♪ MTV
[Esau] These badges we wear on our chests,
made from different materials.
Mine a star cut from a cincopeso piece.
[Bass] My prisoner a good man.
I trust you'll see he get a fair trial.
My prisoners always get what they deserve.
I see you got yourself into some trouble.
All in a day's work.
Marry me, Calista.
You can't afford the ring it'll take to hitch me.
This the one who done Webb.
[gunshot]
Good work, Billy Crow.
I'm leavin'. I can't stay here-- they'll have my neck.
You got nothing to worry about.
Maybe you don't, but my last name ain't Reeves.
Well, you must have heard the stories
about Black men disappearing.
Slavery is supposed to be dead,
but it is only wounded.
Texas Rangers received the boots
of prisoner Jackson Cole.
Who makin' Black men disappear?
Bass Reeves. Mr. Sundown.
The cincopeso.
Don't you see? Heaven is full of killers, Bass Reeves.
♪ slow, dramatic music
♪♪♪
You was good to me.
Be good to them now.
[sighs]
Know why I'm here?
Want to say your goodbyes?
[indistinct chatter]
[clamoring]
[shouting]
[ragged whooping]
[Parker] When you've sat on this bench,
for as long as I have,
you come to regard misfortune
with a certain dispassion.
This is no different.
In the case of Bass Reeves,
a deputy marshal assigned to this court,
who has been tried for the murder...
[Parker's voice echoes indistinctly]
At this date,
the jury has determined...
♪ soaring, triumphant music
♪♪♪
[Mary] Jennie, you've mastered what I've spent
46 years of matrimony wrestling.
-How's that? -[chuckles]
-My husband's sitting still. -[Parker chuckles]
[Parker] Being on that bench all day, day in and day out...
[continues indistinctly]
[Esau] I always said we weren't so different,
except that one thing.
[dialogue inaudible]
[Esau] Heaven is full of killers, Bass Reeves.
And by His grace, they'll welcome me
as they will welcome you.
But all this blood on your hands...
I was thinking a little time at home could do Bass well.
[Jennie] Now there's an idea.
That don't seem necessary to me.
There he is.
[all chuckling]
♪ quiet music
♪♪♪
Judge Parker suggested a spell of lighter fare.
I've got us a fine cook here, Bass.
Came recommended by Heck Thomas.
Word is his beans? Even better than his biscuits.
Mm.
Come on.
[echoing] We know our own.
I saw you.
You are a wolf, Bass.
We know our own.
Nah, you a monster.
What the hell you say?
Nothin'.
♪ tense music
♪ quiet, melancholy music
♪♪♪
[knock at door]
You left him?
Our visit with you and Bass made an impression on both of us.
I asked him how he could build a new world
when his own home wasn't even in order.
He asked me if that mattered. [sniffles]
Esme, dear.
Truth is,
I always knew Edwin's dreams were pure,
but his heart couldn't follow.
Let's get you inside.
[sobs, sniffles]
[Jennie] I kept waiting on Bass for this,
I might get to play at my own funeral.
That your way of saying thank you?
-A way. -[chuckles]
None of my business, but...
how do you two handle it?
What?
The miles between.
[chuckles]
[sighs] I've grown stronger, I suppose.
But Bass?
His children hardly even notice him anymore.
Even when he around here,
he like a shadow on the floorboards.
Still.
He tries to do right by them.
Trying is different than being.
He's dedicated to you.
Bass is dedicated to justice.
To some kind of fancy ideal he keep buried in his heart.
Right there under that badge.
Seems sometimes there's hardly much room
for anything or anyone else.
Duty and law. Just like blood and bone.
Forgive me, Lord,
but that man has been baptized in your name, Jennie.
I should be so lucky.
This piano is gonna be finer
than any Mistress Reeves ever dreamt of owning.
[chuckles softly]
Who would've imagined that.
[chuckling]
[knock at door]
Hello.
Is this the Reeves household?
It is.
Is Bass home?
Mister Reeves is away.
Was there something I could help you with?
How about Sally?
Would you like to come inside while I fetch her?
I have to leave now.
