Hell on Wheels (2011–2016): Season 3, Episode 2 - Eminent Domain - full transcript
An unexpected roadblock forces Cullen to make a difficult choice as a reporter arrives in Hell on Wheels. Elam struggles with his new boss.
- I see why they call
this place Hell on Wheels.
Rough men, loose women,
whiskey, sin, and guns.
- It ain't a church
social, ma'am.
- I'm not sure your bosses at Crédit Mobilier
would want me to put that in the newspaper.
What is it that holds you to
this enterprise, Mr. Bohannon?
- Every piece of steel we lay
puts us closer to somewheres else.
That's about all I can say.
- So it's more personal
than just laying rail.
- You're the writer. Ho!
- Mr. Bohannon,
people of this country
believe the railroad is
robbing the National Treasury.
My job is to dissuade
my readers of that notion.
Unfortunately, our brief interview
was not enough to dissuade me.
- And it ain't my job
to fix what people think.
- In fact, it is.
You are the face of the
Transcontinental Railroad now.
And either this is a
brave and noble endeavor,
or it's Sodom and Gomorrah.
Which is it?
The sooner you help me accurately
report what's going on out here,
the sooner I can leave and
make both our lives less miserable.
And for the record, I
covered the war '63 to '65.
I know the difference between
hell and a church social.
- What more you need to see?
- Everything.
- Come on then.
♪ She was born in
Jackson, baby... ♪
Grading crews work
ahead of the tie-layers.
100 miles west,
surveyors lay out the route.
- How many men do you have?
- Near 3,000.
Work six days a
week, sunup, sundown.
$1.50 a day. Them's good wages.
- How many miles
do you make a day?
- Two now, weather
and Indians permittin'.
Rust eaters lay the rails.
Walking boss makes
sure the gauge is right.
Spiker teams secure
the rails to the ground.
Fish-plates tie them together.
Three swings of the
hammer per spike,
10 spikes per rail,
400 rails to a mile,
1,500 miles to Sacramento.
- Do you really believe
you can win the race
against the Central
Pacific to build this road?
- Wouldn't be here otherwise.
- You think you can do it without
Thomas Durant's political connections?
Without his money,
his ego to drive it on?
- Well, here I stand,
and here he don't.
Excuse me.
- One more question.
Why you?
- Each car sleeps 60 men.
Keeps them out of the
weather and close to the work.
Lady coming through!
- Who designed these cars?
- Mostly me.
Yeah, I'm still working
out the ventilation.
- Mm-hmm.
- Two weeks ago, these
men were starving, out of work,
straight off the
boats in New York.
- My newspaper's reported Irish labor
bosses conscripting them out here for a fee.
How is that any different
from indentured servitude?
- Union Pacific offers free rail
passage and a week's wages on arrival.
We got more applicants
than we got work.
- Really?
Your idea again?
- Didn't much care for the
labor bosses I met in New York.
New cemetery runs from
the sawmill up to the ridge line.
Ain't a day goes by we
don't put some one or two
in the ground up there.
Most from railroad mishaps.
- And the others?
- Spare time mishaps.
- Is that where the fair-haired
maiden of the west is buried?
- No, she's buried in a
wildflower field she liked.
- Did you know her?
- A bit.
- Well, you must've
known her better than that
if you knew where she
wanted to be buried.
- Mrs. Bell should've left Hell on
Wheels when she had the chance.
This ain't no place for a lady.
Less'n she's a whore.
- I can assure you, Mr. Bohannon,
I am neither a lady, nor a whore.
- Figured you'd have to be a little bit
of both, being a newspaper woman.
Get outta here.
- Huh.
You figured wrong.
- You Bohannon?
- I am.
- Keep your railroad
off my property.
I won't tell you again.
- Where'd they come from?
- No idea.
Train for Omaha
leaves in an hour.
I expect you won't
wanna miss it.
- Howdy.
- Who are you?
- You come pawin' around for
turmoil, you best think twice, friend.
- This is my office.
- Mr. Ferguson.
Dick Barlow. Just
arrived from Omaha.
Didn't Mr. Bohannon
tell you to expect me?
- No.
What you want in here?
- Well, I can tell by looking,
you ain't short a hat size,
so I guess you know.
I'm new Chief of
Railroad Police.
You work for me now.
Coffee?
My grandpap taught
me how to make it.
The trick is not to over-boil.
And, of course, the sock.
Now, uh, I use a clean one.
But pap swore the riper
the sock, the richer the brew.
I like a dollop of
fresh cream in mine,
but it ain't real regular
I come across it.
And kicking don't get you
nowhere, less'n you're a mule.
So mostly, I just
take mine black.
