Original subtitles

Everybody here there

Got some love to share

But when it sharin' time

We all change our minds

It's a slip of the lip, when you say you care

I keep my love over here, you keep yours over there

And it's all in the name of the good Christian people

Said that it's all in the name

of the good Christian people

You wanna tell the truth

Who you gonna tell it to?

Ain't got no hiddin' place

Go on and show your face

Good Christian people

Get your heart on

Don't let your feeling's and fears

Be your downfall

All in the name of the good Christian people

Said that it's all in the name

of good Christian people

- This property is posted, you boys are trespassing.

- Oh sheriff, we's was just having a little fun.

- You do this for fun, you go to hell for pleasure.

Now get out of here, go on.

- Aw old Lightning Rod don't object.

He likes a piece of whiskers, we's gonna give him a dollar.

Ain't no nigger girl a mind being raped a little.

- How'd you figure where we was anyhow?

- Well Lightning Rod's mama saw you fetch him

and she figured what was spreding in the air.

Alright boys, party's over.

Rod, oh Rod.

Here's your dollar.

Go on, take it.

Now, you know where you live?

DO you?

Well, you go on home now.

Go on.

You too, Bobby.

- Well, you mind if I get my wife, I mean she's got the car.

- And where she at?

- Oh, she just up the hill there, a piece.

She and Mrs. Alverson bird watching.

- I'll give you a lift.

- Ah, thank you, sheriff.

- I'm turnin' here.

- Thanks a lot sheriff, Nancy's waiting for me already.

I'll see you.

- Hi Track.

- Could you spare me a few minutes, Breck?

- Sure, sure.

- Well, if you wanna finish what you're doing

I might lend ya a hand.

- No, no, no, it's okay.

It's practically finished anyway.

You can go in, come inside?

Would you like a drink?

- Not just yet.

The last time I was out here you could see

27 miles across north west Alabama.

You getting tired of the view?

- No the trouble is the birds keep on flying into the

glass, because they can't see them and break their wings.

- Well, why don't you just throw

an old fishnet over the window?

That way you'd have your view and your birds.

- Well, I just guessing, calculate I never thought of it.

- You know, I swear if a fly was to

bust his leg, you'd be coming running with a split.

Do you plan on welcoming the strangers next week?

- You mean the black folk demonstration?

- You gonna let them camp on your mountain?

- I hadn't intended to, why?

- Well, a lot of the good country people asked me what

you're gonna do and I didn't know, so I thought I'd ask you.

- It's none of their business, is it?

- Well, it's just that they don't like a lot of strangers

coming in and telling them how to run their county.

Maybe they got a point.

- I'm not gonna be down in the court house

square cheering the movement. I don't like circuses.

- But you won't be cheering against either, will you?

- Well, I'll try to maintain a dignified neutrality.

Now, what do you want to drink?

- Well, you got anymore of that brown whisky?

- Yeah, you know where it is.

You think you might be having trouble with the strangers?

- No, I don't think so, no.

- No, someones coming.

Someday your father's gonna catch us.

- Ah, forget about it.

- What were you doing all afternoon?

- Who me?

I wasn't doing nothing.

What in the world, this thing is skipping.

Anyway, we'll get a new car in the spring,

don't make no sense to fix it up now.

- You've been saying that since Christmas.

- Almighty what in the hell is, the hell.

- I have had it with this, I have had it with the car.

It must be the engine.

- Figured it out by yourself, did ya?

- Come on, let's go into town and get a tow truck.

Come on.

- I'm tired.

I've been on my feet all day,

I'm not walking no four miles to town.

- You ain't?

Well, I recon you can just wait here then.

- I'm cold.

- Will you make up your goddamn, bang tailed mind

how do you feel this morning?

And don't go messin' with the God damn radio you hear?

'Cause I don't hold no grudge

A grudge ain't never been strong enough to block our love

' No!

No!

No!

No!

No!

- Well, I can guaran-goddamn-tee ya one thing.

We're not gonna have no trouble from outside agitators.

Not as long as I'm the mayor.

- What I wanna know, how we gonna stop em?

- We, you mean the Klan'?

Well, the Klan's gonna do nothing.

I spoke to the Grand Dragon in Birmingham.

He says nothing, we're gonna let them have

their sweet Jesus freedom "we shall overcome",

get out the God damn black vote demonstration.

- We might have some trouble with the membership about that,

they're getting kinda antsy.

- Well, then I suggest you take 'em down to

awful Annie's and let them get their rocks off.

I tell you what,

as the president of the Atoka Lumber Company

I'll pick up the tab.

- Well, that's truly kind off you, Mr. Hardy

But what I was thinking that, well, we should you know--

- The thing is when a good old boy joins the Ku Klux,

every once in a while he wants to cluck

and I know the feeling.

- Do ya?

- You betcha I do.

- Well, let me tell you something.

I don't care if you're the deputy sheriff and my own brother in law.

You nor nobody else get special clucking privileges.

- The boys get tired of coming over here

to meet and talk about the Fourth of July

picnic and Christmas turkeys for orphans

and horse shit like that.

They figure they're missing too many good TV shows.

- As a matter of fact the boys was planning

a little action for tonight, Hardy.

Kind of a preventive action, so to speak.

Nows the time to discourage our niggers

from attending that demonstration next week

- We thought you'd want to know about it.

- Well, I got to know about it.

Hell, I'm the God damn exalted cyclops.

What I don't want to know is what you're gonna do.

You see, one of these days I might have to put my hand

on the Bible, what we oughta talk about

is what you're not gonna do.

Now, you're not gonna kill nobody.

- No, we ain't gonna do that.

- And you're not gonna maim nobody like

cutting off some niggers nuts

or slicing up his back, so I get to read

in the New York Times what barbarians we are.

And you're not gonna dynamite no churches.

' No.

- Then I guess it's alright.

What I mean is this.

We've got fine Christian people here

both black and white, we got great opportunity,

my only interest is the orderly

development of Atoka county.

And none of us want a bunch of agitators, whores,

punks, scum, atheists, perverts,

all controlled by the Communists coming

in here, bothering our niggers.

The boys at state head quarters don't mind if you

go out and burn a few crosses every once in a while,

every once in a while take an agitator out

and touch him up a bit, leave him feeling chastised

so he knows his good Christian neighbors

just doing what you gotta do, so everybody can get along.

- Sure, Hardy, sure.

- Hello.

What?

God almighty.

Nancy Poteets done been raped.

- What?

Well, thank you for calling, Fred, I appreciate it, right.

- Nancy Poteet?

- 'Lil yellow headed gal.

- Jesus Christ.

Raped by a nigger.

- What nigger?

- Well, we don't know yet.

- I'll venture a guess.

- I guess and calculate it's that God damn Willy Washington.

- That black son of a bitch, get your guns.

- Now, wait a minute, just wait a minute, God damn it.

- Aw, he's queer for married women,

always did get his enjoys out of some other niggers wife.

- Always bragging on his triumphs at the sawmill.

- Well, this is different if he

stuck his black peg in a white hole.

- Alright you boys remember what I told ya,

just take it easy, you hear me?

- God damn it, you boys wait for the law.

- Come on, Vernon, do something.

- How in the hell am I going to hold 'em now?

You got any suggestions about that, Hardy?

- Well, God damn it, you've gotta try.

- Willy.

- What it is?

- Step outside for a minute.

- You can run it down to me right here.

