True Grit

Adaptation by

Joel and Ethan Coen

Based on the Novel by Charles Portis

Blue Revision: March, 9, 2010

Shooting Script: November 10, 2009
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 1

White letters on a black screen:

The wicked flee when none pursueth.

The quotation fades.

1 EXT. WESTERN TOWN STREET - NIGHT 1

A woman's voice:

VOICE-OVER
People do not give it credence that
a young girl could leave home and
go off in the wintertime to avenge
her father's blood, but it did
happen.

The street of a western town, night. The street is deserted.

Snow falls.

We track slowly forward.

I was just fourteen years of age

 when a coward by the name of Tom
Chaney shot my father down and
robbed him of his life, and his
horse, and two California gold
pieces he carried in his trouser
band.

A shape lies in the street below the porch of a two-story *

building. A sign identifies the building as the Monarch
Boarding House.

He got it into his head that he was

being cheated, and went back to the
boarding house for his Henry rifle.
When Papa tried to intervene,
Chaney shot him.

The crumpled shape is a body. We hear the thunder of

approaching hooves.

A galloping horse enters frame and recedes, whipped on by a

bareback rider. A long-barreled rifle is tied across the
rider's back with a sash cord.

He disappears into the falling snow.

Chaney fled. He could have walked

his horse, for not a soul in that
city could be bothered to give
chase.
(MORE)
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 2

VOICE-OVER (CONT'D)
No doubt Chaney fancied himself
scot-free, but he was wrong. You
 must pay for everything in this
 world, one way and another. There
is nothing free, except the grace
of God.

2 INT. MOVING TRAIN - DAY 2

We are looking into the window of a moving train.

Looking out past us is a fourteen-year-old girl, Mattie Ross.

Next to her is Yarnell, a middle-aged black man. Reading
backward in the mirror of the window we see a station sign
easing in as the train slows: FORT SMITH.

The voice-over continues:

VOICE-OVER
You might say, what business was it
of my father's to meddle? My
answer is this: he was trying to do
that short devil a good turn. He
 was his brother's keeper. Does
that answer your question?

3 INT. UNDERTAKER’S - DAY 3

DEAD MAN'S FACE

Candlelight flickers over the man's waxy features.

VOICE
(Irish-accented)
Is that the man?

The body, wrapped in a shroud, lies in a pine coffin. Mattie

and Yarnell stand looking down at it. An undertaker,
grizzled and severely dressed, holds the candle.

MATTIE
That is my father.

UNDERTAKER
If you would loik to kiss him it
 would be all roight.

YARNELL
He has gone home. Praise the lord.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 3

MATTIE
Why is it so much?

UNDERTAKER
The quality of the casket and of
the embalming. The loifloik
appearance requires time and art.
And the chemicals come dear. The
particulars are in your bill. If
you would loik to kiss him it would
be all roight.

MATTIE
Thank you. The spirit has flown.
Your wire said fifty dollars.

UNDERTAKER
You did not specify that he was to
be shipped.

MATTIE
Well sixty dollars is every cent we
have. It leaves nothing for our
board. Yarnell, you can see to the
body's transport to the train
station and accompany it home, I
still have to collect father's
things and see to some other
business. I will have to sleep here
tonight.

YARNELL
Your mama didn't say nothing about
seeing to no business here!

MATTIE
It is business Mama doesn't know
about. It's all right, Yarnell, I
dismiss you.

YARNELL
Well I'm not sure I——

MATTIE
Tell mama not to sign anything
until I return home and see that
Papa is buried in his mason's
apron.

To the undertaker:

. . . Your terms are agreeable if I

 may pass the night here.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 4

UNDERTAKER
Here? Among these people?

Mattie looks around the empty room.

MATTIE
These people?

UNDERTAKER
I am expecting three more souls.
Sullivan, Smith, and His Tongue In
The Rain.

4 EXT. GALLOWS/TOWN SQUARE - DAY 4

Three men stand upon a rough-hewn three-banger gallows. The

condemned are two white men and an Indian. They wear new
jeans and flannel shirts buttoned to the neck. Each has a
noose around his neck. One of the white men is addressing
the crowd:

MAN
Ladies and gentlemen beware and
train up your children in the way
that they should go! You see what
has become of me because of drink.
I killed a man in a trifling
quarrel over a pocketknife.

Mattie is pushing her way through the spectators thronging

the town square.

Up on the gallows the condemned speaker starts to weep.

MAN (CONT’D)
If I had received good instruction
as a child out on the Cimarron
River. I would be with my wife and
children today, I don't know what
is to become of them. I hope and
pray that you will not slight them
and compel them to go into low
company.

His blubbering will not let him go on. He steps back. A man
standing by slips a black hood over his head which continues
to bob with sobbing.

Mattie hisses to a woman nearby:

MATTIE
Can you point out the sheriff?
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 5

The woman indicates a figure among the officiators on the

scaffold:

WOMAN *
Him with the mustaches.

The second condemned man is speaking:

MAN
Well, I killed the wrong man is the
 which-of-why I'm here. Had I
killed the man I meant to I don't
believe I would a been convicted.
I see men out there in that crowd
is worse than me.

A thinking pause. He nods, shrugging.

. . . Okay.

He steps back and is hooded.

The third man steps forward.

INDIAN
Before I am hanged I would like to
say——

He is hooded, speech cut short. The hangman, hand to his

elbow, helps him step back.

The executioner pulls a lever on the scaffold. Three

trapdoors swing open and three men drop. They hit the end of
their ropes with a crack.

CROWD
Oh!

Two of the men have their heads snapped to an angle and are
limp and twist slowly. One, though, writhes and kicks,
jackknifing his legs. *

5 EXT. GALLOWS/TOWN SQUARE - LATER 5

Mattie is talking to the sheriff whom we saw officiating on

the scaffold. The square is emptying and, in the background,
all three men twist slowly, the last man having finally given
up the ghost. The Mexican boy still hawks tamales to
stragglers.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 6

SHERIFF
No, we ain't arrested him. Ain't
caught up to him, he lit out for
the Territory. I would think he
has throwed in with Lucky Ned
Pepper, whose gang robbed a mail
hack yesterday on the Poteau River.

MATTIE
Why are you not looking for him?

SHERIFF
I have no authority in the Indian
Nation. Tom Chaney is the business
of the U.S. marshals now.

MATTIE
When will they arrest him?

SHERIFF
Not soon I am afraid. The marshals
are not well staffed and, I will
tell you frankly, Chaney is at the
end of a long list of fugitives and
 malefactors.

MATTIE
Could I hire a marshal to pursue
Tom Chaney?

The sheriff looks at the girl and chuckles.

SHERIFF
You have a lot of experience with
bounty hunters, do you?

MATTIE
That is a silly question. I am
here to settle my father's affairs.

SHERIFF
All alone?

MATTIE
I am the person for it. Mama was
never any good at sums and she can
hardly spell cat. I intend to see
papa's killer hanged.

SHERIFF
Well. Nothing prevents you from
offering a reward, or from so
informing a marshal.
(MORE)
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 7

SHERIFF (CONT'D)
It would have to be real money,
though, to be persuasive. Chaney
is across the river in the Choctaw
Nation.

MATTIE
I will see to the money. Who's the
best marshal?

SHERIFF
I would have to weigh that——
William Waters is the best tracker.
He is half Comanche and it is
something to see him cut for sign.
The meanest is Rooster Cogburn. He
is a pitiless man, double tough and
fear don't enter into his thinking.
He loves to pull a cork. The best
is probably L.T. Quinn, he brings
his prisoners in alive. Now he may
let one get by now and again but he
believes even the worst of men is
entitled to a fair shake.

MATTIE
Where can I find this Rooster?

6 EXT. OUTHOUSE - DAY 6

MATTIE'S HAND

Rapping at a door of rough plank.

After a beat, a voice——rasping and slurred:

VOICE
The jakes is occupied.

Wider. We see that Mattie stands before an outhouse.

MATTIE
I know it is occupied Mr. Cogburn.
As I said, I have business with
you.

Beat.

VOICE
I have prior business.

MATTIE
You have been at it for quite some
time, Mr. Cogburn.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 8

VOICE
(roaring drunk)
There is no clock on my business!
To hell with you! How did you stalk
 me here?!

MATTIE
The sheriff told me to look in the
saloon. In the saloon they
referred me here. We must talk.

VOICE
(outraged)
Women ain't allowed in the saloon!

MATTIE
I was not there as a customer. I
am fourteen years old.

No response. Mattie reaches up and raps again, vigorously.

Beat.

VOICE
(sullen)
The jakes is occupied. And will be
for some time.

7 EXT. FREIGHT TRAIN CAR - DAY 7

PLANK FLOOR

A coffin is dropped heavily into frame and we see, chalked

onto the freshly milled wood of its top:

Ross
Yell County 
Hold at station

After a resting beat, during which the coffin's handlers

presumably adjust their grip, the coffin is shoved away over
the straw-littered planking of a rail freight car. Once it
has been pushed fully in, the upright planking of the boxcar
door blurs through frame in the extreme foreground til the
door slams to rest.

8 INT. UNDERTAKER’S - NIGHT 8

SHOP DOOR

Swinging open. It is the barnlike door to the mortician's

 workroom; the Irish undertaker holds it open for Mattie. She
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 9

carries a bedroll.

UNDERTAKER
Good evening. If you would to sleep
in a coffin it would be all roight.

Three bodies lay under shrouds on a high work table. The arm
of the nearest sticks out, rope burns on its wrist. Three
coffins are in various stages of assembly.

9 EXT. TOWN STREET - DAY 9

Mattie strides along, looking at facades. She stops, looking

at the signage on a barnlike building:

Col. G. Stonehill. Licensed Auctioneer. Cotton Factor.

10 INT. STONEHILL’S OFFICE - DAY 10

Mattie steps to the doorway of an office set in a corner of

the stable.

MATTIE
How much are you paying for cotton?

Stonehill looks up from his desk. He eyes the girl up and

down.

STONEHILL
Nine and a half for low middling
and ten for ordinary.

MATTIE
We got most of ours out early and
sold it to Woodson Brothers in
Little Rock for eleven cents.

STONEHILL
Then I suggest you take the balance
of it to the Woodson Brothers.

MATTIE
We took the balance to Woodson. We
got ten and a half.

STONEHILL
Why did you come here to tell me
this?
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 10

MATTIE
I thought we might shop around up
here next year but I guess we are
doing all right in Little Rock. I
am Mattie Ross, daughter of Frank
Ross.

Stonehill sets his pen down and leans back.

STONEHILL
A tragic thing. May I say your
father impressed me with his manly
qualities. He was a close trader
but he acted the gentleman.

MATTIE
I propose to sell those ponies back
to you that my father bought.

STONEHILL
That, I fear, is out of the
question. I will see that they are
shipped to you at my earliest
convenience.

MATTIE
We don't want the ponies now. We
don't need them.

STONEHILL
Well that hardly concerns me. Your
father bought those five ponies and
paid for them and there is an end
of it. I have the bill of sale.

Beat.

MATTIE
And I want three hundred dollars
for Papa's saddle horse that was
stolen from your stable.

STONEHILL
You will have to take that up with
the man who stole the horse.

MATTIE
Tom Chaney stole the horse while it
 was in your care. You are
responsible.

Stonehill chuckles.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 11

STONEHILL
I admire your sand but I believe
you will find that I am not liable
for such claims.

MATTIE
You were custodian. If you were a
bank and were robbed you could not
simply tell the depositors to go
hang.

STONEHILL
I do not entertain hypotheticals,
the world as it is is vexing
enough. Secondly, your valuation
of the horse is high by about two
hundred dollars. How old are you?

MATTIE
If anything my price is low. Judy
is a fine racing mare. She has won
purses of twenty-five dollars; I
have seen her jump an eight-rail
fence with a heavy rider. I am
fourteen.

STONEHILL
Hmm. Well, that's all very
interesting. The ponies are yours,
take them. Your father's horse was
stolen by a murderous criminal. I
had provided reasonable protection
for the creature as per our
implicit agreement. My watchman
had his teeth knocked out and can
take only soup. We must each bear
his own misfortunes.

MATTIE
I will take it to law.

STONEHILL
You have no case.

MATTIE
Lawyer J. Noble Daggett of
Dardanelle, Arkansas may think
otherwise——as might a jury,
petitioned by a widow and three
small children.

Stonehill stares.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 12

STONEHILL
I will pay two hundred dollars to
your father's estate when I have in
 my hand a letter from your lawyer
absolving me of all liability from
the beginning of the world to date.

MATTIE
I will take two hundred dollars for
Judy, plus one hundred for the
ponies and twenty-five dollars for
the gray horse that Tom Chaney
left. He is easily worth forty.
That is three hundred twenty-five
dollars total.

STONEHILL
The ponies have no part of this. I
 will not buy them.

MATTIE
Then the price for Judy is three
hundred twenty-five dollars.

STONEHILL
I would not pay three hundred and
twenty-five dollars for winged
Pegasus! As for the gray horse, it
does not belong to you! And you
are a snip!

MATTIE
The gray was lent to Tom Chaney by
 my father. Chaney only had the use
of him. Your other points are
beneath comment.

STONEHILL
I will pay two hundred and twenty-
five dollars and keep the gray
horse. I don't want the ponies.

MATTIE
I cannot accept that.
(she stands)
There can be no settlement after I
leave this office. It will go to
law.

STONEHILL
This is my last offer. Two hundred
and fifty dollars. For that I get
the release previously discussed
and I keep your father's saddle.
(MORE)
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 13

STONEHILL (CONT'D)
I am also writing off a feed and
stabling charge. The gray horse is
not yours to sell. You are an
unnatural child.

MATTIE
The saddle is not for sale. I will
keep it. Lawyer Dagget can prove
ownership of the gray horse. He
 will come after you with a writ of
replevin.

STONEHILL
A what? All right, now listen very
carefully as I will not bargain
further. I will take the ponies
back and keep the gray horse which
is mine and settle for three
hundred dollars. Now you must take
that or leave it and I do not much
care which it is.

MATTIE
Lawyer Daggett would not wish me to
consider anything under three
hundred twenty-five dollars. But I
 will settle for three hundred and
twenty if I am given the twenty in
advance. And here is what I have
to say about the saddle——

11 EXT. STREET - DAY 11

We are tracking down the street we toward the Monarch

Boarding House.

Mattie is humping a saddle up the street. She stops before

the boarding house. She looks at its sign. *

12 INT. INSIDE THE PARLOR - DAY 12

A Marjorie Main-like woman crushes Mattie to her bosom.

MRS. FLOYD
Frank Ross's daughter. My poor
child. My poor child.

Mattie grimaces, arms pinned to her sides.

 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 14

MATTIE
I’ll stay here if you can have me. *
I had to spend last night at the
undertakers in the company of three
corpeses——I felt like Ezekiel, in
the Valley of the Dry Bones.

MRS. FLOYD
Well god bless you. You'll share a
room with Grandma Turner. We've
had to double up, what with all the
people in town come to see the
hanging.

13 INT. BEDROOM - DAY 13

A blanket is unrolled to reveal a watch, a cheap knife, and a

long-barreled Colt's dragoon revolver. Voice off:

MRS. FLOYD
This was in the your poor father’s
room. This is everything, there
are no light fingers in this house.
If you need something for to tote
the gun around I will give you an
empty flour sack for a nickel.

14 INT. DARK ROOM - NIGHT 14

We hear wind whistling through cracks in the floorboards and

 walls.

We hear snoring.

There is one bed, not large, with two shapes in it.

We cut in closer to find Mattie lying on her back, staring.

She shivers, shoulders hunched. The thin blanket barely
covers her.

She pulls the blanket gently, slowly, so that it covers her

exposed side.

A beat of snoring, a snorfle, and then, as we hold on Mattie,

the crackle of mattress ticking under a shifting body——and
the blanket is pulled away toward the unseen snorer.