- Mr. Bohannon ain't said nothing
about me working for nobody.
- Well, it ain't no
good cold now.
Go on.
That's it.
Mm.
That'll get your hair out
of the butter every time.
- Don't want no trouble.
Came to talk.
- What about?
- Think you know.
- Come ahead.
You survived the war?
- I did.
- You a Johnny Reb?
- Yes, sir. Yeah, I was.
- So you know a little about what it's
like, somebody comes, takes your land.
- Everything I had's been took.
- Indians killed my father and
my brother, his wives and kids.
My wives and I, we
buried 'em on the same hill
I pulled our surveyor
stakes out of.
My family bled for this
land, Mr. Bohannon,
carved this place out of a
wilderness nobody wanted.
It is by Heavenly
Father's decree
that we are here, and
it shall be by His will,
not yours, that we leave.
- Even God can't stop
the railroad, Mr. Hatch.
- It would destroy all we built,
take away our home.
- Mm.
You have my word.
You'll get a square deal.
Now, now, that's
the best I can do.
- Could go around.
- Boy.
- Ain't nothin' but wilderness
and Lamanites out here, Father.
- I said that's enough.
You will excuse
my son's manners.
He's got some
growing still to do.
- Tell you what. Um...
Let me see if my surveyors
can't find a way around.
Now, that... that's
not a promise, uh...
If it can't be done,
you'll still have to move.
But... it don't
cost nothing to try.
- Well, a journey
through these lands
at this hour is a foolish
one, Mr. Bohannon.
You are welcome
to stay till morning.
- Much obliged.
- Seen me a Mormon
man killed once.
Liberty, Missouri...
During the war.
As if them white folk didn't
have enough to fight about,
county sheriff run him
through with a sword
on account of him
being a "Palgemist".
Yep, they didn't like them no
"Palgemists" in Liberty, Missouri.
Like they Mormons didn't
like them no negroes.
Yeah, they a nasty bunch.
- I think you mean polygamist.
What'd I say?
- "Palgemists".
- I knew it was
something like that.
Why a man gotta get hisself
killed over being a polygamist?
- It's the custom of having more
than one wife at the same time.
- More than one wife, you say?
At the same time?
Well, damn. No
wonder they nasty.
- Sand, mud, lime.
- Soil like that no good
for the grade, boss.
Take a lot of lumber to build.
Yeah, rock wall be
better, but that take time,
and rock, which we ain't got.
- I've surveyed several routes
through here, Mr. Bohannon.
Sand hills stretch at least
100 miles to the north.
We'd have to go south
to get around that farm.
- How far?
- 40 mile, maybe more.
- 40 mile'll put us behind
schedule by five weeks.
- Yes, sir.
- I met the new police chief.
- You ain't happy,
track runs both ways.
Where's the livestock?
- It's complicated.
- Tell you what's complicated,
son, 3,000 hungry men.
- What I mean is, uh, I've
been on the job for two days.
And deciphering these
books is quite the task.
Near as I can tell, Mr. Durant
formed several companies
to supply livestock
to the railroad.
Now that he's departed,
the contracts have
been... canceled.
- Then find some
other damn place, Sean.
Council Bluffs,
Denver, shit, Chicago...
- I would, um, but it
seems that Mr. Durant has,
in addition to canceling our
contracts with his companies,
cornered the market on
livestock in Omaha as well.
- Shit!
Should've killed that son of a
bitch when I had the chance.
- May I quote you on
that, Mr. Bohannon?
- You don't say nothing to her
about railroad business, you hear me?
- Yes, sir.
- Still here?
- Missed my train.
- Don't say I didn't warn you.
- Oh. We missed you at services
this morning, Mr. Bohannon.
Was there something
I can help you with?
- Thought I'd look in is all.
- You gave us a good place...
High, dry ground, upwind
of the slaughterhouse.
- Thank you.
- It's good. It's good for the men, I mean.
- And you?
Oh. Sorry. Uh...
Railroad has to move a family
of homesteaders off their land.
They're digging in.
And, uh, they're Mormon.
I wonder if you've had any cause to
know what they might be like as people.
- The Latter Day Saints are
not a legitimate Church of Christ.
They treat their women as
slaves. They take child brides.
They're a violent people.
- They'll fight then, you think?
- It has been their way. Yes.
- They got children with 'em.
- Then you'll find another way.
By God's grace.
God's been slack
with the grace of late.
- Then show them
yours, Mr. Bohannon.
- What I'm proposing is a
major new commercial hub,
the most important railroad
city in the United States.
And it will be right
here, in your backyard.
- That is literally my backyard.
You see that pretty confluence
of good sweet-water streams?
