The Unforgiven

The Unforgiven  

                        Original Screenplay
                                 by
                         David Webb Peoples

                          PRODUCTION DRAFT

                           April 23, 1984

     INT. ALICE'S ROOM - NIGHT

     NIGHT IN ALICE'S ROOM.  A little bit of moonlight coming in
     through the tiny window might make a highlight here and
     there but that's about all.  Words begin to crawl across the
     screen:

                       WRITTEN WORDS (crawl)
                   Of good family, albeit one of
                   modest means, she was a comely
                   young woman and not without
                   prospects.  Therefore it was at
                   once heartbreaking and astonishing
                   to her mother that she would enter
                   into marriage with William Munny, a
                   known thief and murderer, a man of
                   notoriously vicious and intemperate
                   disposition.

     We can HEAR STRAWBERRY ALICE and DAVEY BUNTING breathing
     heavily and the bed creaking.

                       WRITTEN WORDS (crawl)
                   They were married in St. Louis in
                   1870 and they traveled North to
                   Kansas where he engaged in farming
                   and swine husbandry.

     Davey and Alice are picking up speed now, breathing faster
     and even snorting a little, and it's cold as Jesus in
     Nebraska in the winter so when the blanket slips, Alice
     snarls and gasps.

                               ALICE
                   The blanket, for chrissake,
                   cowboy, the blanket.

     There are six of these little rooms... one for each whore...
     behind Greely's Beer Garden and Billiards and the walls are
     just boards so you can hear what's happening in the other
     rooms and right now, from DELILAH'S room, you can hear a
     high-pitched, merry little giggle and that's important.

                    WRITTEN WORDS (crawl contd.)
                   She bore him two children in the
                   eight years of their marriage and
                   when she died, it was not at his
                   hands as her mother might have
                   expected, but of smallpox.  That
                   was in 1878.

                        DELILAH'S VOICE o.s.
                   No, please.... No, no goddamn you.

     Alice and Davey have stopped fucking and started listening
     but they don't move.

                           WRITTEN WORDS
                          (Crawl cont'd)
                   It wasn't until 1881... three
                   yeats later... that a cowboy named
                   Mike cut up a whore in Big
                   Whiskey, Nebraska in the Niobrara
                   River country.
                            (end crawl)

                         MIKE'S VOICE o.s.
                   Davey, come a runnin' lad an'
                   hold the thieving cunt...

     A blur of action as Davey leaps from the bed and dashes out
     of the room naked...

                         MIKE'S VOICE o.s.
                   ...brand you like a damn steer,
                   bitch...

     and Alice is right behind him, wrapping herself in a blanket
     as she goes.

     INT. DELILAH'S ROOM - NIGHT

     DELILAH is backed up against the wall, her face bleeding,
     and she is throwing the contents of her chamber pot on MIKE
     who is advancing on her with an open barlow knife and Davey
     busts into the room naked and Alice follows him and people
     are shouting in other rooms.

                               MIKE
                     (wiping shit off himself)
                   Hold the bitch, Davey, hold her.

     The one coal oil lamp in the room gives off just enough
     light that you can make all this out.  Certainly you can see
     that Mike, who is wearing leggings and no shirt, is a big
     tough man, unshaven, eyes inflamed with whiskey...

                               MIKE
                   HOLD HER, DAMMIT, DAVEY!
                   If you don't hold her I'll
                   cut her tits off.

     LITTLE SUE, a fifteen year old whore, is in the doorway,
     eyes wide with terror and Alice screams at her.

                               ALICE
                   Get Skinny, for God's sake!
                   SKINNY!

     Davey is reluctant about the whole thing but he is afraid of
     Mike and he gets behind Delilah and grabs her.

                               DAVEY
                   Wh-what you gonna do, Mike?

     Mike is doing it now and Delilah is screaming while he
     carves her face with the barlow knife and blood is all over,
     splashing on Davey and Davey, who is just a kid, after all,
     nineteen with a big shock of unruly red hair and innocent
     blue eyes, is horrified.

                               MIKE
                   Thieving cunt, I'll...

                               DAVEY
                   Mike, don't, Jesus, don't...

                               ALICE
                   SKINNY!  Bring your gun.

