Episode 31: Unauthorized Cinnamon

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(Open where Ep-30 left off. Nighttime, Lou is hurrying into the hotel.)

EB: He’s gone up with your son. Wants notice when you’re ready to serve.

(Out of breath, Lou pauses then heads back to the kitchen)

(Cut to Hearst’s room where he meets with Odell.)

Hearst: I knocked holes in these walls. Confinement gives me the fidgets.

Odell: (chuckles) Set yourself up comfortable.

Hearst: Let me confide as well, Odell, that when people only say to me with other words what I have just said to them, I quickly grow impatient.

Odell: All right, Sir.

Hearst: Tell me about the gold.

Odell: I will, Sir, what little I know to say, hoping you will learn me the rest. This is what they call an assay and metallurgist report. (hands Hearst a paper)

Hearst: Yes, I’ve heard of those. Sit down, boy. Sit down. (reading) “Third Baptist Congregation, Monrovia Settlement.”

Odell: The congregation has title to the find.

Hearst: And how are you connected to the congregation?

Odell: I’m First Deacon, Sir.

Hearst: I see. Congratulations.

Odell: Being you were known to me through my mama’s letters, when the proposals started to come to us—

Hearst: Proposals?

Odell: The different English proposals.

Hearst: From Great Britain, you mean?

Odell: To develop the find, yes, Sir. I was sent to ask if you’d guide us.

Hearst: Does your congregation conceive some sort of a partnership, Odell?

Odell: However you thought we should do.

Hearst: I do take in partners with the understanding that in dealing with the color, mine is the deciding voice.

Odell: Dealing with the color, Sir?

Hearst: The gold - securing and exploiting the gold.

Odell: Do you want to see the gold now, Sir?

Hearst: Do you want to show it to me?

Odell: They give it to me to show you, Sir. (Odell hands him a quartz nugget.)

Hearst: Suppose we oughtn’t—let the congregation down. (He studies the quartz, then suddenly walks to the door) I can’t imagine your mother’s not nearly prepared our supper.

Odell: What do you think of the gold?

Hearst: It makes me hungry, Odell.

(Cut to No10, Johnny is there with the usual No10 group.)

Tom: Harry should be at the meeting.

Johnny: I ain’t saying he shouldn’t. I wasn’t told to invite him.

Rutherford: Candidate for public office.

Tom: Please convey to Al that short of being forbidden, I intend to bring Harry with me.

Johnny: I’ll convey that word for word.

Steve: And what would be my position? Oughtn’t I attend as the livery’s new owner?

Tom: Hostetler never attended.

Steve: Prior to blowing off his fucking head, Hostetler was a nigger. Last I looked I’m white!

Rutherford: True, as, uh, far as it goes.

Harry: I can abstain from attending if that closes the can of peas.

Tom: Oh, uh uh, you are a candidate for public office with a chance to put the fire wagon on the table.

Steve: If it’s a question of room, shove two fucking tables together!

Tom: Room is not the issue, Steve., if you have to see my down card. (Johnny walks toward the back door) I do not vouch for you, nor presume to bring you uninvited, as I do Harry, because you are not the same quality person.

Steve: Meaning I’m not fanatic for fucking fire wagons like Harry and all the other five-year-olds.

Johnny: Anyways I’ve still got the doc to invite. Is this the quickest way to the cabin here - (indicates the back door)

Tom: Tell Al add an extra peach dish.

Rutherford: Can you certify the purity of your blood, Steve? I only ask because your nose is…broad. (Steve looks surprised.)

Tom: (To Harry) Take your apron off, and consider changing your shirt, which I fucking suggested yesterday.

(Steve is feeling his nose to assess it’s width)

(Cut to Bullock’s house as Seth enters. Martha is sewing as she waits for him)

Seth: Will you mind very much if we have our dinner quickly? (She takes a huge roast out of the oven, ready to eat)

Martha: Camp business, Dear?

(Seth smiles and gives her an affectionate look)

(Cut to the Gem, Dan is opening cans of peaches with his knife)

Dan: Come to cases. I will get sent to hire guns, quick time, bouncing in the fucking saddle and howling at every Goddamn hoof-fall, aches in every bone. (Jewel enters)

Jewel: I put out cinnamon.

Dan: Where?

Jewel: The meeting table.