♪ gentle, dramatic music
♪♪♪
Sally Sharon Reeves!
I just told that girl to mind her manners.
To a white girl?
You know better.
Does Daddy know better?
Cause I did exactly what he would've done.
She ain't wrong.
You want to check back into the Railhead?
I'll accompany you.
And you.
Don't act like you're too old for a whupping.
Yes, ma'am.
Ma'am.
How do?
[Bass] Hot as a pepper dipped in fire.
[woman] Don't I know.
Seems like ol' Scratch got the upper hand of late.
Looking for a' Moody O'Neil.
Got a writ in my pocket with his name on it.
Happen to know where he is?
Sitting on this porch.
[Billy chuckles]
Afternoon, Missus O'Neil.
I put on my prettiest hanging dress.
Just didn't know if it would be you or a mob.
That ain't gonna be necessary.
Will it, ma'am?
Well, I'm told I entered this world quiet as the night.
No squalling or fussing.
I intend to leave it the same way.
No personal effects, sorry to tell you.
Well...
you gonna want to take this.
It's what I kilt him with.
♪ melancholy music♪
♪♪♪
[crickets chirping]
Your daddy learnt with turkeys.
It was William Reeves,
George's father, that taught him,
but...
I think he was born knowing how to squeeze a trigger.
They'd travel to contests, and Bass always won.
And then, they'd come back with a whole wagon chock-full.
Master William kept the money, of course, but Bass,
he got all them big old birds, round as pumpkins.
And Pearlalee would cook 'em up,
and all of us would eat and eat until our bellies about burst,
-round as pumpkins, too. -[children giggle]
I've been told your daddy never missed a shot.
Not once.
Mama!
[gasps]
Get upstairs.
Now. Go to your room.
Go. Get upstairs.
Sally.
-Don't come out till I say. -[child crying]
♪ slow, tense music
[insects trilling]
♪ melancholy music♪
♪♪♪
She ain't eating.
I don't care much for what is cooking neither,
but you got to eat.
I don't know that I do.
Given what I'm headed for.
You don't know your fate.
That's what the court's for.
I deserve to hang.
An I don't regret nothing.
[insects buzzing]
♪♪♪
♪ tense music
♪♪♪
[Willy laughs]
That granny had you thinking she was ready to hang, huh?
Should've seen how fast she run, once freed of your chains.
♪♪♪
Where's the old crow?
Your cook turned her loose.
Shit.
[grunts]
Her fat old self, she can't have gone far.
[Willy] Oh, she took off hours before first light.
You cowardly son of a bitch.
You set out to hang an old Black woman
in a white man's noose.
But I'm cowardly?
You shut your damn mouth already.
We can catch her.
[Willy] Your man want to do me harm.
Now, you should remind him,
my name ain't on one of your master's writs.
Huh?
My hide won't feed Mrs. Bass.
Or them little coons that nigger sow pushed out of her.
Ah... [chuckles]
But...
Ah, these will set you at ease.
Go on, collect your blood bounty!
Up-jumped slave catcher.
Because no matter what you say,
that's all you is.
[laughs]
♪ tense, dark music♪
♪♪♪
[wheezing]
What'd you do?
[Willy sputtering]
[Billy] Bass, we got to fix our story here.
[Willy choking]
Say you were just cleaning your rifle or some such, else...
Parker won't take no mercy.
[Willy gasping]
-[insects chirring] -[birds singing]
♪♪♪
[children chatter quietly]
[door opens]
[door creaks, closes]
[footsteps approach]
♪♪♪
[wind whistling]
[Esau] I saw you.
You are a wolf, Bass.
I know a monster when I see one, Bass Reeves.
You listen to your daddy, now.
[Bass] Curtis!
[screams] No!
♪♪♪
[Esau] Bass, you must know...
I had no desire to shoot the boy.
I wonder how much blood
you left in your wake on your path to freedom.
No more than I had to.
-No child. -You are a killer, just like me.
[crickets chirping]
♪ slow, dramatic music♪
♪♪♪
[wind whistling]
[hoofbeats approaching]
[sighs]
[Parker] And one summer,
probably six or seven years old,
we had a drought.