- Where were you between eight and nine?

- Tonight?

I was poppin' me a piece of heaven.

- What was her name?

- Now, Sheriff, I don't go around talkin' about my delight.

- Willy, I'm not here to pass the God damn time of day.

I got a warrant for your arrest.

- Well, I ain't gonna be namin' no names, 'cause that kind of

stuff'll get me in a whole peck of trouble.

- You are in a peck of trouble.

I'm arresting you for rape.

- She said it was rape?

- Let's go, Willie.

You get in the front.

You better jump in the back, Willy.

- Thank you, Sheriff, it sure gonna feel

a lot safer back here.

- We want him, Track.

- Sherif,f goddamn it, be reasonable.

- Don't dispute us, Mr. Bascomb, we're just trying to save the

county the cost of a trial.

- I know what you're trying to do. Now, if you boys'll just

back off and let me do my elected duty.

- Your goddamn duty is to us, we elected ya,

and by God, we can unelect ya.

- Well, until that great day comes...

You take your hand off that arm.

- Son of a bitch.

- Shit, alright, get in the truck.

- Hey, hey, couple niggers.

- Well, what cha say, boys?

It's Garth, that uppity spade, and his friend Henry.

Let's get the son of a bitch.

- Come on, Henry, come on, bank up.

- Get those bastards.

- Come on, you guys, get 'em.

Come on, come on, let's go get 'em.

Come on.

Let's go.

- Come on, man, come on.

- Garth!

Garth!

- Catch him, catch him!

- Hey, wait for me, man!

- Jessie, your skinning knife.

- Whatcha all doin' to me?

No'. No'. No!

- Let's go.

Alright now, you all know the rules. We each gotta put a

shot in him.

- No, no, no, no, no.

- What is it?

Breck, can I ask you a world famous question?

- What, at this time of night?

- Why won't you marry me?

I mean really?

I'd light your pipe, I'd put out your slippers

I'd even read you the funny papers.

Well, Mayor Hardy Riddle asked me to marry him

that's a secret.

- Well, Mayor Hardy Riddle is married.

- Of course he is, that's why it's a secret.

- Well, you know I wouldn't turn him down because he weighs

in at about a million dollars.

- Hm, well, he's too fat.

- What's that?

What're you saying?

- I said, if you'd marry me

I'd live in a tent and eat turnips.

- You could pester fine.

- I hear Loretta Sykes is coming back.

Is she gonna stay up here on the mountain?

- Loretta's coming back to see her grandma.

- Are you gonna start that up again?

- Start what?

- Getting your chocolate milk from her.

- That is a disgusting expression.

- Yes I know, but are you?

- Why I never did it.

- Well I've got to believe you although everybody says

that you used to lift her skirt up

with a certain regularity.

- Loretta's coming home to see her

grandma, because her grandma is dying of cancer.

- That's not what they say down at the office.

Butt Cutt said she's coming back for the demonstration.

- What does big Track say?

- Big Track says nothing about anything.

If spoken words were a dollar a dozen he'd be bankrupt.

- It's probably why he's the best sheriff we've ever had.

- I don't know.

This town, it shivers me, like that

gun fire suddenly in the middle of the night, what was it?

- Oh, it was maybe they're out coon hunting,

or maybe it was a drunk stumbling around in the dark.

Maybe it was a keg of dynamite.

- I feel like we're all sitting on it,

waiting for it to go off.

- That's how they found Henry, just

up the hill behind the juke joint on the Birmingham road.

- Who'd you figure done it?

- A little something from a national office

- You wanna know who done it?

Probably some other nigger.

- Probably so.

- Or one of them outside agitators.

Some of them's already in town,

a nigger by the name of Charlie Peck

and a mongolizing white preacher.

- Preacher?

- Well he was wearing one of them front ass collars.

- No don't worry about it,

we had the word on that bunch a long time ago.

- In any case we'll take care of them bastards.

- That's right.

- For sure.

- This republic is great, not because of our land,

our wealth, or our population.

We are great because of the genius of

pioneer white freeman who settled this continent

dared the might of kings and made

the wilderness a home of freedom.

Our future depends on the purity

of this racial stock. Granting the ballot to Negros

is a crime against human progress.

Trash.

- Open three.

- Hi.

- Hey, sheriff Bascomb, hey sheriff, I wanna talk to you.

- Okay, Toddy, out.

- Thanks, sheriff.

- How you feeling?

- Holy, must have been something I ate.

- Must have been something you washed it down with.

- I'll swear to you, I'll never do it again.

I'll swear to you on a stack--

- Stack of six packs.

- What did I do?

- Well, you gave your wife one hell of a nose bleed,

you wrapped a kid something awful, you mashed the cat,

then you killed the dine.

- God almighty.

You fixed it with my wife?

- You can go home now.

- Hey, hey mister, hi, sheriff, sir.

Did old Henry rape Miss Nancy Poteet?

Well all I know is it sure in the hell wasn't me,

why that warrant you laid on me at that

juke joint kinda, kinda caught me by surprise.

Shit, I sure in the hell didn't have to rape her.

- Hey Track, Track, he'd done it to me again,

he yanked down my bulletin in front of

Hardy Riddle and everybody,

I mean don't he give a diddly damn

about preserving the purity of the race?

- He don't care about the people that do.

Why he even thinks our great governor is a pissant.

- You know something, he even hates the Han.

- Well, maybe he has his reasons.

- Yeah, but that happened a long time ago,

you know, in the holy here, and now I think I might

knock Mr. High and mighty Breck

right flat on his stiff legged ass.

- Oh, no, you won't, he knows karate from the marines,

he can ram his fist in a barrel of rice up to his elbow.

- Hey, honey cheeks, let me tell you something,

I got friends and we got ways.

- Sure, sure, I know you can poison Breck's dog or

you can shoot his horse, or maybe you could burn

down his trees, or maybe you could shotgun him

in his pick up, sure I know.

- Well, maybe that's the way it'll end.

But as long as I'm sheriff

you ain't gonna be the one to do it.

- Well, if you say so, Track,

I mean, if that's what you want or shit.

Could be so easy, there he is now.

Right now over at the bus depot.

- Welcome home.

- Thank you, Breck.

- How's the job?

- 120 a week, it's kind of a miracle for a,

for a handkerchief head five years out of the corn pone belt.

- You married?

- When I left, you told me to keep my

skirt down and my legs crossed.

- Well I didn't mean it to last forever.

By this time I expected you to have a husband, a Chevy,

and an old electric kitchen.

- Oh, the Chevy I got, you're the one that

taught me to strive, make a run for the middle class.

But you're not much of a striver yourself.

Now are you?

- Well, you know there's not much use striving

on a 3000 acres that grows nothing but rocks and pines and.

- And relief hounds.

- Well, sure, they're have their shacks,

their welfare checks,

and have a TV and hope for heaven.

- They're mummified,

you think it's too late for them to change?

- Why should they change?

It's all they've ever wanted.

- And you Breck, what do you want?

- Much the same thing,

as long as there's quiet on the mountain.

- Grandma wrote you never married.

- She wrote right, did she write you

about the demonstration next week?

- I wrote her.

- It could be dangerous.

- Danger's just another way of

thinning out talent down here.

- Well, down here, you know, we work without nets.

- Breck, I'm not against shaking up the mountain a bit.

But I came back because the only creature

in the world who really ever loved me is dying.

