01x36 - The Bound Girl

[bunniefuu]

♪ Jim Bowie, Jim Bowie

♪ He was a bold adventuring man ♪

♪ Jim Bowie, Jim Bowie

♪ Battled for right with a powerful hand ♪

♪ His blade was tempered and so was he ♪

♪ Indestructible steel was he

♪ Jim Bowie, Jim Bowie

♪ He was a fighter, a fearless and mighty adventuring man ♪

- I'm Jim Bowie, native born American.

I didn't have to cross an ocean

to claim my birthright of freedom.

But plenty of folks did, and sometimes when they got to

the New World they found their troubles were just beginning.

Like mine that night in Vidalia in 1830.

Gentlemen.

- You're a dangerous man, Mr Bowie.

Even without your knife.

- Have you seen my bound girl?

My bound girl, Mary Flavin.

- There's been no girl here, Mr Robertson.

She missing?

- She's run off.

- Better notify the sheriff.

- I don't want the sheriff.

- You can believe he doesn't want the sheriff.

- Thank providence I'm not in that girl's shoes.

- I'll say goodnight, gentlemen.

- Well, I hate to take your money, judge, but one more hand.

Winner take all.

- Thank you, no, Mr Bowie, I've lost my appetite.

[horse whinnies]

- Something's wrong in the barn.

[chorus sings dramatically]

- There's nothing broken, Mr Bowie.

She's coming round.

- How sure, I'm cured entirely.

- If you want my advice, Mr Bowie,

you'll send for the sheriff.

- Ah, ma'am, don't be putting ideas in his head.

- Mr Bowie may do as he pleases.

But I'll harbor no runaway bound girl.

- Is she?

- Mr Robertson's bound girl.

Or so he claims.

- Sure, and you don't imagine I've spent six mortal months

under that man's roof for love, do you?

- I don't imagine anything, girl.

All I can say is the sooner I'm quit of him or his,

the better pleased I'll be.

- Ah, you don't have to name it twice, ma'am.

I'll not abide another second on your premises.

[exclaims]

- Hey, hey, not so fast.

Come back here, come on.

Back on the bed.

I reckon you can stretch a point and keep her

till the morning, Mrs Rounds, she can have my bed.

- She's Robertson's bound girl, she should go back to him.

- I'll not go back, I tell you, I'll tell you

something clean I'd sooner die, I'd sooner die!

[sobs] I'd sooner die.

- Just till morning, Mrs Rounds.

[chorus sings peacefully]

- Good morning, your honor.

Sure, I hope your honor slept well.

- Is that coffee?

- Tis that.

And there's bacon on the fire.

- Mrs Rounds?

Mrs Rounds?

Where are my boots?

- Mary took them to polish.

- Mary?

You mean the...?

- She's a willing worker, Mary is. [laughs]

Singing about the house, it does a body good to hear it.

- Talk about singing, haven't you kinda

changed your tune a little?

I mean, last night you couldn't wait

to get her out of the house.

- Well, I've talked to her.

She's a good girl and I'll take my Bible oath.

And she vows she'll be eternally grateful to anybody

who'll buy her indenture from Mr Robertson.

- Now, you don't mean she's got her sights on me.

- Mr Bowie, it'd be an act of Christian charity.

That Robertson place is not fit home for a girl alone.

- Well, she's made her bargain, she'd better stick to it.

- Naturally there was talk.

Especially since he fetched Mary home

so soon after his wife died.

- Gossip, gossip.

- It's no wonder folks say she was done away with.

♪ La la la la la la la

- You're wasting your time, young lady.

- Sir?

- And your elbow grease.

Now look, I have no intention

of taking you off Mr Robertson's hands, you understand?

- Sure, and maybe you'll be changing your mind.

- Not a chance.

But I'll give you a little advice.

If you think that Mr Robertson has been threatening you,

you go and tell the sheriff about it.

- Would I be trusting an old sheriff?

In Ballyclenchey we rated the pigs above the policemen.

- What's this gotta do with Robertson?

- Sure, and I'm coming to that.

You see, we were all wild to come to America, but we hadn't

the price, so we bound ourselves to the captain of the boat.

And then when we got to this side, he hired us off,

do you see, to work out the value of our passage.

- So he sold your indenture to Robertson, is that it?

- If I'd known the way it was to be,

wild horses couldn't have dragged me to his door.

- Now hold on, just what are you accusing him of?

- Well, now, to be sure, the poor man's a strange

and gloomy fellow, but I don't mind that,

for we haven't all the blessing of a merry heart.