     Alice can't wait for Skinny and she jumps on Mike's back and
     brings the big man down and she fights him though she's not
     a big woman.   Alice is twenty-five but she's been around
     some, whored some tough cow-towns, and she has too much bone
     and character in her face to be outright pretty but she
     attracts men like flies.  Sure she has some smallpox scars
     on her face, but they're common and there are only a few of
     them, not like on Skinny whose mean little face is eaten
     right up with them.

     VIEW ON SKINNY DUBOIS

     STANDING THERE IN THE DOORWAY, his nasty face eaten with
     smallpox scars and he is looking at Delilah who is a
     fountain of blood, looking at her coldly, and looking down
     at the melee on the floor and, pointing the big Navy Colt in
     his hand, he says,

                              SKINNY
                   Get offa her, asshole.

     And he says it so cold and with such authority that
     everything goes quiet.

     EXT. MAIN STREET - DAY

     SNOW/MOONLIGHT/THE SHADOWY BUILDINGS and the silence of the
     Nebraska winter except for the sound of the snowshoes.

     The snow has obliterated the Main Street of Big Whiskey
     giving the impression that the dark, low buildings are
     scattered at random.  The only structure with any sign of
     life is Greely's Beer Garden and Billiards which shows a
     glowing window and two horses out front and that is a
     hundred yards away from the struggling silhouettes of the
     two men on snowshoes.  The big one is LITTLE BILL DAGGETT
     and he is very big, wrapped in a huge bearskin robe.

     The smaller one is CLYDE LEDBETTER who isn't small though he
     has only one arm.

                            LITTLE BILL
                   ...wouldn't let you settle it, huh?

                               CLYDE
                   Hell, you know how Skinny is.  Says
                   he's gonna shoot 'em...
                   ...an I says, "Skinny, you can't
                   do that," an' he says, "Well, then
                   get Little Bill down here an' let's
                   settle this" an' I says, "Bill's
                   sleepin', Skinny," an'...

     They make their way in silence through the snow, getting
     close now, close to Greely's and the lights.

     INT. DELILAH'S ROOM - NIGHT

     DELILAH ON HER BED, her face covered with blood-soaked rags
     except for her eyes.  Alice has hot water and is ministering
     to her and Little Bill is looking down at her from his
     enormous height, still in his bearskin.  He looks disgusted.

                            LITTLE BILL
                   She ain't gonna die, huh?

     You can now see fear in Delilah's eyes, and the other whores
     ...CROW CREEK KATE with crazy pop-eyes and frizzy hair, and
     LITTLE SUE who is fifteen and meek even when she isn't
     terrified, and FAITH who is the oldest of them and not very
     attractive and SILKY who is blonde and the prettiest... are
     watching from vantage points in the doorway or in the room.

                               ALICE
                            (determined)
                   She's gonna live.
                     (Little Bill turns to go)
                   She didn't steal nothin',
                   She didn't touch his poke.

                            LITTLE BILL
                       (stopping and turning)
                   No?

                               ALICE
                   All she done was... when she
                   seen he had a teensy little
                   pecker... she gave a giggle.
                   That's all.  She didn't know
                   no better.

     Little Bill turns away, disgusted, and starts out of the
     room and Alice gets up and follows him.

                               ALICE
                   You gonna hang 'em, Little Bill?

     INT. BAR ROOM - NIGHT

     Davey sitting naked on the floor of the bar room and Mike is
     sitting near him, still in his leggings and both men are
     shivering because they are fifteen feet from the potbellied
     stove where Clyde is standing watching them.

     It is a big room, with a crude bar and four tables and some
     moose and elk heads on the wall.  The door near the rear
     where it says "Billiard Room" leads not to a Billiard Room
     but to the six little "rooms" that are the whorehouse and
     and now you can hear Delilah groaning from there.

     And Little Bill enters from the back of the bar room,
     stooping to pass through the doorway under the sign that
     says "Billiard Room."

     Little Bill is huge and ominous.  Some say he acquired the
     bearskin by staring the bear to death and others say he
     drowned the animal in spit.  Anyhow, he's big with a
     drooping moustache and he is sucking on his church warden's
     clay pipe and you know he isn't scared of anything.

     And the two cowboys are scared to death, not just shivering
     from the cold, and Bill just looks down at them and sucks on
     his pipe and Alice comes in from the back way too and then
     Skinny and a couple of the whores gather in the doorway.

                            LITTLE BILL
                   Clyde, step across to the German's
                   an' fetch up one of his bullwhips.

     Stark terror on the faces of Davey and Mike as Clyde exits.

