The English (2022) s01e05 Episode Script

[Cornelia] This is a lock
of my son's hair
It got me this far like it was magic.
[Eli] You die violent or ill?
[Cornelia] Why?
Violent takes the short road,
the illness the long.
Which one did yours?
[Martha] Don't go thinking
you're no gentleman!
It's a mistake, of anyone
to give the likes of Billy Myers
- the chance to start again.
- [Jed] Hey!
[Cornelia] You were in the army?
I got enemies.
Bushwhacking?
You care to join us?
- [gunshot]
- [horse neighs]
People working that line for years
it's competition.
Black Eyed Mog and her boys.
[Black Eyed Mog] I dunno boys,
I'll save my snatch for something bigger.
[horse neighs]
[Cornelia] It cannot be
that this whole country's
only full of killers and thieves.
Where is he?
- Who'd you sell him up to?
- Didn't
My name is Kills on Water.
You don't know me
the massacre at Chalk River.
They were my family.
Why you fight for the Blues.
I fought for my people.
The English were never your people.
My enemy's enemy.
Then I am yours. And you are mine.
- War's over.
- Hmm.
And when you went home,
was it still there?
Or you still look?
Not asking for blame or favor.
Then what?
One-sixty acres, my choosing.
- Where?
- Nebraska.
The Loup.
That the dream?
My reality.
Mine by rights.
How long you been out?
The Army.
A-whiles.
At what point of, first day,
you realize you ain't got no rights?
They done took 'em.
Took 'em all.
And for you, they even stole your loyalty.
I was proud to serve.
In a war you were only bound to lose?
I'm guessing it's that dream though
keeping you alive.
Reality is you ain't ever gonna get there.
I'm guessing you know that too.
Deep down.
And you're just trying to figure out
what you can do to take its place.
That woman you're traveling with.
Where's she headed?
[dramatic music playing]
Maybe it's best for you
to change direction.
Take you there instead.
Ain't no other dream to be had.
First
there's something I want you to do for me.
You're at Decent Kill.
Captain Clegg and his crew
The Pawnee
got an arrow in his back.
They worked that line for me!
My business.
Twice now you turned my world upside down.
Yeah, I want you to turn it back.
There's a woman
looking to take over that line.
But not for me.
Her name's Black-Eyed Mog
but don't get so close now,
you figure out why.
She's partial to lifting our hair.
Cheyenne, Pawnee, she ain't fussy.
Any skin that looks like ours.
Quite the collection, I hear.
Man.
Woman.
Child.
I want you to stop her.
Kill her.
Won't happen otherwise.
I want you to make it your business.
See the world as it really is.
Us
them.
As it always was.
And always will be.
Then maybe
I give you back this.
And maybe "my enemy's enemy"
will finally become my friend.
[suspenseful music playing]
[dramatic music playing]
Well
wandering minstrel,
lovely as it is to greet a Sais in Kansas
I can't help but wonder
why you chose my door.
Whose are those?
Any one of them
foolish enough to cross my path.
Saw you got a boy penned up in the stable.
Uh-uh.
Him too?
Oh
I like to savor the moment.
Why?
Cheyenne '68,
I was 21.
And they took everything else besides
my virtue and my family.
Sort of "Coming of Age" present, really.
Don't need to tell you about my eyelids.
That's over 20 years ago,
what is that, 50 scalps?
You don't think you've more
than evened the score?
Not 'til every last one is on that wall.
And what about me?
I'm guessing by now you've found
the contents of my bags.
Ah, that's a lot of money.
You going to put me up there?
Surely, it'd break the pattern.
Well, not sure what my boys
have in mind for you.
Sure it'll be a lot of fun.
So, I met with a John Clarke,
he's a Kickapoo.
Would you like to work with him?
Only with a knife.
Well, he told me something,
I thought you'd like to know.
Kills On Water, have you heard of him?
Hates my guts.
Must do.
He's the one that left them
inside my body.
I'm travelling with a friend.
He's Pawnee.
Practiced killer.
And John Clarke told me that your enemy,
he is about to send my friend to kill
you.
Why you telling me?
I just don't want my friend to die.
So why didn't you stop him from coming?
Cause I can't get to him.
Hmm
Your enemy has him prisoner.
And I'm thinking
your life is the cost of his freedom.
So, I just decided the next best thing
was come to you instead.
Then you made a mistake,
cause now you've given me the jump.
Now, well that was the risk,
I know, I know.
But then I just thought
that if I was the one who told you
and you saw the money and everything
and it was all going to go the way it has,
well then you might let me
get the jump on you.