Well, it ain't much,
but it's on my land.
My husband left me all of
this when he passed in '62.
- Well, it may be your
land now, madam,
but the Union Pacific Railroad
will reach it before the year is out.
And, through eminent
domain, they will claim it.
- That's against the law.
- It is the law.
And by law, the Union
Pacific is compelled to offer you
a fair market price for your
land, currently $1.50 an acre.
- I'd never sell for that.
- And you won't have to.
Because as a representative and
major stockholder of Crédit Mobilier,
I am prepared to offer
you $100 per acre,
thus waiving eminent domain.
- What's the rub?
- Ah, well...
In order to waive
eminent domain,
we must build a
railroad terminus
and a town on the
property, which we will.
Every pound of
beef, every ton of ore,
every fruit, vegetable, every bale of
hay from either side of the Mississippi...
must ship through our town.
You will become rich
beyond your wildest dreams.
- Weren't you in jail just a month ago?
- Yes.
- And you're broke,
according to the newspapers.
- Flat broke.
- How do you expect to pay us
for our property then?
- From construction funds
advanced to me by the
Union Pacific Railroad.
- You were kicked off
Union Pacific for stealing.
- Union Pacific,
Crédit Mobilier,
different pockets to
the same pair of pants.
When the judge understood
that, I was released.
- You're in Omaha now, New York.
Money won't buy you judges here.
- Opportunity is a
powerful elixir, Mrs. Palmer.
- Right.
So you're borrowing
money you don't have
from a company you don't work
for to buy property you can't afford
to build a city
that doesn't exist.
- Spearheading, as it were, a new
way of doing business in America.
If all difficulties were known
at the outset of a long
journey, Mr. McGinnes,
few of us would
ever embark at all.
A whiskey for my young friend.
Have you got the money?
- I'm very uneasy about this.
If Mr. Bohannon finds out...
- You are doing nothing wrong.
You are managing railroad funds,
and you are managing them well.
Have you got
something else for me?
- This is the, uh, telegraph
routing code for the Union Pacific.
You'll be able to eavesdrop on
all of Mr. Bohannon's business.
- Excellent.
Ah...
- Will you be paying
me today, Mr. Durant?
- All in due time, Mr. McGinnes.
Oh, don't look so glum.
My current situation is
but a temporary setback.
History always
sides with a winner.
- Where are you off to so fast?
- Excuse me, I...
Um...
Uh, stop, no. Ow, let me go.
- Give us a kiss first.
- What?
Wait, wait, wait,
wait. Please, please.
Not like this. Let's
go to my room, huh?
- I got us a bottle
we can share.
- Touch me again,
it'll be your throat!
- Bloody whore.
- My grandpap, a dough
puncher from way back,
taught me surest way to a
woman's heart by way of her stomach.
By God, if that wasn't
certain with my Tess.
You married, Mr. Ferguson?
- Some could call it that.
- Kids?
- Got me a new baby girl.
- Nothing like a new baby to
make a man count his blessings
and keep them close.
I got five youngsters, all
girls, if you want to know.
The oldest one's 12 going on 40.
- That little girl of
mine, she beautiful.
I look in her eyes,
and she melt my heart.
But her mama afraid this
job gonna get me killed.
She think that baby ain't gonna
have no daddy to bring her up.
- How's the coffee?
- It's better the second day.
- It's the sock.
- Need you boys to ride out
and tell them homesteaders
there's no way around the land.
This here's the writ
of eminent domain.
Let them know the
government pays $1.50 an acre.
Railroad will throw
in another dollar.
Let 'em know that's
more than fair, all right?
- Yes, sir.
- Oh, you do the talking.
Mormons ain't keen on negroes.
- Finish your
coffee, Mr. Ferguson.
I got to visit the necessary.
Then we'll be on our way.
They said he was a hell-raiser,
but my pap was a lazy son of
a bitch by the time I knew him.
Fact, one time when I was...
- Don't you ever stop talking?
- No, sir, I do not.
Out here, a quiet man is
twice as likely as a noisy one
to have his beard
clung to by a bear.
I intend to keep my scalp.
Maybe they're gone.
- No, they ain't gone.
Horses still in the barn.
- Keep your gun close.
You see our cinch getting
frayed, start shooting.
Hello!
Anybody home?!
Mr. Hatch?!
State your business!
- I'm Dick Barlow, Chief of
Police, Union Pacific Railroad!
Think you know why we're here!
- I already told the other
one, we ain't leaving!
- You ain't got any choice!
That's what we come to tell you.
- We ain't afraid to
fight for what's ours!
You best leave
on out of here now!
- Threatening us
ain't gonna get us no...