I guess that's not the whole truth.

Guess, I also came back to see what happened there,

well, see what happened to you.

- Who is it?

- A couple of friends.

Are you Loretta Sykes?

- Yes.

- This is Charles Peck, I am the reverend Josh Franklin.

- So what do you want?

- We know you're with the movement.

- Chicago?

- Ya, we were hoping you'd help us here

on Stancill's mountain.

- Help you do what?

There's nobody here anymore.

Just a dozen people or so.

- They all count and they're gonna

learn where the ballot box is.

- A dozen old people waiting to die,

most of 'em can't even read, five or six kids in a

sprinter's crouch,

waiting to take off for Chicago or the army.

- So lay it on them why they have to vote.

- Most of them too young.

Something else to.

Both of you guys city dudes,

you don't know what a forest fires like,

you start messing with these people up here

and they'll burn you out.

They'll be homeless, someone be dead.

Now, is that what you want to do, set this place on fire?

- The fire's everywhere,

everybody's gotta risk getting burned.

- Well, that's big talk.

- I got you pegged baby, you ain't no

anti-Tom handkerchief head, you're in he movement alright.

Right up to your polished finger tips

but not up to your tight little butt.

You eating high, you got your own private can

in Chicago, so you ain't too pained about your

poor raggady ass brothers and sisters

with nits in their hair and grits in their over hauls.

- Charles take it easy.

Who is this Breck Stancill?

Is he a brother of the sheet?

- Not in his head, nor in his heart.

Just likes to read and work in these woods.

- He got any bread?

We could use the donation.

- Even the relievers feel sorry for Breck,

he doesn't even have a TV set.

- He must be some kind of nut.

- Yes, a very stubborn kind of nut.

With a long memory.

See that tree?

That's the most famous,

the most infamous tree in the history of our county.

Breck's great grandfather opposed succession

was against slavery.

So the local red necks, they hanged

judge Stancill from this tree in 1861.

- What's he ever done about it?

- Well, there's not much he can do.

Going past this tree everyday, it must remind him.

I guess that's what makes him drink so much.

Maybe it's a pain in his leg, I don't know.

- That's tough, but we've all of us got some kind

of cross to bear, next week me and Josh

will be toting ours in the court house square.

Eyeball to eyeball with old big Track and old Butt Cutt

and all the other hyenas.

- I think you'll survive.

- I've been thinking baby, maybe one night I'll

slip back to here through the confederate lines

and you can comfort me on the eve of Armageddon.

- I think you better stick to those long

stringy head girls with the dirty tennis sneakers.

- Okay, baby, but if you hear me running through

the woods with them dogs on my tail

don't harden your heart against me.

You will do me that favor.

- I'll be running right with you steady buck,

matching your stride for stride.

- How do you figure that?

- 'Cause I'll be with ya, in the court house sqaure.

See ya.

- Who is that?

Oh, constant denied.

Shit house mouse.

Shit house mouse.

Look at that.

Haven't worn our glory suits for a long time.

Freeze!

- Why didn't you just kill him?

- Nigger!

- And this is Johnson's shot gun.

- Ever find the murder weapon?

- No but we think it was an automatic or a pump,

or a five empties double out back.

- Got any idea who did it?

- Not yet.

- And you think it was a black huh?

- Jan, putting your words in

my mouth won't win you the Pulitzer prize.

- Hey, wait a minute.

- Track, I've come all the way from

Birmingham on a God damn Sunday morning

and this stud in the barn yard threads,

he's come from New York.

- You've got to give us something, even if it's filler.

- What's the crime rate in this county?

- Nothing to write about.

- No crime or you don't keep records of the rate?

- There are two kinds of law open to a back county sheriff.

He can book and punish.

- That way every peckerwood in

this county would have a police record.

- Or he can cool things, smooth them out by

bending the law a little to keep people from breaking them.

- Sheriff, that's mighty fine cracker barrel

talk but we've got a job to do and it might

be best for all of us if you were a little more cooperative.

- Well, I could be more cooperative if

I got back to work, huh?

- Isn't there anybody around here we can talk to?

- Well, why don't you try Trixie in the other room,

you'll find her very cooperative.

- We'll be back.

- You are always welcome.

- What I wanna know is who the hell does he think he is?

Trixie baby.

- Hello.

- Hey Trixie, working on Sunday?

- Hi Jan.

- Hi.

- Winston, New York Times.

- Aren't you a little off your beat?

- Not if this is Ellington, Alabama,

the garden spot of the universe.

- And the news capital of the world.

- At least this week.

- Why the sudden interest in the back woods of Alabama?

- Well, maybe it has something to do

with a rape and a couple of murders.

- And a black vote demonstration coming up.

- Or maybe it has to do with the fact

that the human skin differs in pigment.

- Ah, sugars in homicide.

- What do you think honey?

What I mean is how did all this happen?

How did it start?

- I guess it started in 1619 where the

sea captain lying off Virginia

with the first cargo of slaves.

Sometimes I wish the son of a bitch had

been fired on and denied permission to land.

Oh, it's a missing persons.

- Uh, sheriff, I gotta see you.

- What is it Bobby?

- Listen, I'm leaving town.

- Oh, then I guess you better give me

a forwarding address in case you.

- Oh no, no, not with Nancy,

I mean, I'm sorry, but I cannot take it no more.

Working in the market there cutting up pork chops

for some lady who I just know wants to

ask me how does it feel to screw a wife that's

been screwed by a nigger.

But, but, what bothers me is it don't bother her.

She's got no shame.

- Where will you go?

- Oh God, I don't know.

All I know is I'm going greyhound.

Just like the niggers, God damn it.

Why did this thing have to happen to me?

- You don't think that there's anyway that you could.

- No, no, no, listen would you give her my insurance policy?

And this 34 dollars, now I've divided it up.

Half for her and half for grey hound.

Just tell her that.

- And because of them the way of truth will be reviled.

Oh, Lord, give us a sign so we may know what we must do.

And grant us the strength to do it.

Amen.

We stand alone, besieged by God's enemy's.

Our once Christian nation is being delivered to the godless.

We are losing our young people.

Look around you.

They are not here,

they have banished themselves from their righteous company.

Just as God's alter has been banished from those schools.

Bearing the mark of the black beast

are being forced into the

innocent fellowship of our children.

As devoted parents and patriots we must stand up for Jesus.

And Ella.

- I can smell nigger on her,

I can truly smell nigger on her.

- Get out, get out.

- Shame.

- Filth.

- How can you push yourself on these good Christian folks?

After being in that niggers foul embraces?

- Please, please, please.

Will the congregate, will the congregation, please be seated.

- Well, she don't belong here.

- I think I'm gonna faint.

- If you have any Christian decadency in you,

you will leave.

I am waiting.

- You blame me for what happened?

As though I did something filthy?

Well, you're the filthy ones.

You lying Christian people.

- Nancy, come on now, let's get out of here.

- I wish I could forgive you like our Lord

forgave his enemies.

- They're just trying to bother you.

- But I won't!

I can't!

And I never will!

I am not ashamed for what happened, I did nothing!

- You know it's quiet and peaceful up here.

It's a shame.

- What's a shame.

- I mean up here, Nancy'd be outta sight.

Outta sight, outta mind.

Nobody be calling her names or smelling nigger on her.

