The Trail of the Lonesome Pine

Judd, you can't.

I got to get in the house.

Poke your head out in the clearing, and a Falin will get you.

But Melissa, she's going to have a baby.

Hit you, David?

No Falin can ever get me, Uncle Judd.

Oh, God, give her the strength to be good,

to be never hateful and never fight.

And don't let her carry the burden of fear,

watching her loved ones and seeing them die.

Always asking out of her heart,

"Why has it got to be? Why has it got to be?"

(SINGING) When it's twilight on the trail.

And I jog along.

The world ts like a dream.

And the ripple of the stream is my song.

When it's twilight on the trail.

And I rest once more.

My ceiling is the sky.

And the grass on which I lie is my floor.

Never ever have a nickel in my jeans.

Never ever have a debt to pay.

Still I understand what real contentment means.

Guess I was born that way.

When it's twilight on the trail.

And my voice Is still.

Please plant this heart of mine.

Underneath the lonesome pine on the hill.

And I says to him, I says, "Look here, Zeke Denker,

“you're driving your hogs to mighty poor swill."

Bet that buttoned him. Not Zeke.

He's the laughingest man I ever met. Nothing bites him.

Laughs when it's clever enough to rain.

Laughs when the sun shines.

He looks me right in the eye...

Dave's better.

Is he? Yep.

Perking up a mite.

Arm's a little green but I stuck a chaw of tobaccy on it.

Cold rifle barrel will do it more good.

What he have to say? About the Falins I mean.

"Eat your sow belly and get for home." That's what he said.

Said, "Ain't gonna be no fighting till I can tote a gun."

And I come six miles.

Six miles.

I can throw a clump of dogwood that far.

I'm nigh on to 30 miles. Look. Look.

Gather around now. Gather around.

I'm really going to show you something now.

Maybe we ones will get a go at the kid.

Whenever Judd Tolliver gets an itch to plug the Falins,

he starts playing with the young ones.

I'm gonna be the human hub.

Now, Willie, you go down there and stop me if I get to going too fast.

Lizzie Bee, you better go down and help Willie.

Look out now, here I come. Don't forget to stop me.

Well, why didn't you stop me?

Judd's better than that wagon show we saw once.

Melissa, you got a bellyache or something?

Just thinking, Lina.

Sakes and sassafras!

Thinking boils the pot over.

It boils over and over and over

if you ain't thinking.

Killing.

All the time killing.

They are planning it now. They done it yesterday,

and the week before, and the year before that.

Ever since I was a little child they done it.

Kill a Falin. Kill a Falin.

That's all they could say.

Plowing, splitting reins. Filling the corn crib.

Kill a Falin!

And the echo comes back to us from over the hills.

Kill a Tolliver. Kill. Kill. Why?

Melissa!

What you biting your paws about, Auntie?

Worrying, I guess, June and Buddie ain't back yet.

Where they be?

Over at the yard doctor, getting a potion for you.

Is that the way you like it?

Just right.

You should have let me get a town doctor, Dave.

It don't look right. It's too swole up.

You're awful good to me, Auntie.

You're a good boy, Dave.

Your boy.

My boy.

Sometimes I wished I was, Auntie. Then I wished I wasn't

'cause if I was, I couldn't marry June and if I wasn't...

Relations like we ones got me all thicked up.

Cousins are always thicker than fleas in the mountains, Dave.

I'm a big, big black bear.

I'm a mean black bear.

I'm getting closer. I'll get you.

I'm coming closer.

You laugh at me, foreigner, and I'll... I'll...

I don't blame you, I'd do the same thing myself.

That was funny. Why didn't you laugh?

She's one of the Tollivers.

That's still funny.

She didn't think so.

That's a woman's privilege.

Now, where were we?

Right in the middle of that fault, over there. Yeah.

Two years supply of strip-coal before we have to drift mine it.

We'll steam-shovel the top coal

and make it pay for the railroad up here.

You haven't got it yet.

No.

Well, suppose you let me worry about that.

The right and title to that privilege is yours, my friend.

You've got that privilege this very minute.

Start using it.

I was just running in that wood,

and I heard she was a bear.

And when I looked around to see

if she was going to eat me, she was gone.

Maybe she ate herself and disappeared.

Judd Tolliver, how you talk.

Child. Child. You mustn't.

Juny's coming back.

Maybe she stopped down by the river.

Looks like she fetched the river with her.

June!

Well, I brung it, didn't I?

June, if you ain't the lookingest...

I've been running across that log

ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper.

I can catch a squirrel on it with one hand,

but when that dog see that foreigner...

Foreigner?

He stopped right smack-dab in the middle of the log and I tripped.

What was the foreigner doing?

Don't know. Wasn't looking.

Before you know It, there I go. Plunk, right down.

What did he look like?

Just had a squint.

He's about so tall, about that wide.

Was all dressed in brown, even his hat.

And his coat had a belt.

Just a squint?

Dave Tolliver, if you're thinking

what I'm a thinking, I'm going to tell you off.

Go down to the creek and wash your dirty face.

For two carrot seeds, I'd rub it all over you.

You do it, and I'll spank you where it hurts.

Oh, you will, will you?

Did that hurt?

How could it?

Oh!

I've been talking to your pappy.

We ones is going to get married.

When? Hog killing time.

Your pappy has invited all the Tollivers.

The whole kit and boodle of them.

I ain't marrying till green up.

Spring's always the time to do them things.

Then it'll be next green up and the next.

I... I don't feel nothing.

Like... What do you mean?

I don't know.

Come on. Come on.

Dinner.

Come on.

Better make it just a dipping, June,

or them hungry mouths will eat that table bare.

Ma.

Come here.

Ma.

Do I...

Do I like Dave?

Why, honey, I think you do.

Like... Like you like Pappy?

Well, you remember when Dave went to Pokey Wells,

you was a-grieving for him then, weren't you?

And when he's to home, he don't make no never mind to you?

But, Ma... JUDD: Melissa.

The folks are waiting for their dinner.

Coming.

Well, that's liking, honey.

This here man wants to talk to you, Judd.

Does, huh?

My name ts Hale, Jack Hale.

I wonder if I could see you alone.

Here's all right.

Well, I...

You see, I wanted to talk to you about coal.

The coal on your property, I mean.

The... You Know what I mean? The fault down about a mile.

Well, you've seen the coal. You Know what I mean. It's that, uh...

The fault. The Alton people, I'm with them and they...

You was talking about coal.

Oh, yes. Coal.

There'll be a railroad up along the Ticopi

and then down across the ridge to your place.

Who said there would?