Centennial (1978) s01e01 Episode Script

The smell is bad.
Begone with you.
I'm bound to die.
I said begone.
(GROANS) I'm cold.
You need the air.
I tell you I'm dying.
It's rotten.
McKEAG: It's rotten.
You think that will work? Can you cut it off? If you have no arm, how can you fire a gun? If you cannot fire a gun, how can you hunt? If you cannot hunt, how can you You ask too damn many questions.
There are worse places for a man to die.
You will not die.
(SCREAMING) I'm sorry, mon ami.
Out here, half a man is no man at all.
Arapaho! (DOG BARKING) Pasquinel.
Your gun.
(IN ARAPAHO) We smoke.
NARRATOR: And so, once again, Lame Beaver and Pasquinel smoked the calumet and talked.
About the Pawnee attack and the Cheyenne who had saved Pasquinel's life, and that fateful moment when each held the other's life in his hands and didn't take it.
(ARAPAHOS CHANTING) (DRUMS BEATING) (IN ARAPAHO) Bad scar.
What? Aye.
Aye bad.
Does it hurt? (IN ARAPAHO) Hurt? It still hurts.
I cannot move my arm away from my body.
The skin The scar is so tight.
You'll use it, though.
By damn, you'll use it.
Same thing, your shoulder.
I don't know.
I know.
(GROANS) Use it! Take your gun, by damn, and use it! Why? You could do the hunting for the next few weeks.
I could be dead tomorrow! I'll get more plants.
(IN ARAPAHO) Can you use this? What? Can you use this? Can I use it? Aye, I can use it.
But not with that wound.
My arm? With my arm this way? No.
No, I cannot shoot now.
Did he wrap your gun this way? Pasquinel? Pasquinel, he wrapped it.
Buffalo hide.
Pasquinel, he wrapped your gun to make it strong.
My shoulder? The same? Yes.
That's what he means.
Pasquinel, he said, "Shoulder.
" Aye.
I suppose that is what he was saying.
(ALL WHOOPING) I shoot.
You shoot well.
Très bien.
Now you load.
Is it dry enough? We'll soon see.
Lame Beaver just hit the limb on that tree.
McKEAG: It's still there.
He'll take it off next time.
There won't be a next time.
(GRUNTING) (ALL CHEERING) (IN ARAPAHO) Flower.
(IN ARAPAHO) Flower.
How you say in English? Flower.
Flower? Aye.
A wee braw flower for a wee braw lassie.
(LAUGHS) Braw flower? Aye.
Oh, pretty.
I suppose you'd best say pretty.
Pretty? Aye.
Pretty flower.
Aye.
If you're going to learn English, you'd best learn it the way the English speak it.
That way people won't be turning up their nebs at you like they do at me from time to time.
Turn up their nebs? Aye, nebs.
Oh, nose.
Nose.
You'll learn to call it nose.
Nose.
And these are your ears.
Ears.
And your hair.
Hair.
And your eyes.
Eyes.
Eyes.
And this? Lips.
Lips.
You're beautiful.
Beautiful? We'd better get back.
Beautiful.
Means pretty? Aye.
Like the flower? You think I'm pretty? We'd better go.
Red Beard, I think you pretty, too.
Clay Basket, I We have to go.
You teach me more? (STAMMERING) I'll teach you more tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
I know tomorrow.
Tomorrow will be beautiful.
Aye.
Aye.
Tomorrow will be beautiful.
(GIGGLES) (BIRDS CAWING) Your father is quite a chief.
No.
He's not a chief.
Well, he got all those horses and did all those things and he's not a chief? He did not want to be a chief.
Why? (SPEAKING ARAPAHO) (IN ARAPAHO) Why isn't he a chief? Aye.
Why isn't he a chief? He doesn't like feathers.
What? What about feathers? He doesn't like them.
I don't understand.
A long time ago, my father got horses for Our People.
Aye, the first horses for your tribe.
But he could not keep the horse he wanted.
Why not? It was given to a chief.
But he got them himself.
You told me, 19 of them.
Aye.
How could the chief take the horse your father wanted? He was chief.
Oh, so now your father won't be chief.
Never.
I see.
It isn't the feathers he doesn't like, it's the men who wear them.
Tell your mother there are men like that in every tribe.
(SPEAKING ARAPAHO) And tell her I think your father is the chief anyway.
A big chief.