Dan: On whose instruction?

Jewel: Cinnamon’s good with peaches.

Dan: Do not put unauthorized cinnamon on the goddamn meetin’ table. That’s all the fuck we need.

Jewel: It’s available as a choice.

Dan: Which is not your province to offer, Jewel.

Jewel: Well, if food’s not my province, then you can make your own fucking breakfast.

Dan: I had best not come out of this Goddamn kitchen and find Goddamn cinnamon on the fucking meeting table! (Jewel gives him a look and leaves) Leg up to Cheyenne by now, I’d be heading there in a civilized fucking gait.

(Cut to Doc’s cabin as Johnny knocks. Doc is laying down and silently tries to wave Johnny away as he is calling to Doc..)

Johnny: Doc! Johnny Burns, Doc! You remember you—you come to that—that meeting before to set the pest tent up and the like? (Doc slowly gets up) And E.B. was made Mayor? (Doc opens the door) Hey, Doc. (Doc points to his mouth) You can’t talk? (Doc shakes his head) Anyway, Al’s got another one of them meetings. (Doc shakes his head and starts to cough.) You can’t come? (Doc sinks to the floor, coughing) Jesus, Doc. All right, all right I’ll tell him—you can’t come. Anyway, look, I hope—I hope you feel better. (Doc slams the door, then slumps back on the floor next to the door)

(Cut to the hotel, Odell is sitting with Hearst at a table. Several others in the dining room are looking over this situation. Lou brings them their supper)

Hearst: My best efforts, Odell, do not yet persuade your mother to be indifferent to the opinions of others. (indicating the others in the room who are watching)

Lou: If it’s all right with you, Mr. Hearst, it’s all all right with me.

Odell: This looks wonderful, Mama.

Lou: Thank you. (Odell pauses silently to say a prayer before eating, Hearst looks impatient.)

Hearst: I suppose you’ve told your mama about being First Deacon of your congregation in Liberia.

Odell: I haven’t yet had the chance to give her the news.

Hearst: Does your congregation have no strictures, Odell, against its Deacon drinking?

Odell: It does, yes, Sir.

Hearst: Yet the smell of liquor’s on your breath. (Odell pauses) Do I mistake?

Odell: No, Sir, Mr. Hearst, you don’t.

Hearst: Did you have one drink of liquor, Odell, from nervousness about our talk?

Odell: I admit I did, Sir, yes. (We see E.B. eavesdropping with a metal horn from the counter, trying to conceal this from a passerby)

Hearst: Did you drink on the ship from Liberia?

Odell: No, Sir.

Hearst: Or coming overland from New York?

Odell: No, Sir, Mr. Hearst.

Hearst: Would the liquor I smell then be the first you’ve ever consumed?

Odell: I’ve had some before, Sir.

Hearst: Prior to becoming Deacon of the Third Baptist of Monrovia or after?

Odell: I guess a little of both. (We see Richardson intermittently, watching)

Hearst: Showing gold thousands of miles from its purported source to authenticate a find, I would associate less with our savior’s qualities of character, than Adam’s, or someone pretending to his innocence.

Odell: Before he me the serpent.

Hearst: (laughs) Hmm. The combative note in that pleases me, Odell, as against what till now has seemed haphazard and sloven and slipshod in your approach to fleecing me.

Odell: My mistake was thinking that you’d want your niggers praising Jesus. What the hell are we talking about this for? Did the assay make sense or not?

Hearst: Ten dollars’ll buy a report that proves a find of pure ore in your ass, Odell.

Odell: I guess that’s why I didn’t figure till you’d had someone over there, we’d be drawing up any papers. Figured this’d be a getting-to-know-each-other conversation, seeing if we’d want to go any further. Far as I’m concerned, we don’t. (He stands abruptly– Hearst puts up a hand. One of the other diners is alarmed)

Hearst: Calm down. Now just calm down, son. (E.B. has drawn a pistol and is at the ready) If I have mistook you in some regard, you’ll find I’m man enough to apologize. Now, just sit down, we’ll finish our meal, and then maybe afterwards we’ll take in the camp and, if you have any vices beyond your drinking, I might even offer you a cigar. (Odell sits, Richardson walks back to the kitchen.)

Lou: How’s he doing?

Richardson: Holding his fucking own.

(Cut to Sol’s house, Trixie is there.)

