The Twilight Zone (1959) s03e04 Episode Script

You're traveling through another dimension- a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind, a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination.
Your next stop, the twilight zone.
This road is the afterwards of the civil war.
It began at fort sumter, south carolina, and ended at a place called appomattox.
It's littered with the residue of broken battles and shattered dreams.
Ma'am? Do do you mind if i have myself some of your water, ma'am? Please.
Thank you.
Beautiful once, wasn't it? The tree i mean, ma'am.
Once it was very beautiful.
War claims a lot of victims men, animals and and god's own beauty.
Ma'am, would you mind if i sat here for a spell, and rested a bit? Not at all.
Thank you.
Oh, uh you mind if i strum a few chords on my guit' box here? Not at all.
My husband used to play the guitar.
Ah, did he now? And he's, uh, now where is he, ma'am? He was killed.
Yellow tavern with general stuart.
I'm sorry.
Brand-new gray and gold braid and a thousand flags.
Trumpets and drums.
Nothing but trumpets and drums.
Beat the yanks in a month, that's what they said.
Beat the yanks in a month.
How wrong they were.
And we stood by in our summer dresses and cheered them on and threw flowers- felt so grand.
Not many tears, just a few because we were so sure they'd all be coming back just as they left.
How wrong we were.
Not feeling well, ma'am? I'm all right, it's the fever but i'm on the mend now.
It's left me a little weak, that's all.
A little weak.
Still they come morning and night, night and morning, they walk down that road.
The young ones and the old ones.
How worn they look.
How tired.
Are there hundreds of them or thousands of them? Wouldn't you think wouldn't you think that with so many, my jud my jud might be amongst them? Sergeant? Ma'am? Would you do me a favor? If i can, ma'am.
Would you play your guitar real loud? I mean, real loud, drown me out? Loud, ma'am? I'm so sick to death of hearing my own crying and the sound of footsteps on the road.
Please play it loud so i can hear music.
Oh, ma'am please, sergeant! As you wish, my lady.
? black is the color of my true love's hair? ? her lips? ? are something wondrous fair? ? the purest eyes? In just a moment you will enter a strange province that knows neither north nor south- a place we call the twilight zone.
Charlie? Hmm? Charlie constable.
Charlie! Charlie, it's lavinia.
We thought you'd been killed- that's what everyone said.
They said you'd been shot in the head at gettysburg.
Oh, i'm so glad you've come back, charlie.
I'm so glad you're all right.
Couldn't you stop a minute, charlie? I'm almost there, lavinia.
Your wife will be so glad to see you.
So very, very glad.
I won't need all this weight.
I'll leave it here.
Oh, charlie.
Leave it here.
I got to keep moving.
I got to keep going.
Good-bye.
Oh, charlie.
Will you give susan my best? And tell her when you get settled, to please come over.
Though i expect she'll want to keep you to herself.
I know if it were jud if it were jud come home to me, i'd hold him close, so close, i'd not let him leave again.
I'm sure, lavinia.
That was charlie constable.
They said he had been killed in gettysburg- shot through the head.
Thank god, they made a mistake.
Thank god what's wrong, ma'am? Why there's there's blood on his cap.
There's blood on charlie's cap.
You finished already? Yes, ma'am.
I got a feeling for wood.
You know, whether it's chopping it, or carving it or or wearing it.
Yeah.
Like my my guit' box here.
See this? Oh.
Made that myself.
Of course, it's not as good as the one i got at home.
I had more time then, you understand? I can remember my daddy used to say to me, "you're going to wind up nothing but a good-for- nothing troubadour.
" That daddy of mine i can see him now, the way he used to look at me, his face all squinted up like a persimmon.
He'd stick his finger right in my he'd say, "ebbie ebbie, you got nothing inside you "but soft mush and sad ballads.
Ain't you ever goin' grow up and become a man?" Oh, he was a proud one, the day i marched off to war.
He was just as proud an old rooster.
You know, there was his son marching off to war to become a man.
I come back back half of me.
But i did come back.
You know that song of yours, what is it? What is it? ? black is the color of my true love's hair? That the one? ? her lips? ? are something wondrous fair? ? the truest eyes? ? and the daintiest hands? ? i love? Jud, my husband, he he used to sing that song.
Did he now? Hmm.
I wish you could have met him.
He was a very gentle man.
A very nice man.
I can remember nights why, he'd sit here on this very porch, and he'd play and sing.
Even the crickets would keep quiet.
I bet you they did, too.
And the bullfrogs down at the pond- it was just as if they had stopped their noise so they could hear the music.
Then the yankees came like blue locusts they had to eat away at the trees the land and everything on it.
I owe them for much.
For our house our land our trees for everything that was including my husband's life.
I owe them for much.
Ma'am hmm? Why don't you go away from here? This place is no good for you.
Why, this place is all i have.
Sergeant? Yes, ma'am.
What do you suppose happened to that yankee who who killed my husband? Do you suppose he's marching home to his own kin now? Do you suppose he's laughing and singing and telling all his neighborhood about the rebels he's killed? All the bullets and all the heads he shot them through? No, ma'am, i don't reckon anything like that at all.
And you let that kind of poison set on your mind, you'll die from it, ma'am.
I got a gun inside.
A gun? Uh-huh.
It's an old shotgun.
And i keep thinking about how someday- some moment- a yankee is going to come by here, and i'm going to take out that gun, and i'm going to aim it at him.
I'm going to aim it at him, but first i'm going to tell him that he can consider this the last shot of the civil war; a bullet in exchange for the one my husband took.
