Hey!
It's up!
Whoo!
Hyah!
Push!
All our corn and meal, ruined.
Might as well dump it.
Everybody!
We are ready now.
You didn't wanna die last night, did you, miss Naomi?
I don't know, skate.
You were the one came riding after me.
I guess you thought so.
I'm glad you didn'T.
A woman like you has got too much life ahead of her.
Good life.
Get in the wagon.
I won't leave my baby behind.
I want to stay with him!
Please let me stay with him!
Why'd you bring us here?
What kind of life is this?
Betterin' ourselves, is that what this is?
Why can't a nigger just know his place?
Why can't a man just know...
we will come back and visit him.
And place flowers.
When?
How?
I could never find this place!
I could find it for you, ma'am.
Anytime you want, I'll bring you back here.
You can visit your boy.
Would you really?
Any time.
Would you dance with me, miss Rachel?
No.
Let's just walk for a bit.
Nice moon tonight, isn't it?
Nice enough.
I'd heard so much about the west, I couldn't wait to give it a gander.
Would you ever consider getting married some day?
Yes, some day, I imagine.
Wouldn't you?
That's why I asked.
What do you mean?
Would you marry me?
Now?
Well, not right this minute.
Maybe in a couple days when time permits.
I know you don't know much about me.
We'll have opportunity for that.
When we get to california, I intend to farm.
I'll build you a proper house.
I heard the grass is so good, you don't need to put up hay.
All right, then.
I'll marry you.
That went easier than I thought.
Get out of the way!
And now, with the power granted by the great creator himself,
I hereby pronounce you man and wife.
Whoo-hoo!
Yes!
Excellent!
Well done!
Who's next?
You have a ring?
Yes, sir. I do.
Very well.
I need your christian name, skate.
Alfred bertram guthrie, junior.
Jacob: Folks got married, people died, babies were born.
It was the wheel of life.
Something about the plains made people cling to one another,
and leave the grief behind.
Hell, grief was a luxury none of us could afford.
We had to move on, toil and drive, plod and push.
Just keep moving.
And when a wedding happened, we'd all celebrate.
"Shivaree," we called it.
Yahoo!
[Speaking lakota language]
All right, steady.
Man: Let's go!
Look out below!
Ease up on your side, Mr. Harper!
Steady!
Rachel, look out!
Aah!
Uhh!
Rachel, just lie still.
Now just lie still.
Ohh!
Shh.
Hush now.
Stop!
Can't you see that she's in agony?
It's a compound fracture.
I can dress it as best as I can, but it's bad.
Rachel: Ohh!
Aah!
Two, preacher.
She can't sleep, Jacob.
She says there's something crawling in there.
Crawling where?
Rachel, Jacob and the preacher are here.
Jim?
Just lie back.
Try and get some rest.
Gangrene has set in.
What about surgery?
Preacher: You mean amputate?
Well, you're a doctor.
- That's what you've been claiming. - Can she be saved?
I don't believe so.
It's spread too far.
You've got to try.
There's no point to needless agony.
She's suffered long enough.
So we just let her die?
She's my wife!
She's my cousin!
Shouldn't we leave this to her?
It's her leg, her body.
Here.
Laudanum.
It's not much, but it's all I've got.
You'd better take it.
You're gonna be all right, Rachel.
We're gonna fix you up.
Bite down hard.
All right then.
It took an hour and a half for him to hack through the bone,
but by that point Rachel had died.
Seeking answers,
as wise men do,
Dog Star traveled to paha sapa,
the heart of all things,
a place where men prayed for visions.
There he found his brother,
Loved by The Buffalo,
who was overjoyed to see him.
[Speaking lakota language]
Hoxie!
Hold the wagons!
Skate, stay with them!
Whoa!
That's the cholera if ever I seen it.
Preacher?
She had bowel trouble?
Preacher: Why didn't you say anything?
I was hoping it would pass.
You tell him, preacher.
That's the dread cholera.
As far as this hoss is concerned, all bets are off.
You'd better call a council, cap'N.
Our thoughts and prayers are with Mr. Jones and his daughter.
Cholera was the most feared disease on the trail,
folks not knowing what brought it on, bad air, bad water, fever.
It killed indiscriminately and the only response at the time was quarantine.
Our rear guard will remain behind.
We will await your return with open arms.