[grunts]
You shot my ma
- [gunshot]
- [groans]
[gunshot]
Mummy said
you wanna have some fun with me.
And right now, I'd say
shooting your cock 'n balls clean off
would be about the most fun
a woman could have.
But lucky for you
I'm not feeling very funny.
[suspenseful music playing]
[grunts]
[dramatic music playing]
Christ, I could have shot you.
When I first came here my friend told me,
the difference between what you want
and what you need
is what you can put on a horse.
No better lesson.
Choose yours
[dramatic music playing]
[knocks on door]
[Cornelia] I've come for Eli Whipp.
[dramatic music playing]
It's warm.
Were you burned?
It's nothing.
You want I take a look?
No, I'm fine, thank you.
Can't let it infect.
It won't.
Up here neither.
Short time to come such a long way.
What from Oklahoma?
You don't know where I started.
It's getting clearer by the day.
Who's the boy?
[Cornelia] I rescued him.
And he did the same for me.
I call him No Trouble
because that's what he's been.
Where should I take him?
[Eli] He can go his own way,
with or without us.
Us?
Thought, maybe I take you
where you wanna go.
You hear the name Billy Myers?
[Cornelia] No.
Lives up where you want to go.
Thinking on paying him a visit.
Why?
You got a secret?
One you ain't yet told?
It's okay,
you ain't the only one.
You see I told you there is magic in this!
You ain't got there yet.
Oh, but we will!
Lady, you shout so loud,
ain't just lightening gonna hit us.
I reckon we could part the clouds
if we wanted to!
Ain't no destiny in this, Cornelia.
Just a whole lot of aiming.
And then one day a miss.
And that's it.
You think I'm travelling with hope?
Oh, Eli.
Just without fear.
And you know why?
Cause I'm dead already.
[dramatic music playing]
[Thomas] Yerp!
[gunshot]
Reminds me of the chairman of my board.
Eton College,
the Guards think you'd like him.
Yeah?
Son of an Earl.
Sounds like just my kind of fella.
Certainly trying to dive
into David Melmont's pockets.
Hope there'll be enough room,
what with you stuffed in there already.
Are you gonna give
Martha Myers back her cattle?
Maverick Law.
Mine by rights.
I hope you've enough of that
to see you through the winter.
[Thomas] You a cattleman there,
Sheriff Marshall?
I was here in '86.
I saw what a hard freeze
can do to your herd.
I've been here since '75.
I know exactly what this country can do.
No one knows it better.
'Cept David Melmont.
Because he arrived here with you,
didn't he?
Opened up this whole valley.
Just you, him.
Quite a challenge.
We weren't partners,
he was my employee.
Tough then,
a blue-blooded Englishman like you
being "bled out"
by an ex-employee,
who seemed to make his fortune
in nothing so lowly
as trade?
He didn't make it in trade.
Well, he's looking to now, so he is.
And all that's getting fat
on your business is the vultures.
Take the snake.
Get two meals
and a hatband out of that one.
I know I once did.
Thanks but,
Melmont's got in some chilled meat.
Fancy myself a nice pork chop.
[ominous music playing]
- [indistinct chatter]
- [horse neighs]
[Mrs. Myers sighs]
If you look at this really closely,
you might be able to see
some letters underneath that scar.
You want me to stare
at a dead man's dead butt.
The thing is,
Timothy Flynn had exactly the same mark
in exactly the same place.
Except he didn't try to
Get rid of it.
No. And your husband did.
Why'd he do that?
Is that it?
Er, Grover Best, er, wondered
where you'll be wanting the committal.
[Mrs. Myers] Hadn't figured on it.
You talk to Thomas Trafford?
I did.
It's Maverick Law, Mrs. Myers.
They were marked.
Not officially.
They're mine.
Not if they're out on the range.
Fence broke.
I can only uphold the law as it stands.
I. Want. Them. Back.
Hmm-mmm, I can always,
try and have another look.
I'm sorry for your loss.
He ain't having them.
Of your husband.
[inhales sharply]
[Sheriff Robert] Mrs. Myers.
Was everything upstanding
in your marriage?
Upstanding?
[Sheriff Robert] It's just that you seem
a mite more interested in your cattle,
if you don't mind me saying so.
Difference between my cattle
and William Myers.
When a steer broke my arm,
it was an accident.
Drop him in the churchyard.
[suspenseful music playing]
[cow moos]
[suspenseful music playing]
[cow groans]
[gunshot]
Now that's destruction of property.
- Mine.
- Ours.