(SPEAKING ARAPAHO) (GIGGLES) Pasquinel.
(SPEAKING ARAPAHO) (IN ARAPAHO) Tell Pasquinel my heart is sad to see him leave.
my father sad you go.
Well, mon ami, I see you have her English as tongue-tied as your own.
(LAUGHS) Tell him that I sad to go, but I come back when the leaves change.
Red Beard, too? Red Beard, are we partners? Aye.
They are sad to leave, too, but they will come back when the leaves change color.
Will they bring their wives? Ask them! (IN ARAPAHO) I don't know how to ask that.
Comprends? He wants to know about our wives.
Wives? If they'll come with us next time.
No, no, no.
My wife, she stays in Montreal.
(IN ARAPAHO) Pasquinel, his wife stays in Montreal.
Montreal? Is it far away? Far away.
Far enough.
(LAUGHING) (IN ARAPAHO) Montreal is many miles north.
And you, Red Beard? I have no wife.
What did he say? He said he has no wife.
A man must have a wife to give him the best gifts of all.
He said a man must have a wife to give him the best gifts of all.
Tell him he has a beautiful family and he should be proud of them.
(IN ARAPAHO) Your family is beautiful.
Now we go.
Good hunting.
It will be good because of Pasquinel.
Mon ami.
Six bales, mon ami.
Our share will make us rich men.
Is it true what you said? Qu'est-que c'est? About having a wife.
Is she in Montreal? Non.
Detroit.
Even good friends shouldn't know everything about a man, n'est-ce pas? All right.
No more questions.
(SINGING IN FRENCH) LAME BEAVER: Clay Basket.
They will return.
Pasquinel is a brave man.
But I do not believe him, what he says about his woman.
He will need a good woman when he returns.
I would welcome him into my family.
You hoped I would say the Red Beard? Yes.
No.
It is Pasquinel you will marry.
When I am gone, he will take care of you.
But Father, you will not go for many years.
There are many changes.
The Pawnee are trading for more guns.
The Utes are coming out of the mountains to live like us, and these white men, they're only the first.
More will come to trade for beaver and with them they'll bring change.
What kind of change? I don't know.
Pasquinel, he will know and he will protect you.
Pasquinel, he can be trusted.
(GRUNTING) Make sure Bockweiss gets these pelts.
JOE: Pasquinel! Joe Bean.
Kentucky.
(SPEAKING FRENCH) Well, I'm doing all right, but not that good.
How far up did you get? La Cache la Poudre.
La Cache la Poudre.
The big mountains? That's some doing.
Any trouble? Well, there's always trouble, n'est-ce pas? In the high mountains there are the Utes, but still the worst are the Pawnee.
That's where I met my partner on the Missouri.
He was taking on a whole war party all by himself.
A whole war party? Nine braves were stealing peltries from a pirogue called the Sainte-Geneviève.
The Genevieve.
I heard tell another boat picked her up.
All the men had been massacred.
The Pawnee were already lifting scalps when I saw him right in the middle attacking them all.
I dropped three from long range with my rifle, but he was right in the middle with just his knife.
Hand to hand? By the time I tried to reload for the fourth, he had killed the last one.
Regardez.
A tomahawk right there.
And still he continued fighting with only one hand.
I was wondering why you partnered up.
I guess that tells the whole story.
Joe Bean.
Kentucky.
What is it they call you? Alexander McKeag.
Where you from? Scotland.
And La Cache la Poudre.
MAN: Pasquinel! (LAUGHS) Whiskey! Whiskey for my friend Joe Bean from Kentucky, and my partner.
Where've you been, Pasquinel? I've been to the other end of the river and now I'm going to drink my way back.
(ALL CHEERING) (MEN SINGING) (ALL CHEERING) You Pasquinel? Pasquinel, oui.
What are you drinking? Nothing you buy.
Then you're in the wrong place, because today, I buy everything this man sells.
(ALL CHEERING) Yeah, with blood money.
(SPEAKING FRENCH) Do I know you? I know you.
You're a liar and a coward.
I know we have never met before.
You murdered my brother.
Your brother? And three good men that ride the Saint Genevieve.
Oh, The Sainte-Geneviève.
It was attacked by the Pawnee.
Pawnee nothing.
It was you and that burr-tongued partner of yours.
Why would we attack white men and scalp them? What for? You know damned good and well what for.
My memory fails me.