- Barlow!
- What...
- I need 75,000 ties delivered 25
miles beyond the end of the rails
before the first of the month,
100 barrels of blasting powder.
Make sure we got
enough wranglers... Eva!
- when they get here...
from Denver.
- Eva!
- What happened?
- The Mormons shot him.
- Shit.
Careful, careful.
I got his legs.
- Eva!
Eva, we need you!
- Elam, the baby!
- You're the closest
thing we got to a doctor.
- Go get me some onion broth.
You!
Go to the hotel restaurant, get
me some onion broth now. Go!
- Was it the old man or the boy?
- I don't know for certain.
- Certain you don't know?
- Told you I don't know.
- I know for certain there's a
man lying here with a bullet in him.
- I just told you I ain't seen him.
- Will you two stop it?
Shut that baby up.
- Excuse me.
Here.
- Prop him up. Get him up.
Drink the medicine.
Yeah, I can smell the onion
broth through the wound.
He's gut-shot, Elam.
He ain't gonna make it.
- Take that damn baby outside.
- No, wait.
Bring her here.
Bring her over here. Please.
Let me see her.
Please let me see her.
Oh.
She's beautiful, Mr. Ferguson.
Just like you said.
- You wanted it.
- Not like this.
- Well?
All right. Telegraph the fort.
Tell the major we need help
evicting them homesteaders.
You want a railroad story?
Follow me.
Mr. Hatch!
This is Cullen Bohannon of
the Union Pacific Railroad!
I have a writ of execution here
for the killing of my Chief of Police!
Come on out!
You don't, and these
soldiers will burn you out!
I won't be able to stop them!
You got one minute, Mr. Hatch!
- United States Cavalry
was not built for waiting.
- We didn't come here to
kill women and children.
- A disorganized brain is
lacking in moral principles.
Are you aware of that, Bohannon?
- Not something I ponder nights.
- Moral principles are the first line
of defense against criminal behavior.
- You learn something
new every day.
- Without moral principles,
these Mormons will
inevitably turn to violence
to solve their problems,
just like the heathens.
Am I right about that, chief?
- What he talking about?
- Y'all keep your barrels down.
You and your boys,
put your guns down!
- I told you, stay off my
property or there'll be hell to pay!
- And I told you if I
couldn't find a way around,
the U.S. Government
would rightfully claim its land!
You murdered my Chief of Police.
- He was trespassing!
He was warned!
- You have to stand accountable.
- I am the priesthood holder
of my family, Mr. Bohannon.
Without me... they
will not survive.
- You should've thought about
that before you pulled that trigger.
- They won't survive.
- I'll see to it they get to the Mormon
settlement at Fort Smith. How's that?
- He done it!
- Father?
- Did you kill that man, son?
Tell me the truth now.
- Yes, sir.
- Mr. Ferguson, this
boy shoot Dick Barlow?
- I ain't sure.
- Good God, man, get on with it.
- You'd have me hang him?
- It's the law, Bohannon.
You said so yourself, and
you are obliged to uphold it.
We do not make exceptions
to the law out here.
- You realize he'll hang.
- He's just a boy.
- You're gonna tell me the truth.
- I told you the truth!
- Son, you got a different
story, you best tell me right now.
- He's just a boy.
- Not today he ain't.
All right.
- Father.
Come here.
- Father!
- Come on, boy.
Come on.
- Easy.
- Father!
Father!
- Sorry, son.
"Life on the prairie is not
worth the powder it takes
to blow it all to hell."
So say the denizens
of Hell on Wheels,
the rollicking tent city
that moves with the transcontinental
railroad as it creeps across the country
at a pace of two miles per day.
It is no place for
women or children,
as the men who labor here,
veterans of the recent conflict,
immigrants, and free negroes,
often take to drink and
un-Christian pursuits
when not swinging a
hammer or laying track.
Every man here carries a gun,
which can be had
for as little as $3,
and a knife, and goes
to church on Sunday.
Here you can buy
a meal for 35 cents,
a beer for less than a quarter,
a suit of clothes for
$5 that includes a hat.
The belongings of the
dead are cheaper than that.
- Any last words, son?
I came here to meet the
man who replaced Doc Durant
as Chief Engineer of the
Union Pacific Railroad.
I can tell you he is a man
for whom honor is sacred,
and virtue impermanent.
In the brave new
wilderness he calls home,
integrity is important
to Cullen Bohannon.
Whether a man of
integrity is what's needed
to build the railroad,
we don't yet know.
The railroad has always been the
business of the unscrupulous and corrupt.
- You owe me a life...
for the one you
took from me today.
I suspect our new Chief
Engineer to be neither.