I didn't even mind his ruptures when he found the potatoes

in spring water I'd been leaving for the little people.

- Potatoes in spring water?

- But would you believe it, sir?

Mr Robertson had never heard the like. [clicks tongue]

Pagan superstition, he says.

- He sounds like an ignorant fella.

- You wouldn't credit the folly of that man.

Why only the other evening, wasn't I just

in the nick of time to keep him from spying

the new moon over his left shoulder?

- You don't say.

- Sure, I thought even a babe in arms would know

that was a sign of death in the family.

You can't be going against the signs.

- Well, you're right about one thing. [laughs]

I don't think it would do you a bit of good

to go to the sheriff with a story like that. [laughs]

- Sure, and tis no laughing matter.

There's something uncanny about him.

As though he'd a secret in him he daren't frame in words.

Cold prickle of his eyes on me, everywhere I go.

And the fall of his footsteps at night

like a soul in torment.

- Well maybe you're the cause of his torment,

have you thought of that?

- Now yesterdaY I went hunting the young heifer

that had strayed and I met young Jerry, the neighbor lad.

Well, we found the beast and brought it home.

So Jerry was just lifting me over the fence when out come

Mr Robertson in a dreadful passion and he ordered Jerry off.

Oh, you'd have died to see the look of him,

he was all wild and strange.

And he gripped me and he shook me

till I got loose and ran from him.

Ooh, I'm wearing the marks of his fingers yet.

- How much, how much do you pay for your indenture?

- $70.

In gold it was.

- Well, here's my winnings from last night.

I reckon there's more than $70 there.

Take it, Mary, and buy your freedom.

Why not?

It's found money, but as well be put to good use.

- Sure, I have my principals.

For a grand thing like freedom

I would work till I dropped and gladly.

But I'll not be accepting it

like a beggar from the hand of charity.

- Would you rather go back to Robertson?

- I would.

- You better get started.

- So you're back.

- Yes sir, this kind--

- Go in.

- My name's Jim Bowie, Mr Robertson.

I'd like your assurance that she won't be punished.

- What right have you to ask that?

- None, but I'm asking it anyway.

- This girl is none of your concern,

she's bound to me by law.

- Look, I know that, I'm the one who talked her

into coming back here, but I'm beginning to wish I hadn't.

- Be on your way, mister.

- Mary, do you still wanna come with me?

[chorus sings dramatically]

- Hadn't you better count it, sir?

- We're leaving the profit.

[chorus sings triumphantly]

[knock]

- Mr Bowie, as sheriff of this county I arrest you

on the charge of stealing one Mary Flavin,

a bound girl, from her lawful master, one Ethan Robertson.

- Tis false entirely.

- I paid him a fair price for her.

- He doesn't want a fair price.

$10,000 and not a cent less.

- Why, you're a humorist, Mr Robertson.

- Mary.

- Are you gonna permit that?

- It's the law, Mr Bowie.

Now I'll have to ask you to come with me.

- You know something, sheriff?

I'm beginning to lose my temper.

Sheriff, I'll tell you one more time.

I'm entitled to defend myself

in open court and I aim to do it.

- Mr Bowie, I'm the Reverend Duncan Craig, the sheriff said

I might have a few words with you with your permission.

- He's a tough nut to crack, Parson.

The court sits in half an hour.

- Mr Bowie, it's not my business to come between

a man and his conscience, but I must tell you

a public trial of this case can do no good

and may do much harm, especially to Mr Robertson.

It is not you who will be on trial but Robertson himself.

- The way I hear it, his wife's death was kinda sudden.

- Of that, sir, I know more than

any man alive, except Robertson himself.

I attended her death bed.

I helped to bury her.

- How do you know what happened before you got there?

- It was a strange night, Mr Bowie.

And a strange burial, but there was no evil in it.

Robertson felt real grief for that poor woman.

- And how did she feel?

You get a chance to talk to her?

- When I arrived she was not in her right senses.

She spoke some words ina strange language

I'd never heard before, then just before the end

her mind cleared and she spoke in English.

She said...

- She said what?

- That, sir, is between Mr Robertson and me alone.

- Why?

What did you see or hear, Mr Craig,

that he doesn't want spread around?

No, no, sir, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

There's too much suspicion in this whole thing.

Everything you said just makes me more determined than ever

to blow it open, to let a breath of fresh air into it.

- A breath of fresh air Mr Bowie, or a destroying hurricane?

