hit a target.
We're understaffed,
we're underpaid,
we've got recruits so raw they
don't know the difference between
a dull-grim mortar or a coehorn.
Or old men who've forgotten.
Forgotten heroics, battles.
Remembered?
I'll tell you what's
remembered, Marshal.
The noble redskin
always battling one against 40.
The rape of the Sioux,
the Trail of Tears.
The Indian never
breaking a treaty
and the soldier always lying,
deceiving, dispossessing dirt.
We broke this land!
You're asking me to
send more men back
maybe to be killed all for the sake
of a band of whimpering pig cutters
who assume that the Almighty Lord
spread it out just for them to take?
You're handing me a massacre.
Your massacre,
Marshal, not mine!
You're the one they
called to Washington.
Civilian rule.
They want it?
You sleep in it.
This outlet's your authority.
That is fact.
In the event of insurrection,
you're supposed...
In the event.
I do not anticipate
without a directive.
If those farmers want this land,
then they'll bloody well
taste what it's like to fight for it.
Marshal?
You do know where
they're crossing.
I'll know.
You better.
♪♪
Esta bueno.
With this one, you
could shoot a train.
Yeah?
You're right, it's no good.
(laughing)
There is the one.
Want touch, like woman.
Caress it.
How kind it is to the hand, no?
Esta bueno.
Esta bueno.
(gun cocking)
Hey, lookee here.
(cowbell dinging)
Innkeeper, ale!
Jump, you hear?
I've important information
for the constabulary.
Ah, that's grand.
(cowbell dinging)
Which when revealed will sour
the milk of some cows that I know.
Ahh.
Seven rifles.
480 rounds.
If you get off a shot.
(cowbell dinging)
You wickerbill.
Bushwhacker.
Way belly.
Bug.
(cowbell dinging)
(clanking)
♪♪
(cowbell dinging)
♪♪
(cowbell dinging)
♪♪
♪♪
(cowbell dinging)
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
(gunshots firing
in the distance)
(horse neighing)
(gunshots firing
in the distance)
man: And in fact...
(men laughing)
(men shouting)
man: I object!
Man: Your honor!
That way belly called
Your Honor a bug!
Man: Your Honor, I object!
You ain't got no
right to get a lawyer!
- (cowbell dinging)
- Mobeetie: Order!
Order, I said, in the court!
Order in the court!
Now we're conducting this
here trial according to legal.
Mr. Persecutor, you
recite that there charge.
Thank you, Your Honor.
Ladies and gentle... gentlemen!
(laughing)
Charge against this here feller:
bad-mouthing the
judge, calling him names.
(all shouting)
And putting on airs.
(all shouting)
And worst of all...
worst I say...
the crime of all time...
trying to act like
an honest man!
(all shouting)
man: Hold on, hold on!
Your Honor, I go with
everything, Your Honor,
the persecutor said
except one thing.
My client ain't... I say
ain't an honest man.
(all shouting)
He is to the poor!
That's a lie!
He don't kick dogs.
So darn trustful
it's evident to all!
He's a scallywag.
Makes tame girls wild.
Why even goes
to Sunday School...
four times a week!
(laughing)
He steals from widows.
Ain't no Sunday School boy...
Order in the court!
(laughing)
What the heck...
Order!
Now we's had this here trial
and there ain't no
congressman and ain't no senator
that could have
done it more fair.
(all shouting)
I object.
Hear ye, hear ye.
Jury, what say you?
All: Guilty!
Been a while since
I had roast pig!
- Roast him!
- Cook him on a spin!
Scotty.
Hey, is that cotton
to your notion, huh,
you all trussed up like a hog?
Boys, are you ready for him?
(all shouting)
You walked right into it,
didn't you, Scotchman?
You're numbering your days.
All: Oh!
You could have been back there
sleeping off the whiskey
in that blowed-up jail,
but, no, you gotta be out
tracking down farmers, don't you?
I can only assume
you're weary of living.
(all shouting)
Who's gonna be telling the marshal
where they're crossing now, huh?
- Yeah!
- You ain't.
You paltry flea!
(laughing)
(grunting)
He'll squash you like a gnat!
(all shouting)
Bug!
He's a bug!
(all shouting)
He called me a bug!
(chuckling)
Yeah.
That old ugly Bear, he'd
strip my hide if I cut you out.
Cut him loose.
Cut him loose.
You bet, Marshal.
Loose.
That old Bear
stoking up on alkali.
They even drawing straws on you.
That cowboy, he gonna light
up the sky with you hisself.
You're his.
Yes, sir.
"Unlessing" he misses.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
I thought I'd stay.
Well, listen, I began to think.
We could partition the room.
It could be your office
and, well, the wine
cooler is fine for a jail and...
Well, for us, there
are the rooms upstairs.
Where are they?