15 INT. COURT HALLWAY - DAY 15

 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 15

Voices echo from inside the courtroom. Mattie cracks a heavy

oak door and slips in.

16 INT. COURTROOM - DAY 16

The gallery is crowded. Mattie is at the back of a press of

standees.

Her point-of-view, semi-obstructed: on the witness stand is

Rooster Cogburn, a rough-hewn man going to middle-aged fat.
He has a patch over one eye.

COGBURN
The woman was out in the yard dead
 with blowflies on her face and the
old man was inside with his breast
blowed open by a scatter-gun and
his feet burned. He was still
alive but just was. He said them
two Wharton boys had done it, rode
up drunk——

MR. GOUDY
Objection. Hearsay.

MR. BARLOW
Dying declaration, your honor.

JUDGE
Overruled. Procede, Mr. Cogburn.

COGBURN
Them two Wharton boys——that'd be
Odus and C.C.——throwed down on him,
asked him where his money was, when
he wouldn't talk lit pine knots and
held 'em to his feet. He told 'em
the money was in a fruit jar under *
a gray rock at one corner of the
smokehouse.

MR. BARLOW
And then?

COGBURN
Well he died on us. Passed away in
considerable pain.

MR. BARLOW
What did you do then?
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 16

COGBURN
Me and Marshal Potter went out to
the smokehouse and that rock had
been moved and that jar was gone.

MR. GOUDY
Objection. Speculative.

JUDGE
Sustained.

MR. BARLOW
You found a flat gray rock at the
corner of the smokehouse with a
hollowed-out space under it?

MR. GOUDY
If the prosecutor is going to give
evidence I suggest that he be
sworn.

MR. BARLOW
Marshal Cogburn, what did you find,
if anything, at the corner of the
smokehouse?

COGBURN
We found a flat gray rock with a
hollowed-out space under it.
Nothin there.

MR. BARLOW
And what did——

COGBURN
No jar or nothin.

MR. BARLOW
What did you do then?

COGBURN
Well we rode up to the Whartons',
near where the North Fork strikes
the Canadian, branch of the
Canadian.

MR. BARLOW
And what did you find?

COGBURN
I had my glass and we spotted the
two boys and their old daddy, Aaron
Wharton, down there on the creek
bank with some hogs.
(MORE)
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 17

COGBURN (CONT'D)
They'd killed a shoat and was
butchering it. They'd built a fire
under a wash pot for scalding
 water.

MR. BARLOW
What did you do?

COGBURN
Crept down. I announced that we
 was U.S. marshals and hollered to
Aaron that we needed to talk to his
boys. He picked up a axe and
commenced to cussing us and
blackguarding this court.

MR. BARLOW
What did you do then?

COGBURN
Backed away trying to talk some
sense into him. But C.C. edges
over by the wash pot behind that *
steam and picks up a shotgun. *
Potter seen him but it was too
late. C.C. Wharton pulled down on
Potter with one barrel and then
turned to do the same for me with
the other. I shot him and when the
old man swung the axe I shot him.
Odus lit out and I shot him. Aaron
Wharton and C.C. Wharton was dead
 when they hit the ground but Odus
 was just winged.

MR. BARLOW
Did you find the jar with the
hundred and twenty dollars in it?

MR. GOUDY
Leading.

JUDGE
Sustained.

MR. BARLOW
What happened then?

COGBURN
I found the jar with a hundred and
twenty dollars in it.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 18

MR. BARLOW
And what happened to Marshal
Potter?

COGBURN
Died.

MR. BARLOW
And what became of Odus Wharton?

COGBURN
There he sets.

MR. BARLOW
Okay. You may ask, Mr. Goudy.

MR. GOUDY
Thank you, Mr. Barlow. In your
four years as U.S. marshal, Mr.
Cogburn, how many men have you
shot?

COGBURN
I never shot nobody I didn't have
to.

MR. GOUDY
That was not the question. How
 many?

COGBURN
. . . Shot or killed?

MR. GOUDY
Let us restrict it to “killed” so
that we may have a manageable
figure.

COGBURN
Around twelve or fifteen. Stopping
 men in flight, defending myself, et
cetera.

MR. GOUDY
Around twelve or fifteen. So many
that you cannot keep a precise
count. I have examined the records
and can supply the accurate figure.

Beat.

COGBURN
I believe them two Whartons make
twenty-three.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 19

MR. GOUDY
How many members of this one
family, the Wharton family, have
you killed?

COGBURN
Immediate, or——

MR. GOUDY *
Did you also shoot Dub Wharton,
brother, and Clete Wharton, half-
brother?

COGBURN
Clete was selling ardent spirits to
the Cherokee. He come at me with a
king bolt.

MR. GOUDY
A king bolt? You were armed and he *
advanced upon you with nothing but
a king bolt? From a wagon tongue?

COGBURN
I've seen men badly tore up with
things no bigger than a king bolt.
I defended myself.

MR. GOUDY
And, returning to the encounter
 with Aaron and his two remaining
sons, you sprang from cover with
your revolver in hand?

COGBURN
I did.

MR. GOUDY
Loaded and cocked?

COGBURN
If it ain't loaded and cocked it
don't shoot.

MR. GOUDY
And like his son, Aaron Wharton
advanced against an armed man?

COGBURN
He was armed. He had that axe
raised.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 20

MR. GOUDY
Yes. I believe you testified that
you backed away from Aaron Wharton?

COGBURN
That is right.

MR. GOUDY
Which direction were you going?

COGBURN
I always go backwards when I'm
backing up.

MR. GOUDY
Very amusing I suppose——for all of
us except Aaron Wharton. Now, he
advanced upon you much in the
 manner of Clete Wharton menacing
you with that king bolt or rolled-
up newspaper or whatever it was.

COGBURN
Yes sir. He commenced to cussing
and laying about with threats.

MR. GOUDY
And you were backing away? How
 many steps before the shooting
started?

COGBURN
Seven, eight steps?

MR. GOUDY
Aaron Wharton keeping pace,
advancing, away from the fire seven
eight steps——what would that be,
fifteen, twenty feet?

COGBURN
I suppose.

MR. GOUDY
Will you explain to the jury, Mr.
Cogburn, why Mr. Wharton was found
immediately by the wash pot with
one arm in the fire, his sleeve and
hand smoldering?

COGBURN
Well.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 21

MR. GOUDY
Did you move the body after you
shot him?

COGBURN
Why would I do that?

MR. GOUDY
You did not drag his body over to
the fire? Fling his arm in?

COGBURN
No sir.

MR. GOUDY
Two witnesses who arrived on the
scene will testify to the location
of the body. You do not remember
 moving the body? So it was a
bushwack, as he tended his
campfire?

MR. BARLOW
Objection.

COGBURN
I, if that was where the body was I
 might have moved him. I do not
remember.

MR. GOUDY
Why would you move the body, Mr.
Cogburn?

COGBURN
Them hogs rooting around might have
 moved him. I do not remember.

17 EXT. COURTHOUSE PORCH - DAY 17

Mattie waits as people file out. She pushes forward to meet

Cogburn when he emerges, muttering.

COGBURN
Pencil-necked son of a bitch.

MATTIE
Rooster Cogburn?

COGBURN
What is it.

He does not look up from the cigarette he is trying to roll.

 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 22

His hands are shaking.

MATTIE
I would like to talk with you a
 minute.

COGBURN
What is it.

MATTIE
They tell me you are a man with
true grit.

COGBURN
What do you want, girl? Speak up.
It is suppertime.

MATTIE
Let me do that.

She takes the fixings and rolls, licks, and twists the
cigarette.

. . . Your makings are too dry. I

am looking for the man who shot and
killed my father, Frank Ross, in
front of the Monarch boarding
house. The man's name is Tom
Chaney. They say he is over in
Indian Territory and I need
somebody to go after him.

COGBURN
What is your name, girl?

MATTIE
My name is Mattie Ross. We are
located in Yell County. My mother
is at home looking after my sister
Victoria and my brother Little
Frank.

COGBURN
You had best go home to them. They
 will need help with the churning.

MATTIE
There is a fugitive warrant out for
Chaney. The government will pay
you two dollars for bringing him in
plus ten cents a mile for each of
you. On top of that I will pay you
a fifty-dollar reward.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 23

Cogburn gazes at her.

COGBURN
What are you?
(looks at the flour sack she holds)
What've you got there in your poke?

She opens it. Cogburn smiles.

. . . By God! A Colt's dragoon!

Why, you're no bigger than a corn
nubbin, what're you doing with a
pistol like that?

MATTIE
I intend to kill Tom Chaney with
it. *

COGBURN
Kill Tom Chaney? *

MATTIE *
If the law fails to do so. *

COGBURN *
Well, that piece will do the job——
if you can find a high stump to
rest it on and a wall to put behind
you.

MATTIE
Nobody here knew my father and I am
afraid nothing much is going to be
done about Chaney except I do it.
My brother is a child and my mother
is indecisive and hobbled by grief.

COGBURN
I don't believe you have fifty
dollars.

MATTIE
I will shortly. I have a contract
 with Colonel Stonehill which he
 will make payment on tomorrow or
the next day, once a lawyer
countersigns.

COGBURN
I don't believe fairy tales or
sermons or stories about money,
baby sister. But thank you for the
cigarette.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 24

18 EXT. BOARDING HOUSE PORCH - EVENING 18

Mattie climbs the few steps from the street. Her attention
is drawn by:

A man sitting on a chair to one side enjoying the quiet of

the evening. He is dressed for riding, with perhaps a bit
too much panache. It is almost dark and he is hard to see
but it seems he is watching Mattie, amused.

He raises a pipe to his mouth and pulls at it. The glow from
the excited bowl kicks on his eyes, which are indeed tracking
her.

Mattie, discomfited by his look, turns hastily forward and

pushes open the door. A jingling sound prompts one more
glance to the side.

The man's face is now hidden by his hat. Just before

Mattie's point of view, now a lateral track, starts to lose
him behind the door jamb, he raises a spurred boot to push
against the porch rail and tip his chair back. He raises his
other foot, spur jingling, and drapes it over the first.

19 INT. BOARDING HOUSE - NIGHT 19

We are pushing in on the landlady.

LANDLADY
Isn't your mother expecting you
home, dear? I did not think to see
you this evening.

MATTIE
My business is not yet finished.
Mrs. Floyd, have any rooms opened
up? Grandma Turner. . . the bed is
quite narrow.

LANDLADY
The second-floor back did open up
but the gentleman on the porch has
just taken it. But don't worry
yourself, dear——you are not
disturbing Grandma Turner.

20 INT. DARK BEDROOM – NIGHT 20

As before, unseen Grandma Turner snores loudly as wind

 whistles and Mattie shivers.

Fade to black.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 25

21 INT. BEDROOM - MORNING 21

Very quiet.

In the quiet, a faint crickle-crackle of flame. It is

followed by a lip-pop and a deep inhale.

Mattie opens her eyes. She is beaded with sweat. She looks
blearily up.

The room is dim. A man sits facing her in a straghtback

chair, faintly backlit by the daylight leaking through the
curtained window behind him. He exhales pipesmoke.

The man rises and, spurs jingling, crosses to the window, and
throws open the curtain.

Mattie squints at him against the daylight:

The man has a cowlick and barndoor ears and is once again
 well-accoutered for riding. He steps away from the window
and reseats himself.

COWBOY
My name is LeBoeuf. I have just
come from Yell County.

MATTIE
We have no rodeo clowns in Yell
County.

LEBOEUF
A saucy line will not get you far
 with me. I saw your mother
yesterday morning. She says for
you to come right on home.

MATTIE
Hm. What was your business there?

LeBoeuf takes a small photograph from his coat.

LEBOEUF
This is a man I think you know.

Mattie looks at the picture through red-rimmed eyes.

. . . You called him Tom Chaney, I

believe. . .

Mattie declines to contradict. LeBoeuf continues:

(MORE)
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 26

LEBOEUF (CONT'D)
. . . though in the months I have
been tracking him he has used the
names Theron Chelmsford, John Todd
Andersen, and others. He dallied
in Monroe, Louisiana, and Pine
Bluff, Arkansas before turning up
at your father's place.

MATTIE
Why did you not catch him in
Monroe, Louisiana or Pine Bluff,
Arkansas?

LEBOEUF
He is a crafty one.

MATTIE
I thought him slow-witted myself.

LEBOEUF
That was his act.

MATTIE
It was a good one. Are you some
kind of law?

LeBoeuf tips back in his chair and draws back his coat to
display a star. A smug look.

LEBOEUF
That's right. I am a Texas Ranger.

MATTIE
That may make you a big noise in
that state; in Arkansas you should
 mind that your Texas trappings and
title do not make you an object of
fun. Why have you been
ineffectually pursuing Chaney?

LeBoeuf's smile stays in place with effort.

LEBOEUF
He shot and killed a state senator
named Bibbs down in Waco, Texas.
The Bibbs family have put out a
reward.

MATTIE
How came Chaney to shoot a state
senator?
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 27

LEBOEUF
My understanding is there was an
argument about a dog. Do you know
anything about where Chaney has
gone?

MATTIE
He is in the Territory, and I hold
out little hope for you earning
your bounty.

LEBOEUF
Why is that?

MATTIE
My man will beat you to it. I have
hired a deputy marshal, the
toughest one they have, and he is
familiar with the Lucky Ned Pepper
gang that they say Chaney has tied
up with.

LEBOEUF
Well, I will throw in with you and
your marshal.

MATTIE
No. Marshal Cogburn and I are
fine.

LEBOEUF
It'll be to our mutual advantage.
Your marshal I presume knows the
Territory; I know Chaney. It is at
least a two-man job taking him
alive.

MATTIE
When Chaney is taken he is coming
back to Fort Smith to hang. I am
not having him go to Texas to hang
for shooting some senator.

LEBOEUF
Haw-haw! It is not important where
he hangs, is it?

MATTIE
It is to me. Is it to you?

LEBOEUF
It means a great deal of money to
 me. It's been many months' work.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 28

MATTIE
I'm sorry that you are paid
piecework not on wages, and that
you have been eluded the winter
long by a halfwit. Marshal Cogburn
and I are fine.

LeBoeuf stands.

LEBOEUF
You give out very little sugar with
your pronouncements. While I sat
there watching you I gave some
thought to stealing a kiss, though
you are very young and sick and
unattractive to boot, but now I
have a mind to give you five or six
good licks with my belt.

Mattie rolls away onto her side.

MATTIE
One would be as unpleasant as the
other. If you wet your comb, it
 might tame that cowlick.

Her eyelids droop.

Spurs jingle and fade away.

22 OMITTED 22

23 OMITTED 23 *

24 OMITTED 24

25 EXT. POST OFFICE - DAY 25

The door bangs open at the cut and Mattie emerges with an
envelope.

It is day.

26 EXT. STREET - DAY 26

Mattie walks down the street holding the ripped-open envelope

in one hand and some unfolded papers in the other, the
topmost of which she reads as she walks.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 29

We hear the letter's contents in a gruff male voice-over:

LETTER
Mattie. I wish you would leave
these matters entirely to me, or at
the very least do me the courtesy
of consulting me before entering
such agreements. I am not scolding
you, but I am saying your
headstrong ways will lead you into
a tight corner one day. I trust
the enclosed document will let you
conclude your business and return
to Yell County. Yours, J. Noble
Dagget.

27 INT. STONEHILL’S OFFICE - DAY 27

PAPERS

Thrust onto a desk.

Wider shows that we are once again in the office of

Stonehill, the stock trader. He examines the release through
bleary eyes, displaying none of his former vinegar.

MATTIE
I was as bad yesterday as you look
today. I was forced to share a bed
 with Grandma Turner.

The trader's eyes are still on the paper:

STONEHILL
I am not acquainted with Grandma
Turner. If she is a resident of
this city it does not surprise me
that she carries disease. This
 malarial place has ruined my health
as it has my finances.

He drops the paper.

. . . I owe you money.

He works a key in a drawer and takes out money and counts

during the following.