And for that, dear reader, we
might all count our blessings...
and say a prayer.
Subtitling: CNST, Montreal
this place Hell on Wheels.
Rough men, loose women,
whiskey, sin, and guns.
- It ain't a church
social, ma'am.
- I'm not sure your bosses at Crédit Mobilier
would want me to put that in the newspaper.
What is it that holds you to
this enterprise, Mr. Bohannon?
- Every piece of steel we lay
puts us closer to somewheres else.
That's about all I can say.
- So it's more personal
than just laying rail.
- You're the writer. Ho!
- Mr. Bohannon,
people of this country
believe the railroad is
robbing the National Treasury.
My job is to dissuade
my readers of that notion.
Unfortunately, our brief interview
was not enough to dissuade me.
- And it ain't my job
to fix what people think.
- In fact, it is.
You are the face of the
Transcontinental Railroad now.
And either this is a
brave and noble endeavor,
or it's Sodom and Gomorrah.
Which is it?
The sooner you help me accurately
report what's going on out here,
the sooner I can leave and
make both our lives less miserable.
And for the record, I
covered the war '63 to '65.
I know the difference between
hell and a church social.
- What more you need to see?
- Everything.
- Come on then.
♪ She was born in
Jackson, baby... ♪
Grading crews work
ahead of the tie-layers.
100 miles west,
surveyors lay out the route.
- How many men do you have?
- Near 3,000.
Work six days a
week, sunup, sundown.
$1.50 a day. Them's good wages.
- How many miles
do you make a day?
- Two now, weather
and Indians permittin'.
Rust eaters lay the rails.
Walking boss makes
sure the gauge is right.
Spiker teams secure
the rails to the ground.
Fish-plates tie them together.
Three swings of the
hammer per spike,
10 spikes per rail,
400 rails to a mile,
1,500 miles to Sacramento.
- Do you really believe
you can win the race
against the Central
Pacific to build this road?
- Wouldn't be here otherwise.
- You think you can do it without
Thomas Durant's political connections?
Without his money,
his ego to drive it on?
- Well, here I stand,
and here he don't.
Excuse me.
- One more question.
Why you?
- Each car sleeps 60 men.
Keeps them out of the
weather and close to the work.
Lady coming through!
- Who designed these cars?
- Mostly me.
Yeah, I'm still working
out the ventilation.
- Mm-hmm.
- Two weeks ago, these
men were starving, out of work,
straight off the
boats in New York.
- My newspaper's reported Irish labor
bosses conscripting them out here for a fee.
How is that any different
from indentured servitude?
- Union Pacific offers free rail
passage and a week's wages on arrival.
We got more applicants
than we got work.
- Really?
Your idea again?
- Didn't much care for the
labor bosses I met in New York.
New cemetery runs from
the sawmill up to the ridge line.
Ain't a day goes by we
don't put some one or two
in the ground up there.
Most from railroad mishaps.
- And the others?
- Spare time mishaps.
- Is that where the fair-haired
maiden of the west is buried?
- No, she's buried in a
wildflower field she liked.
- Did you know her?
- A bit.
- Well, you must've
known her better than that
if you knew where she
wanted to be buried.
- Mrs. Bell should've left Hell on
Wheels when she had the chance.
This ain't no place for a lady.
Less'n she's a whore.
- I can assure you, Mr. Bohannon,
I am neither a lady, nor a whore.
- Figured you'd have to be a little bit
of both, being a newspaper woman.
Get outta here.
- Huh.
You figured wrong.
- You Bohannon?
- I am.
- Keep your railroad
off my property.
I won't tell you again.
- Where'd they come from?
- No idea.
Train for Omaha
leaves in an hour.
I expect you won't
wanna miss it.
- Howdy.
- Who are you?
- You come pawin' around for
turmoil, you best think twice, friend.
- This is my office.
- Mr. Ferguson.
Dick Barlow. Just
arrived from Omaha.
Didn't Mr. Bohannon
tell you to expect me?
- No.
What you want in here?
- Well, I can tell by looking,
you ain't short a hat size,
so I guess you know.
I'm new Chief of
Railroad Police.
You work for me now.
Coffee?
My grandpap taught
me how to make it.
The trick is not to over-boil.
And, of course, the sock.
Now, uh, I use a clean one.
But pap swore the riper
the sock, the richer the brew.
I like a dollop of
fresh cream in mine,
but it ain't real regular
I come across it.
And kicking don't get you
nowhere, less'n you're a mule.
So mostly, I just
take mine black.
- Mr. Bohannon ain't said nothing
about me working for nobody.
- Well, it ain't no
good cold now.
Go on.
