Cast a Long Shadow

Keep your eye on this.

You keep your eye on him.

Hey.

Oh, buenas tardes, senor.Yeah, buenas.

No, no, I'm looking for a fella named Brown.

Matt Brown? SenorBrown?

He's staying here?Men come, men go.

I cannot remember names.He's young, about 23 years old

or thereabouts. Not very heavy, pretty well-built.

Oh, that one is in the cantina.

He's a bad one, senor.

He owes me almost a hundred pesos.

Oh. Oh, heck.

Don't hold your cards like that, boy.

I can hardly see 'em, and if I can't see 'em,

how can I bring you luck?

Open for a peso.

Why don't you shoot first? Raise 'em, boy.

Up a peso.

That's the stuff. Watch 'em fold now.

It's too rich for their blood.

Why don't you shut up?

Up five.

I'm out.

Out.

Call.

Call. Two cards.

Here's three.

Three to me.

Don't sweat it, boy, you'll rub the spots off.

Just do like mommy used to say.

Spread 'em out and close your eyes.

Twenty pesos.

Why don't you be subtle and fire a cannon?

I don't know what you mean, boy.

Deal me out.

There's one too many in this game.

Hey, wait a minute.

Against the wall.

Come on. Move. Move.

Now, come on, get up.

You can ask what hit you later.

Hurt bad?

Never felt better.

You're lucky they didn't kill you. What's the matter with you?

You had a bottle, you had a cuspidor, a mess of chairs in easy reach.

You fought as if the winner was going to get a medal.

Don't you even have a gun?

Ate it.

Traded it for three weeks room and board.

Well, I hope you still own a horse.

Same old plug.

What brings you down this way, Mr. Donohue?

You.

I've been looking for you ever since we buried Mr. Keenan.

Keenan's dead?

Yeah.

I thought he was too big to die.

Just the thought of him sitting up in that big house

is kind of permanent, like the mountains.

Yep. When the mountains goes,

it leaves quite a hole.

You didn't look me up after more than four years to tell me that.

No,

that's only part of it.

Your old man left you everything.

Is this some kind of a joke?

Would I spend five weeks of my life to play a joke on you?

It doesn't make sense.

I always figured you'd get the place when the old man died.

I didn't think he even knew I was alive.

Why did he leave it to me?

Don't dig, boy, you'll just break your shovel.

If he was your father, he was pretty good at keeping his mouth shut.

87,000 acres.

He was a weird one, old J. Keenan.

He was as tough as they come,

but he didn't smoke, he didn't drink, didn't cuss,

was a bug on religion,

strict. Remember?

I remember how he treated my mother.

The old man could never forgive anyone who broke one of the rules

he set store by,

and your ma was a disgrace to his way of thinking.

His way of thinking?

Keenan was my father. He was a stinkin' hypocrite

and I'm glad he's dead.

Do you know what it's like not having a name?

It's like being the extra joker in a deck of cards.

You're nothing.

You don't belong in the game.

Oh, well, the point right now is what do you do with your inheritance?

I don't know.

You see, you can never in a million years

run a spread that size.

It takes experience and plenty of help from people who respect you.

Yeah.

Your best bet is to grab the money

that some of us scraped up, $20,000.

It should keep you drunk a long time.

You want to buy it from me?

That's right. That's the idea.

I didn't have enough cash of my own,

so I'm letting some of the others in on shares.

How about it?

The place really means something to you, doesn't it?

You got yourself a deal, Mr. Donohue.

Good.

But you'll have to go back long enough to sign over the deed

and pick up your money.

You'll only have to stay there about an hour.

What's the matter?

Somebody there you don't want to see?

All right.

I can go straight onto Santa Fe from there.

Once you sign those papers, nobody cares where you go,

what you do.

I'll get my horse.

Saddle up tight, Chip.

Sunday.

Sunday?

I thought it was Thursday.

I've lost track.Yeah, I wish I could. I hate Sundays.

Nothing to do but stand around on one leg.

Which is what you do all week anyway.

Well, I ain't one to kill myself.

I don't see no point to it.

Listen, the man's his own boss.

Hello, son.

Hello.Glad to see you.

Are you?

You've been gone quite a spell.

Folks was beginning to wonder. Almost everybody is in church.

Go get Charlie Boles.

I'll need him to open up the safe.

Boles ain't here, Chip.Well, where is he?

Well, he left yesterday to go fishing up at the creek.

He would. That's a good three-hour ride.

You go get him.

I'm sorry, kid.

This will give you time to clean up and rest a bit.

You can wait over as Hortensia's.

She'll fix you some breakfast.

I'll look after the horses.

Well?

The quicker we open that safe, the quicker you get a piece of this place.

I'll send my boy on the fastest horse I got.

The place is closed. There's no more whiskey.

Ay,last night.

They drank everything and broke the furniture,

and they sang about their mothers until they got sick.

Hello, Hortensia.

I tell you, there is no more...

Matt.

Oh, dios mio,Matt.

I was sure you were dead.

Well, not exactly.But you never wrote.

Nothing to say.

Hortensia, what do you think about all this?

Think? What is there to think?

The old man died. He had no people.

He left everything to you.

I thought you at least were my friend.

I am your friend, querido,

but to hear what you want to hear,

you would have to ask the old man,

and he's dead.

Come. Sit down.

I will get you some food.

I'm not hungry.

Then a drink.

I was lying. There is whiskey, a little.

No, thanks, Tensia.

Matt.

Look, Matt, tell me.

Like everyone else I am...

Como se dice?

I am anxious to know what you have decided.

I'm selling.

Clearing out of here as fast as I can.

I thought perhaps you had had enough of running away.

Ever since I rode through that front gate, it's been coming back.

But that is passed.

You and Janet?

What about her?

I changed my mind.

I think I'll have that drink.

Si.

When we're singing a hymn,

the notion is that the voices should blend together,

not fight one another.

Now, that singing is just one more proof

that there hasn't been any harmony of any kind on this place

since Mr. Keenan died.

Amen to that.

Now, I'm no great shakes as a preacher,

but a congregation like this gets no better than it deserves.