MATTIE
You have not traded poorly.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 30

STONEHILL
Certainly not. I am paying you for
a horse I do not possess and have
bought back a string of useless
ponies I cannot sell again.

MATTIE
You are forgetting the gray horse.

STONEHILL
Crowbait.

MATTIE
You are looking at the thing in the
 wrong light.

STONEHILL
I am looking at it in the light of
God's eternal truth.

He hands the money across and Mattie counts to confirm.

MATTIE
Your illness is putting you “down
in the dumps.” You will soon find
a buyer for the ponies.

STONEHILL
I have a tentative offer of ten
dollars per head from the Pfitzer
Soap Works of Little Rock.

MATTIE
It would be a shame to destroy such
spirited horseflesh.

STONEHILL
So it would. I am confident the
deal will fall through.

MATTIE
Look here. I need a pony. I will
pay ten dollars for one of them.

STONEHILL
No. That was lot price. No no.
Wait a minute. Are we trading
again? It would be the most astute
deal I have struck in Arkansas.

28 INT. STABLE - DAY 28

We are tracking along a line of stalls toward a small corral

 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 31

holding a black mustang, among other ponies.

Mattie is approaching the horse. A black stablehand has been

trailing her, humping her father's saddle.

MATTIE
This one is beautiful.

She rubs the muzzle of the black horse.

She takes the saddle from the stablehand and tries to throw
it over the horse. She is not tall or strong enough.

The stableboy helps, then helps her up.

The horse does not move for a long beat.

The stableboy is laughing.

STABLEBOY
He don't know they's a person up
there. You too light.

She kicks lightly and the horse abruptly pitches once or

twice and then starts prancing.

The stableboy, still laughing, stands in the middle of a

circle defined by the prancing horse.

STABLEBOY (CONT’D)
He thinks he got a horsefly on him.

Mattie leans forward to calm the horse, rubbing the muzzle

and shushing him.

She straightens.

MATTIE
He is very spirited. I will call
him “Little Blackie.”

STABLEBOY
Das a good name.

MATTIE
What does he like for a treat?

STABLEBOY
Ma'am, he is a horse, so he likes
apples.

She reins the horse around and heads for the door, calling
back:
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 32

MATTIE
Thank Mr. Stonehill for me.

The receding stableboy is uncomfortable.

STABLEBOY
No ma'am. . . I ain't s'posed to
utter your name.

29 INT. ROOSTER’S ROOM/GROCERY - DAY 29

CANVAS FLAP

Whipped up at the cut.

Peering in is Mattie; holding the makeshift curtain open is

an elderly Chinese.

Behind them we can see the shelves of a modest grocery store

and in the deep background its bright street-facing window.

CHINESE
See. Sleep.

Reverse: a squalid living area crowded with effects. It is

dim. There is snoring. Rooster Cogburn is in a Chinese rope
bed, his weight bowing it almost to the ground.

Mattie steps in.

MATTIE
That is fine. I will wake him.

CHINESE
Won't like.

Mattie ignores him, poking at Rooster as the grocer

 withdraws, letting the canvas drop behind him.

MATTIE
Mr. Cogburn, it is I. Mattie Ross,
your employer.

ROOSTER
Whuh.

MATTIE
How long til you are ready to go?

Rooster opens his eyes, blinks.

ROOSTER
Go whar?
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 33

MATTIE
Into the Indian Territory. In
pursuit of Tom Chaney.

ROOSTER
Whah. . .

He focuses on Mattie, swings his legs out, rumbles, and spits

on the floor.

. . . Oh.

He reaches over a pouch of tobacco and begins fumbling with

cigarette makings.

. . . Chaney. You are the bereaved

girl with stories of El Dorado.
How much money you got there?

Mattie takes out some cash.

MATTIE
I said fifty dollars to retrieve
Chaney. You did not believe me?

Rooster is sobered by the sight of the currency.

ROOSTER
Well, I did not know. You are a
hard one to figure.

MATTIE
How long for you to make ready to
depart?

Mattie takes the cigarette fixings at which Rooster is

fumbling and works on a cigarette.

ROOSTER
Well now wait now, sis. I remember
your offer but do not remember
agreeing to it. If I'm going up
against Ned Pepper I will need a
hundred dollars. I can tell you
that much. Hundred dollars! To *
retrieve your man——a hundred
dollars.

He spits again.

I will take those fifty dollars in

advance. There will be expenses.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 34

MATTIE
You are trying to take advantage of
 me.

ROOSTER
I am giving you the children's
rate. I am not a sharper, I am an
old man sleeping in a rope bed in a
room behind a Chinese grocery. I *
have nothing.

She hands him the finished cigarette.

MATTIE
You want to be kept in whiskey.

Rooster is patting at his chest.

ROOSTER
I don't have to buy that, I
confiscate it. I am an officer of
the court.

She lights his cigarette.

. . . Thank you. Hundred dollars.

That is the rate.

MATTIE
I shall not niggle. Can we depart
this afternoon?

ROOSTER
We?!

The word detonates a fit of coughing.

. . . You are not going. That is

no part of it.

MATTIE
You misjudge me if you think I am
silly enough to give you fifty
dollars and simply watch you ride
off.

ROOSTER
I am a bonded U.S. marshal!

MATTIE
That weighs but little with me. I
 will see the thing done.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 35

ROOSTER
You never said anything about this.
I cannot go up against Ned Pepper
and a band of hard men and look
after a baby at the same time.

MATTIE
I am not a baby.

ROOSTER
I will not be stopping at boarding
houses with warm beds and plates of
hot grub on the table. It will be
traveling fast and eating light.
What little sleeping is done will
take place on the ground.

MATTIE
I have slept out at night. Papa
took me and Little Frank coon
hunting last summer on the Petit
Jean. We were in the woods all
night. We sat around a big fire
and Yarnell told ghost stories. We
had a good time.

ROOSTER
Coon hunting! This ain't no coon
hunt, it don't come within forty
 miles of being a coon hunt!

MATTIE
It is the same idea as a coon hunt.
You are just trying to make your
 work sound harder than it is. Here
is the money. I aim to get Tom
Chaney and if you are not game I
 will find somebody who is game.
All I have heard out of you so far
is talk. I know you can drink
 whiskey and snore and spit and
 wallow in filth and bemoan your
station. The rest has been
braggadocio. They told me you had
grit and that is why I came to you.
I am not paying for talk. I can
get all the talk I need and more at
the Monarch Boarding House.

Rooster stares, nonplussed.

He drops back into the rope bed, which sets it swaying. As

he stares up at the ceiling:
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 36

ROOSTER
Leave the money. Meet me here
tomorrow morning at seven o'clock
and we will begin our coon hunt.

30 INT. GRANDMA TURNER'S ROOM - MORNING 30

Mattie makes early-morning preparations to leave as Grandma

Turner snores. She unrolls her father's traps and takes out
a big-brimmed fisherman's hat and puts it on: too big. She
lines it with newspaper, experimenting with the amount until
it fits. She puts on his coat, gives the sleeves a big cuff.
She examines the Colt's dragoon. She drops apples into a
sack.

She finishes by folding a letter she has written and putting

it into an envelope. Throughout, we have been hearing its
contents in voice-over:

MATTIE
Dearest Mother. I am about to
embark on a great adventure. I
have learned that Tom Chaney has
fled into the wild and I shall
assist the authorities in pursuit.
You know that Papa would want to be
firm in the right, as he always
 was.

31 EXT. BOARDING HOUSE - DAY 31

Mattie is cinching her gear onto Little Blackie. She mounts

and rides off as the letter ends:

MATTIE
But do not worry on my account.
Though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I shall fear
no evil. The author of all things
 watches over me. And I have a fine
horse. Kiss Little Frankie for me
and pinch Violet's cheek. Their
Papa’s death will soon be avenged.
I am off for the Choctaw Nation.

32 INT. GROCERY - DAY 32

Tracking toward Rooster's rope bed. A hat is pulled down

over the face of the figure reclining in it. Smoke sifts up
from somewhere.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 37

Mattie draws up to the figure with mounting concern. She

pulls the hat off. It is the elderly Chinese grocer.

MATTIE
Where is Marshal Cogburn!

The grocer reaches a pipe and pulls on it. His manner is

dreamy.

GROCER
Went away. . . Left this.

The grocer pulls an envelope from underneath his robe and

hands it to Mattie. He closes his eyes and drifts away.

Mattie pulls a scrap of paper from the envelope and reads:

MATTIE
Here inside is a train ticket for
your return home. Use it. By the
time you read this I will be across
the river in the Indian nation.
Pursuit would be futile. I will
return with your man Chaney. Leave
 me to my work. Reuben Cogburn.

Mattie's jaw tightens. She abruptly crumples the paper.

33 EXT. RIVER - DAY 33

Mattie gallops down an embankment to a river of some width.

At the near-side ferry station a raft enclosed by railing
 waits, its guide rope strung across the river. A pilot idles
on the near shore.

On the far shore two small figures, mounted, ascend the

opposite bank. Mattie draws up in front of the ferryman at
the edge of the river.

MATTIE
Is that Marshal Cogburn?

FERRYMAN
That is the man.

MATTIE
Who's he with?

FERRYMAN
I do not know.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 38

MATTIE
Take me across.

He reaches for the reins of her horse.

FERRYMAN
So you're the runaway. Marshal
told me you'd show up. I'm to
present you to the sheriff.

The ferryman is leading Little Blackie back up the hill

toward the town. Mattie cranes around to look at the two
small figures across the river. They have twisted in their
saddles to look back.

The two mounted figures are breaking their look back and
resuming their climb up the bank.

Mattie draws an apple from the bag slung round the saddlehorn
and pegs it, hard as she can, at the ferryman.

It hits him square in the back of the head. He reacts,

reaching to his head and dropping the reins.

Mattie has already leaned forward for the reins and sweeps
them back. She saws Little Blackie around and sends him
galloping for the river.

MATTIE
Run, Little Blackie!

FERRYMAN
Hey!

She urges the horse, at the gallop, into the river.

The splashing and shouts have again drawn the attention of

the two men across the river.

As the horse goes further into the river its up-and-down gait
slows, the water offering resistance.

The ferryman has run down to the bank. He stoops for a rock
and throws it. It misses by a mile.

Little Blackie leaves riverbottom and starts swimming.

The two men across the river, having twisted to look, now
rein their horses round to face the action. But they do not
advance. They rest forearms on pommels and watch.

Little Blackie is being carried downstream as he swims

against a swift current.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 39

MATTIE
Good, Little Blackie!

Little Blackie's head dips as he finds his feet again. He

slogs laboriously to what is now the nearer shore.

The two men up the bank impassively watch.

The horse and Mattie emerge fully from the river, dripping.

Mattie taps heels against Little Blackie's flanks and walks

him slowly up the bank. She stops many yards short of the
two men——Rooster and LeBoeuf.

A silent standoff as Little Blackie breathes heavily. The

two expressionless men still have not stirred.

At length:

ROOSTER
That's quite a horse.

A long pause.

. . . I will give you ten dollars

for him.

MATTIE
From the money you stole from me?

ROOSTER
That was not stolen. I'm out for
your man.

MATTIE
I was to accompany you. If I do
not, there is no agreement and my
 money was stolen.

Rooster licks his lips, thinking.

LEBOEUF
Marshal, put this child back on the
ferry. We have a long road, and
time is a-wasting.

MATTIE
If I go back, it is to the office
of the U.S. marshals to report the
theft of my money. And futile,
Marshal Cogburn——“Pursuit would be
futile”?——is not spelt f-u-d-e-l.

A heavy silence as Cogburn stares at her.

 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 40

LeBoeuf looks between the two, waiting for Rooster to take

action. Gathering that he will not, LeBoeuf slides off his
horse.

Mattie watches as he walks to Little Blackie, holding up a

gentling hand for the horse to sniff at and nuzzle.

He abruptly swipes the reins with one hand and with the other
grabs Mattie's ankle. He pushes momentarily to unstirrup the
foot and then pulls hard, tumbling Mattie to the ground.

LEBOEUF
Little sister, it is time for your
spanking.

He begins to spank her.

MATTIE
Help me, Marshal!

Rooster sits impassively on his horse.

LEBOEUF
(still spanking)
Now you do as the grown-ups say!
Or I will get myself a birch switch
and stripe your leg!

Mattie is struggling and in spite of herself starts to weep.

LeBoeuf drags her through the dirt to a mesquite bush and
snaps off a switch.

Mattie, wet and filthy, tries vainly to swat back. Rooster

still watches without expression as LeBoeuf whips the girl.

MATTIE
Are you going to let him do this,
Marshal?

Finally, quietly:

ROOSTER
No, I don't believe I will. Put
your switch away, LeBoeuf.

LeBoeuf looks back, for a moment too surprised to speak. He

then regains his resolve:

LEBOEUF
I aim to finish what I started.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 41

ROOSTER
That will be the biggest mistake
you ever made, you Texas brush-
popper.

The sound of a gun being cocked.

LeBoeuf leaves off the beating to stare at Rooster——whose gun

is drawn, cocked, and pointed at him.

LeBoeuf flings the switch aside and stalks to his horse. He

 mutters, but loud enough to be heard:

LEBOEUF
Hoorawed by a little girl.

34 EXT. FIRST CAMPSITE - NIGHT 34

Mattie sits looking into the fire, hands clasped around her
knees.

LeBoeuf sits feet to the fire, smoking a pipe that, with his
boyish face, makes him look as if he is playing at professor.
He gazes into the fire, musing as he pulls at the pipe.

LEBOEUF
I am not accustomed to so large a
fire. In Texas, we will make do
 with a fire of little more than
twigs or buffalo chips to heat the
night's ration of beans.

Rooster enters the circle of light with an armload of wood.

. . . And, it is Ranger policy

never to make your camp in the same
place as your cookfire. Very
imprudent to make your presence
known in unsettled country.

Rooster gazes at LeBoeuf for a beat, then dumps the wood onto
the fire.

He leaves the circle of light.

LeBoeuf addresses the darkness that Rooster has disappeared

into:

. . . How do you know that Bagby

 will have intelligence?
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 42

ROOSTER
He has a store.

He reenters with a length of rope, and a robe which he

unrolls onto the ground.

LEBOEUF
A store. That makes him an
authority on movements in the
Territory?

Rooster plays out one end of the rope to just touch the
ground, then starts playing out the rest as he paces.

ROOSTER
We have entered a wild place.
Anyone coming in, wanting any kind
of supply, cannot pick and choose
his portal.

He has finished making a loop around his sleeping robe.

Seeing this, LeBoeuf laughs.

LEBOEUF
That is a piece of foolishness.
All the snakes are asleep this time
of year.

As he leaves the circle of light:

ROOSTER
They have been known to wake up.

MATTIE
Let me have a rope too.

ROOSTER
A snake would not bother you.

He reenters with a bottle and settles down on his robe.

. . . You are too little and bony.

Before you sleep you should fetch
 water for the morning and put it by
the fire. The creek'll ice over
tonight.

MATTIE
I am not going down there again.
If you want any more water you can
fetch it yourself.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 43

ROOSTER
Everyone in my party must do his
job.

LEBOEUF
You are lucky to be traveling in a
place where a spring is so handy.
In my country you can ride for days
and see no ground water. I have
lapped filthy water from a hoof-
print and was glad to have it.

ROOSTER
If I ever meet one of you Texas
 waddies that says he never drank
 water from a horse track I think I
 will shake his hand and give him a
Daniel Webster cigar.

LEBOEUF
You don't believe it?

ROOSTER
I believed it the first twenty-five
times I heard it. Maybe it is
true. Maybe lapping water off the
ground is Ranger policy.

LEBOEUF
You are getting ready to show your
ignorance now, Cogburn. I don't
 mind a little personal chaffing but
I won't hear anything against the
Ranger troop from a man like you.

ROOSTER
How long have you boys been mounted
on sheep down there?

LeBoeuf leaps angrily to his feet.