The Biblical kind.
My daddy lost a lot of sleep.
Scared to death he was gonna lose all that he had.
Watching his boy grow thinner
than he already was.
I used to wander down to the root cellar
and once, after church, I hit the second step
and I heard Mama and Daddy below,
a lot of big...
unkind words I didn't understand.
They were scared.
About tomorrow, and the day after.
Now, I've always felt compelled to help folks.
No different then from now.
Except when I was a boy,
I'd go treasure hunting.
Thinking that if I found something,
Mama and Daddy would be okay.
[chuckles] And wouldn't you know it?
In the creek, down past the farm,
I found gold.
Shining and winking at me.
So I scooped up what I could and ran to the house,
believing I'd saved
what they had lost all that sleep over.
I burst inside,
dumped all the treasure on Mama's table.
I couldn't hear what Daddy said,
but he picked up a mallet and started hitting it.
I cried when I saw it break up and...
crumble...
...and then shatter, like glass.
It was naught but pyrite.
It's called fool's gold.
I carried that lesson with me.
Used it to keep my expectations in check.
So, why don't I just ask you, Bass,
what are you?
Are you gold?
Or pyrite?
I didn't know my own father.
They sold him off before I was born.
Come Christmastime,
they'd let him visit.
A sit, a meal...
then gone all over again.
My mama would plait verbena in her hair.
Pretty herself up for his coming.
Remember that clearer than my daddy's face itself.
No...
The man whose name and brand I carry,
the one who taught me to ride,
to shoot,
was William Reeves.
Everyone told me how fortunate I was
to have his good favor.
"You got the big man's interest, Bass."
"Mind him good, Bass."
He wasn't a cruel man.
At least not on the surface.
But then he gifted me to his son.
George.
And when that man's cruel came too much to bear...
I didn't go treasure hunting,
collecting loose rocks,
fool's gold.
No, sir.
For you, knowing who's who a simple thing.
Gold or pyrite.
But justice...
Ain't nothing more costly.
Now I'm ready to pay for mine in Hell on the Border.
You paid yours, Judge Parker?
'Cause I reckon you about to,
'cause I ain't gonna be down there alone, am I?
You gonna be sitting right next to me.
So I'll go ahead and ask.
How much time we doin'...
sir?
♪ tense, dramatic music♪
♪♪♪
[chair creaks]
[door opens]
[prisoners shouting and whooping]
You are a killer, just like me.
[echoing] You are, you are a killer.
[gunshot]
[Parker] When you've sat on this bench
for as long as I have,
you come to regard misfortune
with a certain dispassion.
This is no different.
In the case of Bass Reeves,
a deputy marshal assigned to this court,
who has been tried for the murder of Willy Leach...
Upon careful review of the evidence
presented by the defendant's attorney,
and the state,
I pronounce you...
...not guilty.
♪ quiet music
♪♪♪
[Jennie exhales]
♪ gentle music♪
♪♪♪
[Esau] These badges we wear on our chests,
made from different materials.
Yours a tin star, mine a star cut from a cincopeso piece.
But the power they give...
You honor the badge, Bass.
But even with it, a man like you couldn't arrest a man like me
once we cross that river.
I had no mind to arrest you.
No. By those angry eyes,
I reckon you'd just as soon kill me.
[Curtis screaming]
[Esau] Bass, you must know...
I had no desire to shoot the boy.
♪ dark, mournful music
♪♪♪
When I was gone from you...
...there was a boy that I loved like a son.
His name was Curtis.
He was murdered.
I'm going after the man who killed him.
♪ intense, dramatic music
♪♪♪
♪ dark, low music
♪♪♪
[boy] You a lawman or an outlaw?
Today, a bit of both, I reckon.
[grunting]
♪ dramatic music
[Pete] Ranger Pierce don't accept armed company.
[Esau] Now, the myth of Mr. Sundown,
that's taken a fanciful flourish from reality.
Not that I mind.
-[gunshot] -Goddamn, kid!
[wolf snarls]
[gunshot]
[Esau] Careful, now.
Curiosity killed the deputy.
♪ gentle, melancholy music
♪♪♪