40 cowboys gonna chop
those settlers into kindling
if I haven't got the
men to stop them.
Where are my sheriffs?
Resigned.
All five.
No deputies available.
♪♪
♪♪
Can I come in?
Why not?
All belongs to you.
It's awfully small
of course for a jail,
but... well, perhaps there's a
way we can cut out the wall.
And the dining room
will be where the bar is.
And I'm an awfully good cook
and, well, half the
place would be yours
and the other half
I'd run as an inn.
- What do you think?
- Go home.
This is my home.
With the finest lasses
you'd want to see?
I know what it was,
I know what it is.
There isn't a thing in the
place that doesn't need fixing
and the kitchen's all over
with dirt and grease and dust.
But I know what it can be.
How old are you?
20.
20?
Nobody's 20 anymore.
You're right, I lied.
- I'm 18.
- Yeah.
How old are you?
35.
Well, that isn't so bad.
What do they call you?
Dulcey.
Dulcey, go back to Providence.
I don't want to go back.
- Get yourself a job.
- I had a job.
- Okay.
- A servant.
Is that what you
want to be here?
You want to feed people
and scrub up floors?
But it would be mine.
I never owned something
that was mine before.
I'd have a future.
A future?
Well, there'd be tables inside
with linen and...
candles in bottles like these,
glowing ever so softly.
(glass shattering)
Look at it!
That is the future here, Dulcey!
It's vicious and it's raw.
Why, you're trying to feed
sugar to a horse that's crazy,
wild with fear and full
of blind, stupid hate.
They're not even
going to see you
or know what you have to offer
until one day, you're standing
right next to a fire or a shooting
or some liquored-up
rousers tearing up the town.
And all at once, they'll be
standing over you, saying,
"I never even saw
that she was there."
But it'll be done.
No.
You're gonna get hurt
around here, Dulcey.
And no one's
gonna mean to do it.
That can't happen.
Can't it?
You're here.
♪♪
- He will.
- He won't.
Face it, man, you have no
sheriffs, you have no posse.
- You're beat.
- He is not.
But you can make the best of it.
- And I'm the man to show you the way.
- Don't listen to him.
- Barley!
- What barley?
He's crazy.
Listen, you don't need sheriffs.
Get yourself a white
hat and pearl-handled...
Think of it.
Them fields out there
are swaying in the freeze.
And you and I are
cornering the market.
Barley.
An ancient grain of Scotland.
Whiskey.
'Tis riches we'll make
beyond your conception.
- He's mad.
- Ah, with my invention
and your cunning,
we'll grab it for a tune.
One man against 200 screaming,
hating farmers, the cowboys...
I'll feed you to the yetis!
We'll have your picture in every
newspaper east of Mississippi.
Partners, down the middle!
60/40.
You'll need a name for me.
Maybe Doc.
He's staying!
Ah, don't listen.
- Doc Crown.
- The legend of the Cimarron!
- Heroic tamer of the West.
- Like Masterson.
Cartwright, Ben Thompson.
Stoudenmire, Hickok.
Cartwright was a
trigger-happy gun sharp.
Thompson was a drunken
animal who'd kill on a dare.
Stoudenmire liked to
club Mexicans to death.
They'd make their laws
and then they'd break them.
They'd cheat, steal, lie.
They trusted nobody
and nobody trusted them.
That's the stuff
that makes legends.
You want a legend?
You're gonna be part of it.
I want deputies.
Knock out that lamp.
I never shot one
of these in my life.
Go on, try... the lamp.
♪♪
(horse neighing)
(laughing)
Now you'll learn.
And you.
The laddie that
taught the Sioux.
Oh ho, oh ho.
I don't come cheaply, man.
I can have that jail
rebuilt in a week.
You found the price.
Well...
you, me and him.
Us three.
Could be worse.
It's gonna be.
♪♪
♪♪
(horse whinnying)
(horse whinnying)
(horses approaching)
(horse whinnying)
(horse whinnying)
Any one of those boys down there
would jump you in a minute.
- Would they?
- Oh, yeah.
Horse trail, gun, knife.
Just that.
That's all I'd have to do.
I guess.
And I like knowing that.
How many quarter
moons we put to bed
sitting the night before a fire?
Runyon Creek.
You remember?
Yeah.
Caught that raving
party of Blackfeet.
Buried 80.
And 200 of our own.
After we broke 'em.
What's happened to you?
There's an old trapper up
in Abilene called Crazy Will.
You ever hear of him?
No.
He hangs around,
looking for handouts,
talking your ear
off about his...
His days in Sawtooth
Mountain back in the '40s.
He tells stories about
beating the rapids
and riding point
for old Jim Bridger,
doing his Christian
work with a Winchester.
After a while, nobody
listens to him anymore.
I'm afraid that's what's
gonna happen to you, Bear.
