The Oregon Rail

by
David Trajanoski
EXT. OREGON COUNTRY - DAY
A railroad snakes between lush forested foothills.
A powerful steam train rounds a bend and chugs into view
spouting white hot steam and hauling seven boxcars behind it.
EXT. CAB - MELCHIORS TRAIN - DAY
The cabs black surface is graffitid in white with perhaps a
dozen names including DONNY, WHISTLE, CARBINE, OLD JOE
and PEPPERCORN.
INT. BOXCAR - DAY
A PAIR OF HOBOs (ERNEST and EASY ANDIE) wearing dirty trousers
and suit jackets smoke cigarettes and stand by a high side
window for ventilation.
The car is filled with square hay bales and the hobos bindles
and personal effects sit atop one such bale.
EXT. BOXCAR - DAY
A man in grey overalls stares through the top hatch into the car
at the smoking hobos. This is is TRAIN DRIVER SAMUEL COMBS.
He closes the hatch and takes off across the decks.
INT. CAB - DAY
Samuel is at the controls half watching the path and half
speaking to a man behind him in conductors uniform in his early
30s with blond hair and beard stubble. He is MELCHIOR.
Melchior retrieves a pump-action shotgun and a belt of shotgun
shells from a cabinet which he fastens over a shoulder and
across his chest.
MELCHIOR
Did you bolt the hatch?
SAMUEL COMBS
Im sure I didnt.
MELCHIOR
Side door?
SAMUEL COMBS
Didnt get a chance. I was greater
concerned with coming back and
telling you.
MELCHIOR
Thats fine. Going too fast for a
bail out, anyhow. How many you say?
SAMUEL COMBS
I only saw the two of them smoking it
up. In a goddamn hay car.
MELCHIOR
Stop her on my signal.
Melchior pumps the shotgun and leaves the cab.
EXT. BOXCAR - DAY
Melchior hops from deck to deck. He goes on over to the side of
a car and slides a bolt into place. He waves back at the cab.
EXT. CAB - DAY
Samuel is perched on a service ladder looking over the tender at
the waving conductor. He gives a thumbs up in reply.
INT. CAB - DAY
Samuel cranks the emergency brake.
EXT. STEAM TRAIN - DAY
The locomotives wheels grind against track.
INT. BOXCAR - DAY
The hobos are brought to attention by the screeching metal. They
stub their cigarettes against the wall.
EXT. BOXCAR - DAY
The top hatch is flung open to reveal the head and upper torso
of Easy Andie. He looks up.
EASY ANDIE POV
Melchior points his shotgun at the hobo.
2.
MELCHIOR
Keep coming. Please and thank you.
Easy Andie and Enrest emerge from the car under the watchful eye
of Melchior and his shotgun.
EXT. TRAIN - DAY
The train comes to a standstill on a strut frame bridge that
passes over a ravine with a wide river at its base.
EXT. BOXCAR - DAY
Melchior has the hobos with their backs against the edge of the
deck and the steep drop to the river below.
MELCHIOR
Do you boys tell stories?
The hobos nod, thinking its the answer he wants to hear.
MELCHIOR (CONTD)
Thats good. I guess you have to with
your lifestyle and all. Go ahead and
tell me one. Any kind you want. Just
do me a favour and make it real
interesting. You first.
He points the shotgun at Ernest.
ERNEST
[Ernest tells an alright story about
his first freight jump.]
MELCHIOR
Not bad.
(redirecting his shotgun)
Your turn.
EASY ANDIE
[Easy Andie tells a great story about
lying his away out of a situation
with a bull.]
MELCHIOR
Now thats what I call a story! Boy,
you got the gift of the gab alright.
You told that like your life depended
on it. And it sure as heck did.
3.
Melchior switches the shotgun back to Ernest and pulls the
trigger. Ernest is blown off the car.
EXT. RAVINE - DAY
Ernest ragdolls through the air and splashes into the river.
EXT. BOXCAR - DAY
Easy Andie cowers, his body a shaking mass of fear.
EASY ANDIE
Fuck... Fuck... Fuck...
Melchior lowers the shotgun and crouches down with Easy Andie.
MELCHIOR
Cool it, Pardner. Believe me when I
say youll be alright. Now, what was
your buddys name there? I need a
handle for my personal records.
EASY ANDIE
Ernest. It was Ernest.
Melchior produces a notebook and a pencil and writes.
MELCHIOR
Spelled the usual way?
EASY ANDIE
I dont know. Goddamnit.
Melchior puts away the notepad and produces a ticket.
MELCHIOR
Now, Fella. You listening? When you
get back to Medford, you tell them
tramps what you saw just now. And you
tell them good, like that story you
told me. Got that?
EASY ANDIE
Yes.
Melchior holds out the ticket.
4.
MELCHIOR
Nobody rides Melchiors train for
free. Nobody.