Sol: Then I asked, what good am I to myself or the camp standing sentinel over a coffee pot? Was why I came home. (Trixie is lighting a cig) I wish you wouldn’t smoke in here.

Trixie: I wish, when asleep, you wouldn’t snore and fucking fart.

Sol: I have no choice about either of those.

Trixie: If I extinguish this fucking cigarette, it’ll be in the middle of your fucking forehead.

Sol: Ah.

Trixie: I’m glad she fucking fired me. I hate that fucking bank.

Sol: It’s the context, I think, that disturbs you, that she’s back to using dope.

Trixie: Yes yes! That she’s back on the dope disturbs me. And why, even as we speak, your own life hangs by a fucking thread. (She quiets down ans sits next to Sol on the bed. After a pause she suddenly looks very sad) What’s to become of that child? (Johnny knocks on the door, Trixie jumps up and acts as though she wants to hide.)

Johnny: Johnny Burns, Mr. Star!

Sol: What is it?

Johnny: Well, Al’s called a meeting like the ones you’ve come to before.

Sol: Does Sheriff Bullock know?

Johnny: Well, seemed to me they halfway called it together.

Sol: All right, I’m coming.

Johnny: Uh, if you ain’t et dessert yet, don’t.

Sol: All right.

Johnny: Al’s broke out the canned peaches.

Sol: All right. (Trixie sighs as she sits back down) The Bullock’s could take her. Or we could. (Trixie slowly beams at this)

Trixie: You’d have us care for a child? (He looks at her and they hold hands)

(Cut to Alma’s house, as she is getting Sophia ready for bed)

Alma: Now more than previously, Sofia, Mr. Ellsworth will spend time at the diggings.

Sofia: Did he not come home last night?

Alma: I’m not sure, Darling. Possibly he did not. And maybe that’s why you didn’t waken.

Sofia: I didn’t feel his beard.

Alma: Possibly that’s why. But he will be seeing you. (She turns Sofia around to brush her hair) And everything will be all right.

(Cut to Al’s office, Cy is there.)

Cy: I gave him a foolproof fucking approach to wind up with that woman’s claim, and I could have been shit drawing flies. Hearst is that fucking focused on Bullock pulling his ear. (There’s a knock at the door)

Al: Yeah? (Johnny opens the door)

Johnny: All collected but Doc.

Al: Where the fuck is he?

Johnny: He ain’t up to it, he says. (Al sighs) Uh, cinnamon’s out for the peaches.

Al: Huh?

Johnny: That wasn’t my fucking doing.

Cy: (As he and Al walk to the door) Giving Hearst Bullock is the only move that don’t end with the camp in flames. And that one only gets us up to 50-50. (Cy motions for Al to go through the door first, Al does the same, and with a smile Cy leaves first.) It sounds as if Cochran’s turned face to the wall.

Al: His fucking lungs.

Cy: There’s quite a falling off among the other sawbones in camp. We might put notice in the eastern papers.

Al: (Looking at Cy with some dismay) Once we’ve ceased our weeping.

(Johnny and Dan are clearing the drunks out of the Gem)

Johnny: Got a meeting.

Al: (On the balcony, to Cy) Had he known our might and guile, Hearst would have never left the Comstock.

Dan: Earnie, you got credit for a free tug tomorrow. Let’s go.

Ernie: I’ll spank it myself. Just watch me. (Reaches into his pants)

Dan: You’ll spank it in front of a Goddamn mule team. (He escorts Ernie out as Gustave the tailor enters and is stopped at the door)

Gustave: Sirs, if I might explain. In my vision, I leapt from the coach and straight come to see him.

Johnny: Al’s got a meeting tonight, Gustave.

Adams: You can tell him your vision tomorrow (Al and Cy come downstairs)

Gustave: Mr. Swearengen! It’s just as I imagined! I have something so important to give to you.

Al: What?

Gustave: You mustn’t ask me what. And you mustn’t ask me why.

Dan: You must go fuck yourself.

Gustave: And don’t speak disgusting to me or answer for Mr. Swearengen what is a very important answer.

Al: Let me know when Bullock arrives.(He motions for Gustave to come upstairs)

Gustave: Ah.

Johnny: Oh, Tom Nuttall’s coming and he’s bringing Harry Manning.