No, ma'am, i don't want to hear no more talk about butchery and bloodshed.
There's hundreds and thousands of our men and boys that were killed and maimed.
And then mr.
Lincoln murdered.
No, i don't want to hear no more about who's that? Hello? Yes.
I wonder if you could tell me if there's any water around here? There's some water out here in the well.
I'm sure the lady of the house wouldn't mind if you had some, lieutenant.
You you traveling far? Just up the road.
But i've been on it a long time.
You, too? Yes yes, a long time.
Oh still, it seems to me that i know you.
We met somewhere, huh? That's possible.
I don't know what it is but i'm trying to remember.
Go on, what is it that you remember? I got it.
I got it, i was laying on the side of the road, a shell had just exploded, tore off half my foot.
You came by with a patrol of yankees, and you stopped there on the side of the road, and you bent over and you took care of me.
You stopped the bleeding.
Don't you remember that, lieutenant? Yes, i remember that.
Sure, of course you do! I'd like you to meet the lady of the house.
Ma'am, this is ma'am! You best pay heed to the sergeant's gratitude because it's the last gift you'll ever get this i promise you.
Let me have that gun, ma'am.
This your pleasure, ma'am? And duty.
A little of both perhaps.
Then you'd best get on with it.
Ma'am, lieutenant here tried to save my life.
You've thanked him.
Now if you'll step aside so i can thank him for a few other services i i couldn't have missed you.
I couldn't have missed you.
It doesn't make any difference whether you did or whether you didn't.
Wait a minute wait a minute, now it's coming now, i got- i remember they got you that day, lieutenant.
You were tending me and this shell exploded in the trees over our head and this hot steel went spraying all over the place.
I remember you standing up and clawing at your eyes and screaming, "i'm blind!" I remember thinking they killed you.
I remember thinking that you were dead.
That doesn't make any difference now either.
That water from the well certainly, lieutenant.
I wish you the best, ma'am.
I do wish you the best.
And you, sir.
Thank you.
And this, too, shall pass.
This, too, shall pass.
Wait and see.
Wait and see.
Miss godwin? Good morning, sergeant.
Morning, ma'am.
You come down for a mintue? Mm-hmm.
You're leaving? Yes, ma'am, i'm leaving.
I come to say good-bye and to thank you.
I got to get back on the road, to wherever the road leads.
Well, i can tell you where that road leads.
It leads past 50 miles of places like this, burned-out houses and yes, ma'am, but you see, mrs.
Godwin, i was up most of the night and i was thinking about a lot of things.
I was thinking about that blind lieutenant and your young friend, charlie constable, with the blood on his hat, and and then sometime during the night they stopped coming, and it got quiet on the road there, it got real quiet.
And in that quiet just before dawn, it come to me what did? I don't know just how to explain it to you, ma'am, but it's got to do with that road and those men moving down.
There was union soldiers, too, ma'am.
Some of them helping my boys, some of my boys helping them but all of them, all of them moving down that road together just as if just as if what? I don't know, ma'am.
But there's something down the end of that road, and i got to find out what it is.
So, i'll just take my leave, ma'am, and i wish you well.
Sergeant, sergeant, i'd be alone.
Please don't go, stay here.
No, ma'am.
There's nothing here that could ever belong to me.
What do you think you'll find at the end of that road? A future? A new south, perhaps? A new confederacy born out of the ashes? Please ? black is the color of my true love's hair? Jud! How fares my wife? Oh, jud, please please, oh i've been ill, jud.
I've been very ill.
But i'll be all right, now you've come home.
This was home, lavinia.
It isn't any longer.
We can rebuild it all.
We can paint and we can plow the fields, and we can buy seed what's the matter, jud? Sergeant? Captain.
You know.
I think i do.
I'm not sure, but i think i do.
Mrs.
Godwin, i have no doubt no doubt at all i'll be seeing you again in time at the end of that road.
Jud, what's happened? Your life, lavinia- well, it's kind of like a song.
You play it right to the end, and when the notes are finished, and they die out, there's only silence.
And that's when you move on.
Jud? Are we are we dead? Yes, like all those men on the road.
Mine came at yellow tavern with a bullet, and yours came here with a fever.
No, jud, no.
I am alive! And i don't want to leave here because if i do, it means that i've given up everything.
But there's nothing to give up.
Jud, don't leave me.
I'm not leaving you, my darling.
I'll wait for you.
I'll meet you at the end of the road.
Oh, jud.
I'll wait for you.
Jud, come back to me! Jud, come back! Jud you're staying behind, my dear? Maybe maybe it's not so wise.
I'm afraid.
Of course you are.
And i am, too.
"Of all the wonders that i yet have heard "it seems to me most strange "that men should fear; "seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it'll come.
" That's from shakespeare, julius caesar.
You see, my dear, i'm dead, too.
I guess you might say i'm the last casualty of the civil war.
No.
And i'm the last man on this road.
No.
Jud! Jud! Incident on a dirt road during the month of april, the year 1865.
As we've already pointed out, it's a road that won't be found on a map, but it's one of many that lead in and out of the twilight zone.
Rod serling, creator ofthe twilight zone, will tell you about next week's story after this word from our alternate sponsor.
And now, mr.
Serling.
Next week we engage in a game of pool that's both an activity and a title.
A play written by george clayton johnson and starring mr.
Jack klugman and mr.
Jonathan winters.
It's the story about the best pool player living and the best pool player dead.
And this one, we submit, will stay with you for quite a while.
Next week onthe twilight zone, "a game of pool.
" You have no answer for her except "yes.
" To help many people in many ways, give the united way.