Still Valley At 20,000 Feet - Mike Burns (good ebook reader .TXT) 📗

ACT ONE


NARRATOR (VOICEOVER) The time is 1863, the place the state of Virginia. The event is a mass bloodletting known as the Civil War. A tragic moment in time when a nation was split into two fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation. And a moment in time, as in all wars, when men are coerced into making fateful choices.


EXT. SMALL TOWN IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA 1863 AFTERNOON

(CUT TO)


EXT. CLEARING IN WOODED AREA, OVERLOOKING THE TOWN AFTERNOON


EXT. CAMPSITE, NEARBY WOODS, WHERE SERGEANT PARADINE HAS GONE, CAMERA FOLLOWING AFTERNOON

SERGEANT PARADINE
I thought I heard somethin’.

PRIVATE DOAGER
(seated on log, holding coffee cup)
Yanks?

SERGEANT PARADINE
I don’t hear ‘em no more.


Private Doager now holding cup in both hands, which are trembling violently.

Sgt. Paradine looks at him with dismay, then forcefully reaches down and picks up Doager’s rifle, looks at Doager again.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Doager, you figure this’d fire if you pressed the trigger?

PRIVATE DOAGER
I reckon.

Sgt Paradine tosses the rifle to Doager, forcing him to drop his coffee cup in order to catch it. Doager stands up swiftly, annoyed.


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PRIVATE DOAGER
What’s the idea, Paradine?!

SERGEANT PARADINE
The idea is, Doager, you ain’t a right arm to me, or a left arm. You’re just some extra baggage that breathes hard and splits my rations. You figure you’ll grow into that uniform ‘fore this war ends? I’ve known ten year-old boys who’d fill it better than you.

PRIVATE DOAGER
I cain’t help it. It used to...it used to be, I never give it any thought (squats back down). It used to be like some kinda game we wuz playin’, like kids. King o’ the mountain, hide and seek, blind man’s bluff.

Paradine squats down beside him, looks him in the face.

PRIVATE DOAGER
But it ain’t that way any more, Paradine. I seen too mucha this business...I was at the Second Manasses.

Sergeant Paradine gets up, moves away, squats down further away from Doager, as if in abhorrence, and looks back at him.

PRIVATE DOAGER
You ain’t got a nerve in your body, have you, Paradine?

SERGEANT PARADINE
Just as many as you, son, from head to boot. Only I don’t concern myself as much as you. You’re worried about dead men and lost battles. That’s just too much area to fret in. I’m worryin’ about two scouts on a mission...and a dirty piece o’ brown paper. It says the Yanks are fixin’ to take up position in the Chano Valley. We gotta scout ‘em and report back, as soon’s they get into that town down there below, town o’ Laysdell.

Both men are silent, Doager looking vaguely ashamed. A sound of horses from the town down below catches both men’s attention. Both are up, grabbing rifles, heading back to the clearing where Paradine was minutes before.


EXT. CLEARING IN WOODED AREA, OVERLOOKING LAYSDELL AFTERNOON, AS BEFORE

PRIVATE DOAGER
Yanks?

SERGEANT PARADINE
Yanks, probably. Horses, positive.

PRIVATE DOAGER
How many?

SERGEANT PARADINE
It’s a patrol. I figure twenty, thirty men.

Men and horses in the town suddenly fall eerily silent now. Paradine strains his ears, eyes darting around, confused. Doager obviously nervous, staring straight ahead at the town.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

SERGEANT PARADINE(mystified)
That’s funny.

PRIVATE DOAGER
I ain’t laughin’, Paradine. What’s ‘funny’?

SERGEANT PARADINE
I know I heard horses, and it ‘uz comin’ from down there...the Yanks, it ain’t any question ’bout that.

PRIVATE DOAGER(glancing nervously around)
Listen, Joe, we’re exposin’ ourselves here. This ain’t no place to stand, not out in the open.

Paradine takes a step further down the slope.

SERGEANT PARADINE
If they are Yanks, they’d be in the town by now. It’d be noisy as a county fair.(Listens). There ain’t a sound down there anymore.(Listens some more) I reckon...I reckon I better get down there and take a closer look.

PRIVATE DOAGER
Listen Joe, let’s pull out. I don’t like it. (grabs Paradine by the arm. Paradine shrugs it off, goes on back to camp site in woods)

EXT. CAMPSITE, NEARBY WOODS, WHERE SERGEANT PARADINE AND PRIVATE DOAGER HAVE RETURNED, CAMERA FOLLOWING SAME AFTERNOON

PRIVATE DOAGER
You heard ‘em! We found out what we needed to find out, the Yankees are in the valley, all right. So we go back and report.

Doager watches Paradine grabbing reins of his horse, and responds in exasperation.

PRIVATE DOAGER
So what’s the point in goin’ down there?

SERGEANT PARADINE
The ‘point’ is, we gotta count their heads, their horses and their guns. Gotta get a look