Al: Bullock!

(Gustave sticks his tongue out at Dan as he follows Al up to his office.)

(Cut to the whore’s room, they are all collected and are lounging with some peaches.)

Jen: Guess if you’ve got a pussy, even owning a bank don’t get you to that table.

(Cut to Joanie’s room, where she is helping Jane with a sponge bath.)

Jane: Jesus Christ, easy easy easy easy. There’ll be conversations left and right. Don’t get too far up there on the fucking wrist.

Joanie: Do you want to use the sponge?

Jane: That’s not the fucking point. You just not be starting length and breadth conversations throughout the fucking camp or territory or so on. Or do I suppose now I take off my fucking undershirt or the like and show my tits and so forth?

Joanie: I’ll leave you to wash that part.

Jane: Who the fuck am I fucking kidding or putting on airs in front of? (She starts to take off her shirt) I been disrobed in front of every barnyard creature that hunts or pecks or rolls in the fucking mud. Who the fuck should I have shyness before or pride or the like, for Christ’s sake? What difference does it make? What the fuck do I have to be ashamed of at this late fucking date? (She takes off her shirt) Who cares anyway?! (Joanie sponges off Jane’s arms) Now go ahead and sponge my fucking tits and get it over with if that’s what you fucking do.

Joanie: It’s nothing like that, Jane.

Jane: Well, what’s it like then. I never had a sister.

Joanie: I had two. And I slept with both of ‘em. I don’t know why God let me or…if he forgives me when I pray, but, but I’d never hurt you, Jane, or touch you if you didn’t want.

Jane: I believe that. But I don’t want to open my eyes. But you can go ahead and kiss me if that’s what you fucking do.

(Joanie pauses then touches Jane’s face and kisses her lips. Jane is trembling)

(Cut to Al’s office as Gustave is showing some brightly colored swatches of cloth)

Gustave: What possesses me to buy all of these swatches? Even though I have no reason why I should! Because who back at that camp would wear suits of such colors? But I have learned sometimes if you have a thing, the reason for the thing is that you have it! And when I am in New York City, I have a letter from a friend. In the news from the camp, he says, “And Mr. Swearengen has lost the top part of his middle finger to an accident some kind.” And I say, “I will take these swatches to Mr. Swearengen,” And, “I like the look of his vest when he is out in the morning, out on the balcony, drinking his coffee, and he is very much a handsome man at those times, and maybe he would like one for his stump. Or maybe more—a different swatch for every day, why not?” Give me your stump. Don’t think about it. Just give it to me. (Al puts his hand up Gustave puts one end of a swatch in it.) Now this corner of the swatch we pretend is the lost child. (He starts wrapping the swatch around Al’s hand) The little boy goes up the mountain, around the bend, always looking for mama. And where does he finally find her?

Al: Where?

Gustave: Here she is! Here’s mama! Wrapping herself around you tight tight tight. Mama’s got you little Al Everything’s all right! (He steps back and Al stares at the wrapped hand) I like that color very very much. Do you? (knock on door)

Al: Please, God, come in. (Johnny opens the door)

Johnny: Bullock.

Al: Thank you, Gustave. Please leave.

(Gustave leaves and Johnny looks at the swatch on Al’s hand. Al removes the cloth, staring at Johnny.)

(Cut to the street as Hearst and Odell are walking and talking)

Hearst: Before the color, no white man—no man of any hue moved to civilize or improve a place like this had reason to make the effort. The color brought commerce here, and such order as has been attained.

Odell: Yes, Sir.

Hearst: Do you want to help Liberia, Odell?

Odell: I want to help myself. (Hearst laughs) If Liberia is where my chance is, it’s all right with me. (Hearst offers Odell a cigar)

Hearst: Gold is your chance.

Odell: Thank you, Sir.

Hearst: Gold is every man’s opportunity. Why do I make that argument? Because every defect in a man and in others’ way of taking him, our agreement that gold has value gives us power to rise above.

Odell: Fond as you are of my mother, without that gold I showed you, I don’t expect we’d be out here talking.

Hearst: That is correct. And, for your effrontery at our meal a moment ago…I’d have seen you shot or hanged without second thought. The value I gave the gold restrained me, you see…your utility in connection to it. And because of my gold, those at the other tables deferred to my restraint. Gold confers power. Power comes to any man who has the color.