- Track, I got about, I guess 200 dollars,

now you take it and ship her off,

I don't care where to the Vatican,

to the Salvation Army,

or to anyone who cares enough

about nursing her back to health.

- Oh, she's healthy enough, that's the trouble.

She's too damn healthy.

- Why she suddenly become so healthy?

- When a yellow headed gal gets black snaked

the good country people think

she oughta dig a hole and stick her head in it.

If she ain't dead from rape she oughta suicide herself.

Or at least have the decadency to be all torn up and crying

and trembling with shame.

But hell, Nancy kept her head.

She even showed up in church and that's when it hit the fan.

- How could I ever get rid of her?

- Beats the hell oughta me.

- I'd have to supply her with food.

- Unless you wanted her to starve.

- She'd have to move in here with me

and you go tell her it can't be done.

- Aw hell, you do that much for a bird with a broken wing.

Okay, you tell her it can't be done.

She's out in the car.

- Come on in.

- Why the hell did you take Nancy Poteet up to Breck's?

Ain't you got enough on your hands?

You keep riling these good country people,

come next election you're gonna be flat out on you ass.

- So who you gonna put in, Butt Cutt?

He's already set the brother in law business back 20 years.

- At least he don't make so damn many waves.

Track you're the best sheriff this county ever had,

but you don't know anymore about business than

a hog knows about Sunday.

The growth and well being of

this county depends on business.

- But what's that got to do with Nancy Poteet?

- It's got to do with race relations!

- Well everything does.

- You rocking the boat you know.

We got this conflict now the blacks are moving north,

and going to Chicago, they're joining the army

so they can get a 1500 dollar bonus,

then they can go to Germany for two years

and just wallow in that kraut snatch

and become ski instructors.

And what happens to me?

I gotta replace them with whites,

but no self respecting white will do

grunt labor for what I pay the niggers.

I can't make no money outta relief checks,

that's all that'd be left.

First thing you know I'd be up there on

the mountain with Breck, sitting in a rocking chair

jawin' with a bunch of old shines.

- Shit.

- You're cutting your own throat to ya know.

That's right, there's a black majority in this county

what's gonna happen if they decide to run old junior

here for sheriff, where'd you be then,

where'd you be with your gift house from the

grateful county people, and your gift car,

and your kid going to West Point?

Got you where it hurts don't I?

And don't look at me like I'm the heavy

'cause I'm not, if you wanna

know who the heavy is I'll tell ya.

It's the system and we're all of us caught up in it.

You, me, Breck, all of us.

And it's gonna be one hell of a mess when them

newspaper men come in here and go up to Breck

and he starts mouthing about that sweet

little Nancy Poteet, that poor little

yellow headed outcast that you saved from

a ravaging horde of church goers,

when that happens we're all gonna be

in a deep shit on national television.

- So she says red eye gravy on your grits

I thought she was offering me a shot of.

- On.

- Trixie , who is this Breck Stancill?

- Breck?

- Ya, who the hell does he think he is?

He won't even talk to us.

- He's fairly particular who he talks to.

Here make yourself useful.

His families been around here

for eight generations you know.

- Maybe that's what makes him so peculiar.

He wouldn't even let us shoot a still of his God damn dog.

- You must understand if that dog were just

another sorry cur with mange I think he would

have said okay, but Chrissy's pure bred

and some of the people around here might be

peeved because it's Breck's, and the dog might come to harm.

- What about the black reliefers?

All I wanted was a shot inside one

of their shacks to show the awful poverty.

- That awful poverty isn't as awful as the white reliefers.

Blacks on Stancill's mountain get free rent,

a vegetable patch, fire wood, rat poison, a solid roof,

a church, and a grave yard.

Anybody reading about them might be

tempted to practice a little arson.

- Isn't there anything we

can write about Mr. Breck Stancill?

- Yes, there's this.

Birds are leaving this part of Alabama, like yellow hammers.

They need a worthless, half rotten, old oak tree to live in.

The only tree farmer who spares old oaks is Breck,

he let's them stand sprawling his forest,

costing him money,

all that for the sake of the yellow hammers.

- God, that's fascinating.

- Yes, I thought you'd be touched.

Anything else?

- Yes, are you busy tonight?

- What have you got in mind?

- Well, we could go down town

and watch them turn on the street lights.

- Or we could go to my room at the Heart of Dixie Motel,

and listen to the plumbing.

- Sorry, I've had enough excitement in the past few days.

- What about tomorrow?

I'll take you to Johnson's funeral.

- We could both take you.

- Now, that's a date.

That make me pure

Rock of ages cleft for me

Let me hide myself in thee

- Must have been some of them God damn agitators.

- Shamed us in front of the grand wizard

and two imperial dragons.

- No, it weren't no agitator.

- What do you mean no, a couple of our

night hawks saw them up on Stancill's mountain.

John with that nignog Loretta.

- I know that, but it weren't anyone who shot Taggert.

- Now, how can you be so God damn sure?

- Remember the night we got Henry?

- Uh huh.

- Well, Garth was with him.

He must have seen what we did to him.

That black son of a bitch got Johnson, got Taggert,

and I think he's fixing to get us all one by one.

- Yeah, you tell Track?

- How could I, how could I tell him

it was us that got Henry?

- Well I'll tell him, I'll tell him I got

an anonymous phone call,

no, I'll go bring him myself, I'll get that son of a bitch.

- How you gonna do that, how you gonna find him?

- How, how am I gonna find him?

Listen, I'll lay you five to ten that that gal

agitator gots him stashed away in

her shack up in the mountains.

- I dunno, that's Breck's private piece of brown comfort.

You wanna go up against Breck?

- Anytime, anyplace.

But this is the one night of the week that

Mrs. Big Track Bascomb takes pity on that

poor miserable son of a bitch bachelor

and asks him to supper.

- Huh, Mrs. Track never asks me to supper, she ever ask you?

- Wouldn't go if she were to ask,

but particularly not tonight,

we've got more important things to do.

Come on man, Hector, come on boys.

Got a lot a work to do.

- Hey!

- What do you want?

- Open up.

Look, you don't want me to put the hood on you.

- Have you got a search warrant?

- Search warrant, my ass, give me that

I'll open the God damn.

- Alright, alright, shh.

- Search warrant, heh.

- What's that 'retta?

- Nothing grandma.

- Evening.

Have a good look around boys, I mean good.

Alright Loretta, where's Garth?

- I have no idea.

- Anybody else in the house?

- Like you saw, just my grandmother.

- Loretta, tell me, what brought you back here?

- It's my grandmother, she's dying.

- Don't you lie to me, nigger.

You've come here to demonstrate.

Two days ago you let them two communist agitators

into this house, and they spent the night with you.

- They come to my door, we talk for about ten minutes,

but nobody spent the night here.

- Well, now that's a crock.

But at least you're admitting that

the three of you was conspiring.

- I never said that.

- Yes, conspiring against the peace

and dignity of Atoka county.

- If you've got charges that I...

- Ya, I might have, I just might have,

you know, for example, there's a law

in this state against a nigger gal

committing fornication with a white man.

- Nothing like that happened.

- On |'|| bet it didn't, | just bet it didn't.

You know, I can see you in that court room now, a swearing ya?

That you and them communists spent a night

in a shack in the woods, and all you did was pray

and count nigger votes and sing a few verses

of We Shall Overcome

- Nothing, nothing, nobody home.

- You sure?

- Not a squeak.

- Well, I'm taking you in, that's what I'm gonna do, yeah.