LEBOEUF
My white Appaloosa will be *
galloping when that big American
stud of yours is winded and
collapsed. Now make another joke
about it. You are only trying to
put on a show for this girl Mattie
 with what you must think is a keen
tongue.

ROOSTER
This is like women talking.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 44

LEBOEUF
Yes, that is the way! Make me out
foolish in this girl's eyes.

ROOSTER
I think she has got you pretty well
figured.

Silence. Crackling fire.

MATTIE
Would you two like to hear the
story of “The Midnight Caller”?
One of you will have to be “The
Caller.” I will tell you what to
say. I will do all the other parts
 myself.

LeBoeuf continues to glare at Rooster, breathing heavily.

Rooster, with a loud flap, whips the robe over himself.

35 EXT. FIRST CAMPSITE - DAWN 35

We are close on Mattie's upturned face. Snowflakes are

drifting down onto it and melting. Mattie's eyes blink open.

Rooster is already at his horse, packing it. LeBoeuf is not

in evidence.

Mattie rises.

MATTIE
Good morning, Marshal.

ROOSTER
(eyes on his work)
Morning.

MATTIE
Where is Mr. LeBoeuf?

A toss of his head:

ROOSTER
Down by the creek. Performing his *
necessaries.

MATTIE
Marshal Cogburn, I welcome the
chance for a private parley.
(MORE)
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 45

MATTIE (CONT'D)
I gather that you and Mr. LeBoeuf
have come to some sort of
agreement. As your employer I
believe I have a right to know the
particulars.

ROOSTER
The particulars is that we bring
Chaney in to the magistrate in San
Saba Texas where they have a
considerable reward on offer.
Which we split.

MATTIE
I did not want him brought to
Texas, to have Texas punishment
administered for a Texas crime.
That was not our agreement.

Rooster gives a vicious tug on the cinchrope.

ROOSTER
What you want is to have him caught
and punished.

MATTIE
I want him to know he is being
punished for killing my father.

Rooster turns to her.

ROOSTER
You can let him know that. You can
tell him to his face. You can spit
on him and make him eat sand out of
the road. I will hold him down.
If you want I will flay the flesh
off the soles of his feet and find
you an Indian pepper to rub into
the wound. Isn't that a hundred
dollars' value?

MATTIE
It is not. When I have bought and
paid for something I will have my
 way. Why do you think I am paying
you if not to have my way?

ROOSTER
It is time for you to learn you
cannot have your way in every
little particular.

We hear spurs jingling.

 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 46

. . . If you find I fail to satisfy

your terms I will return your money
at the end of this expedition.

MATTIE
Little Blackie and I are riding
back to the U.S. marshals' office.
This is fraud.

ROOSTER
God damn it!

LeBoeuf has appeared.

LEBOEUF
What's going on?

ROOSTER
(testy)
This is a business conversation.

LEBOEUF
Is that what you call it. It
sounds to me like you are still
being hoorawed by a little girl.

ROOSTER
Did you say hooraw!

LEBOEUF
That was the word.

MATTIE
There is no hoorawing in it. My
agreement with the Marshal
antedates yours. It has the force
of law.

LEBOEUF
(amused)
The force of law! This man is a
notorious thumper! He rode by the
light of the moon with Quantrill
and Bloody Bill Anderson!

ROOSTER
Those men was patriots, Texas
trash!

LEBOEUF
They murdered women and children in
Lawrence, Kansas.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 47

ROOSTER
It is a damned lie! What army was
you in, mister?

LEBOEUF
I was at Shreveport first with
Kirby-Smith——

ROOSTER
What side was you on?

LEBOEUF
I was in the army of Northern
Virginia, Cogburn, and I don't have
to hang my head when I say it!

ROOSTER
If you had served with Captain
Quantrill——

LEBOEUF
Captain Quantrill indeed!

ROOSTER
You had best let this go, LeBoeuf!

LEBOEUF
Captain of what!

ROOSTER *
Good, then! There are not
sufficient dollars in the state of
Texas to make it worth my while to
listen to your opinions, day and
night. Our agreement is
nullified——it's each man for
himself!

LeBoeuf is already mounting his shaggy horse.

LEBOEUF
That suits me!

He saws the horse around.

. . . Congratulations, Cogburn.
You have graduated from marauder to
 wetnurse. Adios!

LeBoeuf gallops off with the thunder of hoofs and the jingle
of spurs, and Rooster, seething, turns back to his work.

As the hoofbeats recede, Mattie sounds a note of regret:

 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 48

MATTIE
We don't need him, do we Marshal?

ROOSTER
(muttering)
We'll miss his Sharp's carbine.
It's apt to get lively out here.

36 EXT. BAGBY'S STORE - DAY 36

A mule is pulling back on a cotton rope round his neck that

is tied off to the porch of the ramshackle store. The beast
is strangling as the rope is too tight, and he is being poked
 with sticks by two motley-dressed Indian boys up on the
porch.

Rooster enters and cuts the rope. The mule brays and canters
off, shaking its head, rope dangling.

Rooster mounts the steps to the porch and kicks the first
youth hard in the ass, sending him sprawling off the porch
into the dirt. The second backs against the railing and
Rooster shoves him in the chest so that he flips backward to
also land in the dirt.

ROOSTER
Stay here sister. I will see
Bagby.

Mattie, astride Little Blackie, holds the reins of Cogburn's

horse. As he disappears inside the two youths climb back
onto the porch. They sit at the lip, feet dangling, and
stare sullenly at Mattie. She stares back.

37 MINUTES LATER 37

The youths have not moved. The door bangs open and Rooster
emerges.

MATTIE
Has Chaney been here?

ROOSTER
No.

Crossing back he kicks one of the boys off the porch into the
dirt again. The other youth scampers out of footreach.
Rooster starts down the stairs.

ROOSTER (CONT’D)
But Coke Hayes was, two days ago.
Coke runs with Lucky Ned.
(MORE)
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 49

ROOSTER (CONT’D)
He bought supplies, with this.

With a ching 
 he flips a coin to Mattie. She inspects it:
gold, square, with a +-shaped cut-out in the middle.

MATTIE
This is Papa's gold piece! Tom
Chaney, here we come!

ROOSTER
It is not the world's only
California gold piece.

MATTIE
They are rare, here.

ROOSTER
They are rare. But if it is
Chaney's, it could just as easily
 mean that Lucky Ned and his gang
fell upon him, as that he fell in
 with them. Chaney could be a
corpse. These are a rough lot.

MATTIE
That would be a bitter
disappointment, Marshal. What do
 we do?

Rooster mounts up.

ROOSTER
We pursue. Ned is unfinished
business for the marshals anyhow,
and when we have him we will also
have Chaney——or we can learn the
 whereabouts of his body. Bagby
doesn't know which way they went,
but now we know they come through
here, they couldn't be going but
one of two ways: north toward the
Winding Stair Mountains, or pushing
on further west. I suspect north.
There is more to rob.

The youth who was kicked into the dirt is dusting himself
off. He has been listening without interest.

38 EXT. ROAD/HANGING TREE - DAY 38

RIDING

Rooster and Mattie ride abreast along a barely defined road.

 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 50

ROOSTER
I bought an eating place called the
Green Frog, started calling myself
Burroughs. My drinking picked up
and my wife did not like the
company of my river friends. She
decided to go back to her first
husband, a clerk in a hardware
store. She said, “Goodbye, Reuben,
a love for decency does not abide
in you.” There’s your divorced
 woman talking about decency. I told
her, “Goodbye, Nola, I hope that
little nail-selling bastard will
 make you happy this time.” She
took my boy with her too. He never
did like me anyhow. I guess I did
speak awful rough to him but I did
not mean nothing by it. You would
not want to see a clumsier child
than Horace. I bet he broke forty
cups. . .

He frowns and draws up, looking at something. Mattie follows

his look.

A man is hanging in a tree——very high, perhaps thirty feet

off the ground. The body slowly twists. The head seems
unnaturally large.

ROOSTER (CONT’D)
Hey!

At Rooster's shout something separates from the head: we have

been looking at not just the corpse's silhouette but that of
a large carrion-eating bird as well, perched on the corpse's
shoulder and feeding at the corpse's face. The bird flaps
clumsily off.

Rooster gazes at the strung-up body.

ROOSTER (CONT’D)
Is it Chaney?

MATTIE
I would not recognize the soles of
his feet.

They both gaze up at the body.

 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 51

ROOSTER
Well you are going to have to
clamber on up——I am too old and too
fat.

UP IN THE TREE

Mattie is well up.

We hear Rooster's voice from below:

ROOSTER (CONT’D)
The Green Frog had one billiard
table, served ladies and men both
but mostly men. I tried to run it
 myself a while but I couldn't keep
good help and I never did learn how
to buy meat.

Mattie pauses, looking down.

We are over her. Rooster is foreshortened, a long way down,

looking up, smoking a cigarette. He reacts to her look down:

ROOSTER (CONT’D)
You are doing well.

She looks up, down again, and then proceeds. Rooster

continues as well.

Mattie stretches onto tiptoes, reaches, just gets fingers

around a branch. She secures it enough with the one hand to
dare to reach with the other. She hauls herself up.

Mattie looks out, at waist-height to the corpse, which twists

 maybe eight feet away over the void. Rooster notes her look:

. . . Is it him?

The face is half-eaten and eyeless.

MATTIE
I believe not.

She moves to start back down, but Rooster calls:

ROOSTER
No! Cut him down!

MATTIE
Why?
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 52

ROOSTER
I might know him.

She climbs one more branch to arrive at the hanging branch.

She shimmies out onto it and pulls the knife from Rooster's
belt now around her waist.

. . . That was when I went out to

the staked plains of Texas and shot
buffalo with Vernon Shaftoe and a
Flathead Indian called Olly. The
Mormons had run Shaftoe out of
Great Salt Lake City but don't ask
 me what it was for. Call it a
 misunderstanding and let it go at
that. Well sir, the big shaggies is
about all gone. It is a damned
shame.

Mattie looks down, over the shoulder of the close-by

foreshortened corpse to the far foreshortened Rooster.

. . . I would give three dollars

right now for a pickled buffalo
tongue.

She calls out as she starts sawing:

MATTIE
Why did they hang him so high?

ROOSTER
I don't know. Possibly in the
belief it would make him more dead.

The sawing continues.

Rooster takes one step back.

The rope snaps. At once:

The body drops.

The branch, unburdened, bucks with Mattie atop it.

She gasps, hugging at the branch, getting swung halfway

around it but then righting herself.

The body hits the ground with a smack.

Mattie looks.

The body is spread out on the ground below, many bones now
broken, its posture absurd.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 53

Rooster steps forward. He toes the upper body to get a view

of the face. Barely audible:

ROOSTER (CONT’D)
I do not know this man.

He reacts to something, looking up the road in the direction

of their heading.

Mattie looks out. Partly obscured by intervening foliage, an

oncoming rider. His pace is unhurried.

Down on the ground Rooster turns to face the rider——an Indian

 with a long——bore rifle balanced sideways across the pommel
of his saddle. He wears a tattered Union Army jacket,
crossed bandoliers of rifle shells and a black homburg hat
 with a feather in its brim.

Rooster drops his hand to his gun as the rider approaches.

Mattie looks down at the foreshortened rider pulling up under

the tree. She hears a greeting and a mostly inaudible
exchange.

After some back-and-forth the Indian dismounts. The men

stoop at either end of the corpse. Rooster grabs wrists, the
Indian, ankles. They lift.

Mattie frowns. She starts to move.

A MINUTE LATER

Mattie finishes climbing down.

Rooster is just returning from the road to their two horses

by the tree. The Indian, with the corpse slung over the rump
of his horse, is resuming his trip in the direction from
 which Rooster and Mattie came.

MATTIE
Why is he taking the hanged man?
Did he know him?

Rooster mounts.

ROOSTER
He did not. But it is a dead body,
possibly worth something in trade.

He looks up at the sky as snowflakes start to sift down.

 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 54

39 EXT. ROAD - DAY 39

RIDING

It is snowing lightly. Rooster and Mattie are clomping

through a stream.

ROOSTER
My second wife, Edna, she had taken *
a notion she wanted me to be a
lawyer. Bought a heavy book called
Daniels on Negotiable Instruments 
and set me to reading it. Never
could get a grip on it, I was happy *
enough to set it aside and leave
Texas. There ain't but about six
trees between there and Canada, and
nothing else grows but has stickers
on it. I went to——

A distant gunshot.

Rooster stops. He twists to look behind.

A listening beat. At length:

ROOSTER (CONT’D)
I knew it.

MATTIE
Knew what?

ROOSTER
We're being followed. I asked the
Indian to signal with a shot if
there was someone on our trail.

MATTIE
Should we be concerned, Marshal?

ROOSTER
No. It's Mr. LeBoeuf, using us as
bird dogs in hopes of cutting in
once we've flushed the prey. Our
Texas friend has got just enough
sense to recognize he can't
outtrack me.

Mattie thinks.

MATTIE
Perhaps we could double back over
our tracks, and confuse the trail
in a clever way.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 55

ROOSTER
No, we will wait right here and
offer our friend a warm hello, and
ask him where he is going.

40 MINUTES LATER 40

Rooster waits, sitting casually astride his horse in the

 middle of the road. Snow continues to fall.

A jingling noise up the road.

Movement: an advancing rider seen through the foliage that

 masks a bend in the road.

Rooster straightens.

The oncoming rider rounds the bend.

He approaches: a white man with big whiskers, his horse

leading a packhorse loaded with clinking and jangling
sundries. Draped on his own horse's rump is the hanged man's
body.

The stranger wears a fierce bear head as hat. The rest of

the bearskin trails down his body as robe.

He advances unhurriedly towards Rooster. At a few yards'

distance he draws up, content to sit his horse and solemnly
return Rooster's stare.

At length:

ROOSTER
You are not LeBoeuf.

BEAR MAN
My name is Forster. I practice
dentistry in the Nation. Also,
veterinary arts. And medicine, on
those humans that will sit still
for it.

ROOSTER
(indicating corpse)
You have your work cut out for you
there.

BEAR MAN
Traded for him with an Indian, who
said he came by him honestly. I
gave up two dental mirrors and a
bottle of expectorant.
(MORE)
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 56

BEAR MAN (CONT'D)

(beat)
Do either of you need medical
attention?

ROOSTER
No.

Rooster straightens as if to rein his horse around but stops

 with a thought:

. . . It is fixing to get cold. Do

you know of any place to take
shelter?

BEAR MAN
I have my bearskin. You might want
to head to the Original Greaser
Bob's. He notched a dugout into a
hollow along the Carrillon River.
If you ride the river you won't
fail to see it. Greaser Bob——
Original Greaser Bob——is hunting
north of the picket wire and would
not begrudge its use.

A pause.

The Bear Man tilts his head to indicate the corpse behind
him.

BEAR MAN (CONT’D)

I have taken his teeth. I will
entertain an offer for the rest of
him.

41 EXT. GREASER BOB’S CABIN - NIGHT 41

A point-of-view looking down on a thrown-together cabin dug

into the flanks of a ravine. Its roof meets hillside at the
rear. Smoke is coming out of a rough chimney.

Rooster and Mattie have paused at the crest of the rise above
the dugout to look. Rooster shrugs out of his coat.

ROOSTER
Take my jacket. Creep onto the
roof. If they are not friendly I
 will give you a sign to damp the
chimney.

As Mattie descends to where hillside meets structure Rooster

takes his rifle and walks around to the front door——crude
planking hung on leather-strap hinges. His footsteps crunch
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 57

in the snow.

The door is yanked open, inches, and a backlit face appears

over a hand holding a revolver. Rooster halts.

MAN
Who is out there?

ROOSTER
We are looking for shelter.

MAN
No room for you here! Ride on!

The door slams.

After a moment the light inside goes out.

Mattie, arriving on the roof, looks steeply down on Rooster.

He glances up, thinking. He does not sign. He looks back at
the door.

ROOSTER
Who all is in there?

