Days of Heaven Page #5

24EXT. DORMITORY

Benson drops the hands off at the dormitory, a

hundred yards below, a plain clapboard building with a

ceiling of exposed joists. Ursula sees Chuck watching them.

URSULA:

Whose place is that?

BENSON:

The owner's. Don't none of you go up around his

place. First one that does is fired. I'm warning you right

now.

In the warm July weather most of the hands

forsake the dorm to spread their bedrolls around a strawpile

or in the hayloft of the nearby barn.

Abby and Bill slip off to share a cigarette.

Ursula tags behind.

25EXT. ROCK

Bill lifts a big rock. Abby applauds. Ursula

kneels down behind

him. Abby pushes him over backwards.

26EXT. BARN

Ursula gasps as Abby tumbles off the roof of the

barn and falls through the air screaming:

ABBY:

Urs!

She lands in a straw pile.

27TIGHT ON ABBY AND BILL

Bill takes Abby by the hands, spins her around

until she is thoroughly dizzy, then grasps her across the

chest.

BILL:

Ready?

She giggles her consent. He crushes her in a bear hug until

she is just on the verge of passing out, then lets her go.

She sinks to the grass, in a daze of sweet intoxication.

28EXT. LANTERN - NIGHT

Bill looks deeply into Abby's eyes by the light

of a lantern that night. They have made a shallow cut on

their thumbs and press them together mixing their blood like

children.

BILL:

You're all I've got, Abby. No, really,

everything I ever had is a complete piece of garbage except

you.

ABBY:

I know.

They laugh. He bends to kiss her. She pulls away.

BILL:

Sometimes I think you don't like men.

ABBY:

As individuals? Very seldom.

She kisses him lovingly.

29EXT. WHEAT FIELDS - DAWN

The sun peers over the horizon. The wheat makes

a sound like a waterfall. It stretches for as far as the eye

can see. A PREACHER has come out, in a cassock and surplice,

to offer prayers of thanksgiving.

PREACHER:

"... that your days may be multiplied, and the

days of your children, in the land which the Lord swore unto

your fathers to give them, as the days of' heaven upon the

earth."

The harvesters spit and rub their hands as they wait for the

dew to burn off. They have slept in their coats. The dawn

has a raw edge, even in summer.

30TIGHT ON WHEAT

Chuck looks to see if the wheat is ready to

harvest. He shakes the heads; they make a sound like paper.

He snaps off a handful, rolls them between his palms, blows

away the chaff and pinches the kernels that remain to make

sure they have grown properly hard.

Tiny sounds are magnified in the early morning stillness:

grasshoppers snapping through the air, a cough, a distant

hawk.

He pops the kernels into his mouth, chews them up, and rolls

the wad around in his mouth. Satisfied, he spits it out and

gives a nod. The Preacher begins a prayer of thanksgiving.

Two ACOLYTES flank him, one with a smoking censer, the other

with a crucifix.

All repeat the "Amen." Benson makes a tugging signal with

his arm. A Case tractor--forty tons of iron, steam-driven,

as big and as powerful as a locomotive--blasts its whistle.

This is the moment they have been waiting all year for.

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