Odell: Even if he’s black?

Hearst: That is our species’ hope: That uniformly agreeing on its value, we organize to seek the color. (exhales) Just before you and I met, Odell, the camp’s Sheriff released me from a jail cell.

Odell: That’s hard for me to feature.

Hearst: I hate these places, Odell, because the truth that I know, the promise that I bring, the necessities I’m prepared to accept make me outcast. (tears in his eyes.) Isn’t that foolish? Isn’t that foolishness? And old man disabused long ago of certain yearnings and hopes as to how he would be held by his fellows, and yet I weep.

Odell: Anyway, Sir, you want to send someone back with me?

Hearst: Yes, I do. Yes, I do, Son. I want to send you to help your people…and take this place down like Gomorrah.

(Cut to the Gem, where the meeting is started)

Al: All being affected, we might consider some facts as a group.

Seth: I arrested Hearst, acting in the name of the camp.

Cy: Without the camp’s previous fucking say-so.

Seth: Do you propose that? Getting a say-so before I do my duty? (Seth removes his badge and tosses it on the table, Cy picks it up)

Cy: Might be a good open—showing Hearst it’s off of him.

Al: Bullock’s tin won’t placate Hearst. Give it the fuck back to him. (Cy drops the tin on the table.)(to Seth) Add to your statement or shut the fuck up.

Seth: I’m done.

EB: Shall I, as Mayor (standing), initiate proceedings by giving my own opinions, however titular and insubstantial and merely honorific the position? Which argues against my doing so. (He sits back down as he realizes that nobody is interested)

Al: How is Hearst likely to answer? Ought steps to be taken in preemption? My instinct’s to act alone, chart the course for fucking carnage. That this would be general among ‘em whose parents were so dim as to bring them—the fucking innocents is what give me fucking pause. I invite the suggestions of others against my instinct to send for the guns.

Charlie: (Standing) As I’ve expressed to the Sheriff and Mr. Star, and siding with your instincts, to protect the innocents, I’d send them from the camp. Then fall on Hearst and his in their lair before they fall on us in ours. (He pauses, then sits) As Wild Bill would have done. (Everyone sits quietly. Seth pulls out a letter and slowly hands it to Merrick. Jewel peeks out from behind the stairs and sees Harry Manning eating the peaches.)

Merrick: (Studies the letter for a bit) This is a letter.

Cy: Who’s the fucking letter to? What the fuck is going on?

Seth: Last of those Cornishmen murdered.

Charlie: Pasco.

Seth: His family.

Al: Read the letter. (Dan gives Jewel a look, she frowns and goes back in the kitchen.)

Merrick: “It becomes my painful duty to inform you that Pasco Carwen was killed earlier this week. His body was found in the road….”

(In the kitchen area)

Dan: Stop poking your head out.

Jewel: I’m seeing who’s using the cinnamon, and Harry Manning is using it plenty.

(back to Merrick)

Merrick: It was not mutilated in any way. His death seems to have been instantaneous as he was stabbed through the heart. Pasco’s funeral occurred today and was attended by coworkers and friends who all shared the same high opinion of him. Everything was done by kind hands that was possible under the circumstances, and a Christian burial was given him. I was not personally acquainted with Mr. Carwen, save for one encounter where he demonstrated grief and deep compassion at the passing of a friend. I knew him by reputation as an earnest worker and a diligent believer in right and wrong. His memory I am sure will always be with those who knew and loved him, among whose number I imagine you as first. A letter from you which I found in his tent causes me to convey this sad intelligence to you. Sincerely yours, Seth Bullock.” (Al looks at Seth.) What shall I do with this, Mr. Bullock?

Al: What’s your fucking paper for? You fucking publish as witness, for Hearst and others to read. (Looks at Seth) That’s a very nice fucking letter.

(Cut to the telegraph office as Merrick returns from the meeting.)

Merrick: Mr. Blazanov, had you much traffic tonight on your apparatus?

Blazanov: Some traffic, yes. I hope your important meeting had a good result.

Merrick: As free men facing important challenges, we choose to be optimistic.

Blazanov: Sir, I ask you to take me to Mr. Swearengen’s place. (He holds a telegram)

Merrick: Well, I - I will, of course, Mr. Blazanov, though no activity you may contemplate, for example the making of friends with is female employees, requires Mr. Swearengen’s personal approval.