[gavel knocks]

- Court will be in order.

[gavel knocks]

James Bowie.

You are charged with the theft of Mary Flavin,

a bound girl valued at $70 gold.

How do you plead?

- Not guilty, sir.

- Will Ethan Robertson please rise?

[crowd murmurs] [gavel knocks]

Mr Robertson, you have deposed that on the night

of October 10th, the defendant, James Bowie,

did forcibly and feloniously trespass on your premises

and did there and then take possession of,

steal, and abscond with the person of Mary Flavin,

ane indentured servant bound to you by law.

- I withdraw the charges.

- What was that?

- I wouldn't take his money that day

but now I reckon I will.

- You mean you've decided to sell

the girl's indenture to Mr Bowie?

- I'll take the $70, I reckon that's all.

[chorus sings dramatically]

- I suppose you'll not soon be coming back to Vidalia.

- I don't care if I never see the place again.

And I shouldn't think you would, either.

- Take care, your honor!

- What, what?

- Oh sure, you don't want to be glimpsing

the new moon over your left shoulder, oh!

- Now see here, I've been looking at new moons

ever since I put on shoe leather,

and I'm not about to run and hide from this one.

- Well please God you get

the good side of it and not the bad.

Sure, tis well known that a new moon shining up

from the water is a sign of a wedding.

- Mr Bowie.

Leaving town?

- Any objection?

- The Robertson case hasn't closed, Mr Bowie.

Talk is you found out something.

Robertson backed down to shut you up.

- Better ask Robertson.

- I aim to.

I aim to put an end to this once and for all.

Jump in.

Jump in, Mr Bowie.

- Wait here.

[chorus sings slowly]

- Giddy up.

- Wait here, is it?

- Robertson, I want the answers to some questions.

This time you're not gonna run me off.

- Get out.

- Drop that!

- Look out!

- Run, Mr Robertson, run!

- Mary, you're helping me?

- Of course I'm helping you, great buffoon.

Run, can't you, before the sheriff gathers his wits.

- He's got no cause to run.

Let me speak, Mr Robertson, or I'll speak yourself.

There are others here who have a right to know it too.

- Beloved sister, born 1800, died...

- Why that woman was your sister.

- We lost our folks in the

Fort Dearborn m*ssacre back in 1812.

She and I were taken by the Indians.

I got away but she didn't.

She was with 'em 13 years.

Then about five years ago she was found

wandering in the woods where our homestead used to be.

She was sick, her mind was sick.

Most folks thought I should send her to an asylum.

Even the girl I was fixing to marry thought so.

Instead I brought her here

where'd she be no trouble to nobody.

- Well, Mr Robertson, why didn't you speak up?

Why any of the women, my wife,

they'd have been glad to help.

- I couldn't.

She didn't want it.

- You see, Mr Robertson's sister married one of the savages.

Sometime later on she found out he was one of those who had

attacked Fort Dearborn and that he had k*lled her parents.

Grief, shame, and fear drove her

from her Indian husband and out of her mind.

She could never again bear to face white people

or to be called by her real name.

Her last wish was to take

this secret with her into the grave.

- Her name was Susannah.

- Oh, Mr Robertson.

[chorus sings lightly]

He turned away from me.

- Go after him, Mary, go on, give the man a chance.

- A chance, what chance?

- A chance to ask you to marry him.

- Marry him, is it?

Did you not see him?

- He loves you, can't you see that?

Look, put yourself in his place.

A man like him, a man his size,

it's a mighty long way from his heart to his tongue.

- Come all the way from Ballyclenchy

to meet a fate like that?

Sure, I'm sorry for his trouble.

But I wouldn't have the cure of 'em if you gave me Ireland.

- Wouldn't you?

Look at it.

Now you know as well as I do a new man shining in water

is a sure sign of a wedding and you can't go against signs.

- Oh, heaven help me, and won't I be

destroyed entirely by his whiskers?

♪ It's on the water

♪ To spell on you

♪ The little people will protect you ♪

♪ If your heart is true

- Who gives this woman to be married to this man?

- I do, judge.

- Then, by the authority vested in me by the state

of Louisiana, I pronounce that you are husband and wife.

- Ah, Mr Robertson, tis high time I was taking you in hand.

♪ The moon is on the water

♪ A fairy magic sign

♪ And if you see it same as I do ♪

♪ Then your heart is mine

♪ Jim Bowie, Jim Bowie

♪ He was a fighter, a fearless and might adventure man ♪