Easy Andie accepts the ticket.
EXT. CAB - DAY
A new name has been added to the graffiti: ERNEST.
INT. CAB - DAY
Melchior places his shotgun on the rack inside the cabinet.
Samuel watches the track ahead.
SAMUEL COMBS
Shotgun a little overkill, dont you
think?
MELCHIOR
You cant overkill a hobo Sam.
SAMUEL COMBS
Pistold do the trick just fine.
MELCHIOR
Leonard Wilkie used a pistol.
SAMUEL COMBS
Leonard Wilkie?
MELCHIOR
Exactly. Nobody remembers who he is
and now you understand my dilemma.
Hobos going to talk about me and my
shotgun, going to tell stories about
Melchior, the meanest, tramp-
killingest son of a bitch who ever
did grace this railroad.
EXT. TRACKS - DAY
The train speeds past a sign that reads CITY OF MEDFORD and
under it GREAT PERFORMANCES DAILY.
EXT. BOXCAR - DAY
Melchior opens the top hatch of the car and hops in.
5.
The side-door of the car is slid open to reveal Melchior kicking
Easy Andie out of it.
EXT. TRACKSIDE EMBANKMENT - DAY
Easy Andie hits and tumbles down a tall grass embankment and
comes to a stop as it levels off.
He gets to his feet and sprints through the tall grass towards
the town of Medford in the B.G.
EXT. SHANTY TOWN - DAY
A row of tin and plywood-panelled shacks on a river bank.
A water tank on wooden stilts near the edge of the shanty is
carved all over with hobo names and dates. Focus on one such
mark which reads YOUNG BUCK B.N. 11/27/96.
A man in his 50s stares up at the tank. Hes the epitome of
hobo: torn and mismatched jacket and pants, ruffled undershirt,
paperboys cap and bindle. He is YOUNG BUCK.
An old hobo sits on a stool on his porch and twangs a ukelele.
The shack behind him has a sign that reads KNICK KNACKS.
Young Buck stops outside the porch. Knick Knack keeps on playing
his uke.
YOUNG BUCK
Greetings, Stranger.
KNICK KNACK
What are you after, Pardner?
Knick Knack looks up at the man and stops playing his uke.
KNICK KNACK
Ill be a son of a gun. Buck? Is that
you standing there?
YOUNG BUCK
Thats me alright.
KNICK KNACK
Young fucking Buck in the good
goddamn flesh.
6.
YOUNG BUCK
Hows the hustle, Knack?
Knick Knack stands and opens the shack door.
KNICK KNACK
Boy, come on in and Ill tell you
about the bustle too. Got me a bag of
nigger brown coffee fell off the 13
southbound Ive been waiting to share
with somebody who deserves it.
They enter the shack.
INT. KNICK KNACKS SHACK - DAY
Knick Knack takes a cast iron kettle off a boiling plate and
pours the steaming coffee into two old cups.
The two men settle into wooden rocking chairs surrounded by
(surprise) knick knacks, on the floor in big piles and coating
the walls, mostly old shit - scrap metal, wood, bottles,
cannisters, drums, etc.
KNICK KNACK
I mean shit, that cross country trip
was something.
YOUNG BUCK
Was it?
KNICK KNACK
Fucking A, it was. You had them
doggers hounddogging your trail,
maybe five six hundred by the end of
it, scouring the seaboards and
everything in between. Not one catch
sight of you after Shiney Mac in
Memphis. What he claims, anyhow.
YOUNG BUCK
I remember Mac. But he aint the last
that saw me. Another nigger saw me
northbound St. Louis, Shiney Johnson
think it was.
KNICK KNACK
Nobody heard a peep or seen a pop,
how long?
7.
YOUNG BUCK
Two years.
KNICK KNACK
But if every goddamn tank from
Baltimore to Boston wasnt carved
with Young Buck something or another.
YOUNG BUCK
A few of those were fakes, I have to
admit.
KNICK KNACK
To repeat a line youve no doubt
heard many times, and will hear many
times before youre skelified: Young
Buck, tell me a story.
YOUNG BUCK
What you interested in hearing about?
KNICK KNACK
Im fixing to hear about where your
candy ass has been holed up, as you
know I am, away from any hobos or
anybody so much as gave a hobo a
look.
YOUNG BUCK
That story aint so glamorous. Held
some work in New York, Charleston,
few other places. I caught me a boat
in Jacksonville to our ancestral
home. Let me tell you, British dont
hobo near as well as us.
KNICK KNACK
I wouldnt expect them to. Whats an
aristocrat need with a train?
YOUNG BUCK
Aint that the truth?
KNICK KNACK
Tell you, a few of us worried youd
gone into the great unknown. Now
everybody on the rails got that mean
hobo-hating blood flowing through
their veins.
8.
YOUNG BUCK
It sounds like the kind of challenge
Id welcome.