Blazanov: I wish to see him for another purpose.

Merrick: All right.

Blazanov: Shall we go now?

Merrick: Certainly. (Merrick starts up the stairs, Blasanov grabs his hand) Come on.

(Cut to the street, Tom and Harry are walking back to No10. Harry appears uncomfortable)

Tom: Lovely letter, wasn’t it?

Harry: Didn’t you…come back sick from one of them meetings?

Tom: Last year, from the peaches. Which is why I refrained this time around. Far as the fire wagon, I gather you felt as I did, the moment was wrong to broach it.

Harry: My—my throat is all fucking tight. (He suddenly drops to the ground, having trouble breathing)

Tom: Where did you lay your hands on liquor, Harry? (Harry gasps) Harry? Help! Harry? Harry! Help!

(Cut to a hotel room, where Jack is visiting Chesterton)

Chesterton: Oh look, Jack. White lumps on my tongue.

Jack: Reel it in, for God’s sake.

Chesterton: I’m so sorry. It’s close, Jack. It’s very close. I feel it’s - it’s icy breath. I hear it whispering in my ear. “Forget your name. We go to black.”

Jack: The downstairs buffet is quite passable. (leaves abruptly)

(Cut to the hotel kitchen, where Lou is with Odell)

Lou: As like to kill you as take passage with you to Liberia, his man you meeting in New York.

Odell: If Mr. Hearst wanted me killed, Mama, he could see it done here.

Lou: Don’t you ever believe you know what’d please that man, or salt him to come after you. And you look a fool holding that cigar!

Odell: I’ve played on for smaller stakes. And the gold ain’t playing. I ain’t trying to steal nothing. I’ll work my way up the hog. And ain’t you sent me out there so I can turn out a man?

Lou: I sent you so the hell that was coming here for niggers wouldn’t burn you up.

Odell: There’s plenty of fire in Liberia.

Lou: I can’t undo what I done, Odell, any more than you can, searching out hurt.

Odell: I ain’t searching no hurt out.

Lou: We all get our portion. We don’t need to draw it to us.

Odell: You hear me, Mama? I ain’t searching no Goddamn hurt out.

Lou: I don’t told you to mind who you talking to.

Odell: All right, Mama. No bad language. If you’d kept me to raise me, maybe I’d know. (Aunt Lou sobs)

Lou: He got $742 for you, the little nigger at the livery. And this brooch here too, you can take. I can’t find it. I can’t find it. Lord Jesus, forgive me!

Odell: When I read you had stayed in the Comstock, I tried to come here quick, be gone before he sent for you to come. I ain’t come here to hurt you.

Lou: I never said you come to do me hurt.

Odell: So’s you wouldn’t have to see me.

Lou: I prayed to see you every day you was gone. My God, Odell, what’s wrong with you? No joy to seeing my boy! I’m sorry, son.

Odell: Hush, Mama. Hush. Hush. (He hugs her)

Lou: Oh, do what you think you got to. I couldn’t find the right.

Odell: Hush now, Mama. Hush.

Lou: Oh! (wails)

Odell: I got you now.

(Cut to Al’s office, Blasanov and Merrick are there while Al reads the telegram.)

Blazanov: “Bricks.” You see there?

Al: Yes, I see.

Blazanov: “Bricks. 25 bricks. Stop. Addition to initial order. Stop. First means of delivery. Stop.”

Al: And, Blazanov?

Blazanov: Do you believe, Mr. Swearengen, Mr. Hearst orders more bricks?

Al: No. What do you believe?

Blazanov: I believe he orders more humans.

Merrick: Reinforcements.

Blazanov: To do harm! As we saw on our walk. Leave to die in a country strange to them, men apart from their families, working to give them support. Fuck confidentiality of communications.

Al: Why not fuck a woman instead?

Blazanov: I hope so, eventually. Now I deliver under seal his message to Mr. Hearst.

Al: I’ll dispose of this, Blazanov.

(Cut to the hotel, E.B. is returning to find Richardson praying)

EB: How are you occupying yourself, Richardson?

Richardson: I’m praying the meeting went well.

EB: Very touching. Now clear your mind of the meeting and account for the negro with Hearst.

Richardson: They’re both in her room.