Why don't you tell me? Why didn't you wash the furs? Because what belongs to another man is of no interest to me.
Now, I want to buy you a drink, in honor of your brave brother.
And if he was an honest trader, he was my brother, too.
You go to hell! In due time.
Joe Bean! Here is to new profits and to new partners.
Are you sure you're completely healed, Alexander? Aye.
I just can't imagine an experience like that.
How about you, Pasquinel? That arrowhead bother you at all? No.
What arrowhead? The one the Pawnee planted in his back last year.
The one that brought me to the good doctor and brought us all together.
For many years.
(SPEAKING GERMAN) How long could a man survive in a land like that? (SPEAKING FRENCH) Only the rocks live forever.
What? It's a saying of the Indians on the plains.
"Only the rocks live forever.
" None of us will live forever, so it matters not how long you live, but how.
(SPEAKING FRENCH) (SPEAKING FRENCH) They tell me you have a wife in New Orleans.
New Orleans? (SCOFFS) This town I'd better get back to the Indians.
Here.
The ingots have melted.
That is how you shape them, huh? Ja.
The molds.
When you're on the plains, you have a woman there? An Indian woman? I mean, I have heard some men do.
It's a natural thing, I suppose.
I suppose.
How long does it take? Until they cool.
Tomorrow these will be ready.
So, then, you do not? What's that? Oh, the Indian woman? No, no.
McKeag is the only one who shares my canoe.
He sounds like quite a fellow.
But he does not say much, though, does he? That's why I let him share my canoe.
It seems to me a man with a good business like you ought to marry.
What you file off, you use again? Ja.
I have been planning on it again myself.
What's that? Get married.
Oh.
But a good woman is not an easy thing to find.
A woman like Lise? Lise.
Ja, ja, my Lise is a fine woman.
You have noticed, ja? It'd be hard for a man not to notice.
I'm glad to hear you say that.
It's easy to say You're buffing.
Is that right? Ja.
And these tools here, they're for the etching? Ja.
Such small tools in such big hands.
What you do is really remarkable.
Pasquinel, let me be frank.
I sell a piece like this for a lot of money.
I'm going to be a very wealthy man.
I can afford to be very generous with Lise.
(SPEAKING FRENCH) I don't understand.
You would have a fixed home here.
A fixed home is something, Pasquinel.
(LAUGHS) Monsieur Bockweiss, why would Lise want me? I will never be anything but what I am, a coureur.
Damn it, do not play dumb with me.
You know she is interested in you, and so do I.
Now, I am telling you that as your partner I would be very happy to That is, should you at some point in time wish to join my family, I would have no objection whatsoever.
You are a good father, monsieur.
Hermann.
Hermann, you are a good friend to suggest that something like that would be possible.
We could have the wedding before you go back to the plains.
You said, "In time.
" And you said none of us lives forever.
The Indians know more about life than any of us maybe, huh? Huh? Perhaps.
NARRATOR: At the end of the 18th century, the Indians of the Great Plains were sovereigns of their world.
The horse had allowed them to ride into a new life in the formerly forbidding heart of the open grasslands.
While Lame Beaver continued to refuse all offers to sit among a council, he was respected above all other members of his tribe because they remembered it was his courage that first gave them the horse.
A man's wealth and his family's social standing were now determined by the amount of horses he owned.
And every young Indian boy knew that if he became a skilled warrior and hunter, he would acquire many horses of his own and live a life of dignity and respect like the old man called Lame Beaver.
Lame Beaver was 53 years old as the century was drawing to a close.
By the standards of his time, he was already old.
Not even the new power the gun brought him as a warrior and hunter could replace other powers he would be losing soon.
He knew his time was almost over, but he had no way of knowing that an ancient culture at its zenith had little more time left than he.
(ARAPAHOS CHANTING) (DRUMS BEATING) The Plains Indians of the year 1800 were a contented people.
The horse had been their salvation, the buffalo was the basis of their existence.
From its many parts came almost everything necessary to daily life.
It provided food, clothing, shelter, weapons, and a source of industry that kept bodies strong and minds healthy.
It was a time to be enjoyed.
There was no need to worry about the future, and the young people could take pride in the past.
Father, tell me about the horses.
How you were the first one to get them.
That was a long time ago.
Did you really visit the sun before you raided the Comanche? Could a man do something like that alone? I wish I could have seen you bring them into camp.
Was it exciting, Mother? the most exciting thing we'd ever known.