That's it.
Mm.
That'll get your hair out
of the butter every time.
- Don't want no trouble.
Came to talk.
- What about?
- Think you know.
- Come ahead.
You survived the war?
- I did.
- You a Johnny Reb?
- Yes, sir. Yeah, I was.
- So you know a little about what it's
like, somebody comes, takes your land.
- Everything I had's been took.
- Indians killed my father and
my brother, his wives and kids.
My wives and I, we
buried 'em on the same hill
I pulled our surveyor
stakes out of.
My family bled for this
land, Mr. Bohannon,
carved this place out of a
wilderness nobody wanted.
It is by Heavenly
Father's decree
that we are here, and
it shall be by His will,
not yours, that we leave.
- Even God can't stop
the railroad, Mr. Hatch.
- It would destroy all we built,
take away our home.
- Mm.
You have my word.
You'll get a square deal.
Now, now, that's
the best I can do.
- Could go around.
- Boy.
- Ain't nothin' but wilderness
and Lamanites out here, Father.
- I said that's enough.
You will excuse
my son's manners.
He's got some
growing still to do.
- Tell you what. Um...
Let me see if my surveyors
can't find a way around.
Now, that... that's
not a promise, uh...
If it can't be done,
you'll still have to move.
But... it don't
cost nothing to try.
- Well, a journey
through these lands
at this hour is a foolish
one, Mr. Bohannon.
You are welcome
to stay till morning.
- Much obliged.
- Seen me a Mormon
man killed once.
Liberty, Missouri...
During the war.
As if them white folk didn't
have enough to fight about,
county sheriff run him
through with a sword
on account of him
being a "Palgemist".
Yep, they didn't like them no
"Palgemists" in Liberty, Missouri.
Like they Mormons didn't
like them no negroes.
Yeah, they a nasty bunch.
- I think you mean polygamist.
What'd I say?
- "Palgemists".
- I knew it was
something like that.
Why a man gotta get hisself
killed over being a polygamist?
- It's the custom of having more
than one wife at the same time.
- More than one wife, you say?
At the same time?
Well, damn. No
wonder they nasty.
- Sand, mud, lime.
- Soil like that no good
for the grade, boss.
Take a lot of lumber to build.
Yeah, rock wall be
better, but that take time,
and rock, which we ain't got.
- I've surveyed several routes
through here, Mr. Bohannon.
Sand hills stretch at least
100 miles to the north.
We'd have to go south
to get around that farm.
- How far?
- 40 mile, maybe more.
- 40 mile'll put us behind
schedule by five weeks.
- Yes, sir.
- I met the new police chief.
- You ain't happy,
track runs both ways.
Where's the livestock?
- It's complicated.
- Tell you what's complicated,
son, 3,000 hungry men.
- What I mean is, uh, I've
been on the job for two days.
And deciphering these
books is quite the task.
Near as I can tell, Mr. Durant
formed several companies
to supply livestock
to the railroad.
Now that he's departed,
the contracts have
been... canceled.
- Then find some
other damn place, Sean.
Council Bluffs,
Denver, shit, Chicago...
- I would, um, but it
seems that Mr. Durant has,
in addition to canceling our
contracts with his companies,
cornered the market on
livestock in Omaha as well.
- Shit!
Should've killed that son of a
bitch when I had the chance.
- May I quote you on
that, Mr. Bohannon?
- You don't say nothing to her
about railroad business, you hear me?
- Yes, sir.
- Still here?
- Missed my train.
- Don't say I didn't warn you.
- Oh. We missed you at services
this morning, Mr. Bohannon.
Was there something
I can help you with?
- Thought I'd look in is all.
- You gave us a good place...
High, dry ground, upwind
of the slaughterhouse.
- Thank you.
- It's good. It's good for the men, I mean.
- And you?
Oh. Sorry. Uh...
Railroad has to move a family
of homesteaders off their land.
They're digging in.
And, uh, they're Mormon.
I wonder if you've had any cause to
know what they might be like as people.
- The Latter Day Saints are
not a legitimate Church of Christ.
They treat their women as
slaves. They take child brides.
They're a violent people.
- They'll fight then, you think?
- It has been their way. Yes.
- They got children with 'em.
- Then you'll find another way.
By God's grace.
God's been slack
with the grace of late.
- Then show them
yours, Mr. Bohannon.
- What I'm proposing is a
major new commercial hub,
the most important railroad
city in the United States.
And it will be right
here, in your backyard.
- That is literally my backyard.
You see that pretty confluence
of good sweet-water streams?
Well, it ain't much,
but it's on my land.
My husband left me all of
this when he passed in '62.