EB: Despite your best efforts, Richardson, an answer of some ambiguity. (He slaps Richardson with his gloves.) Is she with them?

Richardson: One.

EB: One what?

Richardson: Of them. Is with her.

EB: Who?

Richardson: Aunt Lou.

EB: Who is with Aunt Lou?

Richardson: Her son.

EB: (sighs) And where is Hearst?

Richardson: His room.

EB: (sighs) Then I will retire to mine.

Richardson: Well, how was the meeting? (E.B. sighs and heads for his room, pausing at the door and looking back at Richardson.) I imagine the pool that spawned you. I am filling it with rocks. I am holding shut your gills. To prevent you from taking in air. (Richardson reacts as though being strangled.) I suppose the meeting went quite well.

(Richardson grins as E.B. goes into his room).

(Cut to the Chez Amie as the theater group is there)

Claudia: I itch.

Bellegarde: Dust.

Dutchess: No matter how much regularity of cleaning or consideration for the children, a place like this is filled with dust. (Jack enters)

Bellegarde: He’s dead.

Jack: Chesterton is with us still, though to bring him in the evening chill would be imprudent. We’ll bring him tomorrow. When this room is less cold.

Dutchess: After the children have gone and before you bring him, I will give the place a good dust.

Jack: Then the carpentry will begin. You’ve engaged the carpenters?

Bellegarde: Yes. He is close to the end, isn’t he?

Jack: (yelling) Yes, Bellegarde! For Christ’s sake! (He sighs and leaves. Bellegarde sits.)

Claudia: Haunted. (Bellegarde chuckles) Drafts from all over. From the walls, from the side, swooping down from the ceiling.

Dutchess: I will dust anyway for Chesterton, even though after, the carpenters come.

(She puts her hand on Bellegarde’s shoulder and they all look around)

(Cut to the Gem, Johnny, Dan and Silas are discussing the meeting.)

Johnny: Uh, the attitude on people leaving definitely stepped forward from the attitude they were coming in. I mean, no one’s trying to quarrel about that.

Dan: Then what’s your quarrel?

Johnny: (sighs) I’m asking what was decided.

Dan: They’re publishing the letter as witness.

Johnny: Witness?

Dan: A witness in the sense that—uh

Adams: Witness the letter—its content.

Dan: Yeah, the letter’s contents is witness that…Bullock wrote a nice fucking letter. And it proves…that that’s the sort we are here, the caring sort that would write a letter of that ilk. Furthermore, we don’t give a fuck who knows it, George fucking Hearst included.

Adams: Fucking Hearst especially.

Johnny: Is the witness?

Dan: Better late than fucking never, Johnny. (Jewel comes out) Hey! Little miss fucking cinnamon. (She gives him the finger)

(Cut to Alma’s house as she is checking on a sleeping Sophia. Alma is crying)

Alma: (whispering) I wanna be good. (She is walking downstairs) I wanna be good. (Ellsworth knocks at the front door.)

Ellsworth: Good evening. (She steps away and sits down. Ellsworth steps inside.)

Alma: Good evening.

Ellsworth: For being gone, I - I notice I’m frequently back. (Alma smiles) I come to kiss her good night.

Alma: I tried to persuade her you’d done so last night.

Ellsworth: My beard always wakes her.

Alma: She said so, refuting me. The thing I did that made you leave last night, the thing I was coming home to do again…I pray now to forego forever.

Ellsworth: Not having me in this house is gonna improve your odds.

Alma: I started using spirits at 17, Ellsworth, with no premonition we’d marry.

Ellsworth: Well, my feeling’s that being vessel of purposes not your own, your eye was out for relief. But glimpsing since how being your own vessel is preferable, let the pressure come off and you’re liable to do all right.

Alma: You are no pressure.

Ellsworth: My…friendly hands’ll always be out to both of you. (He puts his hand out to her and she takes it in hers) May I interrupt her sleep with this beard?

Alma: She’d be so glad if you did.

(Cut to Hearst’s hotel room as a knock comes on the door. He is laying on the floor and has some difficulty getting up.)

Hearst: Yes?

Blazanov: Cheyenne and Black Hills Telegraph.

Hearst: Yes, all right. (opens the door) Evening.

Blazanov: Telegram for Mr. Hearst.

Hearst: Ah, thank you. I wonder if you might remain just a moment while I read it, on the chance I’ll want to answer.