- What for?

- For further investigating.

- Grandma, I'll be back soon,

the neighbors will look after you.

- Let's get her ass in the truck.

- Get your hands off me.

- Well I'll do the dishes later.

- Nah, I'll do 'em.

- I do wanna pay my respects to Mrs. Taggart.

- Thank you, Mable, you sure do set a fine table.

- Aw, well thank you for joining us.

Yes?

Just a minute.

Right, right.

Alright, yeah, alright.

Oh, Allen.

That was Mayor Hardy Riddle, seems that

he got a phone call from your high school principle.

It seems that you've been going around tearing down

all them patriotic bulletins that Butt Cutt

goes to such trouble to put up.

- That's right, daddy.

- Seems like you got yourself a fan.

- You oughta quit that, Allen, got too much to lose.

- What for instance?

- West Point that's what.

- Daddy.

- You don't suppose you could get an appointment

to West Point without Hardy Riddles support, do ya?

Or his friends in high places.

- To hell with Hardy Riddle, I don't wanna go to West Point.

Now, daddy, I've been trying to tell you of what I want

I want to be a tree farmer,

I could be like an apprentice to Breck.

I wanna marry Billy Jean, I wanna stay close to my family,

I ain't gonna fight any goddamn wars.

- How about you take a walk, Allen.

- I gotta do the dishes.

- Later.

- I'm sorry.

- Hell.

- Life is one long suffer.

- But does it have to be?

You know, I often wonder why you do it.

- Do what?

- Tear down Butt Cutts bulletins.

- 'Cause I don't buy that racist bullshit.

- But don't you think that's just a little.

- Self indulgent?

- That's a good word for it.

I mean, of all the good country people in this county

have you ever managed to influence anyone?

Change their mind about anything?

- Allen's, suppose you wish I hadn't.

- Well I don't know, who the hell can say?

- This I know.

We live in a Klan-ridden society, about 40 gorillas

dominating the lands of 16,000 so called free people.

- Well, if you think the Klan is just

a fist full of red necks we got your facts twisted.

There's over 6000 Klan members stretching

from here to California, membership over half a million.

- Doesn't that sadden you Track?

- I'll tell you what saddens me.

You and the Klan are runnin' a collision course.

- Just 'cause I treat blacks they were

members of the human race?

- No, because you're so God damn righteous about it.

You know that the Klan has a shit list

down at state head quarters?

And did you know that your name is on that list?

- How do you know my name was on it?

- Well, as a police officer I'm given a certain.

You're making this tough on me.

- Why?

- Because I'm trying to keep you

alive and you won't cooperate.

- You a member of the Klan, Track?

- What the hell kind of a question is that?

- What the hell kind of an answer is that?

- I'm a tell you something.

I'm just a back country sheriff, up for election every year,

and in order to get reelected I had to swear allegiance to

the Rotary, the American allegiance, even God.

That's right, I'm a card carrying member

of the West Ellington First Baptist Church,

and I'm an honorary captain in the State Troopers,

and a light colonel in the National Guard,

and something else, I don't even know what,

Boy Scouts of America.

I'll tell you this, I wouldn't be the first

public servant that ever joined the Klan,

we have congressmen in this state, senators,

Supreme Court judge.

Why don't you drink your whisky

and we'll chin more ice on another subject.

- She alright?

Just hold her, don't worry yet.

- Now that we got her, what we gonna do?

- We must give the enemy a sign.

- Begging your pardon, preacher,

but what in the hell does that mean?

- Every black knows Loretta Sykes and the reds are

expecting to lead a demonstration

in Ellington in a few days.

God expects his people to fight back.

- And we are God's instruments so let's beat

the living shit out of her, excuse it, Reverend,

and just take her down main street

and leave her there for everbody to see.

- That won't work.

What we need is something that won't

show on TV or bring in any more of them outside reporters.

- What we need is something that hurts niggers

and nigger lovers that won't show.

- You mean some kind of torture?

- Sorta, you know in my time I handled lots

of niggers in the woods, but

I never yet hit one, I always let some other

nigger do it for me, cause nothing hurts a nigger more

than having some smart white man sit back

and watch another nigger beat the piss out of them.

- You mean you want that nigger

got beat up by another nigger?

- I mean, Lightning Rod, that gal

be one unholy mess when old Lightning Rod's

through with her.

- You just hold on Vern,

You know, Jesse, there's better ways to do it.

Ya see, a nigger gal don't mind being raped a little

by another nigger, but suppose, I mean just suppose

a white man would nail her, why for her

that would be humiliating, although it'd keep

her damn mouth shut later for TV, but she'd probably

haul ass back to Chicago even before the demonstration,

but every nigger in the county would get the picture

that the Klan is on the job and they gonna make it hard,

I mean, real hard for any black son of

a bitch what gets out of line.

- That's right, that's right.

- Who's gonna nail her?

- Well, let me put it this way, there ain't nothing

old Lightning Rod can do, that old Butt Cutt can't do better.

- Let's get her out of the truck.

Come on, bring her out, bring her out.

- Get her over there.

- Give her to me.

Come here.

Come here.

Come here, you.

Gotcha ya.

- Oh, no.

- I always wanted me some of that black meat, baby.

- Oh no, it looks like old Butt Cutts gonna need some help.

- You little dark meat, you.

Grab her, and the legs.

Grab her.

- Hold that leg.

- Would you take a ride, old Butt Cutt's gets in there,

we're gonna find some nigger, we're gonna find some.

- Oh, brother sweet Jesus.

- Good God, he'll tear something loose in her.

- Nigger women are made for it.

- Jesus, this is better than dogs fighting a bear.

- Where are we gonna dump her?

We can't leave her here in the lumber shed.

- I hope, what's been done tonight serves

the purpose for which it was intended.

- What're we gonna do?

- I think, Big Track oughta handle this

and I'm going to get him, you best wait here

with her Butt Cutt.

- Loretta?

Loretta, get up.

Come on, Loretta.

Come on, get up.

Loretta, you gonna be alright, ya hear?

Track, we had an accident.

A accident.

- Get in.

Get in!

- Sheriff, I'm gonna bleed to death

if you don't get me to a hospital.

You know, but you're not moving.

You wanna kill me, don't you?

Sheriff.

- You know, I could grab that squawk box

and call the hospital and have the doctor there.

Turn on the red lights and the siren

and you could be in emergency with in ten minutes.

If we can make a deal.

- Deal, what kind of deal?

- Nothing much, just have to make me a promise.

- What do I have to do?

- Butt Cu� Gates picked you up 'm the mountain,

took you into town and tried to book you,

he had nothing to hold you on,

so he released you at 9:15.

You were hitching a ride back to the mountain,

when a black man in a car, kind of good looking, tall,

blue glasses, picked you up and gave you a lift

back to the mountain, but instead he drove you here,

where three other blacks were waiting for ya,

and they did this to ya.

- That's not the truth, sheriff.

- Nothing is true.

- I have no choice, do I?

- Nobody has a choice.

- Alright, alright, it's a deal.

Just hurry, sheriff.

- Promise me.

- It's a deal, okay?

Hurry, sheriff, hurry.

- And Loretta?

- Loretta, she's gonna be alright.

I have her permission to describe her

injury to the both of you and to no one else.

When she arrived here. she was bleeding heavily from the vagina.

She had been subjected to violent intercourse.

