The Ballad of Buckshot Horne (Excerpt)

8/19/2019 The Ballad of Buckshot Horne (Excerpt)

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EXT. WATERMAN ST. - LATE AFTERNOON

Providence, RI. People in 1930s apparel go about theirbusiness on the low-slung street as a heavy gray sky rumblesabove them. A long, ornate, black limousine is parked outsideof a shop.

NARRATOR (V.O.)Early on the night of September 21,1938, a one-hundred-mile-per hour wind pushed the high tidewaters ofthe Atlantic into downtownProvidence, Rhode Island.

EXT. BREAKWATER - CONTINUOUS

Quick shot - an enormous wave surges above the shore andheads towards the city.

INT. OFFICE BUILDING - CONTINUOUS

A first floor insurance office. Men in ties and theirsecretaries are crowded at the window watching, frightened.

NARRATOR (V.O.)The power went out -

It does. The workers look up, alarmed.

NARRATOR (V.O.)

- and people gathered at the windows to watch as what seemedlike the whole ocean climbedtowards them, an inky new high-ground that threatened to swallowthem up.

They look. The water rises. One of the workers, a nerdy youngGUY in glasses, says,

GUYHey, do you think we’d better get

upstairs?

People think, and then begin to follow him.

EXT. WATERMAN ST. - MOMENTS LATER

The workers are watching from the second floor now as thestreet quickly fills with water.



NARRATOR (V.O.)The busses and trolleys had beenpulled from the roads, but somepeople hid from the rising watersin their cars.

The camera moves through the nearly empty, increasingly-flooded street, closing in on the black limousine. There isno driver, but there is an old woman in the back seat -BUCKSHOT, 65, dressed in a tweed hunting outfit with tight-plaited gray hair and round glasses.

NARRATOR (V.O.)One of them was Caroline Horne, who was scheduled to give a reading atBrown University that evening underthe name Buckshot Horne.

INT. LIMOUSINE - CONTINUOUS

Buckshot sits in the limo with her cane. She looks worried.

NARRATOR (V.O.)The whole world knew her asBuckshot, and that world had waitedbreathlessly for her recentlypublished memoirs, in which she hadfinally promised to tell -

BUCKSHOT (V.O.)- all my truths.

NARRATOR (V.O.)A driver had been hired to pickBuckshot up that afternoon inCambridge -

EXT. VASSAL LANE - EARLY AFTERNOON

The limousine waits outside a Victorian house in Cambridge,MA on a pleasant fall afternoon. The DRIVER, 80s and wearinga cap, stands by the door. Buckshot is hugging GLORIA’S AUNT,

in her 70s and dressed in a plain black dress with plaitedgray hair and round glasses. GLORIA, 21, looks on from theporch.

NARRATOR (V.O.)- at her sister’s house, whereBuckshot had been visiting herdaughter, Gloria. She’d sent Gloriato live with her sister while thegirl finished school.

2.



Buckshot goes to the car, and the driver helps her in.

INT. LIMOUSINE - LATER

NARRATOR (V.O.)

There was still half an hour beforethe storm when they arrived inProvidence.

The driver looks at the sky, pushes his cap back on his head,and whistles.

DRIVERBeen on the sea my whole life, ma’am. I knows what something badlooks like when it’s coming.

EXT. PROVIDENCE - CONTINUOUS

The car drives on.

DRIVER (O.S.)And this looks like somethingpowerful bad.

EXT. WATERMAN ST. - A FEW MINUTES LATER

The car turns onto the suspiciously empty street.

NARRATOR (V.O)At five o’clock, the wind began torise -

It does, making the power lines and flags dance. Thelimousine parks.

NARRATOR (V.O.)- and the driver asked if Buckshot would mind waiting while he ran anerrand downtown.

The driver gets out, speaking to Buckshot through the window.

NARRATOR (V.O.)He promised he wouldn’t be long -he suspected it might be safer toget out of the low-slung downtownand climb to the higher ground atthe university.

CUT TO:

3.



THE LIMOUSINE - LATER

Back to the flood, and the water is rising in the streetsnow. Buckshot sits and watches.

NARRATOR (V.O.)

Buckshot might have followed thedriver inside, but her knee hadbeen paining her recently.

CUT TO:

EXT. TRAIN TRACKS - FLASHBACK

A black & white silent-movie-style flashback - jumpy, speedyfootage. Empty train tracks in New York City.

NARRATOR (V.O.)

Twenty years earlier, she’d beenboarding a train when her skirt gotcaught.