BLUE LEAF: The bravest thing any warrior had ever done, and he was only 17 summers.
He walked far to the south where the Comanche were hunting buffalo.
Our people could not follow the buffalo as far as the other tribes and we were not as powerful in war because we had no horses.
Your father knew that we must get horses or our tribe would die, but no other warriors would go with him because they knew if they were caught by the Comanche, they would die a terrible death.
Man Above, I am one of Our People.
Help me.
(HORSE NEIGHING) (HORSE WHINNYING) (SHOUTING) (YELLS) (WHOOPING) (YELLING) (MEN WHOOPING) (WHOOPING) (SHOUTING) (ALL CHEERING) Comanche! (SPEAKING ARAPAHO) BLUE LEAF: It was so bold and so daring that even the Comanches saluted him for his courage.
(ALL WHOOPING) When I saw him return to camp, I knew it was the greatest thing I would ever see.
He had brought the horses no one else could get, the horses we could not go on without.
He had given us our lives.
And I have never known a prouder moment than when he put me on one of them.
The one he would give to my brother, so that we could share a life together.
And you were only 17 summer.
The other braves must have We need new lodge poles.
They'll last another season.
They've been dragged for many miles.
They're growing short.
Maybe we could use new ones.
Maybe? Look at them! We should have traded for them when we were in the north.
Trade for what, a horse? I'd never trade a horse.
I'll find poles.
The best poles.
(GROANS) BLUE LEAF: What is it? Are you all right? Leave me alone.
Blue Leaf.
I'm not angry with you.
Clay Basket thinks it's her because she asked you to tell the story.
No.
I just broke another tooth.
See? Does it hurt? What hurts is getting old.
Each year for you is another one for me, too.
Remember when we had no horses? We moved so slowly then, only with the dogs.
We moved so slowly, and life seemed so long.
LAME BEAVER: I remember when I was a boy, I thought I'd never grow old.
I thought I'd never be old enough to be a warrior.
When your body must work, make it work.
When it needs rest, give it rest.
Where is the river? Have you looked around you? Yes.
Then take a second look.
A longer look.
I don't see anything.
What are those? Just swallows.
(LAUGHS) That's right.
Just swallows.
But swallows must have water every day.
Doves, too.
So you watch for them.
If their mouths were empty, they were flying toward water.
If they had mud in them, they were flying from water.
Do you know which way the water is? That way.
You saw the mud in their mouths from here? You didn't ask me that.
You only asked if I knew which way the water is.
Look closely at everything.
Watch the animals to learn their secret ways.
The deer will teach you how to go without water for a long time.
The hawk will teach you how to strike swiftly without missing.
The coyote, how to keep from being captured.
The rattlesnake, how to keep from being seen.
Which one teaches you how to make fire? Only man.
And he is the most dangerous animal you will ever know.
More dangerous than a mountain lion? Much more.
Why? Because he knows what you know.
LAME BEAVER: That was a long time ago.
A lifetime ago.
You've made my life a good one.
Tomorrow I'll make us the best tepee in the village.
I'll find poles in the Blue Mountain.
Poles that are tall and straight.
The Blue Mountain? The Utes are there.
I'm not afraid of the Utes.
Just because a man breaks a tooth is no reason to change the way he lives, is it? No.
There have been Ute here hunting beaver.
Over there.
We can take them.
We're here for lodge poles, not scalps.
Is that the man who raided the Comanche for horses talking? A man of many coups? It is a man who lived long enough to tell the stories himself.
We'll wait here in the shadows until they leave, then we'll find our poles among the tall spruce.
NARRATOR: It was in this mountain valley that Lame Beaver made a discovery that would have an impact on the whole world a half a century later.
But at the time he had no way of knowing the value other men might put upon the shining rocks he held in his hand.
What is it? Bullets I don't have to melt.
(MUSIC PLAYING) SEÑORA ALVAREZ: Will you give up trading now? No, señora.
But with a family It's all that I know.
Merci.
Well, perhaps you might learn to be a silversmith.
After all, we have the finest teacher here in St.
Louis.
(LAUGHS) He would make a good pupil.
But I cannot get him interested.
Because it's a talent that I don't have.
Señor, you must have a very special talent.
Lise could have chosen any man in the city and she chose you.
Because she wanted someone to look up to.
Papa.
Excuse me, Pasquinel.
Oui.
I'll be right back.