Let it slide this time,
what with your present sadness,
do it again,
can't offer the same courtesy.
You ain't offering me nothing
and I'll take what's mine.
[Thin Kelly] Let her out.
Go fetch the sheriff.
[dramatic music playing]
- [knocks on door]
- [gun cocks]
[Mrs. Myers] Who is it?
[Sheriff Robert] Sheriff Marshall.
- Yeah?
- [Sheriff Robert] Come to talk.
About what?
About that
[Eli] Follow the line
from the Great Stretcher
to Karariwari,
the star that does not move.
[Cornelia] The North Star.
[Eli] Chief star.
Chief star
And then here, see
Three stars in a row.
Hmm.
You call them the hunter's belt.
We call them Rahurahki, the deer.
When they all point straight
down that is South
North.
South.
Cupiriktaka.
Evening Star, West
Hupirikucu.
Morning Star, East.
Give or take.
So now, if you're alone
I will always think of you.
[dramatic music playing]
You're still warm
here.
Well,
I've just never lived like this before.
I never lived anything but.
So how long now?
Couple days maybe.
Where are we?
Casper ahead, Nebraska behind.
- You sure that you don't want to
- Leave you?
Go home.
Long ways East.
So, what's it like?
When I was a boy, it was something.
When we left, it was something else.
And now?
Guessing it's something else again.
Do you think that they will
let you be a part of that?
Do you?
No. Not the way you'd accept.
Can't tell what's changing quicker.
The country, or you.
Or you. Especially now
you've got no home to go to.
I didn't say that.
Maybe I just got to settle
on something else first.
This Billy Myers.
How do you know him?
Crossed paths a while back.
A friend?
Maybe, back then, he thought as such.
Why'd you want to see him?
Tell him he wasn't.
It's a long way to go just to say goodbye.
Isn't it
[dramatic music playing]
[Eli] Found it.
Just now.
Hmm
Why do you wear gloves?
Practical.
Well, ain't practical,
a world you can't touch.
You ever take 'em off?
D'you know a lady is not supposed
to until she retires home.
- Who says?
- 'Tis the rule.
Well, you got a long wait then.
Never coming.
It will.
One day.
That is uncommonly optimistic of you,
Mister Whipp.
You go back.
Where?
Home.
Well, you see that's the problem.
Um, I don't really have one anymore.
You'll find it again.
Hell, looks like I'm gonna have to
No, Eli.
I absolutely won't.
He was born on the family estate.
And
we were, er, protected,
not wanted.
The manner of his making, you see,
made outcasts of us both.
And as a girl,
you know the walls
I walked, they beckoned the future.
But as a mother,
I could only walk within them.
With him.
For 14 years.
That's where I left him.
Under a willow tree,
near a near a lake.
Hmm.
So that's home.
He is home.
And I won't ever go back.
In the time before.
There was a woman who cared for this,
my wife.
She was the one who guarded it.
Hung it above the wiharu
the Evening Star garden.
On the west side.
Evening Star to Morning Star.
When we moved
she took it with us,
when we returned,
she put it back.
This
is home.
That
is home.
[dramatic music playing]
There's nothing else to go back to
because it's here.
With you.
I'm sorry, I can't.
[dramatic music playing]
[grunts]
[inhales and exhales]
[gunshot]
[Eli] Riders.
The boy.
No Trouble
Not anymore.
Three, plus him.
I'll be fine.
[Eli] Then let's go get the boy.
[Major Mackay] Poles in, wire up,
on a good day I can have me lay
twenty miles of cabling.
But then, it ain't my first time
of calling round here.
This is a forty, one hundred
high velocity cartridge for a Sharps '74.
It's the greatest Buffalo rifle ever made.
It can hit a lying cow at 766 yards.
I know cause I did it.
Damn near record,
four more yards I woulda been clear.
I'll be honest with you I shot so many,
in such a quick time,
the stench of rotting carcass
ran the length
of the whole Kansas Pacific.
Mid-century,
maybe twenty million head out here.
Turn of the decade, not a hundred left.
And that's what it took
to submit your people.
Where bullets couldn't reach,
starvation surely would.
Which is mighty ironic
considering I made myself a fortune
five times over selling their tongues!
[laughter]
[horse neighs]
Yeah, you don't hunt in England,
aristocrat like yourself?
Not if it results
in the extermination of an entire people.
Oh, missy, don't you go guilt-gaveling me,
cause it's exactly your kind
that gave me the inspiration.
Countess of Sutherland.
You, uh, you ever take a jig
with one of her boys?
No.