                               ALICE
                   A whippin'?  That's all they get?
                   After what they done?

                            LITTLE BILL
                       (sucking on his pipe)
                   Whippin' ain't a little thing,
                   Alice.

                               ALICE
                   But what they done, they...

                              SKINNY
                     (he has a piece of paper
                           in his hand)
                   Shut up, Alice.  Little Bill,
                   a whippin' ain't gonna settle
                   this.

                            LITTLE BILL
                   No?

                              SKINNY
                        (showing the paper)
                   This here's a lawful contract...
                   betwixt me an' Delilah
                   Fitzgerald, the cut-whore.  Now I
                   brung her clear from Boston, paid
                   her expenses an' all, an' I got a
                   contract which represents an
                   investment of capital.

                            LITTLE BILL
                        (sympathetic to the
                             argument)
                   Property.

                              SKINNY
                   Damaged property.  Like if I
                   was to hamstring one of their
                   cow ponies.

                            LITTLE BILL
                   You figure nobody'll want to
                   fuck her.

                              SKINNY
                   Hell no.  Leastways, they won't
                   pay to do it.

     Alice is listening to this and her eyes are like coals and
     you can hear Delilah moaning in the other room.

                          SKINNY (cont'd)
                   She could maybe clean up around
                   the place or somethin', but
                   nobody's gonna pay good money
                   for a cut-up whore.

                            LITTLE BILL
                      (making up his mind and
                           turning to the
                         shivering cowboys)
                   You boys are off of the Spade
                   Outfit.  Got your own string
                   of ponies?

                               DAVEY
                             (nodding)
                   I... I got f-f-f-four.

                            LITTLE BILL
                   You?

                               MIKE
                            (sullenly)
                   Six.

     Skinny nods, pleased, and Alice watches, her eyes still hot.

                            LITTLE BILL
                   Guess you boys just as soon not
                   have no trial an' fuss, huh?

     Davey and Mike nod, willing to say anything Little Bill
     wants.

                        LITTLE BILL cont'd
                            (to Mike)
                   Alright.  You done the cuttin'...
                   Come the thaw, you bring in five
                   of them ponies an' give 'em over
                   to Skinny here.

                               MIKE
                   Five!

                            LITTLE BILL
                             (to Davey)
                   An' you... you give over two
                   ponies, hear? -

     Clyde bangs in out of the snow with a buggy whip in his
     hand.

                               CLYDE
                   I couldn't find no bullwhips,
                   Bill.  The German...

                            LITTLE BILL
                   Don't matter, we don't need no
                   whips.
                        (to Mike and Davey)
                   Spring comes an' Skinny don't
                   have them ponies, I'm gonna...

                               ALICE
                   You... you ain't even gonna...
                   whip 'em?

                            LITTLE BILL
                   I fined 'em instead.

                               ALICE
                   For what they done?  Skinny gets
                   some ponies an' that's... ?

                            LITTLE BILL
                         (approaching her)
                   Ain't you seen enough blood for
                   one night?  Hell, Alice, they
                   ain't loafers nor tramps nor bad
                   men.  They're hard workin' boys
                   that was foolish.  Why if they was
                   given over to wickedness in a
                   regular way...

                               ALICE
                             (furious)
                   Like whores?

                              SKINNY
                   Alice, tend to Delilah.

     For a long moment Alice just stands there glaring.

     INT. DELILAH'S ROOM - DAY

     DAYLIGHT AND A BASIN OF BLOODY WATER and Little Sue is just
     dipping another towel in the hot water next to Delilah's
     bed, changing the bandages.   All the whores are there in
     various states of dress, lounging on the floor, leaning
     against the wall.

                               SILKY
                             (to Alice)
                   If Delilah don't care one way or
                   the other, what're you so riled
                   about?

                               ALICE
                           (passionately)
                   Just because them smelly assholes
                   like to ride us like horses don't
                   mean we got to let 'em brand us
                   like we're horses.  Maybe we ain't
                   nothin' but whores, but by God we
                   ain't horses.

     Silky is thinking it over, frowning, and then she makes her
     decision.

                               SILKY
                             (to Alice)
                   I got a hundred an' twelve dollars.
                   That's everythin'.

                               ALICE
                   What about you, Faith?

                               FAITH
                           (reluctantly)
                   Two hundred...
                         (there are gasps)
                   Two hundred an' forty.