The trains suddenly hoves into view, speeding by. Then itpasses, dragging Buckshot behind it by the hem of her skirt.

NARRATOR (V.O.)She’d been dragged for fifteenyards.

CUT TO:


Buckshot rests a hand on her knee.

NARRATOR (V.O.)Her knee had never been the same.

She rubs it, testing it for strength. She looks out the window.

NARRATOR (V.O.)

She thought of leaving, but shedidn’t want to get her feet wet.

She looks at her feet - nice, high leather boots.

NARRATOR (V.O.)She was wearing her good boots.

4.



EXT. WATERMAN ST. - CONTINUOUS

A power-line rips apart and spits sparks into the air.Buckshot watches from the car. A great gust of wind rips thebrick chimney off a nearby building. The chimney falls ontoher car, crushing it.


The roof crumples, knocking Buckshot on the head. She’s awareof the pain before anything else, then grows alarmed andtries the door. Forced shut by the chimney. She slides overand tries the other side. No use. She looks at the front, butclimbing is impossible - her knee.

NARRATOR (V.O.)Forty years earlier, she’d havebeen mad. But she was sixty-five

now -

BUCKSHOT (V.O.)- a half blind cripple living alone with my memories.

She smiles, a sad little one, and sits back to wait. The water starts to rise into the car. She looks down.

NARRATOR (V.O.)Her feet were cold.

CUT TO:

INT. LIMOUSINE - MOMENTS LATER

The water is at Buckshot’s chest, and items begin floating bythe window. Buckshot looks, waiting, calm and patient.

NARRATOR (V.O.)And then her whole body was cold,and she was getting sleepy.

It’s mostly debris and junk floating by in the filthy water,

but other things too. A football, and a doll. Buckshotnotices the doll. She puts her hand on the window.

BUCKSHOT(dreamy, tired)

Why, you were my Gloria’s - weren’tyou?

She smiles, and the doll passes on. Then a sofa cushionfloats by, a big gray rat riding on top.

5.



He blinks solemnly at Buckshot as they lock eyes. The waterrises above her chin, then her mouth.

NARRATOR (V.O.)And a few minutes later, at justpast five-fifteen, Caroline

“Buckshot” Horne -

CUT TO:

EXT. WOODS - FLASHBACK

Silent-movie. A Maine pine forest. A 21-year-old Buckshotfires a rifle. She wears a tweed hunting outfit, complete with skirt, boots, hat, and flannel checked coat.

NARRATOR (V.O.)- the face of New England’s

sporting women -

EXT. MAJEKISGAD LAKE - FLASHBACK

Silent movie. Young Buckshot stands on the shore of a pine-ringed lake in the mountains of western Maine, in her tweedoutfit. She casts a fly-rod, the line whizzing into the air.

NARRATOR (V.O.)- who set a record for catchingover two thousand fish in onesummer when she was twenty-one -

EXT. MIDWESTERN PLAINS - FLASHBACK

Silent movie. Buckshot, 31, stands next to an aging ANNIEOAKLEY as Annie, in full buckskin outfit, fires a rifle. Acrowd looks on. Annie looks to Buckshot, hand on her hip, andBuckshot thinks.

NARRATOR (V.O.)- who beat Annie Oakley in afriendly shooting competition ten

years later -

Buckshot picks up her gun, closes her eyes and fires. Annieis shocked - then angry. The crowd cheers.

EXT. BUFFALO BILL’S WILD WEST SHOW - FLASHBACK

Silent movie. Night at the show - straw and dust line theground between the white tents.

6.



BUFFALO BILL, in his full regalia, stands, holding Buckshot’shands in his - she’s still 31. He speaks passionately,entreating her, but she’s disinterested.

NARRATOR (V.O.)- who was once invited by Buffalo

Bill to join the final few years ofhis Wild West Show -

Bill gets down on one knee. Buckshot is mortified.

NARRATOR (V.O.)- but politely declined -

She turns to go, irate. Bill is crestfallen.

NARRATOR (V.O.)- because she couldn’t bear to beaway from Maine -

CUT TO:


The music cuts.

The limo is fully under water now, and Buckshot is dead,bobbing listlessly.

NARRATOR (V.O.)- drowned in a hired car on

Waterman Street in Providence,Rhode Island.

Beat.

CUT TO BLACK

NARRATOR (V.O.)But this is not her story.

The music returns.

TITLE CARD

THE BALLAD OF BUCKSHOT HORNE

(has no room for Gloria)

7.

The Ballad of Buckshot Horne (Excerpt)

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