They cleared my family out in 1819.
Strathaven, Scotland.
They used rent instead of bullets mind,
but the starvation came the same.
I do believe they shoot grouse there now.
Shlainte mhath!
Why'd you take the child?
Oh, unlike your brethren,
I got myself a conscience.
Maybe cause I know what it's like
to have everything stolen from you.
Now this country
offered my folks the chance to start over,
that's why I fight for her.
Tooth 'n nail.
Jennison Jay-Hawker during the war.
- You ever heard of them?
- Union Red-leggers.
- Reavers and thieves.
- Yes, sir!
[laughs]
You know, there's one thing
that ol' bitch taught me,
you gonna win, you can't fight fair.
Or kind.
You have to burn and starve.
Wins every time. Likewise under Sheridan.
You know one winter
we torched out a village so hot,
melt the snow for a mile around.
But that wars is done.
And I wanna see this great country
offer your people the same as mine.
There's a Indian School
at the head of this line
built on the proceeds of my good fortune.
I regard it as a, uh
as a portal,
into which any Indian can enter
but from which only Americans depart.
Now, my folks, they loved the tartan
just as much as yours the feather
but it's under that
that we now must all stand.
I'm taking the boy to that school!
New Dawn.
These your students?
Well, they are.
Had, uh, Mable there for two years now.
We only picked up Rose
not two weeks back.
She's a,
she's a little quiet but she'll learn.
To be your
Oh? Blue blood, thin skinned. No surprise.
You, uh, you looking
a little red there, ma'am,
maybe you should join my school.
They're learning to be your servants?
Did not Our Savior
wash the feet of his Disciples?
- Do you wash theirs?
- Oh, indeed I do. Their minds.
For I can see no other pathway
for the Indian's survival.
There won't be one no more.
Exactly! Like I ain't no Scot.
- Scotland still exists.
- So does "Nebraska"!
But I wouldn't expect no old world
sassenach like yourself to know that,
lets alone how to say it.
Mable, you may clear now.
Nyi-brathge.
Hmm?
Nyi-brathge.
Means water that is flat.
It's Otoe.
Yeah, Nebraska. Like I said.
Nyi-brathge.
Now you, you're trying to teach me some,
I gets it.
You know, languages change, son.
That's my whole point.
So must they.
Rose, come on.
[dramatic music playing]
Ese'he Ohvo'komaestse.
Ese'he Ohvo'komaestse
[Eli] I know her. We met before.
Her name is Touching Ground.
She's Cheyenne.
She's the widow of Chief Running Hawke.
[dramatic music playing]
[Eli] And that boy you picked up
He's their son.
I have found you.
The Great Spirit has led me to you!
[Eli] She was the wife
of a Cheyenne war chief.
Got his head
blown off my last day of service.
[Cornelia] Did you kill him?
[Eli] No, but I saw it.
Must be why the boy's holding back,
he saw me too.
[groans]
- You're burning up.
- Hmm
- They ain't stopped our exit.
- Good!
- Best ride quick.
- Yes.
Wait!
Please!
Please!
[Cornelia] Ask her his name.
[Eli] White Moon.
Quick!
[dramatic music playing]
[Cornelia] No! It's all right. Come on.
We've got to go.
[Sergeant Ellroy] Ten Hundred Forty
Five
Fifty
Five
Seven, Seventy!
Sixty-eight, seventy!
- [grunts]
- [horse neighs]
[Eli] The horse!
[Sergeant Ellroy] I thought
you was aiming for the Countess.
Thought I got her.
[gunshot]
Horse
[Major Mackay] Yeah.
Least now I got me a lying cow for real.
And at a record breaking distance.
[suspenseful music playing]
A foot shy, good line.
[Eli] Single shot. He has to reload.
Where your money bags at? Front or back?
- Both.
- Why'd you bring so much?
Didn't know how much I'd need.
Now you do.
You see smoke from the gun,
sit the boy up. Fast.
[Sergeant Ellroy]
The Indian's making a run.
They always do! Stay with the boy.
[gunshot]
Horse
again!
Getting jittery.
[suspenseful music playing] [gunshot]
She moved him!
What? Fuck! No more! Play fair!
It's all in the breathing
[Eli] Drop him!
Oh, come on.
No prairie-savage's out-wolfing me
No, sir!
[gunshot]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Touching Ground chanting]
All right?
They are going to kill you!
[screams]
[horse neighs]
[gunshots]
[dramatic music playing]
[chanting]
[screams]
[distant gunshot]
I'm so sorry.
[dramatic music playing]