- [first lines]
- Narrator: 1868 - A terrible civil war was three years in the past. The golden railroad spike which was to tie two oceans together would be pounded home one year in the future and the first great herd of cattle was driven up the dusty trails from Texas. It was a time of explosive enterprise and enormous tension. While the civil war had left thousands homeless and impoverished, peaceful religious sects were still facing dreadful persecution and the bitterness between indian and white was reaching a climax. The west, once a land of awesome but tranquil beauty, had become a battleground for a hundred diverse reasons. And in the midst of these conflicting clauses stood the settlers, among them one family named Macahan and a mam called... Zeb.
- Zeb Macahan: Luke, I'm powerful sorry.
- Luke Macahan: It was such a freak accident, uncle Zeb. I...
- Zeb Macahan: You don't have to go, boy.
- Luke Macahan: Ma saved Jessie's life, but... she died of burns that night.
- Laura Macahan: Aunt Molly, tells us about Chicago.
- Josh Macahan: Yeah, I hear that place is just full of bodyhouses.
- Zeb Macahan: [there's an awkward moment around the table] Bodyhouses, Josh?
- Josh Macahan: Eh, that one just kinda slipped out, I guess.
- Molly Culhane: What law did you break?
- Luke Macahan: Well, my way of thinking I didn't break any. I shot a sheriff who was dead set on lynching me for stealing a horse I, I didn't steal.
- The Grand Duke: My nephew, and a young woman have been abducted by the indians.
- Zeb Macahan: I understood that, I didn't know the reason why.
- Major Drake: Well the reasons I'm told have to do with the fact that the Duke's party was killing buffalo.
- Zeb Macahan: Inside the reservation?
- Major Drake: That hasn't been confirmed!
- Zeb Macahan: Yeah, well, I'll confirm it for you right now if this bucket of scum was leading 'em.
- [Brinkerhoff goes for his knife]
- Zeb Macahan: Well, you wanna pull that, Brinkerhoff, do ya? You go right ahead, I'd love to carve you up. Don't you know he's an indian hater from way back? He's been saying for years the way to get rid of the Sioux is to kill all the buffolo and starve them out?
- Josh Macahan: Luke, can I ride with ya?
- Luke Macahan: You don't ever ride with the man who's running from the law, I told you that, didn't I?
- Zeb Macahan: My heart soars.
- Satangkai: My spirit flies.
- Zeb Macahan: It has been five months since the treaty. How is it with the Sioux?
- Satangkai: Better than war, worse than peace.
- Satangkai: It is hard to understand. Your people are many like the leaves of the forest. Can you not find one wize enough to lead until his vision dims? A man who's words will be kept by all?
- Zeb Macahan: To explain is like trying to catch the running dog.
- Satangkai: For what they have done, they must make big tribute to the Sioux. Tribute in the green paper that the white man loves even more than gold.
- Zeb Macahan: How much tribute?
- Satangkai: You must tell us. How much will pain them, so much that every white man will know they would not make this much tribute unless they were wrong.
- Zeb Macahan: That is good. That is very good. A tribute that men will speak of for many snows.
- Zeb Macahan: Out here, who a man is ain't worth a tick on a buffalo's rump. It's what he is and what he stands for!
- Booster: Hear that, Hub? Boy says I look just fine. Why, boy, you must be blind. Blind as a bat. I'm so ugly I make sour milk. I make women scream and dogs howl, I'm so ugly. I take pride in my ugly, boy.
- [laughs]
- Booster: Now, how do I look to ya?
- Luke Macahan: Pretty ugly.
- Jeremiah Taylor: We'd like nothing better than to accept, ma'am, but I think you should know we've been refused water at four homesteads in the past fifty miles.
- Molly Culhane: Refused water?
- Jeremiah Taylor: Yes ma'am. We're Mormons.
- Molly Culhane: Is it like lepracy then?
- Jeremiah Taylor: I beg your pardon, ma'am?
- Molly Culhane: I've always believed that a man's religious persuasion is his own business. You and your lady are welcome here.
- Hale Burton: Like most decent people I hate Mormons worse than I hate liars, cowards and thieves. If I had my way, I'd hang every last one of 'em.
- The Stranger: Now if I was a Mormon, that might make this meeting a little more interesting.
- [pause]
- The Stranger: I'm not.
- Hale Burton: I never figured you were. But if you're after Mormons, I want to know about it.
- The Stranger: I work alone.