The wagons that had no contact with the dead woman would
leave while the remainder would stay behind for a spell,
before going their own way.
We wish you good health.
And godspeed.
To the wagons!
Naomi, who'd been up front with her new husband,
bid us farewell and no one blamed her.
We were left to fend for ourselves and wait to see
who among us might be the next to become infected.
What are you doing?
I'm gonna separate him from us, see to him.
It's all I know how to do.
Your family's here.
You are the reason we are here, why we came.
She's right.
Let me be.
If I get sick, you'd be better off without me.
But you are not sick.
He is!
I'll know if I am soon enough.
With cholera, if it don't get you in the first day, chances are you recover.
What if you do not?
What do we do?
Boil your water before you drink it.
Go on without me, catch up with the others.
They will not take us back.
Then go on your own.
Find your own people.
Is that why you brought me out here?
To find my own people?
What about your children?
What do you want from me, woman?!
I want my husband.
Let me be, Jacob.
Go to the others.
Nope.
I lost Rachel, I lost leah, I ain't losing no more.
I should have never let 'em come.
I should have left them in virginia.
They didn't exactly give you a choice.
I've always been envious of you, brother.
You always had that spark, that sense of adventure.
I always wished I could be like that, like you.
You are like me, jethro.
That's the nicest thing you could say to me.
We're gonna be living in the west together,
and have farms beside one another.
You gonna be raising a family next to mine.
Jacob?
Wake up.
Jacob?
How is he?
Better.
Honest.
Can you stand up?
You all right?
What about everybody else?
Good.
We have been boiling our water.
We'll catch up with the others then.
The way I figure it, they're about a day ahead.
I'll go ahead alone,
get 'em to slow up,
then come back for you.
You fought 'em hard, didn't you, skate?
Bet you killed more than your share of 'em.
Is it 'cause they took Naomi?
Come on, Jacob!
Come on!
Did you find them?
They're wiped out.
Now they want us.
They're Cheyenne. I don't understand why.
The disease.
Cholera.
By killing us, it will not spread to them.
Are they gonna come or what?
Maybe they just want to frighten us a bit.
With each circle, they come closer.
Move!
Get down!
Uhh!
Jethro: Jacob!
Pull it out, jethro.
Uhh!
Pull it... aah!
Aah!
Cheyenne Camp
Are you sick with fever?
No.
How are you called?
Naomi Wheeler...
guthrie.
Mrs. Skate guthrie. He was my husband.
Your warriors killed him.
He, too, has lost a loved one.
Come.
You will now be called five horses.
Thank you kindly.
What is that?
Special oils.
Make prairie fire burn all night.
Am I to be married tonight, is that it?
Hey, diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle,
the cow jumped over the moon.
Little miss muffet sat on a tuffet eating her curds and whey,
along came a spider, sat down beside her, and frightened miss muffet away.
Little miss muffet sat on her tuffet eating her curds and whey,
along came a spider, sat down beside her, and frightened miss muffet away.
Eating his pumpkin pie, put in his thumb,
pulled out a plumb, and said, "gee, what a good boy am I.
" Ole king cole was a merry old soul,
a merry old soul was he, he called for his pipe, he called for his bowl,
he called for his fiddler's three.
He believes you channel evil spirits with these rhymes.
More like keeping evil spirits away.
Old mother hubbard went to her cupboard to fetch her poor dog a bone,
but when she got there,
he cupboard was bare, so her poor dog had none.
Aah!
I can't take it anymore!
Stop the wagon!
Whoa!
Leave me here.
We will not.
I... uhh!
The wagon.
I can't take the pain.
I got to get out.
We will camp here until you are well.
No.
Winter's coming.
You got to get past the mountains.
Take the children.
Go with jethro.
I'll find you.
Lord almighty.
How could you ask me to do a thing like that?
Huh?
Just abandon you here?
The trail's gonna kill me quicker than if you leave me behind.
At least here I can rest.
I can heal up on my own terms.
Please just leave me here.
Thank you for finding me.
For saving me, and for loving me.
Loving you is easy, it always has been, but I'll see you again.
I know it.
Jacob...
young margaret light shines, you mind your mother.
Ok.
And never forget who you are.
oy~
You're one part lakota, one part virginia.
Abraham high wolf, remember who you are always,
and remind your brother Jacob.
[Speaking lakota language]
I doubted I would make it.