That or the end of a rope
or shot up at some river.
No, not to me it won't.
A year, maybe two.
You got no more stomach
for these farmers than I do
and you never did.
What's happened to you?
We used to take
on 50 of anything.
Men, grizzlies.
You name me one
time we ever lost.
Never, Bear.
- Well?!
- Not once.
But what did we win?
As well as you, I want
this to last forever,
but it can't.
It's gonna change.
This is 1888.
It's the last of the old
and the golden West
and it's gonna change.
Now why don't you help
me change it proper?
Now, I'm gonna
need men like you.
People, sheriffs.
No.
Then you kill me, Bear.
♪♪
We've always been on
the same side of things.
You belong with me.
You're gonna have to kill me
'cause I'm gonna
be in the middle.
There ain't no middle.
Not in this.
That's the answer.
♪♪
♪♪
Well, this is it.
Fort Dodge supply trail.
Nobody.
I thought you said Payne
was to go up here and cross.
Aye.
This trail hasn't been
used in over a month.
I cannot understand.
- 'Tis what I was told.
- What you were told?
Didn't you see?
No, man.
I found these obliging laddies.
What laddies?
Farmer boys, bonnie chaps.
And I asked where
Payne would be crossing
and they eagerly offered
the Fort Dodge trail.
Your Honor, they'll have to...
Upstream, downstream.
One of two choices.
Make it.
- Upstream.
- Downstream.
You're right.
I could be wrong.
Upstream.
♪♪
Upstream.
I said I could be wrong.
♪♪
Tell them people riding drag
to keep the wagons up tight.
We're about ready to cross.
(cows mooing)
(horse whinnying)
(goats bleating)
There's another pothole here.
That makes two right here.
Mr. Payne!
(horses approaching)
(horse whinnying)
(gun cocking)
Mindy, get the kids down!
Watch them potholes.
Stay out from the sticks.
There's quicksand
a few yards down.
Once the wagons hit
the water, keep going.
All right, move 'em out!
Any man sets foot in that water,
either side, I'll kill 'em.
Wagons across!
(all whooping)
(guns cocking)
Hi-yah!
(gunshot firing)
Women and children, Mr. Crown?
Really?
You'll shoot them?
We will cross, Mr. Crown,
and stay across.
Others will come after us.
Thousands.
You won't stop it.
This land, don't you
see, won't be civilized!
Not a place to be wasted.
Not a refuge for
a failing world.
It would be planted,
even with graves.
All right, we'll cross and file.
People on foot,
stay upstream from the wagons.
Wagons across!
Move them!
♪♪
(gunshot firing)
Hi-yah!
(horse neighing)
(grunting)
♪♪
Bear!
Bear!
Bear!
Bear!
Bear!
Bear!
♪♪
♪♪
Francis, you get down here!
Boy, I give you 15 seconds.
- You better fly!
- How do you like your eggs?
I'll kill him.
- Over easy or up?
- What?
Breakfast.
Boy!
Good morning.
- They didn't.
- You bet they did.
(bottles clanking)
Let me see it.
They did it.
They really did it.
Doc Crown.
Doing a nutty thing like this.
Boy, you got a wheel loose
in your head, you know that?
- Well, that was the deal.
- What deal?
You said I get a
legend, you get a deputy.
Yeah, but I didn't mean...
Now, what do you
think you're doing?
Taking off your boots.
I don't want mud on this floor.
This isn't going to be
a saloon, you know.
It's going to be the
Skillet and Skittle.
- The what?
- Coffeehouse.
Coff...
You're crazy.
You know, you people are crazy.
Wait 'til you see the
curtains I got for your office.
Curtains!
I'm not going to
have any curtains.
I'm going to have dirt!
And no punk kid is going
to be creeping around
grabbing pictures, not of me.
And that crazy
Scotchman, well...
Look, let me tell you what
it's gonna be like here.
I heard what it
was going to be like.
You heard but you didn't listen.
Now do you think what happened at
that river yesterday ends this thing?
Well, it don't.
Those cowboys are out of work.
Men who know guns.
Some desperate enough
to use 'em, turning outlaw.
Start shooting,
stealing, looting.
They got 10 million acres in
that Cherokee Outlet to hide in.
And what about them farmers?
What do they got to go back to?
Nothing.
They're hungry, broke, angry.
What do you think
they're going to do
while they sit around
here, maybe for years?
I'm going to have every
bad guy in the nation
pouring in here like leeches...
Con men, jayhawkers, tinhorns,
washed-up red-eye losers.
I got a jungle here
and every son of a jackal's
going to be going for the spoils.
My brew!
My brew, it is done!
Do you feast your eyes?
Your whiskey, MacGregor.
Ah, the fragrance.
Symbol of your life
and achievement.
The lasting
monument to your time.
Ah.
(laughing)
Ooh.
(coughing)
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