Alexander, will you dance with me? Oh, I cannot dance.
I will teach you.
It is my wedding.
Monsieur Pasquinel? Oui? I say it is very exciting to know you are civilizing the Indians.
Civilizing them? Well, I pray to God I'm never guilty of that.
But that is what you do, is it not? No, no.
You introduce them to our ways? I am a trader.
Gracias.
I trade beaver, madame.
(SPEAKING SPANISH) Surely you are too modest.
You must admit that you are an emissary for our cultures.
And if the Indian is to learn, he must learn from men like yourself.
(CLEARS THROAT) Monsieur, you may ask my father-in-law, I am not I'm not a modest man.
But there is nothing I can teach the Indian that he needs to know.
Why is that? Because he lives with nature.
He's been taught to become a part of nature.
Yes, but still they are totally uneducated.
No, no, no.
Uneducated in our world, but not in theirs.
Well, are they so different? What time is it? (SPEAKING SPANISH) The time, do you have it? (SPEAKING SPANISH) It is ten of four.
Is that important to you? Is that important to any of you? Well, I thought you asked.
I did.
But an Indian wouldn't.
He has no clocks because he sees no need to schedule his life.
And he does not believe that what a man does in a day by so many hours is a real measure of his worth.
No, no.
He does what he does.
It takes as long as it takes, and no one does it better than the Indian.
No, no one here can teach the Indian anything that is important to him.
You may be forgetting one thing, my son.
They are heathens.
They build no churches, they write no sacred books, but everything about the Indians centers around his religion.
A pagan religion.
Sacrifices, bloodletting.
Didn't Christ himself die on the cross, and wasn't that God's will? That was a unique act, Pasquinel.
To save the world.
Theirs is a unique world.
It needs no saving.
Just relax.
(STAMMERING) I cannot.
Of course you can.
Just glide with the music and listen to the rhythm.
(STAMMERING) I'm sorry, I cannot.
All right, Alexander.
Oh, thank you.
To friendship.
Did Pasquinel tell you that there would always be a room here for you whenever you are in St.
Louis? Oh, no, I That's one "no" I will not accept from you, Alexander McKeag.
Our home is your home.
Unless you have plans of your own you're not telling us about.
No.
No, you will not accept our offer? Or no, you have no plans of your own? No, I I mean, I Alexander, I think there's something you're keeping from us.
No.
There must be someone somewhere.
Well I knew it.
Here or in Scotland? Here.
In St.
Louis? No.
Where then? Can you keep a secret? Forever.
Me, too.
Alexander, that's not fair.
It's just I don't suppose I should be telling others till I've had a chance to tell her first.
That's fair.
And I know whoever she is, she'll be as happy as I am today.
I'd better go rescue Pasquinel.
He takes a bit of that from time to time.
Now he will have both of us to take after him.
SEÑORA ALVAREZ: Is it true they have more than one wife? Señora? I've heard they keep more than one wife.
Is that true? If they need them, and if the woman needs a husband.
And if the other wives are happy for it.
They work hard.
More hands makes the work easier.
I don't know.
I don't think I understand that kind of thinking.
People understand what they want to understand.
Like me.
I don't understand why you're dancing with that skinny Scotman when you could be dancing with me.
(ALL LAUGHING) Regardez, McKeag, regardez.
Fascinating man.
Why? Because he fights Indians? Because he understands them.
He should, my dear.
He's part Indian himself.
Oh, yes.
Didn't you know? He's Mandan.
He's from Montreal.
By the way, I have heard that he has a wife there, too.
(ALL CHANTING) (DRUMS BEATING) Do you know why they dance in a circle? When I was little, I thought it was to keep warm by the fire.
All of life is a circle.
The dancers start there, the south, which represents the source from which we are born.
Then we move to the left, through youth, toward the sunset in the west.
And night falls as we draw close to the cold north, where the white hairs are.
To show us that all life is night and day, good and bad.
Father, I know.
If we live on, we find the source of light to the east, and with it we find understanding.
The understanding that teaches us now to prepare for the end of life.
Then we return to where we began.
Giving back our life to all life, our flesh to where it started from.
Think about this.
And the more you think about it, the more meaning you'll find in it.
Mother? St.
Louis ends here.
We've said goodbye.
I know, but Make certain this old man keeps working.
I'm going to make him a god.
God Bockweiss, who makes his silver pipes in heaven but only for Pasquinel.