VOICE
Ride on!

Rooster looks up at Mattie. He nods.

She balls the jacket and stuffs it into the chimney.

Rooster takes ten paces to one side of the door and then
kneels in the snow, raising his rifle.

Long beat.

Muffled coughs from inside the house——more than one person.

Activity inside——yelling——the hiss of fire being doused.

Suddenly:

The door flies open and——BANG! BANG!——two shotgun blasts.

Slightest beat as Mattie peers into the yard, and then——

BANG!——shot rips through the roof just at her feet.

A rifle blast——from Rooster. A yelp of pain from inside.

ROOSTER
I am a Federal officer! Who is in
there? Speak up and be quick about
it.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 58

NEW VOICE
A Methodist and a son-of-a-bitch!

Rooster cocks his head.

ROOSTER
This is Rooster Cogburn. Columbus
Potter and five other marshals is
out here with me. We have got a
bucket of coal oil. In one minute
 we will burn you out from both
ends!

Thinking beat.

QUINCY
There's only two of you!

ROOSTER
You go ahead and bet your life on
it! How many of you is in there?

QUINCY
Just the two of us, but my pard is
hit! He can't walk!

The door opens again. From the smoky black a shotgun and two
revolvers are tossed out. Then, orange light: a lamp is lit.
Two men emerge, one limping and holding onto the other, who
holds high the lamp.

ROOSTER
Is that Emmett Quincy?

42 INT. GREASER BOB’S CABIN - NIGHT 42

Rooster has coaxed the fire back to life. He peers into the
large pot hanging over it.

The cuffed men sit side-by-side on a plank bench behind a

plank table, staring at Mattie. Moon's leg is bound with a
large blue handkerchief.

Quincy sounds resentful:

QUINCY
You said it was a man on the roof.
I thought it was Potter.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 59

ROOSTER
You was always dumb, Quincy, and
remain true to form.

He stirs the pot with a wooden spoon.

. . .This here's an awful lot of

sofky. Was you boys looking for
company?

QUINCY
That is our supper and breakfast
both. I like a big breakfast.

Moon nods agreement, but has a different thought:

MOON
Sofky always cooks up bigger than
you think.

Rooster, continuing to nose around, pushes the canvas cover

off a crate of bottles.

ROOSTER
And a good store of whiskey as
 well. What are you boys up to,
outside of cooking banquets? You
are way too jumpy.

QUINCY
We didn't know who was out there
 weather like this. It might have
been some crazy man. Anyone can
say he is a marshal.

MOON
My leg hurts.

ROOSTER
I'll bet it does. When is the last
time you seen your old pard Ned
Pepper?

QUINCY
Ned Pepper? I don't know him. Who
is he?

Rooster spoons sofky from the pot into a bowl

ROOSTER
I'm surprised you don't remember
him. He is a little fellow,
nervous and quick. His lip is all
 messed up.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 60

QUINCY
That don't bring anybody to mind.

Rooster sits across from the men with his bowlful of sofky
and starts eating.

ROOSTER
There is a new boy that might be
running with Ned. He is short
himself and he has got a powder
 mark on his face, a black place.
He calls himself Chaney, or
Chelmsford sometimes. Carries a
Henry rifle.

QUINCY
That don't bring anybody to mind.
Black mark, I would remember that.

ROOSTER
You don't remember anything I want
to know, do you Quincy?

Raises a spoonful.

What do you know, Moon?

Moon looks at Quincy, who gives a hard look back.

MOON
I don't know those boys. I always
try to help out the law.

ROOSTER
By the time we get back to Fort
Smith that leg will be swelled up
tight as Dick's hatband. It will
be mortified and they will cut it
off. Then if you live I will get
you two or three years in the
Federal house up in Detroit.

MOON
You are trying to get at me.

ROOSTER
They will teach you to read and
 write up there but the rest of it
 won't be so good. Them boys can be
hard on a gimp.

MOON
You are trying to get at me.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 61

ROOSTER
You give me some good information
on Ned and I will take you to
Bagby’s store tomorrow get that
ball taken out of your leg. Then I
 will give you three days to clear
the Territory.

QUINCY
We don't know those boys you are
looking for.

Rooster shrugs at Moon.

ROOSTER
It ain't his leg.

QUINCY
Don't go to flapping your mouth,
Moon. It is best to let me do the
talking.

MOON
I would say if I knew. . .

QUINCY
We are weary trappers.

He reacts to Mattie, staring at him.

. . . Who worked you over with the

ugly stick?

Mattie's look shifts to Moon.

MATTIE
The man Chaney with the marked face
killed my father. He was a whiskey
drinker like you and it led to
killing in the end. If you answer
the marshal's questions he will
help you. I have a good lawyer at
home and he will help you too.

Beat.

MOON
I am puzzled by this.
(to Rooster)
Why is she here?
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 62

QUINCY
Don't go jawing with these people,
Moon. Don't go jawing with that
runt.

MATTIE
(to Quincy)
I don't like you. I hope you go to
jail. My lawyer will not help you.

MOON
My leg is giving me fits.

ROOSTER
Yes, a young fellow like you don't
 want to loose his leg.

QUINCY
Easy now. He is trying to get at
you.

ROOSTER
With the truth.

MOON
We seen Ned and Haze two days ago.
We's supposed——

QUINCY
Don't act the fool! If you blow I
 will kill you!

MOON
I am played out. I must have a
doctor. We's supposed——

Quincy jerks up one knee, banging the bottom of the table and
sloshing Rooster's sofky as he grabs something from his boot:
a knife.

He slams it down on Moon's cuffed hand, chopping off four

fingers. They fly like chips from a log.

As Moon screams Rooster mutters:

ROOSTER
God damn it!

Quincy flips the knife lightly in the air and regrabs it with
blade pointing opposite-wise. He twists and rears with
cuffed hands to plunge the knife into Moon's chest.

Rooster has his gun out now and fires.

 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 63

Quincy jerks back, hit in the face. Blood spatters Mattie.

Quincy, still seated, slides awkwardly down the wall.

Moon has fallen to the floor, knife in chest.

MOON
Oh lord, I am dying!

Rooster and Mattie stand over him.

. . . Do something! Help me!

ROOSTER
I can do nothing for you, son.
Your pard has killed you and I have
done for him.

MOON
Don't leave me lying here! Don't
let the wolves rip me up!

ROOSTER
I'll see you are buried right. You
tell me about Ned. Where did you
see him?

MOON
Two days ago at Bagby's store.
They are coming here tonight to get
remounts, and sofky. They just
robbed the Katy Flyer at Wagoner's
Switch.

Eyes wide, he gazes down his body.

. . . I am gone. Send the news to

 my brother, George Garrett. He is
a Methodist circuit rider in South
Texas.

ROOSTER
Should I tell him you was outlawed
up?

MOON
It don't matter, he knows I am on
the scout. I will meet him later
 walking the streets of Glory!

ROOSTER
Don't be looking for Quincy.

43 OMITTED 43
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 64

44 EXT. GREASER BOB’S CABIN - NIGHT 44

Rooster finishes hunkering down.

He takes out his revolver and put a cartridge into the one
empty chamber, under the hammer. He places the revolver on a
log and puts the sack of cartridges next to the revolver. He
leans his rifle against the log. He looks out.

His point-of-view of the cabin below, peaceful, smoke

drifting from the chimney.

MATTIE
What do we do when they get here? *

Rooster takes out a sack of corn dodgers and starts to eat.

ROOSTER
What we want is to get them all in *
the dugout. I will kill the last
one to go in and then we will have
them in a barrel.

MATTIE
You will shoot him in the back?

ROOSTER
It will give them to know our
intentions is serious. Then I will
call down and see if they will be
taken alive. If they won't I will
shoot them as they come out. I am
hopeful that three of their party
being dead will take the starch out
of them.

Chewing beat.

MATTIE
You display great poise.

ROOSTER
It is just a turkey shoot. There
 was one time in New Mexico, when Bo
 was a strong colt and I myself had
less tarnish, we was being pursued
by seven men. I turned Bo around
and taken the reins in my teeth and
rode right at them boys firing them
two navy sixes I carry on my
saddle. Well I guess they was all
 married men who loved their
families as they scattered and run
for home.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 65

MATTIE
That is hard to believe.

ROOSTER
What is?

MATTIE
One man riding at seven.

ROOSTER
It is true enough. You go for a
 man hard enough and fast enough and
he don't have time to think about
how many is with him——he thinks
about himself and how he may get
clear of the wrath that is about to
set down on him.

MATTIE
Why were they pursuing you?

ROOSTER
I robbed a high-interest bank. You
can't rob a thief, can you? I
never robbed a citizen. Never took
a man's watch.

MATTIE
It is all stealing.

ROOSTER
That is the position they took in
New Mexico.

He is suddenly alert, and raises a hand for quiet.

There is the sound of a rider, approaching slowly.

Rooster is puzzled:

. . . One man. I didn't figure

them to send a scout.

Their high point-of-view: a mounted figure has entered the

ravine.

He travels its length and stops his horse before the cabin
and dismounts. We hear the jingle of spurs.

. . . Damn. It is LeBoeuf.

Distant, calling toward the cabin:

 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 66

LEBOEUF
Hello?

LeBoeuf unholsters a gun. He walks to the cabin, opens the

door and peers in.

Rooster starts to rise, about to call out, as LeBoeuf enters

and closes the door.

We hear hoofbeats. Many horses.

MATTIE
We have to warn him, Marshal!

Rooster is looking to the mouth of the ravine.

ROOSTER
Too late.

Mattie follows his look.

Their high point-of-view: four riders just entering the

ravine.

They look back to the cabin.

From inside, faintly:

LEBOEUF
Oh!

The door opens and LeBoeuf stumbles out, wide-eyed.

He sees the approaching riders. They see him.

They slow, approaching with caution.

LeBoeuf looks at them, glances back over his shoulder, looks

forward again.

MATTIE
What do we do, Marshal?

ROOSTER
We sit. What does he do?

The riders stop several paces from LeBoeuf. They spread in a

line facing him. Words are exchanged; we cannot make them
out.

LeBoeuf unholsters a gun and points it at the four men.

 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 67

ROOSTER (CONT’D)
He is a fine one for not drawing
attention to himself.

The four men, slouched astride their horses, are not

impressed by LeBoeuf's gun. There is more talking.

ROOSTER (CONT’D)
Him in the woolly chaps is Lucky
Ned.

He refers to the mounted man who does most of the talking.

Lucky Ned now speaks to the men on either side and the two
corners advance, closing a circle around LeBoeuf.

LeBoeuf looks warily from side side, swinging his gun to

cover the group. None of the riders bothers to unholster a
gun.

The man to LeBoeuf's right lifts a rope off his saddle and
casually twirls it.

The man to his left says something: LeBoeuf looks left and
the man to his right drops the rope around LeBoeuf and pulls
it tight. LeBoeuf is jerked off his feet, gun dropping. The
 mounted man backs his horse, taking the play from the rope.
He dallies the free end round his saddlehorn.

Two of the men slide off their horses.

One of them heads for the cabin door.

ROOSTER (CONT’D)
Well, that's that.

BANG!——the rifleshot, just at Mattie's ear, is deafening.

The man heading to the cabin drops, shot in the back.

The two horses that are now riderless rear and mill,
panicked.

The horse towing LeBoeuf also skitters, spooked, as its rider

looks wildly about and starts shooting.

Lucky Ned looks toward our vantage point and also begins
firing.

Rooster is methodically aiming and firing but in the

commotion below his first couple of shots don't tell. His
third drops Lucky Ned's horse.

The other unmounted man is frantically trying to snatch up

the reins of one of the loose horses.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 68

The man towing LeBoeuf spurs his horse toward one of the free
horses, trying to grab it. LeBoeuf is dragged past plunging
horses' hooves.

A cacaphony of screaming horses, crackling gunfire from the

basin, and the boom of Rooster's rifle.

The unmounted man has managed to grab a halter. He climbs

 with difficulty aboard the skittish horse.

The rider towing LeBoeuf cuts loose the towline. He gallops

toward Ned Pepper with an arm outstretched to help him
aboard.

Rooster is tracking him with his rifle.

Lucky Ned grabs the extended arm. As he begins to swing up

there is the BOOM of Rooster's rifle. The rider pitches off
the horse but Lucky Ned manages to stay on, and swipes up the
reins. He gallops off.

The one other surviving horseman follows him.

There is one dead horse in the basin, a live unmounted horse

racing crazy circles, and three still bodies. One is
LeBoeuf's.

Rooster rises.

ROOSTER (CONT’D)
Well that didn't pan out.

45 EXT. GREASER BOB’S CABIN 45

LeBoeuf is moaning.

Rooster walks toward him trailed by Mattie, glancing along

the way at the two dead men.

ROOSTER
You managed to put a kink in my
rope, pardner.

LEBOEUF
I am theverely injured.

Something is wrong with LeBoeuf's speech. Bloody saliva

bubbles copiously from his mouth.

ROOSTER
Yes you got drug some.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 69

LEBOEUF
Altho shshot. By a rifle.

Rooster stoops to examine.

ROOSTER
That is quite possible. The scheme
did not develop as I had planned.
You have been shot in the shoulder
but the ball passed through. It
 will pain you in the years to come.
What happened to your mouth?

LEBOEUF
I believe I beh mythelf.

Rooster slaps lightly down at LeBoeuf's chin, signaling that

he should open up.

LeBoeuf does, and Rooster digs in with two dirty fingers,

dipping his head to peer in as he pokes this way and that.

ROOSTER
Couple of teeth loose and yes, the *
tongue is bit almost through. Do
you want to see if it will knit or
should I just yank it free? I know
a teamster who bit his tongue off
being thrown from a horse. After a
time he learned to make himself
 more or less understood.

LEBOEUF
Hngnickh.

Bloody saliva bubbles out with the word. Rooster withdraws

his fingers.

ROOSTER
What's that now?

LEBOEUF
Knit.

ROOSTER
Very well. It is impossible to
bind a tongue wound. The shoulder
 we will kit out.

Mattie goes to inspect the two outlaws' corpses as Rooster

pokes back LeBoeuf's shirt to look at the wound.

. . . It's too bad.

(MORE)
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 70

ROOSTER (CONT'D)
We just ran across a doctor of
sorts but I do not know where he
 was headed.

LEBOEUF
I thaw him too. Ith how I came to
be here.

MATTIE
Neither of these men are Chaney,
Marshal.

ROOSTER
I know it. I know them both. The
ugly one is Coke Hayes. Him uglier
still is Clement Parmalee.
Parmalee and his brothers have a
silver claim in the Winding Stair
Mountains and I will bet you that's
 where Lucky Ned's gang is waiting.
We'll sleep here, follow in the
 morning.

MATTIE
We promised to bury the poor soul
inside.

ROOSTER
Ground is too hard. If these men
 wanted a decent burial they should
have got themselves kilt in summer.

46 EXT. GREASER BOB’S CABIN 46

SNOW

Falling straight down: a windless night.

We hear a murmuring male voice from inside the cabin.

Mattie is finishing rubbing down her horse.

MATTIE
Sleep well, Little Blackie. . .

She puts up the brush and pulls an apple from her apple bag.

. . . I have a notion that tomorrow

 we will reach our object. We are
“hot on the trail”. . .

The horse chomps up the apple and she rubs its muzzle as it
chews.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 71

. . . It seems that we will

overtake Tom Chaney in the Winding
Stair Mountains. I would not want
to be in his shoes.

The horse huffs and blows.

FRONT OF THE CABIN

We are raking the four dead men who have been carelessly
propped against the outside wall to sit in an irregular row.
Mattie passes them, with a brief look, and opens the door,
and the murmuring voice from inside fans up louder.

47 INT. CABIN 47

As Mattie enters. We see LeBoeuf musing before the fire as

he cleans his Sharp's carbine——an awkward operation given the
injury to his shoulder, now bandaged.

All we see of Rooster, seated further from the fire, is a

pair of boots, and legs stretching into darkness.