KNICK KNACK
Of course a Tramp-Royal like yourself
would. Theres this one train man
building a reputation for himself,
goes by Melchior.
YOUNG BUCK
I heard of him. Running the 17
midnight express to Portland. Ill be
on it.
KNICK KNACK
Shit, Buck. Are you sure about that?
You dont know this cat. Hes a mean
bastard alright.
YOUNG BUCK
Im sure as sure can be about it.
KNICK KNACK
Might be someone you need to talk to.
Knick Knack exits onto his porch and whistles down the way.
MOMENTS LATER
Its now Easy Andie who sits across from Young Buck.
EASY ANDIE
We were holed up in the side-door
Pullman enjoying a puff of fine
tobacco, when we hear that grinding
of metal on metal can only mean the
17s stopping. We climb onto the
deck, what we see? Shotgun, barrel
close enough to scratch my nose if it
were itchy and his hands was so
inclined to twitch. Which they
werent, because this cat was cool
and calm as they make them.
Might be he was tall, couldnt recall
at that time. Shit, at that time? I
couldnt even tell you if his hands
had five fingers on them. All I
recall was that shotgun, and that
feeling I got, like he was like one
of them epic old-timey characters.
9.
Achilles never had a shotgun, but if
he did he might been just like
Melchior.
His shotgun kicked at Ernie. Next I
knew, Ernie wasnt by my side no
more. I stood tall, shotgun pointing
at me. When something like that
happens, you have to meet the
challenge, you know? First time I got
a proper look at him. Some folks have
a mean streak. Melchiors face is all
different streaks of mean.
YOUNG BUCK
Then what happened?
EASY ANDIE
He backed off. Gave me a ticket to
ride. Anything bad you can say about
the man, least he respects bravado.
He surely do.
YOUNG BUCK
That it?
Easy Andie nods.
YOUNG BUCK
Son, if I paid a penny for that story
itd be a dime too expensive.
EXT. KNICK KNACKS SHACK - DAY
Easy Andie leaves Knacks shack and hotfoots it across the
shanty as fast as his legs will take him.
INT. CAB - MELCHIORS TRAIN - DAY
Melchior stands at the panel flipping through a ledger. Driver
Samuel climbs into the cab holding a stack of papers.
MELCHIOR
You mind explaining that?
SAMUEL COMBS
What?
MELCHIOR
That tanker of explosives hitched
between the blinds and the Pullmans.
10.
SAMUEL COMBS
Were taking it with us.
MELCHIOR
It aint on the manifest.
Samuel slams the stack ontop of Melchiors ledger.
SAMUEL COMBS
It is now.
MELCHIOR
Shit. They know I dont haul oil.
SAMUEL COMBS
You do now.
MELCHIOR
Itll cut into our run time. They
know that?
SAMUEL COMBS
You tell them.
MELCHIOR
Sons a bitches. They already know
were doing a back to back and they
pull this shit.
SAMUEL COMBS
What can you do, Mel?
EASY ANDIE (O.S.)
Hey! Mr. Melchior! You in there?
Melchior goes over to the door and looks down at Easy Andie
standing on the ground outside the train.
MELCHIOR
Look at this. I let you off my train
and you come back to change that? Did
you decide living and breathing is
overrated or something?
EASY ANDIE
Its just I got a hold of something
you might like.
Melchior grabs his shotgun, racks it and points it at the hobo.
11.
MELCHIOR
I better, otherwise my shotgun going
to require a chunk of your shoulder
as a make-even.
EASY ANDIE
Honest to Abe youll like it.
MELCHIOR
Go ahead.
EASY ANDIE
Heard of a hobo, goes by Young Buck?
MELCHIOR
Is that the same hobo--
EASY ANDIE
--that sent everybody round the
country twice looking for him?
MELCHIOR
What about him?
EASY ANDIE
I just seen him, resurfaced right
there in the shanty.
MELCHIOR
Whats that supposed to do for me?
EASY ANDIE
That, nothing. But this will. Hes
planning a jump on your freight
tonight. Needs to get the Portland
A.S.A.P., which is where youre going
and how.
Melchior fires the shotgun. It clicks empty.
MELCHIOR
Shoo.
Easy Andie screams and takes off down the way.
Samuel appears at Melchiors side.
12.
SAMUEL COMBS
Young Buck, huh? I remember that old
boy. I kicked his ass off a couple
freights. Hes a Tramp-Royal alright.
MELCHIOR
Tramp-Royal? Boy, thatd be something
to have on my cab. Thatd be more
than something.
Melchior hops onto the running board and jumps off the cab.
SAMUEL COMBS
Howd you want in handled?
MELCHIOR
I want you to get the name of every
conductor, shack, bull and fireman
still left in station worth a good
goddamn within the hour.
SAMUEL COMBS
And you?
MELCHIOR
Im making a house call.
13.