- Well, it may be your
land now, madam,
but the Union Pacific Railroad
will reach it before the year is out.
And, through eminent
domain, they will claim it.
- That's against the law.
- It is the law.
And by law, the Union
Pacific is compelled to offer you
a fair market price for your
land, currently $1.50 an acre.
- I'd never sell for that.
- And you won't have to.
Because as a representative and
major stockholder of Crédit Mobilier,
I am prepared to offer
you $100 per acre,
thus waiving eminent domain.
- What's the rub?
- Ah, well...
In order to waive
eminent domain,
we must build a
railroad terminus
and a town on the
property, which we will.
Every pound of
beef, every ton of ore,
every fruit, vegetable, every bale of
hay from either side of the Mississippi...
must ship through our town.
You will become rich
beyond your wildest dreams.
- Weren't you in jail just a month ago?
- Yes.
- And you're broke,
according to the newspapers.
- Flat broke.
- How do you expect to pay us
for our property then?
- From construction funds
advanced to me by the
Union Pacific Railroad.
- You were kicked off
Union Pacific for stealing.
- Union Pacific,
Crédit Mobilier,
different pockets to
the same pair of pants.
When the judge understood
that, I was released.
- You're in Omaha now, New York.
Money won't buy you judges here.
- Opportunity is a
powerful elixir, Mrs. Palmer.
- Right.
So you're borrowing
money you don't have
from a company you don't work
for to buy property you can't afford
to build a city
that doesn't exist.
- Spearheading, as it were, a new
way of doing business in America.
If all difficulties were known
at the outset of a long
journey, Mr. McGinnes,
few of us would
ever embark at all.
A whiskey for my young friend.
Have you got the money?
- I'm very uneasy about this.
If Mr. Bohannon finds out...
- You are doing nothing wrong.
You are managing railroad funds,
and you are managing them well.
Have you got
something else for me?
- This is the, uh, telegraph
routing code for the Union Pacific.
You'll be able to eavesdrop on
all of Mr. Bohannon's business.
- Excellent.
Ah...
- Will you be paying
me today, Mr. Durant?
- All in due time, Mr. McGinnes.
Oh, don't look so glum.
My current situation is
but a temporary setback.
History always
sides with a winner.
- Where are you off to so fast?
- Excuse me, I...
Um...
Uh, stop, no. Ow, let me go.
- Give us a kiss first.
- What?
Wait, wait, wait,
wait. Please, please.
Not like this. Let's
go to my room, huh?
- I got us a bottle
we can share.
- Touch me again,
it'll be your throat!
- Bloody whore.
- My grandpap, a dough
puncher from way back,
taught me surest way to a
woman's heart by way of her stomach.
By God, if that wasn't
certain with my Tess.
You married, Mr. Ferguson?
- Some could call it that.
- Kids?
- Got me a new baby girl.
- Nothing like a new baby to
make a man count his blessings
and keep them close.
I got five youngsters, all
girls, if you want to know.
The oldest one's 12 going on 40.
- That little girl of
mine, she beautiful.
I look in her eyes,
and she melt my heart.
But her mama afraid this
job gonna get me killed.
She think that baby ain't gonna
have no daddy to bring her up.
- How's the coffee?
- It's better the second day.
- It's the sock.
- Need you boys to ride out
and tell them homesteaders
there's no way around the land.
This here's the writ
of eminent domain.
Let them know the
government pays $1.50 an acre.
Railroad will throw
in another dollar.
Let 'em know that's
more than fair, all right?
- Yes, sir.
- Oh, you do the talking.
Mormons ain't keen on negroes.
- Finish your
coffee, Mr. Ferguson.
I got to visit the necessary.
Then we'll be on our way.
They said he was a hell-raiser,
but my pap was a lazy son of
a bitch by the time I knew him.
Fact, one time when I was...
- Don't you ever stop talking?
- No, sir, I do not.
Out here, a quiet man is
twice as likely as a noisy one
to have his beard
clung to by a bear.
I intend to keep my scalp.
Maybe they're gone.
- No, they ain't gone.
Horses still in the barn.
- Keep your gun close.
You see our cinch getting
frayed, start shooting.
Hello!
Anybody home?!
Mr. Hatch?!
State your business!
- I'm Dick Barlow, Chief of
Police, Union Pacific Railroad!
Think you know why we're here!
- I already told the other
one, we ain't leaving!
- You ain't got any choice!
That's what we come to tell you.
- We ain't afraid to
fight for what's ours!
You best leave
on out of here now!
- Threatening us
ain't gonna get us no...
- Barlow!
- What...
- I need 75,000 ties delivered 25
miles beyond the end of the rails
before the first of the month,
100 barrels of blasting powder.