Mattie goes to the pot of food on the fire.

LEBOEUF
Azh I understand it, Chaney——or
Chelmzhford, azh he called himshelf
in Texas——shot the shenator'zh dog.
When the shenator remonshtrated
Chelmzhford shot him azh well. You
could argue that the shooting of
the dog wazh merely an inshtansh of
, but the shooting
malum prohibitum 
of a shenator izh indubitably an
inshtansh of malum in shay 
.

Rooster is a voice in the darkness:

ROOSTER
Malla-men what?

MATTIE
Malum in se. The distinction is
between an act that is wrong in
itself, and an act that is wrong
only according to our laws and
 mores. It is Latin.

We hear the pthoonk 
 of a bottle yielding its cork, followed
by the pthwa of the cork's being spit out.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 72

ROOSTER
I am struck that LeBoeuf is shot,
trampled, and nearly severs his
tongue and not only does not cease
to talk but spills the banks of
English.

We hear liquid slosh as the bottle is tipped back.

LEBOEUF
(placidly)
I wuzh within three hundred yardzh
of Chelmzhford once. The closhesht
I have been. With the Sharp'sh
carbine, that izh within range.
But I wuzh mounted, and had the
choish of firing off-hand, or
dishmounting to shoot from resht——
 which would allow Chelmzhford to
augment the dishtansh. I fired
 mounted——and fired wide.

We hear the smack of lips releasing bottleneck, and a wet

breath.

ROOSTER
. . . You could not hit a man at
three hundred yards if the gun was
resting on Gibraltar.

LEBOEUF
The Sharp'sh carbine izh an
inshtrument of uncanny power and
precizhun.

ROOSTER
I have no doubt that the gun is
sound.

Silence.

LeBoeuf shrugs.

48 EXT. GREASER BOB’S CABIN - MORNING 48

Wide: three riders leave the cabin single-file.

Jump in: pushing Mattie, who rides last in line. LeBoeuf is

in front of her. Rooster leads, head tipping momentarily
back to swig from a bottle.

He then half-hums, half-scats a tune.

 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 73

Mattie twists to look behind.

Her point-of-view: pulling away from the cabin, against the

 wall of which the four dead men are now semi-drifted over
 with snow.

49 EXT. TRAIL - LATER 49

Rooster's humming has stopped and we hear his voice:

ROOSTER
That was “Greer County Bachelor”.

He launches into another song, interrupted by the slosh of

liquid as he takes a drink. Mattie looks forward again and
LeBoeuf turns to look back at her. He keeps his voice low:

LEBOEUF
I don't believe he shlept.

Still without looking back, Rooster projects:

ROOSTER
Fort Smith is a healthy distance,
LeBoeuf, but I would encourage the
creature you ride to try to make it
in a day. Out here a one-armed man
looks like easy prey.

LEBOEUF
And a one-eyed man——who can't
shshoodt? Why don't you tshurn
back, Khoghburn?

ROOSTER
I will do fine.

He twists around to gaily hector LeBoeuf:

. . . I know where the Parmalee's

claim is. I am uninjured, I am
provisioned——and we agreed to
separate.

LEBOEUF
In conscschiensh you cannot shite
our agreement. You are the pershon
 who shshot me.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 74

MATTIE
Mr. LeBoeuf has a point, Marshal.
It is an unfair leg-up in any
competition to shoot your opposite
number.

ROOSTER
God damn it! I don't accept it as
a given that I did shoot LeBoeuf.
There was plenty of guns going off.

LEBOEUF
I heard a rifle and felt the ball.
You mishshed your shshodt,
Khoghburn, admit it. You are more
handicapped without the eye than I
 without the arm.

ROOSTER
Missed my shot! I can hit a gnat's
eye at ninety yards!

He reins his horse up, hastily tips the bottle to his mouth
to make sure it is empty, and then hurls it high.

He pulls out a navy six-gun and fires.

The bottle reaches the height of its arc untouched, and

drops.

Rooster cocks his head at the landed bottle several paces

distant. He shoots again and misses.

He shoots a third time and the bottle shatters.

ROOSTER (CONT’D)
The chinaman is running them cheap
shells on me again.

LEBOEUF
I tdhought you were going to shay
the shun was in your eyezh. That
izh to shay, your eye.

Rooster starts to dismount, finishing in a semi-controlled

fall. He dusts one knee and reaches into his saddlebag. He
pulls out a corn dodger and heaves it up.

He fires. The corn dodger is obliterated.

He reaches two corn dodgers from the saddlebag.

 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 75

ROOSTER
Two at one time!

He hurls them and quickly fires twice. Nothing happens; he

quickly fires three times at the falling corn dodgers,
 missing.

Scowling, he throws a single corn dodger and is just raising

his gun when another gun goes off, making him jump.

LeBoeuf has fired with a gun in his left hand, missing.

ROOSTER (CONT’D)
I will chunk one high. Hold fire.

He reaches into the saddlebag and hurls it high. Both he and

Leboeuf fire. It explodes.

LEBOEUF
There.

ROOSTER
There?! My bullet!

LEBOEUF
Your bullet? If you hit what you
aim at, eckshplain my shoulder!

MATTIE
Gentlemen, shooting cornbread out
here on the prairie is getting us
no closer to the Ned Pepper gang.

ROOSTER
One more, this will prove it. Hold
fire!

He tosses a corn dodger and fires. It holds to its arc and

falls. LeBoeuf is smug. *

50 EXT. COUNTRY - DAY 50

RIDING

Some time later.

Rooster sways in the saddle, holding a bottle, humming.

He tips his head up and tilts the bottle all the way back,
confirming that this one too is now empty.

Riding forward, he leans out of the saddle, stretching low to

one side, his hand extended with the bottle. Wavering, he
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 76

places it upon a large rock as he passes.

His arm waves for balance as he straightens but he keeps his

place on the horse. He half-turns, propping himself with one
hand on his saddle-back, to address Mattie and LeBoeuf:

ROOSTER
Find our way back!

51 EXT. MINE CAMP - DAY 51

SKY

Framed by a mine entrance.

Rooster steps into the square, wood-beam frame of the

entrance, looking in.

A beat, and he pulls out his six-gun and fires in.

Echoing ricochets.

Wide outside: Rooster before the entrance; Mattie and LeBoeuf

standing close by. Very still.

The little camp is deserted.

Rooster turns to pan the hills.

At length:

ROOSTER
Lucky Ned!

Very faint echo.

Faintly, from our distant perspective:

LEBOEUF
Very good, Khoghburn. Now what.

52 EXT. MOUNTAIN CAMPSITE - NIGHT 52

CRACKLING CAMPFIRE

It is raining.

The campfire is roughly canopied by a hide draped at a cant

over a pair of tree branches.

Mattie pours hot water from a kettle into a large tin cup
holding a corn dodger. She takes a fork and starts mashing
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 77

the dodger into mush.

LeBoeuf sits before the fire, coat over his head, one hand on
his jaw, which is swollen.

LEBOEUF
Cogburn does not want me eating out
of his store.

MATTIE
That is silly. You have not eaten
the whole day, and it is my store
not his.

ROOSTER
Let him starve!

Rooster, bellicose, stumbles to the fire with a few thin

branches. As he leans in toward the fire the water draining
off the low edge of the canopy drums onto his neck. He
 waves a hand back at it like a man swatting flies.

ROOSTER (CONT’D)
He does not track! He does not
shoot——except at foodstuffs!——

LEBOEUF
That wazh your idea.

ROOSTER
 ——He does not contribute! He is a
 man who walks in front of bullets!

Rooster sits heavily, a stretching leg kicking away an empty

bottle. Rain patters on his hat.

MATTIE
Mr. LeBoeuf drew single-handed upon
the Lucky Ned Pepper Gang while we
fired safely from cover, like a
band of sly Injuns!

ROOSTER
We?

MATTIE
It is unfair to indict a man when
his jaw is swollen and tongue
 mangled and who is therefore unable
to rise to his own defense!
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 78

LEBOEUF
I can thpeak for mythelf. I am
hardly obliged to anther the
ravingth of a drunkard. It ith
beneath me.

He rises and starts gathering his things.

. . . I shall make my own camp

elthwhere. It ith you who have
nothing to offer, Khoghburn. A
shad picture indeed. Thish izh no
longer a manhunt, it izh a debauch.
The Texath Ranger preththeth on
alone.

ROOSTER
Take the girl! I bow out!

LEBOEUF
A fine thing to deshide once you
have brought her into the middle of
the Choctaw Nation.

ROOSTER
I bow out! I wash my hands!

MATTIE
Gentlemen, we cannot fall out in
this fashion, so close to our goal,
 with Tom Chaney nearly in hand!

Rooster erupts:

ROOSTER
In hand?! If he is not in a
shallow grave, somewhere between
here and Fort Smith, he is gone!
Long gone! Thanks to Mr. LeBoeuf,
 we missed our shot! We have
barked, and the birds have flown!
Gone gone gone! Lucky Ned and his
cohort, gone! Your fifty dollars,
gone! Gone the whiskey seized in
evidence! The trail is cold, if
ever there was one! I am a foolish
old man who has been drawn into a
 wild goose chase by a harpy in
trousers——and a nincompoop! Well,
Mr. LeBoeuf can wander the Choctaw
Nation for as long as he likes;
perhaps the local Indians will take
him in and honor his gibberings by
 making him Chief!
(MORE)
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 79

ROOSTER (CONT'D)
You, sister, may go where you like!
I return home! Our engagement is
terminated! I bow out!

He whips his robe over himself.

53 NEAR CAMPSITE 53

MINUTES LATER

Wide on Mattie, staggering toward us carrying a saddle. We

boom down to bring Little Blackie into the foreground as
Mattie takes the last few stumbling steps forward, almost at
a run so as to let her inertia help her heave the saddle up
onto the horse's back.

MATTIE
I am going with you.

LeBoeuf, cinching a saddle onto his woolly horse, looks

around.

LEBOEUF
Oh, that izh not poshible.

MATTIE
Have I held you back? I have a
Colt's dragoon revolver which I
know how to use, and I would be no
 more of a burden to you than I was
to the marshal.

LEBOEUF
That izh not my worry. You have
earned your shpurzh, that izh clear
enough——you have been a regular
“old hand” on the trail. But
Cogburn izh right, even if I would
not give him the shatishfaction of
consheding it. The trail izh cold,
and I am conshiderably diminished.

MATTIE
How can you give up now, after the
 many months you've dedicated to
finding Chaney? You have shown
great determination. I misjudged
you. I picked the wrong man.

LEBOEUF
I would go on in your company if
there were clear way to go. But we
 would be shtriking out blindly.
(MORE)
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 80

LEBOEUF (CONT'D)
Chelmshford izh gone——we have
chaished him right off the map.
There izh nothing for it. I am
bound for Texash, and it izh time
for you to go home too.

He swings himself up onto the horse.

. . . The marshal, when he

shoberzh, izh your way back.

MATTIE
I will not go back. Not without
Chaney, dead or alive.

LEBOEUF
I misjudged you as well. I
eckshtend my hand.

He does, dropping a hand gloved in rough suede. She refuses

to take it.

MATTIE
Mr. LeBoeuf! Please!

He remains with hand extended. She hesitates, sees there is

no give, and reaches for up for the hand. They shake.

LEBOEUF
Adiosh!

He saws the horse around and sets it to a prancing walk, his

spurs jingling.

The sound recedes, leaving behind Rooster's snoring from the

campfire.

54 EXT. MOUNTAIN CAMPSITE - NIGHT 54

Rooster's snores bump up at the cut.

Mattie enters, gazes down for a thinking beat at the passed-

out lawman. She reaches down and removes the rope laid around
Rooster’s bed and lays it out around her own.

Fade out.

55 EXT. MOUNTAIN CAMPSITE - DAWN 55

We are high and close on Rooster, asleep. Face mottled red,

he looks like hell. He emits a symphony of respiratory
noises as breath fights through layers of phlegm.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 81

Reverse on Mattie, looking down at him.

Wider on the forlorn campsite——Mattie standing, Rooster

awkwardly sprawled sleeping, LeBoeuf gone.

Close on a bucket: Mattie's hand enters to grab it.

56 EXT. MOUNTAIN RIVER - EARLY MORNING 56

We hear rushing water.

Mattie descends, carefully stiff-legged, down a steep slope

thick with trees and brush.

She emerges onto the bank of a fast-flowing stream, shallow

at this point and loud.

Mattie takes a couple of steps into the water to dip the

bucket. Soft, behind her, we see four horses watering at the
opposite bank, just downstream.

Mattie stoops to fill the bucket. Turning as she

straightens, she sees the four horses.

Surprised, she drops the bucket and stares.

The horses huff and blow in the water. They are not wild——
they wear tack——but there is no rider in sight, until:

A man straightens and emerges from behind one of the horses.

The first thing we notice about him is the silhouette of the
rifle projecting over one shoulder, slung to the man's back
 with a piece of sash cord.

He looks at something floating by in the stream: Mattie's

bucket. He looks up. We jump closer:

The man has a black mark on his forehead.

Seeing Mattie, who still gapes at him, he hastily swings his

rifle round and trains it on her. He takes cautious,
splashing steps forward.

CHANEY
Well now I know you. Your name is
Mattie. You are little Mattie the
bookkeeper. Isn't this something.

He grins, relaxing. He slings the rifle back over his

shoulder.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 82

MATTIE
Yes, and I know you, Tom Chaney.

CHANEY
What are you doing here?

MATTIE
I came to fetch water.

Mattie pulls the flour sack from her coat pocket and works
carefully at the cord that cinches it shut. Chaney watches.

CHANEY
I mean what are you doing here in
these mountains?

MATTIE
I have not been formally deputized
but I am acting as an agent for
Marshal Reuben Cogburn and Judge
Parker's court.

Mattie has the cinch loose. She reaches the Colt's Dragoon
out of the sack and points it at Chaney.

. . . I have come to take you back

to Fort Smith.

Chaney looks at the gun. He grins and puts hands on hips.

CHANEY
Well I will not go. How do you
like that?

MATTIE
There is a posse of officers up on
the hill who will force you to go.

CHANEY
That is interesting news. How many
is up there?

MATTIE
Right around fifty. They are all
 well armed and they mean business.
What I want you to do now is come
on across the creek and walk in
front of me up the hill.

CHANEY
I think I will oblige the officers
to come after me.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 83

MATTIE
If you refuse to go I will have to
shoot you.

CHANEY
Oh? Then you had better cock your
piece.

Mattie gives a dismayed look at the gun and tries to pull the
hammer back. It has a heavy pull: she struggles, using two
thumbs.

Chaney watches, smiling.

. . . All the way back til it

locks.

MATTIE
I know how to do it.

She pulls the hammer back further and we hear it notch. She
looks up.

. . . You will not go with me?

CHANEY
I think not. It is just the other
 way around. You are going with me.
I will——

Mattie fires.

Chaney, shocked, takes a staggering step back.

Mattie stumbles and falls back under the recoil, into the
stream but careful to hold the gun high and dry. She
awkwardly reclaims her footing and retrains the gun. Chaney
is looking down at his bleeding side.

CHANEY (CONT’D)
I did not think you would do it.

MATTIE
What do you think now?

CHANEY
One of my short ribs is broken. It
hurts jiggers every breath I take.

MATTIE
You killed my father when he was
trying to help you. I have one of
the gold pieces you took from him.
(MORE)
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 84

MATTIE (CONT'D)
Now give me the other.

She is struck by a worrying thought. She hastily recocks the

gun.

Crashing from the brush up the hill, and a voice:

ROOSTER
Mattie!

MATTIE
I am down here! Chaney is taken
into custody!

There is yelling from the other bank now too.

CHANEY
Everything is against me. Now I am
shot by a child.

He sloshes suddenly forward, water kicking up before him.

MATTIE
Stop!

She squeezes the trigger, but the gun dry fires.