- Did she tell you who did it?

- Yes, she said it was four Negros.

We've made the necessary repairs to the damaged tissue.

What accounted for the heavy,

even dangerous bleeding was an unusual vascular

concentration in the area,

where her so called maiden hood was ruptured.

A ruptured hymen is an observable fact,

like a broken leg.

But I know what you're thinking.

- Everybody in the county knows a black girl's

popped by the time she's 13 years old.

- This time, sheriff, you might have to do something about it.

- Well, that's killing talk

The idea that Loretta was a virgin

will never occur to the good country people.

I'll be damned I if mention it.

- You better take her things to her.

She's over there in 18, Sheriff.

- Hi there.

- How's my grandma?

- Oh she's fine, she's fine.

You know, Trixie just made her some supper

and now they're sitting around,

watching some thing instructive on TV.

- All your efforts to make me striving.

- In a few days you'll be

back in Chicago again, striving again.

- No, I don't think I want to Breck.

Maybe, maybe I've been doing a wrong number.

I, I'd a quit long ago if you hadn't encouraged me.

- Well, you know to encourage people

is sometimes a reckless act.

- Well, don't fret about me, I'll get along.

I just wanted you to be so proud of me.

I guess, guess I kinda lost track of what I wanted in life.

- What do you want?

- I've been thinking about it,

guess I just have to think some more.

- Not now, you're to tired.

- Breck, before you go can you give me some advice?

- Well, advice and encouragement are both equally reckless.

- About what happened to me, I lied to the doctor.

I had to, I promised the sheriff.

- Does the sheriff know the truth?

- Yes, but I want you to know, you see.

- Shh, shh, that's killing talk.

You keep your promise to the sheriff.

- Why should I?

- To stay alive till we get you out of here.

- Alright, Breck, alright.

Breck, how's my grandma?

Did I ask ya that?

- She's fine, they're all fine, they're watching TV.

- Nigger humpers,

Heffer bitch, you oughta be ashamed.

Look at this little black son of a bitch.

Stop laughing, picket in there, go to hell.

- Some turn out, huh?

- Loaded the whole bunch on the bus.

- Well, that's where they should be,

on some bus on their way out a town.

- I've seen more people at a slick pig contest.

- Look at that ass, he's just standing there.

- What the hell was that all about?

- Aw, who cares.

- I drew up a list of the conduct of your demonstrators,

if they abide by them there shouldn't be any trouble.

- Yes, sir.

- Look at 'em, so that's what they want on

a great git up morning, to take a piss for freedom.

- They can piss in the basement and like it,

heh, look at them, all outsiders and a few

sorry snot nosed kids, not one of them's a local nigger,

nor over 20.

- If any of them was local, I'd have their job.

- Hey there, doctor, morning, mr. Mayor.

- Brothers and sisters.

Your attention, please.

The sheriff's office has some

peculiar notions as to what a demonstration is.

But in good faith I'd like to

read them to you, and I know you'll abide by them.

Number one, we are not to

return insult for insult, even word or gesture.

Two, we're not to hug, kiss,

urinate, defecate, or copulate in the streets.

- Other than that, brothers and sisters, enjoy yourselves.

Oh, when the saints go marching in

Oh, when the saints go marching in

I wanna be in that number

When the saints go marching in.

- Hey Hardy, you promised to talk remember?

- Alright, alright.

- I'm not gonna discuss it anymore.

- That's bullshit, you mean you

ain't gonna do nothing about them?

- You're just gonna let them carry on like that?

- Okay, you gonna see, you'll see, you watch and see.

- Real discipline.

- Why don't you put Butt Cutt back on the force?

My wife's giving me a lot a shit, he owes me a little money.

What the hell is the matter with you, for Christ sake.

- Mr. Stancill, Mr. Stancill.

- Yeah?

- Can I talk with you for a moment?

- Sure, sure, why not.

What do you wanna talk about?

- I wanted to tell you we're sorry about Loretta.

-Ah.

- Talking to her for a few moments,

we didn't realize she'd be exposed to such risk.

- Well, you were wrong.

Tell me what are you doing standing around here?

- Never underestimate just standing around, Mr. Stancill.

- Well, you're standing around with cameras for the TV?

- Without those cameras, we'd have no movement.

Without TV, we'd get our heads cracked.

But with the whole country watching.

- Tell me about that, clerical collar invites trouble, no?

- In every crusade we've marched with

whores, thieves, our blessed Lord

didn't shrink from the touch of an adulteress.

- What about you, don't you like to kiss, and hug, and fondle?

- I'm a minister to the leper,

I touch them freely and often, but not lustfully.

- Well that's a pity. At my place we've got

a white woman who's kind of a leper.

- Nancy Poteet, yeah.

- She believes no man will ever want to bed her again.

So, what we're searching for is a kind of a

decent, lecherous young man who'll maybe

come down to the house of an evening

and listen to the radio with her and slap her

on the tail and convince her he needs that

piece of tail and get her off my hands.

- Tell me, Mr Stancill, are you as cynical as you sound?

- I don't know, I wonder.

- Why don't you crawl on her yourself?

- Well, I suppose I'm as decently lecherous

as the next man but my lechery does not

extend to trapped women.

I feel to sorry for her.

- That's probably what her husband said.

He probably felt so sorry for her he couldn't.

- Sure, sure, sure, you have any more business to discuss?

- I was hoping you might

encourage Loretta to tell the truth.

Her story makes it sound like

she was raped by one of our people.

- Now. listen. Mr Minister, you got Loretta into trouble by

seeking her on the mountain, now you wanna get her killed?

- Mr. Stancill, in every revolution...

- Oh sure sure, you I know, I know.

In order to make an omelette, you gotta

break eggs, or heads,

the end justifies the means, right?

- That's right, sometimes they do.

- This time they do not.

- Nigger lover.

- Bastard he really has.

- Track.

How you doing?

- Well, I got elected to keep the demonstraters outta town.

Well, it looks like I'm gonna lose next years election.

I didn't think you liked circuses.

- No, I just came to take Loretta home from the hospital.

So good luck.

- Track, Track, let me ask you something.

Why don't you stomp you foot and chase those pissants off?

Alright, alright, then stay out of our way and let us do it.

- Flag!

-Aw sh.

- They find the man who did the shooting, Breck?

- I don't think so.

After this Chicago must seem like

the friendliest town on earth.

- Breck, I'm not going back, now I've made up my mind.

- What are you gonna do here?

- I don't know, maybe I could do something for the movement.

So what happened to me doesn't happen again.

Maybe I'll find a job.

- What job you gonna do?

- I don't know, but it won't be hiding in the woods.

- What did you mean when you said hiding in the woods?

Think that's what I do because of my leg,

because I'm crippled?

- You're not crippled, Breck, but I think you think you are.

You're a very attractive man.

- Naw.

- Now that's true, why every one in the county

thinks you can get any gal you want, including me.

- Quit that.

- No, Butt Cutt and those Kluxes, as they

watching me get raped, they think I'm

your piece of brown comfort, that's one of the

reasons they did it, they wanted to foul your nest.

- Never thought of that.

- No, you wouldn't.

- Just keep driving.

- Hey, what are you trying to do?

- Kick some asses, baby.

- What's the point of busting up a peaceful meeting?

- What goods a peaceful meeting?

It's for them bourgeois Negros.

When you gonna learn any way that

all that marching gonna get ya is what you got, screwed.