Make sure we got
enough wranglers... Eva!
- when they get here...
from Denver.
- Eva!
- What happened?
- The Mormons shot him.
- Shit.
Careful, careful.
I got his legs.
- Eva!
Eva, we need you!
- Elam, the baby!
- You're the closest
thing we got to a doctor.
- Go get me some onion broth.
You!
Go to the hotel restaurant, get
me some onion broth now. Go!
- Was it the old man or the boy?
- I don't know for certain.
- Certain you don't know?
- Told you I don't know.
- I know for certain there's a
man lying here with a bullet in him.
- I just told you I ain't seen him.
- Will you two stop it?
Shut that baby up.
- Excuse me.
Here.
- Prop him up. Get him up.
Drink the medicine.
Yeah, I can smell the onion
broth through the wound.
He's gut-shot, Elam.
He ain't gonna make it.
- Take that damn baby outside.
- No, wait.
Bring her here.
Bring her over here. Please.
Let me see her.
Please let me see her.
Oh.
She's beautiful, Mr. Ferguson.
Just like you said.
- You wanted it.
- Not like this.
- Well?
All right. Telegraph the fort.
Tell the major we need help
evicting them homesteaders.
You want a railroad story?
Follow me.
Mr. Hatch!
This is Cullen Bohannon of
the Union Pacific Railroad!
I have a writ of execution here
for the killing of my Chief of Police!
Come on out!
You don't, and these
soldiers will burn you out!
I won't be able to stop them!
You got one minute, Mr. Hatch!
- United States Cavalry
was not built for waiting.
- We didn't come here to
kill women and children.
- A disorganized brain is
lacking in moral principles.
Are you aware of that, Bohannon?
- Not something I ponder nights.
- Moral principles are the first line
of defense against criminal behavior.
- You learn something
new every day.
- Without moral principles,
these Mormons will
inevitably turn to violence
to solve their problems,
just like the heathens.
Am I right about that, chief?
- What he talking about?
- Y'all keep your barrels down.
You and your boys,
put your guns down!
- I told you, stay off my
property or there'll be hell to pay!
- And I told you if I
couldn't find a way around,
the U.S. Government
would rightfully claim its land!
You murdered my Chief of Police.
- He was trespassing!
He was warned!
- You have to stand accountable.
- I am the priesthood holder
of my family, Mr. Bohannon.
Without me... they
will not survive.
- You should've thought about
that before you pulled that trigger.
- They won't survive.
- I'll see to it they get to the Mormon
settlement at Fort Smith. How's that?
- He done it!
- Father?
- Did you kill that man, son?
Tell me the truth now.
- Yes, sir.
- Mr. Ferguson, this
boy shoot Dick Barlow?
- I ain't sure.
- Good God, man, get on with it.
- You'd have me hang him?
- It's the law, Bohannon.
You said so yourself, and
you are obliged to uphold it.
We do not make exceptions
to the law out here.
- You realize he'll hang.
- He's just a boy.
- You're gonna tell me the truth.
- I told you the truth!
- Son, you got a different
story, you best tell me right now.
- He's just a boy.
- Not today he ain't.
All right.
- Father.
Come here.
- Father!
- Come on, boy.
Come on.
- Easy.
- Father!
Father!
- Sorry, son.
"Life on the prairie is not
worth the powder it takes
to blow it all to hell."
So say the denizens
of Hell on Wheels,
the rollicking tent city
that moves with the transcontinental
railroad as it creeps across the country
at a pace of two miles per day.
It is no place for
women or children,
as the men who labor here,
veterans of the recent conflict,
immigrants, and free negroes,
often take to drink and
un-Christian pursuits
when not swinging a
hammer or laying track.
Every man here carries a gun,
which can be had
for as little as $3,
and a knife, and goes
to church on Sunday.
Here you can buy
a meal for 35 cents,
a beer for less than a quarter,
a suit of clothes for
$5 that includes a hat.
The belongings of the
dead are cheaper than that.
- Any last words, son?
I came here to meet the
man who replaced Doc Durant
as Chief Engineer of the
Union Pacific Railroad.
I can tell you he is a man
for whom honor is sacred,
and virtue impermanent.
In the brave new
wilderness he calls home,
integrity is important
to Cullen Bohannon.
Whether a man of
integrity is what's needed
to build the railroad,
we don't yet know.
The railroad has always been the
business of the unscrupulous and corrupt.
- You owe me a life...
for the one you
took from me today.
I suspect our new Chief
Engineer to be neither.
And for that, dear reader, we
might all count our blessings...
and say a prayer.
Subtitling: CNST, Montreal