Chaney grabs the gun and flings it away, then holds on to

Mattie and slaps her.

MATTIE (CONT’D)
Help me! Down here! Hurry up!

Two men burst through the brush from Chaney's side of the
river. One is in woolly chaps——Lucky Ned Pepper. The other
is taller and dressed almost formally in a linen suit and
string tie and a bear coat. Both men bear Winchester
repeating rifles.

Chaney is dragging Mattie to their bank, slapping at her

along the way.

Rooster emerges from his side of the riverbank carrying a

side arm.

The men exchange fire.

LUCKY NED
(to Chaney)
Take them horses you got and move!

He grabs Mattie from Chaney and keeps her between himself and
the far bank as he fires again.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 85

One hand to his bleeding side, Chaney lunges for the horses'
leads.

Rooster has retreated back to the tree cover, as has the well
dressed man on our side. Intermittent gunshots and the
panicked neighing of horses.

57 EXT. IN THE TREES 57

Lucky Ned falls back into the trees with Mattie and starts
pulling her up the steep hill.

Chaney follows pulling the string of horses. He is breathing

hard and blood stains the front of his shirt.

LUCKY NED
(to Chaney)
Get on up that hill! Don't you
stop.

He twists Mattie around to face him and we see him clearly

for the first time. Part of his upper lip and three of his
front teeth are missing.

. . . Who all is down there?

MATTIE
Marshal Cogburn and fifty more
officers.

Lucky Ned throws Mattie to the ground. He puts a muddy boot

on her neck.

LUCKY NED
Tell me another lie and I will
stove your head in!

Mattie manages to choke out:

MATTIE
Just the marshal.

LUCKY NED
Cogburn! Do you hear me?

Silence.

. . . You answer me, Rooster! I

 will kill this girl! You know I
 will do it!
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 86

ROOSTER'S VOICE
The girl is nothing to me! She is
a runaway from Arkansas!

LUCKY NED
That is very well! Do you advise
 me to kill her?

ROOSTER'S VOICE
Do what you think is best, Ned!
She is nothing to me but a lost
child!

A short beat, through which we hear only the rush of

riverwater. Then, Rooster's voice again:

. . . Think it over first.

LUCKY NED
I have already thought it over!
You get mounted double fast! If I
see you riding over that bald ridge
to the northwest I will spare the
girl. You have five minutes!

He breaks open his rifle and starts to reload.

ROOSTER
I will need more than five minutes!

LUCKY NED
I will not give you more time.

ROOSTER
There will be a party of marshals
in here soon, Ned! Let me have
Chaney and the girl and I will
 mislead them for six hours!

LUCKY NED
Too thin, Rooster! Too thin! Your
five minutes is running! No more
talk!

He pulls Mattie to her feet. Rooster's voice trails away:

Lucky Ned gives Mattie a rough push.

LUCKY NED (CONT’D)

Up that hill!

Mattie advances, Lucky Ned giving periodic shoves from

behind.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 87

A stout young man with a shotgun leaps out from behind a slab
of limestone in front of them. He has a round face and idiot
eyes.

He makes loud turkey-gobbling noises at Mattie.

Though Mattie is startled Lucky Ned does not immediately

react, but he does finally tire of the turkey noises:

LUCKY NED (CONT’D)

Quiet there!

The idiot makes a pig-squealing sound in acknowledgment and

then falls quiet, loping alongside Mattie and Lucky Ned.

58 EXT. ROCKLEDGE - DAY 58

They are ascending out of the trees onto a bare rock ledge
not quite at the crest of the mountain. The rock floor is
uneven and broken by fissures and holes. A cave-like setback
at the far end of the rock shelf is half-curtained with a
hide. A rough camp.

A cookfire burns on the open rock. Two coffeepots warm

leaning against the inside of the fire's piled-stone
perimeter. A skillet holds bacon.

A man squats at the fire, holding a piece of bacon, turned to

 watch Lucky Ned and Mattie's approach. He wears a filthy
Union army uniform with officer's boards. His mouth is an 0
of surprise.

MATTIE
Can I have some of that bacon?

LUCKY NED
Help yourself. Have some of the
coffee.

MATTIE
I do not drink coffee. I am
fourteen.

LUCKY NED
We do not have buttermilk. And we
do not have bread. We are poorly
supplied. What are you doing here?

Tom Chaney has reached the rock ledge and he charges Mattie
 with a yell.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 88

CHANEY
I will wring your scrawny neck!

Lucky Ned knocks him aside.

LUCKY NED
Let that go! Farrell, see to his
 wound. What happened? What are
you doing here?

MATTIE
I will tell you what and you will
see that I am in the right. Tom
Chaney there shot my father and
robbed him of two gold pieces and
stole his mare. I was informed
Rooster Cogburn had grit and I
hired him out to find the murderer.
A few minutes ago I came upon
Chaney watering the horses. He
 would not be taken in charge and I
shot him. If I had killed him I
 would not be now in this fix. My
revolver misfired.

LUCKY NED
They will do it. It will embarrass
you every time. Most girls like to
play pretties, but you like guns do
you?

MATTIE
I do not care a thing in the world
about guns. If I did I would have
one that worked.

CHANEY
I was shot from ambush, Ned. The
horses was blowing and making
noise. It was that officer that
got me.

MATTIE
How can you sit there and tell such
a big story?

Chaney, squatting with his shirt pulled up for the ex-soldier

to work on his wound, now rises.

CHANEY
That pit is a hundred feet deep and
I will throw you into it and leave
you to scream and rot! How do you
like that?
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 89

MATTIE
No you won't. This man will not
let you have your way. He is your
boss and you must do as he tells
you.

Chaney turns to Lucky Ned who has a spyglass to his eye,

scanning a ridge across the river.

CHANEY
Five minutes is well up!

Lucky Ned speaks quietly, without lowering the glass:

LUCKY NED
I will give him a little more time.

From somewhere in the woods below we hear the idiot's

gobbling noises.

CHANEY
How much more?

LUCKY NED
Til I think he has had enough.

The voice of the well dressed man floats up from the woods:

WELL DRESSED MAN

He is gone, Ned! I can see
nothing! We had best make a move!

LUCKY NED
Hold fast a while there, Doctor!

Mattie looks at Chaney moaning in pain as the ex-soldier

 works on his side.

MATTIE
Why doesn't the Doctor do that?

Lucky Ned replies absently, still gazing out:

LUCKY NED
He is not a medical doctor. Was
that Rooster waylaid us night
before last?

MATTIE
It was Marshal Cogburn and myself.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 90

LUCKY NED
Yourself, eh? You and Cogburn,
quite the posse.

He sees something and hastily raises the glass.

A horseman is ascending the treeless ridge across the river

 with a riderless horse——Little Blackie——in tow. At the top
he pauses and turns, and draws a revolver from his saddle and
points it skyward. We see the gun kick and breathe gunsmoke.
A second later we hear the shot.

Lucky Ned lowers the glass and takes a gun and shoots
skyward. He raises the glass again.

The horseman turns away and proceeds on over the crest. He

is gone.

Lucky Ned turns to Mattie. He comes and squats at the fire.

LUCKY NED (CONT’D)

Your friend is gone. You are
alone.

The well dressed man and the idiot trudge up from the woods
onto the rock ledge.

The man in the dirty uniform continues to perform crude field

surgery on Chaney, digging into his side with a knife to
extract the bullet. As Chaney moans the idiot makes calf-
bawling noises in imitation.

DOCTOR
We must move, Ned.

LUCKY NED
In good time, Doctor.

Lucky Ned turns back to Mattie.

. . . What happened to Quincy, and

The Kid?

MATTIE
They are both dead. I was in the
very middle of it. It was a
terrible thing to see. Do you need
a good lawyer?

LUCKY NED
I need a good judge. What about
Coke Hayes——the old fellow shot off
his horse?
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 91

MATTIE
Dead as well. His depredations
have come to an end.

LUCKY NED
Your friend Rooster does not
collect many prisoners.

MATTIE
He is not my friend. He has
abandoned me to a congress of
louts.

LUCKY NED
You do not varnish your opinions.

WELL DRESSED MAN

Are we off?

The idiot is still bawling. Chaney grabs a stone and flings

it at him and the idiot scampers back, making goat noises.
Chaney grabs, moaning, at the wound aggravated by this fresh
exertion.

The man in officer's boards laughs.

CHANEY
Let us cut up the winnings from the
Katie Flyer.

Lucky Ned straightens from the fire and begins to collect his
 meager belongings. The other men follow suit.

LUCKY NED
There will be time for that at The
Old Place.

CHANEY
I will saddle the bay. *

LUCKY NED
I have other plans for you.

CHANEY
Must I double-mount with the
Doctor?

WELL DRESSED MAN

No!

LUCKY NED
No, it will be too chancy with two
 men up if it comes to a race. You
 will wait here with the girl.
(MORE)
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 92

LUCKY NED (CONT'D)

When we reach Ma's house I will
send Carroll back with a fresh
 mount. You will be out by dark and
 we will wait for you at The Old
Place.

CHANEY
I don't like that. Let me ride
 with you, Ned, just out of here
anyway.

LUCKY NED
No. We are short a horse. It
can't be helped.

CHANEY
Marshals will come swarming.

LUCKY NED
Hours, if they come here at all.
They will guess we are all gone.

MATTIE
I am not staying here by myself
 with Tom Chaney.

LUCKY NED
That is the way I will have it.

MATTIE
He will kill me. You have heard
him say it. He has killed my
father and now you will let him
kill me.

LUCKY NED
He will do no such thing. Tom, you
know the crossing at Cypress Forks,
near the log meetinghouse? When
you are mounted you will take the
girl there and leave her. Do you
understand that, Tom? If any harm
comes to this child you do not get
paid.

Chaney stares at Lucky Ned. His gaze then swings to the

idiot.

CHANEY
Harold, let me ride up with you.

IDIOT
Baaaaa! Baaaaa!
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 93

CHANEY
Farrel, I will pay you fifty
dollars out of my winnings! I am
not heavy!

SOLDIER
Ha ha! Do the calf again, Harold!

The men, clanking with gear, cross the rock ledge and descend
into the woods.

In the quiet, Chaney is disconsolate.

CHANEY
Everything is against me.

MATTIE
You have no reason to whine. If
you act as the bandit chief
instructed, and no harm comes to
 me, you will get your winnings at
The Old Place.

We faintly hear the rest of his party mount up and gallop

off. Chaney drops heavily before the fire to sit staring.

CHANEY
Lucky Ned has left me, knowing I am
sure to be caught when I leave on
foot. I must think over my position
and how I may improve it.

A silent beat.

MATTIE
Where is the second California gold
piece?

Chaney continues to stare silently into the fire.

MATTIE (CONT’D)
What have you done with Papa's
 mare?

CHANEY
Keep still.

More brooding silence.

MATTIE
Are you thinking about The Old
Place?
(MORE)
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 94

MATTIE (CONT'D)
If you will let me go, I will swear
to it in an affidavit and once you
are brought to justice it may go
easier on you.

Chaney rises, glaring at her.

CHANEY
I tell you I can do better than
that. I do not intend to be
caught. I need no affidavit.

He is striding toward her. She backs toward the ledge.

. . . All I need is your silence.

Without breaking stride he plows into her, good hand raised

to catch her by the throat.

She tumbles backward, Chaney on top of her sweating and

snarling.

. . . Your father was a busybody

like you.

On her back Mattie struggles, but Chaney, straddling her, has

her pinned. His good hand is still on her throat. She claws
at it.

He swats her with his free hand. Her clawing stops.

Chaney is wincing from the swing of his own arm. As he leans

over her his opened wound dribbles blood onto Mattie along
 with his sweat.

. . . In honesty, I do not regret

shooting him. He thought Tom
Chaney was small. And you would
give me an affidavit.

He reaches back awkwardly toward his calf with his bad hand,
groaning with the stretch. We hear the schlick  of steel and
his hand reappears holding a knife taken from a leg sheath.

. . . You are all against me.

Everything is against me.

He pushes against the underside of Mattie's chin, stretching

her neck.

Her eyes roll down in their sockets to watch as Chaney

regrips the knife and lowers it to her throat, his knuckles
 whitening with tension.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 95

 ——a rifle stock swings into frame, connecting with

Whack 
Chaney's head. His head snaps to one side and then lolls
back as he slowly straightens, ropey drool and blood pouring
from his mouth. He sways briefly and then collapses onto
Mattie.

A hand enters to pull him off. Mattie blearily props herself

on her elbows.

LeBoeuf is panting and sweating from his climb. He gazes

down at Chaney. Once he has breath:

LEBOEUF
Sho that ish Chelmthford. Shtrange
to be sho closhe at lasht.

MATTIE
Mr. LeBoeuf, How is it you are
here?

LeBoeuf's look breaks from Chaney. He pulls his pipe from

his pocket and lights it.

LEBOEUF
I heard the shotsh and went down to
the river. . .

He crosses the rock ledge.

. . . Cogburn outlined a plan.

Hizh part, I fear, izh rash.
(reacts to hole)
But that izh a pit there! Mind
your footing.

He skirts the large hole and reaches the shelf's far lip and
gazes out. Before him is a steep drop-off. We see the very
crowns of near pines and then, four hundred yards away, the
land flattening to an open meadow.

Mattie, also gazing out, comes up beside LeBoeuf.

MATTIE
A plan?

LeBoeuf points with his pipe.

LEBOEUF
He returnzh for Lucky Ned.

Lucky Ned, the Parmalees, and the Doctor are just entering
the low meadow, riding away. As they do so Rooster enters at
the far side, facing. He draws one of his navy sixes as he
advances.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 96

MATTIE
One against four. It is ill
advised.

Leboeuf shrugs.

LEBOEUF
He would not be dishuaded.

He and Mattie both watch as, below, the parties advance on

each other at a walk. Eighty yards separating them, they
halt.

59 EXT. THE MEADOW 59

Rooster and Lucky Ned eye each other. After a beat:

LUCKY NED
Well, Rooster, will you give us the
road?

IDIOT
Moo! Moo!

ROOSTER
Hello, Ned. How many men are with
the girl?

LUCKY NED
Just Chaney. Our agreement is in
force: she was in excellent health
 when last I saw her.

Rooster nods.

A beat.

ROOSTER
Farrel, I want you and your brother
to stand clear. You as well,
Doctor. I have no interest in you
today.

LUCKY NED
What is your intention, Rooster?
Do you think one on four is a
dogfall?

ROOSTER
I mean to kill you in one minute,
Ned.
(MORE)
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 97

ROOSTER (CONT'D)
Or see you hanged in Fort Smith at
Judge Parker's convenience. Which
 will you have?

Ned Pepper laughs.

LUCKY NED
I call that bold talk for a one-
eyed fat man!

IDIOT
Koo koo roo! Blawk!

ROOSTER
Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!

He puts the reins in his teeth, grabs his other revolver with
the hand now free, and spurs his horse.

58CONT ROCK LEDGE 58CONT

Mattie watches him charge.

The facing four charge to meet him.

MATTIE
Shoot them, Mr. LeBoeuf!

LEBOEUF
Too far, moving too fasht.

Over the distant laughter of the idiot, the crackle of

gunfire commences.

59CONT THE MEADOW 59CONT

Rooster turns his head to either side as he fires, bringing

his good eye into play.

The idiot is gaily waving a revolver over his head, not

firing, squawking like a chicken as he charges.

A shot from Rooster kills him and swipes him neatly off his
horse.

Farrel Parmalee has a shotgun. It roars.

Shot peppers Rooster. He returns fire.

Farrel Parmalee's horse is hit. It stumbles, and Farrel is

dashed forward, snapping his neck.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 98

The Doctor Indian-rides past, sliding down and hooking an

ankle on his saddle so that he may ride in the cover of his
horse's body. He makes for the treeline on the far side of
the meadow.

Rooster and Lucky Ned are charging each other, both firing.

They pass each other——both still mounted——but Rooster's horse

has been hit and it falls, pinning Rooster's leg. His guns
are gone, lost in the fall.