I will be working.
Come back.
I always come back.
Bonjour, mon ami.
It looks like a great year for beaver.
Are you all right? I did not think I would feel this way.
I think that is natural.
Especially now, since you're going to be a grandfather.
What? What? That's wonderful.
BOCKWEISS: Does he know? I could not tell him.
Lise.
I want him back.
He should not be going.
He will always be going.
Do you not know that, Papa? If he has a family He'll always be going.
That is what he is, what he does.
I do not want to change that.
I've heard there were others who have tried.
Those are unfounded rumors.
They are lies.
Perhaps.
All I know is that I love him and I want him to know how much.
If he comes back and sees I did not try to stop him, I think he will know.
I want you to know I do not understand that kind of thinking.
Maybe we only understand what we want to understand, huh, Papa? (GASPS) Lame Beaver.
I'll get you, Lame Beaver.
I used to watch your mother on mornings like this.
You're even more beautiful than she was then.
I don't think so.
No, this is my work.
Not today.
Have I ever told you why we named you Clay Basket? (CHUCKLING) Many times.
We were in the north, following the bison.
A Dakota trader brought out a splendid basket made by a Cree.
It looked like it was woven, but it was made of clay.
And your mother loved it.
She wanted it above all other things.
Father, I know the story.
You must not forget it.
You must not forget that I bought that basket for your mother with a bison robe.
A robe she'd worked on for many months to make it soft.
It was a good robe, and I traded it for the basket.
The clay basket your mother loved so much and for which you're named.
Father And all the other stories, too.
The ones your mother painted on the robe for me, the ones we told you about our life together, about the wild duck that lived in the cottonwoods, and the tame elk that stayed in the camp in the north, and all the other stories.
You must not forget them, or they will die.
Father, where's Mother? I've looked for her.
She's gone to be alone.
Why? To think.
To make herself ready.
Oh, no.
That's why you told me again about the dance, too, isn't it? You are my child.
You must remember everything, or your children will never know how it was with us.
You're going to war? The Pawnee have stolen a child.
She must be returned.
Let the young men go.
The young men are afraid of the Pawnee.
You can't go.
The girl may be dead.
Why should you die, too? We must know.
And the Pawnee must know that Our People will not let them do such things to us.
Father If I've been a good father, you know the end must come for us all.
And you remember what I said about the white man Pasquinel.
When I'm gone, he'll take care of you.
You don't have to go.
What about Mother? Who'll take care of her if you go? Your mother is a woman.
She knows her end as well as I know mine.
Oh, Father.
Who is Man Above? Man Above is a creator.
Higher than all people and all the universe.
He has no beginning and no end.
Is he good? He is all good.
Then why do we fight other men? Because there is evil in men, too.
You pray every morning? Our tepees face the morning sun to remind us we must give thanks every day.
What if there's no reason to give thanks? Then the fault is in yourself.
LAME BEAVER: I'll pray with you tomorrow.
GRAY WOLF: No.
You must meet the morning sun and the great silence alone.
It prepares your mind to face the day.
It makes you thoughtful in all things.
Man Above, I have done all I can do.
(SINGING IN FRENCH) The charge will be heaviest there.
I will wait there for the great chief Rude Water and I will shoot him dead.
The Pawnee will panic, and we'll have the girl.
Go now.
Man Above is with us.
Go! (SHOUTING IN PAWNEE) (ALL WHOOPING) (HORSE NEIGHING) (GRUNTING) (ALL CHEERING) (ALL WHOOPING) (ALL CHANTING) (DRUMS BEATING) Mother, your things.
They are mine no more.
Your basket! (SCREAMS) Get away! PASQUINEL: Burial.
Up there? So the spirit can escape into the wind and the clouds.
He was a great warrior.
How do you know? The ponytail.
They kill a great man's favorite horse so his spirit won't have to walk.
The stake and the thongs.
He died in combat, as brave a death as possible.
McKEAG: And it just stays up there like that? Nature will claim it in time.
As she does everything.
Mother.
Mother.
Mother? Mother.
You don't have to stay out here.
It must be.
There's room on my robe in your brother's tepee.
He did not ask me in, and it's not your right to ask.
He won't want you to stay out here.
He has no choice.
I do.
And I'm staying with you wherever you are.
No, sweet one.
You have a life to live.
And mine is over.
He didn't have to kill himself that way.
He didn't have to leave you like this.