- And don't you now you gotta keep

violence out of the movement?

- You know, if I was honky I'd want niggers

to all be just like you, do nothings.

Always marching them dumb ass marches

and mouthing them dumb ass slogans.

Ain't that right, boy?

Hey, boy I'm talking to you.

- Yeah, sure.

- Let me out a here.

- You're twisted.

- Twisted?

You're the one's twisted.

Hey, you think you're man here,

you think he's the one responsible for you

having that job in Chicago?

I tell who got it for you, baby.

It was your brothers, you know, the ones in Watts,

in Detroit, on them roofs?

With them Molotov cocktails and them grease guns?

Hey, they're responsible baby.

'Cause the only thing that

man understands is this, violence.

- You're crazy.

- She's right.

- Now, you may be some kind of giant brown

up on that hill of yours, but you ain't shit here.

You're just a peg leg honky with a gun at his head, ya dig?

Now, look at you huh?

What's the matter with you?

Look at him telling you what to do.

They wanna keep suckers like you around to serve

on one of them dumb-ass advisory boards

or some urban renewal committee.

Ya, you play your cards right,

you'll end up owning an apartment building,

then raising the rent on us, niggers, who make it possible.

He don't give a shit about you.

All he cares about, is they hung his great granddaddy.

- Well, what do you want with all your killing?

- The same damn thing you want with all your marching.

Only history proves my way works.

Your boy there, he's a reader.

Ain't he told you about the revolution

fixed to go off around this world?

You dun heard about the revolution, ain't ya, boy?

- Yes, there's a revolution going on.

- Well, I'm a part of that revolution.

The revolution of the oppressed minority.

- Well, you've got to be organised

don't you at least know that?

- I'm an organization of one.

I'm headquarters, you might say,

for the revolution in Atoka county.

- And you mean, that's how the line is drawn,

white on one side, and black on the other?

- Hey, now, when they raped you, didn't you fight back?

Now you're learning.

Hey mister, man, when you gonna learn, huh?

When you gonna pick up a gun and fight?

Well, whenever you do, you know where to find me.

- Yes, he's dead.

- Who killed him?

- I don't know.

I heard the shot, I heard Chrissy cry out.

- Red neck sons of bitches.

They wanted to kill him, Charlie Peck and Josh Franklin.

All those nuns in the square and they end up

killing my son-

- Carl is it ready yet?

- Couple minutes yet, mama.

- I'll get you a drink.

Now you drink it.

What's the matter?

- I never thought anybody would want to touch me again.

- That's a ringer.

- I tell you, it's been a frustrating week.

Four, Martha, bring out some more beer.

- Everything, I mean everything's gone contrary.

- Nothing good came of what we did to the Chicago gal.

- Now, what you should have done, is get old Willy Washington.

It's only right, he's the nigger that black snaked Nancy.

- Goddamn Willy sitting in that slammer, living like a lord.

Eating like he was in the army.

We oughta kill him, tonight.

- You boys wanna go up against old big Track?

- You bet ya, if Hardy Riddle was to approve.

- Ain't no harm in asking him.

- Well, it's gonna take a little time.

Hardy'll have to check with state head quarters,

they might wanna check with the national office.

By the time they get back to us, I'd best put a move on.

- Just turn your head around, Track, we want Willy.

- Jesus, here we go again.

How bad do you boys want Willy?

I mean bad enough to shoot me?

- We might.

- Now, that wouldn't look very goon on network TV, would it?

Local boys shoot dully elected sheriff.

- Quit your gassing, Track.

- Come on, Track, give me the damn key.

- You're not taking Willy.

- Shit, Track, come next election

you gonna be grubbing cotton and hunting coons.

- Listen,, Track we're all white patriotic Christians.

- Well, haul ass.

Before I hit you with this, white patriotic Christian.

- Now, now, wait a minute fellas.

- Watch your ass.

- Sheriff?

Sheriff.

- What the hell are you doing here?

- I'm here to testify before the Lord and Sheriff Bascomb.

Willy Washington never raped Nancy Poteet.

- Is that a fact, Martha?

- It purely is because that night Willy was with me.

- You Goddamn whore.

You son of a bitch, you nigger loving.

I'll kill her, I'll kill her, I'll kill her!

- What the hell did you think I do at night while

you're out running around.

- Why don't you all go out and have a few more beers, huh?

- You gotta lock him up for an hour, sheriff.

- Now go on, go on.

- Let me go.

- Come on, Jesse, let's get the hell out of here.

Come on, Jess, she ain't worth it.

- Come on, Jessie, we're gonna have couple of drinks.

- Don't let it get to you.

- I loved her, she's the mother of my kids.

- You gotta lock him up for an hour, Track,

till I can get the first bus oughta Alabama.

- Well, that won't be necessary, I'll get Trixie to drive ya.

Now, you boys stay with Shaneyfelt, huh,

and get rid of those Goddamn guns.

You're a brave women, Martha.

- Oh, I'm not brave, I'm just so tired of it all.

You best look after Willy, too.

- Hello, Ron, could you tell me

where you were last Saturday around sundown?

- He was right there with that dog and me.

- And where were you, Garth?

- Don't try to pin no rape on me.

- Where were you when your friend Henry

was jerked to heaven and Taggert was killed?

And Johnson, and Flag?

- How do you figure?

- Why else would you be holding a rifle on me?

You know, if I can figure it out, so can the Klan.

And you'll end up with your balls shoved down your throat.

- Not me.

- Not you.

Because you're leaving the county now.

And if you ever point a gun at me again,

I'll drop you myself on sight.

- Hey, sheriff, just what were you doing when they got Henry?

Sheriff.

- Breck, wake up.

- Wake up.

- Hm, what?

- Are you awake?

- Now I am.

- I'm hungry, are you?

- Tell me, you gonna keep these

undisciplined hours after we marry?

- Marry?

You wanna marry me?

- Well, I weren't proposing to the sandwich.

- I can't.

I've thought about it, maybe someday,

when I come back if you still want me.

- Where are you going?

- I don't know, it's a big world out there

and I've never seen any of it.

- When do you go?

- Soon.

Maybe tomorrow.

- How are you going?

- A long time ago you offered me

some money, does the offer still hold?

- Sure.

Are you sure you don't want to stay?

Is that of your considered opinion?

- I thought you wanted to get rid of me?

- I changed my mind.

It's my mind, I can change it.

- Breck, I've found I like older men.

- Yeah?

- Sorta mellow a girl, if you know what I mean.

But you're old enough to be my uncle.

- Well, I suppose in a certain sense.

- Hey, Breck.

Thought you was a reader.

Hey, ain't you interested in my literature?

- Jackson, one way please.

- That suit case heavy for ya?

What with your gimpy leg and all.

I mean, maybe what you need is a

real red blood patriot American to help you tote it.

Little lady, here's one lump might appeal to you.

- Why don't you beat it, you scum bag.

- Got a mouth as big as awful Annie's ass.

Just listen, that might help.

You must sink to a Negros level,

if you walk as his equal in physical contact with him.

The physical touch of a Negro is pollution and any.

- Get him, Cutt.

Get up, Cutt, let me help you.

- You wack son of a bitch.

- Cutt, Cutt, come on.

Get him, Cutt, get him, go ahead, get him.

Come on, Cutt, get up, get up, hit him.

Come on, Cut, get up.

Come on, come on, come on.

