The Way West

Best not be looking, Brownie.

I ain't looking.

As hard as I can!

- Howdy. - Well, howdy!

Them pretty peach trees are sure a long way from Georgia!

Yeah, and I expect to plant 'em where the ground is 40 feet deep,

black as charcoal and soft as a woman.

Now whereabouts would that be? Heaven?

Oregon, mister, haven't you heard?

Right!

- I'll tie up, Pa. - All right, son.

It feels just like a holiday. I think maybe I'll have me a little drink.

I hope I'm not disturbing you too much?

No, but you're disquieting the fish.

They're a sensitive race.

Dick Summers.

I've heard about you ever since I crossed the Ohio River,

and about as often as God Almighty.

Well, I hope he doesn't hold that against me.

I've come to ask your advice about a guide to take us to Oregon.

If you want my advice, don't go.

Especially if you've never been there.

Now, people think a lot of Jim Bridger as a scout.

What's your opinion?

Pretty good man.

What do you think of Mr. Sublette?

He's the best by far. He's the best.

Sir, you're a liar.

Mr. Tadlock, I believe you're beginning to get a little bit personal.

No, sir, because the best man, bar none, is you.

Well, I've got a nice place to live here. I got breakfast in the river,

dinner out there in the woods.

This child's just too fat and lazy to want to move.

A man who's hunted and trapped from here to the Pacific,

not once but a dozen times?

That's right. That's why.

I've made inquiries about you, Mr. Summers.

You're not lazy.

You're sick.

Sick with grief, and you have been for two years.

Ever since your Indian wife died.

You can get out now, Mr. Tadlock.

You've been here just about long enough.

Mr. Summers.

My woman died, too.

Listen to me.

I've got many families coming with me.

Honest men, women and children. Good people.

For their sake, leave this place,

ride your horse again and take my wagon train

to the Willamette Valley in Oregon.

I can't guarantee I'd leave anything behind me except a string of graves.

Why? Do you think we're as weak as all that?

No, not weak. Unfit.

Greenhorn storekeepers, tenderfoot farmers,

people that never slept in anything bigger than a barn in their lives,

and never looked at the frost on the side of a tree

to find out which way to go. No, no.

Worse than us have done better, Mr. Summers.

We're mere men, but a man's nature's enormous.

It contains both the great and the small.

Even the meanest of us can be as large as this whole continent.

We can do without you, Mr. Summers.

We'll lose more, we'll suffer more, but by God Almighty,

we mean to plant a new Jerusalem in the Oregon wilderness.

By God Almighty, that is a pretty speech.

You poor, miserable, female-haunted man.

It's hard to believe that your grief has so corrupted your guts.

God dang it, Becky,

where'd you put the bed?

Oh, Becky.

All I've been thinking about is you all the time I was in town.

Quit it. Now do you hear me?

You hear me? I said, quit it!

What the devil's the matter with you?

You're going to Oregon.

- What? - You already made up your mind

and you're trying to change mine by getting me onto that bed.

Why, Becky, I wouldn't be...

Woman,

I wish you'd stop walking around in my mind.

Lije...

Lije, we had a nice farm in Pennsylvania.

Too many stones, you know that.

Lije... Lije, stay home this time.

I wish I could, but I can't.

Why?

I don't know why, Becky.

It's just that I. . .

I gotta go where I've not been.

And where I can say, "'This far I've come.

"'I can't go no farther."'

Do you understand that?

You're no good, Lije.

But you're the only no-good man I got.

Well?

Well, get up and go.

The sun's risen.

- Giddyup! - Oregon!

Giddyup there!

On the 16th of April, 1843,

the sun rose in the east and headed west...

Caravan!

That's good shooting.

That was you who got him. I missed him.

It's just because I'm a little more hungry than you, that's all.

- You want him, Mercy? - Lord, no! Looks like Ma's dog.

What is it?

He's a red fox kitten, Mr. Summers tells me.

Lost his mama, he thinks likely. Five weeks old, Mr. Summers said.

Mr. Summers, Mr. Summers!

Tell your Mr. Summers he smells a lot older than that to me.

What are you laughing about now?

That sweet good-looker there, Mr. Mack. New married man.

He fetched her flowers. Imagine that.

Love. Oh, I just can't wait. Can you?

Oh, I could. Don't know if I will, but I could.

And what if the right woman, like me,

just fell plump, warm and happy in your arms?

I don't know.

I figure I could manage if she did.

Well, come knock on my porch, say two or three years from now.

Darn you!

Mercy!

You're to stop your flashing and a-fluttering every time

a three-legged boy runs by.

Now, you hear me?

If we don't get that girl hitched before we get to Oregon,

she's going to run off and marry the nearest buffalo.

Supper!

I think it's best we ford right here.

Mr. Summers,

can you make that out?

I can't see it too well.

It's probably a cattle train coming up from Santa Fe.

I see a wagon, Mr. Summers.

No cattle train.

What I see is Steve Brady out of St. Joe and bound for Oregon.

Well, maybe.

We'd best camp here and make the crossing in the morning.

In the rain, Mr. Summers?

Well, now, it might rain. Might not.

It might be a wagon train, might not.

Least ways, it looks like they're gonna beat us to the river.

No, sir, Mr. Summers.

They will not.

Speed, Mr. Evans, speed!

Or you and your wife will be eating the dust

of Steve Brady's wagon train all the way to Oregon.

Move up and keep the lead.

Blow your bugle, son. We'll breathe some life into these people.

- Blow it loud! - I will, Papa, as loud as I can.

Smartly, Saunders! No laggards on the Oregon Liberty Train!

Giddap in there!

Move, before you're trampled underfoot. Speed, Mr. McBee, speed!

- He's so hard, so hard. - But handsome too, hear me, Mercy.

She could do worse than cast eyes on the Senator.

He's rich as sin.

Yeah, a man his age is inclined to wed virgins.

- Hear me, Mercy? - I hear you and I hate you.

I mean the both of you.

Faster!

They're trying to head us off.

- Becky... - Where are they going?

We're here first and we're crossing first.

You're wrong, mister. You think you're crossing first.

- Bring 'em up! - Giddap there, mules!

By God,

we'll still cross first.

Whoa, mules!

- Do you think I should help, Ma? - You just stay here.

Don't drown him.

Grab the rope!

Well, gentlemen,

we made it first, didn't we?

By God, we did that, Mr. Tadlock.

Now, Mr. Evans, we're going to cross.

- First! - Right!

Pretty pleased with yourself, aren't you, Mr. Tadlock?

It was a cattle train.

You knew it all along.

Mr. Summers, I pay you to point the way.

Just point the way,

and don't gall me with your truthful opinions.

Come on, son.

Come on, Becky, let's take 'em across.

- Are you sure you're all right, Pa? - I'm fine.

All right!

Let's go! Go, mule!

Dear God, save this sinner.

I'm drowning!

A stowaway on a prairie schooner.

A man of God!

Tadlock, look at this!

We got us a new volunteer.

The name is Weatherby.

- Occupation? - A slave, brother, to the Holy Ghost.

Brother Weatherby, we're all traveling under a signed contract and a set of rules.

Now, what do you have in the way of supplies?

The spirit of Christ and the shirt on my back.