We talked.
I knew what would come.
It was this way for my mother, too.
But why? It makes no sense.
Does it make more sense for us to grow old and burden those who need their strength to survive? I can't leave you.
I won't leave you.
You must stay warm and you must stay well.
And when the white man comes, you must go with him as your father said.
And you must have his children, and you must remember all the stories so they will know who they are.
You remember who you are.
You are the daughter of a very brave man.
A man of many coups.
He was a fool.
He was what I said.
And what you will say to your children and they to theirs.
In that way, he will go on living and bring meaning to their lives as well.
That's all we can ever do.
Any of us.
(SOBBING) Yes, Mother.
Yes.
Rude Water dead.
Dead? How? Arapaho make war.
Big devil Lame Beaver stake self out, shoot Rude Water.
Lame Beaver? What happened to him? We kill him.
But his medicine strong.
He count many coup before he died.
That scaffold by the river.
(SPEAKING FRENCH) How long ago this fight? Just before snow.
Not long.
(SPEAKING FRENCH) We should have started earlier.
You think you could've stopped them? I could've tried.
You give Lame Beaver gun? I trade gun for beaver.
Same as Rude Water.
You trade yellow bullets, too? Yellow bullets? Only reason Lame Beaver kill Rude Water.
Well, that looks like It is.
(IN ARAPAHO) Mother.
Mother? Mother? (IN ARAPAHO) Mother? (IN ARAPAHO) Go back.
Back.
Bonjour, mon ami.
Another long night for you, too, huh? Sweet savior.
Damn.
It's Blue Leaf.
How could that happen? What's she doing out here? She is no longer the wife of a warrior.
She has no right to a tepee of her own.
What? It's their law.
Without a son or a brother willing to take her in, she has no home.
She is allowed to keep is what she has on her back.
That's bloody inhuman! She knew it would happen.
What about her daughter? Oui, the girl, she would know.
Know? About the gold.
Where her father found it.
That's not what I meant.
I meant what did they do to her? She is young and strong, she'll bear the grandchildren of a great warrior.
She'll have plenty of men after her.
She could even have a husband already.
What should we do with her? Leave her.
They will lay her to rest with her sewing kit and awl cases like they did him with the weapons.
Let's find the girl.
What's her name? Clay Basket.
Oui, Clay Basket.
She is with my father now.
It is good.
And you? You're all right? Aye.
Clay Basket, I gave your father the gun.
Do you know where he got his bullets? Pasquinel.
Ask her.
(IN ARAPAHO) Do you know where your father got the bullets for his gun? (IN ARAPAHO) Bullets? Aye.
Where? Ask her where.
You? You made the bullets? (IN ARAPAHO) Bullets.
Aye.
I make bullets.
The yellow ones? Yellow? Like these.
No.
But they came from the gun.
My father's gun? Oui.
They came from your father's gun.
Where did he get them? I not see.
I not know.
But he say to me Oui? He said? (SPEAKING ARAPAHO) He just told her how much it meant to him and to the tribe for you to give him the gun.
That's all? (IN ARAPAHO) That's all he said to you? He told me you would come back.
He told her we'd come back.
And when you did, he wanted me to go with you, if it pleases you, Pasquinel.
What? He told me it would make him proud if I would belong to Pasquinel.
What did she say? McKeag? He told her he wanted her to go with you.
Avec moi? To be your wife.
Pasquinel, I wonder I mean, since you're already I mean, since there's no way Mon ami, I don't think you understood what she said.
Her father told her to go with me.
He know I would take care of her.
I heard.
But Bockweiss asked you first Bockweiss is in St.
Louis.
What about Lise? He'll take care of her.
He will always take care of her.
Tell her I am proud to have her for my wife.
For the gold, you mean.
That's it, isn't it? The gold.
You think she knows where it is.
Tell her.
(IN ARAPAHO) Pasquinel, he doesn't want me? Pasquinel says you make him proud.
Red Beard? Aye? Arm good? Aye.
My arm is fine.
NARRATOR: The Indians said, "Pasquinel, he can be trusted.
" It came to be a passport of safety for the coureur de bois and his partner Alexander McKeag.
But McKeag began to wonder how much the Indians had really known about Pasquinel.
Had they confused courage with honor? Still, the young Scot could not leave the only friend he'd ever known and the only woman he'd ever wanted.
He only knew one thing for certain.
It would be a hard winter.