- Excuse me, bus leaving, God almighty.

- I'll always remember you.

- Like this?

- We're leaving, lady.

- Evening all, hi Annie.

- Hi Hector.

- Hiya Butt, what the hell happened to you?

- Why don't you go screw yourself.

- You get hit by a truck?

Christ almighty, he looks like Custer's massacre.

Who don't it, big Track?

Breck?

- Imagine that, beating up on our next sheriff.

- Oh, that son of a bitch.

Draw one, Annie.

- He shamed us all by taking in that Nancy Poteet.

- Yeah, you know he taught Loretta how to type.

And he got her a good job in Chicago which is

more than he's done for any of you

decent God fearing white girls in this whole county.

- Yeah, but he come from a violent and ungodly family.

He oughta stretch a rope just like his great grand daddy.

- You're right, I hear he's even got a whole library

of Communist books.

- And you know what, he doesn't even have a TV.

- I say, let's burn out the son of a bitch.

String him to the same goddamn tree

as his great grandaddy was strung to.

What about my three dollars? What about my money?

- Mixing with white folk, by God, he wouldn't have made

those sons of bitches black. Ain't that right boys?

- What the hell's this?

- Yeah, what's he doing here?

- Vernon Hodo tells me that some of the

good old boys is kinda sore at you, up at awful Annie.

- What else is new?

- They might be fixing to burn you out.

Tonight.

- Well, you know sprig's coming up, the saps rising high.

- You better take this seriously.

You've been pretty salty with these old boys.

- Well, we seem to have trouble relating.

- Usually I can relate to 'em.

See half of 'em work for me, the other half

borrow money from my bank.

But this thing is gone beyond the knife.

If I could pass on some favorable word from you,

question is what word do I pass?

- You might ask them to disband.

- Don't waste time.

- Well, you tell them, Kluxes, to get together and maybe we

can come to some sort of arrangement

and tell them, if they're ashamed of

their faces, they can wear their Halloween masks.

- Now, we're getting somewhere.

Here's what you're gotta do.

You've got to acknowledge the souths

debt to the Christian patriots to the Klan.

Two, you gotta kick Loretta off your mountain.

And three, you gotta let big Track

evict your relief hounds.

- I can't do that.

- Well, then you're just asking

for a midnight knock on your door.

There is one other way.

I could buy ya out.

You could take the money, go to California.

- No sir.

- You could go to the south of France.

- No sir.

- You could go to the goddamn Louve.

- No sir.

I'm not leaving here, I've lived here too long.

- Trouble is, you just lived too long.

And you got all shot up in the war.

That's when you should have died.

- I'm sorry, I disappointed you.

- In every society there's a way out for a man

who gets himself so screwed up.

He has to die a little bit before his time.

The ancient Greeks used hemlock,

the Japs used harikari

and America, they just jump off of bridges.

- Are you trying to tell me to kill myself?

- I'm telling, ya, you are killing yourself.

But you are letting the Klan do it for you.

Aw, it's gonna take a better man,

than me to unscramble this omelette.

- I wish you luck, for you and for all of us.

- Daddy, now I've been thinking it over.

And I decided that I want to go to West Point.

- Well, you best spell that out for me.

- Well, there's nothing more to say, I mean, I know

our congressman, I mean, he's not gonna make

any appointments that the Klan

doesn't like, so I'll behave myself.

I mean, I'm not gonna make it unpleasant

for you, with your election coming up.

- You're pacing like a stalled horse, sit down.

Now, look, son, I know a lots been happening lately

and none of it pleasant.

But if you wanna be a tree farmer for the rest of your life,

hell, I'll hand you the shovel.

Come next election, we might both be planting trees.

Yeah, Trixie?

Ya, put 'em on.

Yes, Hardy, what is it?

Tonight?

On the mountain?

Alright, I'll look into it, I'll get right on it.

- Is Breck in trouble with the Klan?

- You go on home, Allen.

- Can I help?

- I don't want you flirting with no purple heart.

- What's the big do?

- Breck's got problems.

- The Klan again?

- Yeah, I think so.

Where are you going?

- To Stancill's mountain.

- Well, I'm going with ya.

- Now, as I told you, go home and put out your lights.

We'll hide in the dark, as we've done so many times before

on the hill, goodnight, Erin.

- Breck.

- Yeah?

- Here's the horns.

- There's one for you, one for you, and one for you.

And if you hear any strangers come,

you just use those things.

- Come on, boys, let's go.

- What do you want, Track?

- I'm trying to stop a war.

If you tangle with the Klan tonight,

a lot of people could get killed,

and that would blow the lid off of this county.

And orphan a lot of raggady ass kids.

- You know, if you'd nailed Loretta's rapists, instead of

covering up, we wouldn't have a war

on the mountain tonight.

- What's done is done, I tried.

And I'm still trying to keep you alive.

The odds are against it.

- Tell you what you could do.

You could deputize a few good men

to guard my woods from burning.

- I tried that too.

Nobody.

Not one man in this whole county would protect your trees.

- They're all afraid of the Klan?

- No.

- Why, then?

- They hate your guts.

You expect poor white men to like you,

when you take a blacks part against them?

You let the relief hounds live up here for free

on poor white taxes, you know what they say?

They say that if you had run the blacks north

20 years ago, we'd have a new football stadium

and higher prices for teachers, and what's a

noble purpose to some, is a pain in the ass to others.

I hate to tell you this, but just as this county,

you might say, is out of step as the rest of the world,

you arw out of step with the goddamn county.

Anyway, if there's trouble tonight,

you let me handle it, will ya?

Breck?

- Maybe I should get out.

- Well, what are you doing here?

- If he's in a tangle, I wanna be in it with him.

- In the ditch.

- Uh uh.

- Uh uh what?

- Uh here.

- Uh uh in the ditch.

- You're gonna be killed, because you're at a disadvantage.

The Klan wants to kill you, but you don't wanna kill them.

- Maybe I won't have to.

- If you stay here, you'll have to.

Have to be killing them the rest of

your life, until they kill you.

That would be the most pathetic

useless murder in the history of this town.

- Get in the house, turn out the lights, quick.

- Allen, come on.

You take this, and get on down the road.

Don't use it unless you have to.

Cover me.

I want you to hear this!

Breck is leaving the county.

- It's too damn late now, Track.

- You boys are trespassing.

- Well now ain't that some kind of a chicken shit crime?

You better think of something better than that.

- Unless you got something more important to say,

sheriff, you best get out of the way.

- I want you all to throw down your weapons,

and come out with your hands above your head.

- Just remember, Track, you're one of us.

- Not anymore.

- Screw you, Track.

- Butt Cutt Cates, I am charging you with the assault

and rape of Loretta Sykes, and I'm charging the rest of you

as members of the Klan of Atoka county,

with conspiracy against the Constitution

of the United States and the sovereign state of Alabama.

- Everybody watch it, he done shot Pea right in the back.

- What a stupid waste.

- Alright boys.

- But who's left?

- Daddy, daddy, are you alright?

- Don't.

Just look around and see if anybody's alive.

I'm gonna call for help.

- Somebody help me.

Oh God, I'm dead.

- No, not yet.

- Murderer.

- I'm the executioner.

-1099, 1099 at 10:20 at Stancill's mountain.

I need all available forestry fire department.

- Daddy!

Dad.

Oh, my God.

- No one'll ever have to pass this tree again.