The Last Hunt

Yours?

Yeah.

Lose many?

All I had.

Ah, dumb, crazy buffalo.

Tobacco?

Gilson's my name.

Charlie Gilson.

McKenzie.

Sandy McKenzie?

Hey, wasn't you meat hunter

for the army engineers a couple years back?

Yep.

There's talk about you

from Texas up through Arkansas,

even here in the Dakota territory.

Talk you must've killed more buffalo than anybody.

Too many.

4 years of planning and saving

gone in 4 minutes.

Ah, there ain't no money raising cattle.

Not real money.

Yeah.

Good grass around Mitson Rock.

Rich earth,

plenty of water all year-round.

All I wanted was a place of my own,

raise some stock.

Hoped I was through chasing buffalo.

Maybe they ain't through chasing you.

What do you mean by that?

Only this, mister.

Buffalo hides bring in $2.00 a piece.

Buffalo tongues selling for 50 cents.

Not interested, Gilson.

Much obliged.

Well, we got him for a start.

What do you say?

Takes money to run an outfit.

I got enough.

All right.

I've changed my mind, mister.

You want to go slaughtering buffalo,

you go ahead.

Me, I want to get the stink of 'em

out of my insides.

I'm fed up on killin'.

Seems like all I've ever known

since I was a kid was killin'

one way or another.

There ain't nothin' wrong with that.

Killing's natural.

Not to me it ain't.

Sure it is. The war taught me that.

The more you killed, the better man you was.

Killin', fightin', war.

That's the natural state of things.

Peacetime's only the... Resting time in between

so's you can go on fightin'.

I was in the war, too,

and on the same side you was,

but I wasn't in it for the killin'.

All right, have it your way.

You want to live peaceful.

Buffalo won't let you.

They wiped you out, now you wipe them out.

You want to live, they gotta die.

Their hides would pay for your new stock of cattle.

You'd be killing for your reasons

and me for mine.

Well, glad to see you again, Jimmy.

Got yourself some good pelts here.

What you want to take back to the reservation?

I ain't goin' back.

Oh?

I'm gonna get me a job.

I'll take this for a starter.

You better get rid of those reservation clothes

and dress like a white man.

Better get a haircut, too.

You know, with that red hair, nobody'd take you for an Injun.

Would they take me for a half-breed?

Nope.

'Cause I guess that's what's important.

Yeah, I guess it is.

You better fix yourself up some clothes.

Sandy!

Hi, ed.

How's the cattle business?

Well, I'll tell you. That's a long--

Easy with that gun, boy.

You just had a close call.

Oh, put it away, Charlie.

This boy ain't out to trouble us.

How do you know he ain't?

He just ain't got a "trouble us" look.

You better give me that till you leave.

No sense getting hurt too soon.

Tell him what we need.

100 pounds of lead.

150 pounds of powder.

6 cases of primers.

And one case of knives.

I thought you was through with buffaloes.

What's it to you?

It's nothing to me, mister.

My partner Charlie Gilson.

Glad to know you.

I'll take this Winchester.

What about a Skinner?

Hey, is old Woodfoot still around?

Last I heard, got into a fight,

cards or something, busted his pegleg.

Yeah?

A one-legged buffalo Skinner?

And 2 of the best hands with a hide.

If he'll hire on, which he probably won't.

Ed, I'll give you the rest of the order later on.

Take it easy, boy.

Now, who said you could do that?

I was just givin' him--

Carries his own scalp.

Stinkin' Indian.

Shot him in the back of the head,

that's what he did.

7 years ago in deadwood city.

August of '76.

I was there.

Ah.

He outdrew Hickok, that's all.

Outdrew wild bill?

Murder.

That's what it was.

Wild bill was playing a hand of poker

in Karl Mann's saloon.

In comes Jack McCall.

Cross-eyed, broken-nose whiskey head.

Shot poor bill in the back of the head.

And the cards that wild bill was holdin'

was aces and 8s,

and that's why, you crummy tenderfoot,

that's why they call aces and 8s

a dead man's hand.

Hey, you go by

the name of Woodfoot?

Just think on it.

Custer, Hickok, California Joe--

all dead inside of 5 months.

They're giants, mister, giants.

Want to hire on as buffalo Skinner?

Buffaloes. Every skunk and his uncle

who can afford a gun is a buffalo hunter.

60 a month, starting tomorrow.

Listen, mister,

you're talking to the best buffalo Skinner alive,

bar Injun women.

I've skinned more buffalo

than there are people west of the Mississippi.

I've skinned for the Santa Fe and the army

and wild bill. I--

I pulled and yanked on buffalo hides

until my guts ached

and my clothes were stiff with buffalo grease,

and they smelled enough

to knock a dog off a gut wagon

into a dead faint.

You want the job or don't you?

What, for you?

I skinned for the best, mister.

I've seen hunters come and go.

You ain't any hunter.

65 a month and enough whiskey

to keep you working.

You ain't any hunter, Sonny.

The only good buffalo hunter left

is Sandy McKenzie.

He's my partner.

He's...

You know, mister,

you'd be the second-biggest liar in Dakota.

You'd be the first and champeen

if it wasn't for me.

McKenzie is through hunting.

He quit. He's smart. He quit afore he got spooked.

You ever see a hunter spooked by the buffalo, Sonny?

It's a sight to see.

You ever seen a spook, Woodfoot?

Not me.

But then I never killed any buffalo.

But I have seen 'em that was spooked,

yes, sir.

Ah...it's gets 'em all sooner or later.

It gets 'em all, man and boy, inside of...

A year, couple of months.

The buffalo spook will get you, too, Sonny.

Yeah. And one day you'll wake up

and there it'll be inside of you,

runnin' ziggy-zaggy like burnin' blood.

Oh, don't scoff me, mister.

I've seen what they've done