EXT NIGHT
rain falls as LITTLE BILL walks
quickly toward SKINNY'S
BILL
Wouldn't let you settle it, huh?
CLYDE
Well, you know how Skinny is.
He says he's going to shoot them.
I says Skinny, you can't DO that!
and he says well, let's get Little Bill
in here to settle this thing. I says
Little Bill's sleeping and he says
he don't care. In another
five minutes he'll shoot those boys.
INT DELILAH'S room
the women are tending
to DELILAH's injuries
LITTLE BILL enters
LITTLE BILL She gonna die?
ALICE She's going to LIVE.
She didn't steal nothing.
She didn't even touch his poke.
Alls she done, when she seen he has a
teensy little pecker, is give a giggle. That's all.
She didn't KNOW no better.
Going to hang them, Little Bill?
LITTLE BILL stares at her and then slowly turns and exits.
ALICE and SKINNY follow him.
INT NIGHT SKINNY’S
The two cowboys are tied up
in the middle of the floor.
LITTLE BILL, ALICE, and
SKINNY enter from upstairs.
LITTLE BILL
Clyde, step over to the office
and get the bull whip.
ALICE
A whipping? That's all they
get after what they done?
LITTLE BILL
A whipping ain't no little thing, Alice
ALICE
For what THEY done they deserve MORE.
SKINNY
Alice, shut up! Little Bill,
a whipping ain't going to SETTLE this.
(showing The Paper)
This here is a lawful contract between me
and Delilah Fitzgerald, the cut whore.
I brought her clear from Boston,
I paid her expenses and all, and
I've got a contract here that
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
So you figure nobody will
want to fuck her now, right?
SKINNY
Hell NO, least ways
they won't PAY to do it.
Maybe she can clean up the place
or something, but nobody's going to pay
good money for a cut up whore.
LITTLE BILL You boys off the Bar T.
You got your own string ponies?
DAVEY Yeah, I got four.
(MIKE does not answer. LITTLE BILL kicks him)
MIKE Six.
LITTLE BILL I Guess you'd just as soon
not have a trial. No fuss, huh?
DAVEY Uh, no sir.
LITTLE BILL Alright, you did the cuttin’
so come this fall you bring in five ponies
and you give them over to Skinny here.
MIKE Five?
LITTLE BILL And you... you bring in two,
you give them over, you hear?
DAVEY Yes, sir.
CLYDE Here's your bull whip, Little Bill.
LITTLE BILL Maybe we won't need this whip now. Let me tell you come the spring, if Skinny doesn't have those ponies (he cracks the whip) I'm going to come looking for you.
ALICE You ain't even going to whip them?
LITTLE BILL Well, fined them instead, Alice.
ALICE For what THEY done?
Skinny get's some ponies, and that's it?
That ain't fair, Little Bill. That ain't fair!
(LITTLE BILL grabs her
and pulls her towards him.)
LITTLE BILL Haven't you seen
enough blood for one night, Huh?
Hell, Alice, it ain't like they were tramps,
or loafers or bad men, you know there were
just hard working boys who were foolish.
If they was given over to Wickedness
in a regular way then I could see...
ALICE Like whores?
SKINNY Alice! tend to Delilah.
LITTLE BILL Go ahead.
INT DAYDELILAH'S ROOM
(The women are sitting around a bed
where DELILAH lies unconscious.)
SILKY I got eighty five dollars.
KATE I don't know, if Delilah doesn't care
one way or the other what are we all getting
so riled up about?
ALICE Just because we let them smelly fools ride us like horses don't mean we gotta let them BRAND us like horses.
Maybe we ain't nothing but whores
but, by God, we ain't HORSES.
LITTLE SUE I've got one hundred
and twelve dollars. That's everything.
ALICE How about you, Faith?
FAITH Two hundred.
(ALICE stares at her with surprise)
Two hundred and forty dollars.
ALICE Jesus, Faith, what you been doing?!?
You've been giving Skinny something Special?
they all laugh
LITLE SUE She laughed.
ALICE With what Kate got, and Silky got some,
and then mine and Little Sue's...
KATE It ain't enough.
ALICE Not yet, maybe.