I thought of grandfather two arrows and grandmother good path,
how they had accepted death as they'd accepted life.
Now it was my turn.
I don't understand.
Hot.
Fever.
Yes.
I'm sorry about your child.
[Speaking lakota language]
A gift from wakan tanka.
No other way to explain my wife's brother coming upon me like he did.
For 3 days, he and his band cared for me and I shared the story of my family's departure
and my mission to find them.
It hurt to trade a rifle for a horse,
but I knew I could never catch up to my family on foot.
Winter was in the air, and if I could not cross the sierras,
they would be lost to me until spring.
Best laid plans, people call 'em.
Well, winter did come early.
20-foot snow drifts closed the pass.
California 1841
It's too beautiful to be real.
What is it, mama?
Beyond that, as far as the eye can see,
is california, just as your father said.
Will daddy ever see it?
[Speaking natvie language]
Twinkle, twinkle, little star
how I wonder what you are
up above the world so high
like a diamond in the sky...
Nature's unforgiving tempest and my own ruins conspired to defeat my purpose,
and so I became a creature of the wilderness, not a soul to answer to.
I trapped.
I hunted.
I survived.
Cheyenne Winter Camp
[Speaking natvie language]
Jacob: The mountains claimed my company for 2 seasons,
and eventually they claimed my mind.
The eyes of my children haunted me,
haunted me because I knew their little eyes
still held hope that they would see me again.
Sometimes I lost control when I remembered their
faces and the life I wanted to live with them.
Those little eyes would always be looking down the road for me.
Old mother hubbard went to her cupboard to fetch her poor dog a bone,
but when she got there, the cupboard was bare, so her poor dog had none.
[Speaking natvie language]
After that awful second winter,
I traded pelts for goods and animals and headed to california to find my family.
I inquired after them in every mission and every farm house,
every town, every stranger along the road.
I lived for the moment when I could redeem the hope in the eyes of my children,
but it seemed california had just swallowed them up.
Amercian River California 1846
War broke out between my country and mexico.
While looking for my family, I got caught up in a
struggle between the californios and mexico city.
I fell in with captain john fremont and his bear flag volunteers.
We saw no action to brag about as the hot war was on the Texas border.
When it was over, america had acquired Texas,
california, and the southwest, but I lost everything.
Ma'am, I'm captain fremont, and these are my volunteers.
We'd be much obliged if you'd allow us to fill our canteens.
Dismount!
Welcome.
I'm the lady's husband.
You the hero of monterrey?
Some call me that.
Jacob!
Give these to the men.
Fruit, mister?
Pick me a good one.
Say, boy?
Yes, sir?
That's the best damn apple I ever had.
You picked me a real winner,
so I want to give you a gift to show you my appreciation.
Gift?
Yeah, put that down.
It's a magic necklace, and the magic's stronger if you tell no one about it.
Tell no one?
That's right.
Thanks.
Thank you for your kindness, sir.
You're welcome.
I saw a family,
a happy family.
I saw the home I dreamed of for all of us,
a peaceful place with sun and rain for crops.
I saw a couple who cared for each other and looked after their children.
What more could a man want for his family?
So I took my heartbreak to the mountains.
Only they could understand the immensity.
Jacob?
Yes, mama?
Where did you get this?
One of the men gave it to me.
Which one?
What did he look like?
Describe him to me.
He was tall like uncle jethro.
What did he say?
He liked my apple.
What's wrong, mama?
Don't you like it?
Yes, it is precious.
Keep it.
White hide hunters came with their long guns and killed the buffalo,
leaving carcasses to rot across the endless prairies.
Without it's flesh and spirit to sustain them,
the people of the buffalo nation began to lose their way.
What do you want for these?
[Speaking lakota language]
You want pistols?
Colt pistols?
Pistols.
For all.
By law, I'm not allowed to sell them to Indians.
Can't help you there, but...
Whiskey.
A pint each. How about that?
[Speaking lakota language]
Did you see him?
No.
Then how do you know it was him?
It could have been anybody.
Who else could it be?
Who else but Jacob would bother?
So he's alive and he knows we're here?
And wishes to leave us alone.
I've asked myself why a thousand times.
Does jethro know?
He saw it on the boy.
It eats him inside.
I should have buried it, kept it from him.
What are you going to do?
I have to find him.
He's my father.
[Speaking lakota language]