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

Why not now? What’s changed? Why can’t you do it now, old man? What’s stoppin’ you?

OLD MAN TEAGUE
One good reason. An’ one good reason only (turns to look at Paradine). I’m gonna die.

Teague puts sword back on wall, hangs onto his book as he walks back through door, back onto porch.

EXT. PORCH WHERE PARADINE AND TEAGUE WERE BEFORE.
MID-EVENING

SERGEANT PARADINE
How do you know that, Teague? How can anybody know that?


(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
OLD MAN TEAGUE
Whoa! Hold up there, boy! I told you at the beginnin’, there’s things I make it my BUSINESS to know. I’m gonna die before the sun goes down. Got a feelin’ in my bones. I can smell death. Hear him comin.' On a white horse. Gallopin’ straight at me.
Gallopin’, gallopin’ straight at me.

Paradine is looking sidelong at Teague, disturbed at what he’s hearing, and disturbed that this spinner of elaborate tales is once again the plain-spoken old man he first encountered.

OLD MAN TEAGUE
Ol’ Mistuh Death. Come to pluck me outta the livin’. So, I ain’t gonna be around to do what’s got to be done. I’m leavin’ it up to you.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Me?

OLD MAN TEAGUE
I can tell about a man’s looks. His eyes. His head. His hold on his weapon. I can tell all about that man.

Paradine is looking very doubtful about all this.

OLD MAN TEAGUE
I’m choosin’ you. (lifts up the book and proffers it to Paradine) You’ll find everythin’ you need in this book. Sometimes, you’ll swear it’s talkin’ to you, or singin’ at you, or even invadin’ your dreams. Here (thrusts it out more insistently). Take it.

Paradine lifts up his left hand, takes the proffered book.

SERGEANT PARADINE
It don’t seem right (lifts his head, looks Teague in the eye). Don’t seem right at all. There’s somethin’...somethin’ unclean about it. Like bein’ in league with the...

OLD MAN TEAGUE
That’s it. You got it right, Johnny Reb. You said it like it’s got to be said. The devil. That’s who you’re in league with. The devil himself.

Teague turns and looks back out into the street and the frozen Union soldiers again.

OLD MAN TEAGUE
That’s who we’ll have fightin’ on our side (almost yelling now). The devil.


Teague is hanging onto one of the whitewashed posts that hold up the porch. He grips it with one arm, and begins to slide down it, sinking down onto the whitewashed boards of the porch.

OLD MAN TEAGUE
The devil.

FOCUS on Paradine’s face, troubled, staring out into the swiftly-falling night.

EXT. CAMPSITE IN THE WOODS OUTSIDE LAYSDELL WITH TWO OFFICERS IN FOREGROUND, DISTINGUISHED BY SIDEARMS AND SABER NIGHTTIME

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// SENTRY AT EDGE OF CAMP
Halt! Who goes there?

SERGEANT PARADINE
Paradine. Troop scout.
SENTRY
Step forward and be recognized!

Paradine, on horseback, comes around a tree, advances a little further, dismounts.

LIEUTENANT
You been gone a long time, Paradine.

An exhausted-looking Paradine comes forward as a private takes his horse, and advances over to the lieutenant. In his right hand is the book.

LIEUTENANT
We give you up for dead or prisoner by this time.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Neither, lieutenant.

LIEUTENANT
You had time for readin’, it appears.

Paradine looks down at the book, self-consciously.

LIEUTENANT (sarcastically)
Well, a man’s got to do his readin’, don’t he?

Private Doager comes up, offering a cup of coffee to Paradine, which he declines with a shake of the head. Doager offers it to the lieutenant, who also declines.

FOCUS ON LIEUTENANT.

LIEUTENANT
Well, out with it, man. What’d you see?

FOCUS ON PARADINE, WITH DOAGER IN RIGHT BACKGROUND.

SERGEANT PARADINE
More’n you’d believe, Lieutenant.

FOCUS ON LIEUTENANT.

LIEUTENANT
Where was their advance party? We haven’t heard a sound from that valley all day.

SERGEANT PARADINE (unwavering in his gaze)
Their advance party’s in that town. And the main body’s spread out behind.