Rooster, bleeding from sprayed shot in neck, face, and

shoulder, struggles and unpins his leg.

58CONT ROCK LEDGE 58CONT

LeBoeuf sits cross-legged and brings the butt of his Sharp's

carbine to rest against his injured shoulder. He nudges the
gunstock back and forth, looking for the anchor that will
cause him the least pain. He cocks his head to sight,
puffing pipesmoke.

59CONT THE MEADOW 59CONT

Lucky Ned is reining his horse around with his left hand.
His right arm dangles. He walks his horse toward Rooster,
 who is getting to his feet.

LUCKY NED
Well Rooster, I am shot to pieces.
It seems neither of us is to see
Judge Parker.

He drops the reins to reach out a gun with his one working
arm.

58CONT ROCK LEDGE 58CONT

LeBoeuf, sighting.

LEBOEUF
Oh lord.

He squeezes the trigger.

He screams as the gun roars and bucks back into his shoulder.

59CONT THE MEADOW 59CONT

Rooster is facing Lucky Ned.

 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 99

Lucky Ned raises his gun at Rooster and——is shot in the

chest.

As we hear the weakly distant guncrack Ned flops backward,

slides halfway down one side of the saddle, and dangles,
briefly, foot tangled in a stirrup, horse standing
unperturbed.

Then, he drops.

58CONT ROCK LEDGE 58CONT

Mattie whoops as LeBoeuf groans.

MATTIE
Some bully shot! Four hundred
yards, at least!

LeBoeuf sets the rifle down and gropes at his shoulder.

LEBOEUF
Well the Sharpe’s Carbine is a——

A rock is brought down on his head by Tom Chaney.

Mattie screams.

LeBoeuf has collapsed and is motionless. Chaney drops the

rock and stoops for the rifle.

Mattie is already dragging it away. She grabs it up.

MATTIE
Stand up, Tom Chaney!

Chaney stands nearly straight——as much as his injuries will

allow, and——

 ——the blast catches Chaney in the chest and he is blown

Boom!
back off the ledge, looking surprised. He falls to oblivion.

But the carbine recoil pushes Mattie stumbling back and this,
 with the bad footing at the lip of the pit behind her, sends
her falling.

60 INT. PIT 60

Mattie is tumbling. She bounces down a very steep slope,

disturbed earth tumbling with her, protruding roots and
slender upgrowing foliage slapping at her on her descent.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 100

As she descends more or less feet-first something snags an

ankle and her inertia sends her upper body on down past the
pinned leg. She jerks to a halt head-downmost on the steep
slope.

The patter of falling dirt subsides. Silence. Heavy

breathing.

Mattie, lying face-up, does a painful half sit-up to look

around.

Above her, her left foot is snarled through some roots. Well
beyond, very high, weak light defines the mouth of the pit.

Using her elbows she pivots, scooting her upper body uphill
so that she is no longer below her foot. She reaches the
cuff of her pants on the trapped leg and pulls it up to
expose the shin.
*
She pulls the cuff back down.

She stretches to slip fingers between her boot and the roots
in which it is fouled. She just manages to work in two
fingers; in wrenching around, the root has cinched tight.
She tugs feebly at the root, which shows no signs of give.

She looks back up.

The small hole of weak daylight, dust drifting up toward it.

MATTIE
Mr. LeBoeuf! Are you alive!

No answer.

. . . Mr. LeBoeuf!

Arms tiring, she lays back again against earth. She looks
around.

Partway round the pit, just at her level, something difficult

to discern in the semi-dark: two mirroring shapes, close to
each other: is it the soles of a pair of boots?

Mattie squints. She props herself partway up.

Higher view: they are boots——worn by a corpse——stretching

away from us, foreshortened. The man's skull has been partly
shattered by the protruding rock against which it rests.

Mattie surveys the body. Her attention is caught by

something:

The skeletal remains are still clothed and there seems to be

 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 101

something held by a bandolier strapped across the chest, over

the body's decomposing blue shirt but beneath a tattered
vest. A sheath is just visible high on the strap, near the
corpse's shoulder. The butt-end of a knife juts out.

Mattie stretches, reaching.

She can just get to a boot.

She pulls.

The man's remains seem to be fairly light. They drag across

earth, raising dust, tending to slide away with the grade of
the pit.

Mattie reels the body in, careful not to let go and lose it
down the hill. She pulls shoe, pants cuff, pants knee, belt.
The bandolier is close.

Her fingers curl around shirt, and pull.

The shirt's buttons softly pop and fiber dust drifts up as

the fabric falls to pieces. Rib cage is exposed beneath.

Mattie hastily reaches and curls fingers around ribs. She

pulls. She is about to get the knife when——

A glistening something inside the rib cage——guts?——starts to

slowly move. But it can't be guts: it is gliding, coiling,
under its own power.

A faint rattle.

Mattie screams as the ball of waking snakes quickens. One

snake starts to slowly emerge, and she bats the body away.

She pushes and kicks with her free leg, as much as her pinned
attitude will allow. The body, coming to pieces, slides
dustily down into the dark. It disappears. Fiber and bone
dust float up toward us. We hear rattles.

Mattie hastily reaches for the root that pins her and in a
panic pulls, looking back toward the body. The root holds
fast.

A snake is sluggishly and sinuously weaving up the earth

toward her. She muscles her body upward so that once again
her pinned leg is bottom-most.

MATTIE (CONT’D)
Mr. LeBoeuf!

Another snake is behind the first. . . several more behind

that.
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 102

As the snakes advance to the level of her pinned leg Mattie

freezes. The first snake continues climbing, weaving up the
slope alongside Mattie's body. She watches it come on, its
blunted head with its flicking tongue inches from her face.
The head passes, the body goes coiling by.

Another snake undulates onto her pinned leg.

ROOSTER'S VOICE
Are you there?

Careful to keep still, eyes on the advancing snakes:

MATTIE
I am here!

More snakes climb onto her.

ROOSTER'S VOICE
Can you clamber out?

MATTIE
I cannot!

A large snake is winding onto her shoulder. She gingerly

places a hand for it to coil onto; it does; she holds it at
arms length and gently shakes it off.

. . . There are snakes!

ROOSTER
Awake?

MATTIE
Yes!

Rooster appears in the mouth of the pit. He has a rope

 wrapped round his waist and he starts to descend, half
 walking, half hopping against the pit wall.

Mattie winces and looks down at one hand.

A small snake wrapped round her wrist has its fangs in the
 meat of the hand.

MATTIE (CONT’D)
Ahh!

She flaps her hand and the snake plops off.

I am bit!

!——a burst of orange as Rooster, descended to the level of

BAM 
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 103

the lead snakes, starts firing his revolver.

!
BAM  !
BAM  More orange lightning flashes.

Lively rattling.

The pit fills with roiling gunsmoke.

Rooster starts to stomp as well as fire. He kicks the more

sluggish specimens toward the bottom of the pit.

He reaches Mattie and takes out a knife.

MATTIE (CONT’D)
Does Mr. LeBoeuf survive?

ROOSTER
He does——even a blow to the head
could silence him for only a few
short minutes. Where are you bit?

She shows her hand.

. . . Look away now. *

Rooster takes the hand and makes two slices in the flesh and
squeezes out blood.

Rooster stoops with the knife and one slice frees the booted
foot. He wraps one arm around Mattie's waist and tips his
head back and bellows:

ROOSTER (CONT’D)
I have her! Up with us!

The rope tautens and starts pulling, Rooster helping with his
feet.

61 ROCK LEDGE 61

Little Blackie, led by a wobbly LeBoeuf, finishes pulling

Rooster and Mattie from the pit.

Rooster is already unwrapping the rope from his waist and

talking to LeBoeuf as he and Mattie emerge:

ROOSTER
I will send help for you as soon as
I can. Don't wander off.

MATTIE
We are not leaving him!
 

Blue Revision 3/9/10 104

Rooster heaves her up onto the back of Little Blackie,

LeBoeuf helping though blood still flows down one side of his
face.

ROOSTER
I must get you to a doctor, sis, or
you are not going to make it.
)
(to LeBoeuf 
The girl is snakebit. We are off.

He swings up behind her and nods down to LeBoeuf.

. . . I am in your debt for that

shot, pard.

LEBOEUF
Never doubt the Texash Ranger.

Rooster reins the horse around and spurs it. LeBouef shouts
after:

. . . Ever shtalwart!

The horse takes to the steep slope reluctantly, with stiff

legs, Rooster kicking it on. Tree branches slap at him and
take his hat. His face, already peppered with shot, gets new
scratches.

62 THE MEADOW 62

Mattie is woozy. As Little Blackie crosses the field at full

gallop Mattie looks blearily at the littering bodies of
horses and men.

Next to Lucky Ned's body his horse, saddled and riderless,

swings its head to watch as Rooster and Mattie pass.

Mattie's eyes are closing.

63 EXT. ROAD IN THE WOODS - LATE DAY 63

Mattie's eyes half-open.

Little Blackie plunges on, through a rough road in woods, but

slower now, his mouth foaming.

ROOSTER
Come on, you!

MATTIE
We must stop. Little Blackie is
played out.
 

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Horrible noises are indeed coming from the horse, but Rooster
is grim:

ROOSTER
We have miles yet. Come on, you!

He leaves off whipping the horse and takes out his knife. He
leans back and slashes at the horse's whithers. Little
Blackie surges.

Mattie screams.

MATTIE
No!

A locked-down shot as horse and riders enter at a gallop and

recede.

64 EXT. ROAD - NIGHT 64

It has started to snow.

Mattie is flushed and soaked with sweat.

The horse is laboring for breath.

Rooster gives inarticulate curses as he kicks it on.

Mattie looks ahead:

Barely visible in the moonlight a man mounted bareback rides

on ahead. A sash cord holds a rifle to his back.

He recedes, outpacing us, disappearing into the darkness and

the falling snow.

MATTIE
He is getting away.

ROOSTER
Who is getting away?

MATTIE
Chaney.

ROOSTER
Hold on, sis.

Mattie is falling. It is unclear why.

Her legs squeeze the horses flanks.

 

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Her hand tightens on the horses mane.

Rooster's arm reaches around to hold her.

Little Blackie is giving out, going to his knees and then all
the way down.

Rooster hangs on to Mattie as the horse sinks. He pulls her

clear, lays her on the ground, and then steps away from her,
taking out a gun.

The horrible noises coming from the horse end with a gunshot.
Rooster reenters to pick up Mattie but she screams at him and
claws at his face, opening fresh gashes.

He ducks his head as best he can to avoid the claws but that
is the extent of his reaction.

He presents his back and she relents, clasping her arms. He

rises with a pained wheeze and he starts jogging with Mattie
piggie-back.

Bouncing at his shoulder, she twists to look back.

In the dark, the darker shape of the dead horse, growing

smaller.

Mattie turns forward again, eyes drooping.

65 EXT. BAGBY’S STORE - NIGHT 65

LATER

Rooster is loudly wheezing as he carries Mattie before him

now, his jog slowed to an unsteady walk. Her eyes are
opening again.

They are now on a proper dirt road. Rooster staggers around

a turn and does a barely controlled stumble to his knees, and
then sits heavily back, Mattie in his lap.

Up ahead is the front porch of Bagby's store, the building

dark.

Rooster sits gasping.

Rooster takes out his gun, weakly raises his arm, and fires
into the air. He sits panting.

ROOSTER
I have grown old.

The door of the distant store opens and someone emerges,

 

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holding a lamp, peering out into the dark.

FADE OUT

66 EXT. TRAIN - DAY 66

We are looking into the window of a moving train. Looking

out past us is a thin forty-year-old woman.

Reflected in the window is a sizable railyard and then, as

the train slows, a station. Reading backward in the mirror
of the window is the station stop: MEMPHIS.

We hear the voice, familiar from the opening of the movie, of

the grown Mattie Ross:

VOICE-OVER
A quarter of a century is a long
time.

67 EXT. PLATFORM 67

TRAIN DOOR

As the train eases to a stop the woman, Mattie, steps down.

One sleeve of her dress is pinned up.

VOICE-OVER
By the time we reached Bagby's
store, my hand had turned black. I
 was not awake when I lost the arm.
The marshall had stayed with me, I
 was told, til I was out of danger,
but he departed before I came
round.

Mattie goes along the platform, holding a small bag in one

hand and, crushed against its handle, a flier.

Once home, I wrote him with an

invitation to come by the next time
he found himself near Yell County
and collect the fifty dollars I
still owed him. I did not hear back
from Marshall Cogburn, and he did
not appear. Then one day, I
received a note from the Marshall
 with ah flyer enclosed.

In the scene, Mattie calls peremptorily to a young boy on the

platform:
 

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MATTIE
Boy.

She shows him the flier:

The Cole Younger and Frank James

Wild West Show
Riding! Shooting! Lariat “Tricks” !
Don't Leave the Ladies and the Little Ones Behind!
Also Featuring
Rooster Cogburn!
He will amaze you with his skill and dash!
Memphis Fairgrounds
July 18, 1908

The boy looks up and points.

Mattie crosses the platform and further along, descends to

the railyard.

68 EXT. RAILYARD - DAY 68

The cars of the Wild West Show are parked along a siding.
They display gaudily painted scenes of men on rearing horses
firing six-guns, of conestoga wagons, war-bonneted Indians,
bandana-wearing bad men. Three featured performers have
their own vignetted scenes, each depicted as a youngish man
engaged in Wild West hell-raising, each with his name painted
beneath: Cole Younger, Frank James, and (unrecognizable but
for the eyepatch) Rooster Cogburn. Below Rooster's name is
the sublegend “He rode with Quantrill! He rode for Parker!”

Around the rail cars cowboys——and some Indians——mill, more

 wobegone than their painted representations.

Mattie asks someone along the way for directions and is

pointed toward the rear of the train.

VOICE-OVER
He said he was travelling with a
Wild West Show, getting older and
fatter. Would I like to see him
 when the show came to Memphis and
swap stories with an old trailmate?
He would understand if the journey
 were too long. Brief though his
note was, it was rife with
 misspellings.

Mattie speaks to two men who sit on the rear platform of the
rear car. They are old men drinking Coca-Colas. One doffs
his hat and rises when Mattie addresses the pair; the other
stays seated, slurping from his bottle.
 

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STANDING MAN
Yes'm, I am Cole Younger. This is
Mr. James. It grieves me to tell
you that you have missed Rooster.
He passed away, what, three days
ago, when the show was in Jonesboro
Arkansas. Buried him there in the
confederate cemetery. Reuben had a
complaint what he referred to as
“night hoss” and I believe the warm
 weather was too much for him. We
had some lively times. What was
the nature of your acquaintance?

MATTIE
I knew the marshal long ago. We
too had lively times. Thank you,
Mr. Younger.

As she turns to go she addresses Frank James, who has been

staring at her:

. . . Keep your seat, trash.

69 INT. BOXCAR 69

Elsewhere; later.

Men load in a muddy pine coffin. Chalked on the coffin top:

Cogburn
Yell County 
Hold at station

VOICE-OVER
I had the body removed to our plot,
and I have visited it over the
years.

The boxcar door is slammed and the train starts to move off.

70 EXT. CEMETERY - DAY 70

Mattie stands with a prayer book. There is a light, lazy

fall of snow.

She leaves, striding purposefully past the headstone.

We show the headstone and, beyond, her receding figure.

 

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Reuben Cogburn
1835-1908
A Resolute Officer
Of Parker's Court

Her figure softens as it recedes.

VOICE-OVER
No doubt people talk about that.
They say, “Well, she hardly knew
the man, isn't she a cranky old
 maid.” It is true I have not
 married; I never had time to fool
 with it. I heard nothing more of
the Texas officer LeBouef. If he is
yet alive, I would be pleased to
hear from him. I judge he would be
in his seventies now, and nearer
eighty than seventy. I expect some
of the starch has gone out of that
cowlick. Time just gets away from
us.