Blazanov: Of course.

Hearst: “Additional shipment of bricks.”

Blazanov: Yes, Sir.

Hearst: Yeah, this is fine. This is fine. (He pulls out a coin and hands it to Blazanov) There’ll be no answer.

Blazanov: This is $20, Sir.

Hearst: It’s all right, son. Thanks for doing your job well.

Blazanov: You’re most welcome.

(Cut to Al’s office, he sits alone as there’s a knock on the door.)

Jack: John Langrishe, Al.

Al: Come in, Jack.

Jack: Early finish below?

Al: We’d a meetin’, I ought to have asked you too.

Jack: What topic commended my presence? Reprobates? The elderly?

Al: Fuckin’ Hearst - that took an axe to my left middle digit, sends for 25 more thugs to take the tool to the whole fucking camp. Why am I fucking optimistic?

Jack: Did your meeting find a strategy in counterpoise?

Al: We heard the fucking reading of a letter.

Jack: Ahh.

Al: Writ by Bullock, to a miner’s family after Hearst had had him murdered.

Jack: Exhorting they charge Hearst with the crime?

Al: Never once mentioning Hearst. Expressing sympathy to the family, respect for the way the man lived. We decided Merrick would publish in the paper.

Jack: Strategy some may call ingenuous, others merely - off the point.

Al: I sit mystified I was moved to endorse it.

Jack: Mystified, Al, at proclaiming a law beyond law to a man who’s beyond law himself? It’s publication invoking a decency whose scrutiny applies to him as to all his fellows. I call that strategy cunningly sophisticated, befitting and becoming the man who sits before me. (Al stands up and walks out to the balcony in the Gem)

Al: Open the place back up! Tell the whores if their legs ain’t in the air, they’d better be off their asses! (He comes back in his office, slamming the door behind him. He pauses by Jack) So what progress in your affairs?

Jack: (chuckles) Our opening is delayed. And old man is dying - one of my actors. And…(sighs, tears in his eyes) I’m sad. (Al walks over to his desk and pulls out a bottle of whiskey and offers it) Oh - perhaps just the one.

(Cut to No10 as Doc is examining Harry on the floor. Doc is coaching Harry to breath in and out)

Doc: In?

Tom: Folded up on the boardwalk beside me like a Goddamn accordion.

Rutherford: So you’ve remarked. (Doc coughing)

Steve: I believe I’ll take my leave.

Harry: You’re wheezing bad as me, Doc. Did you et cinnamon too?

Steve: Lest I distract from the business at hand by requesting a fucking drink!

Rutherford: Have you adverse reactions to other food or condiments, Harry? (Doc gives Rutherford a dirty look)

Harry: Eggplant shreds the roof of my mouth if it’s any of your fucking business.

Rutherford: Irritability at the bowel, we know you suffer from.

Doc: You’re all right. Don’t eat cinnamon anymore.

Harry: Or eggplant?

Doc: Not if it shreds your mouth. (Tom grabs Doc’s case as Doc gets up to leave.)

Tom: Hope you don’t mind my absconding with you from your cabin, Doc.

Doc: No.

Tom: Campaigning any threat to Harry’s health?

Doc: How was the meeting?

Tom: Oh, it was all right. Um, needless to say, we missed you.

(Doc takes his case from Tom and leaves).

(Cut to Al on the outside balcony, alone and surveying the camp. We see Jack leaving, and we see a woman helping a drunkard along the street.)

Woman: I am so glad your mother isn’t alive to see you in this condition. (Doc passes them, Al sees him.)

Al: Doc, get up here.

Doc: (gasping) Not tonight.

Al: Tonight. Now. (Doc stands there for a moment) Leave your kit. I’ll have Johnny go get it.

Doc: I’m not gonna leave my fucking kit.

(Al glares at Doc, who decides to go up to see Al)

(Cut to the livery as Steve enters to find Fields sleeping in the loft.)

Steve: I wonder what you think you’re fucking doing.

Fields: I’m laying down before I leave in the morning.

Steve: I will ask the questions here! This is my place. Do you think it’s yours? It is not. It is mine, bought and paid for. And if I wanted to shit this instant in the middle of this stable, no man, black or white, could gainsay me!

Fields: You’ve already fucked a horse.