The Searchers Page #5

ETHAN:

Cut yourself?

She nods and withdraws the hand.

ETHAN:

(softly)

You were always hurting about your

hands.

She looks quickly at him and self-consciously tries to

hide her hands, conscious of their work-worn appearance.

Then for a moment their eyes meet and hold -- and a world

of sadness and hopelessness is in the look.

Aaron closes the seat of the barrel chair.

AARON:

Time for bed...

He picks up one of the lamps and starts away toward their

bedroom door. Martha looks at Ethan again. His

expression is bitter.

AARON:

Night, Ethan...Come 'long, Martha.

She turns obediently and follows Aaron. Ethan looks after

them and waits as Aaron opens the bedroom door. Martha

goes into it and Aaron follows and closes the door.

Ethan crosses to the lamp on the mantel, blows it out.

Only the firelight strikes his face as he stares broodingly

at the closed bedroom door.

DISSOLVE TO:

15OMITTED

16EXT. YARD OF THE EDWARDS' HOUSE - FAINT DAWN LIGHT

Debbie's dog is barking excitedly as six horsemen slowly

ride toward the house and dismount. A lamp goes on inside.

The six horsemen are:

CAPTAIN, THE REVEREND SAM CLAYTON, a big man with frosty blue

eyes, graying hair, a bristly full mustache and the air of

grave and resolute authority. He is a minister of the

Gospel with a .44 on his hip.

LARS JORGENSEN, the Edwards' neighbor, is a harried little

man, Scandinavian. As we shall find out soon, he has a

brisk and buxom wife and a rather astonishing brood of

children.

BRAD JORGENSEN is one of these: sandy-haired, brash,

amiable, impulsive. He is in his early twenties.

CHARLIE MacCORRY, slightly older than Brad, is Sergeant of

Company A of the Rangers. (He is also Company A.) Charlie

is a taciturn, gently-spoken, competent man, clearly

patterned by his association with Captain, the Rev. Sam.

MOSE HARPER is an old scout -- a walking bone-rack, yet

capable of tireless feats of endurance. Some think him

"tetched" yet he has managed to endure to his age during a

time and in a region where few men lived to see their

grandchildren. He wears a ragged dark overcoat in all

weather, a narrow-brimmed hat with a feather in its band.

ED NESBY is a rancher and homesteader in his mid-thirties;

resolute, honest, self-effacing; nothing picturesque or

dramatic about him; just a solid citizen and a realist.

16-AINT. EDWARDS' HOME - CLOSE SHOT - MARTHA

She is at the window of her bedroom, wrapper clutched with

one hand, lamp upraised in the other as she stares into the

dawn to see who these callers are. We hear the heavy foot-

falls of the approaching men, then a loud knock thrice

repeated -- an ominous sound.

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