草莽雄风 (1954) 6.4

Nalinle: Why did you come back, Massai? Massai: This is where I belong. Nalinle: Is it? Is this where you plan to die? Massai: Only a warrior chooses a place to die. I am no longer a warrior. Massai: I must hunt with the bow again. I may not be back tonight. Nalinle: You will come back? Massai: You know I would not leave my rifle. Massai: You call that life? If an Apache cannot live in his home mountains like his fathers before him, he is already dead! Massai: You have a woman and yet you carry the water? Clagg: Some of the white man's ways are hard. Santos: Even a hawk is an eagle among crows. Massai: If the Cherokee is like the white man, then he is Massai's enemy. Clagg: I am the enemy of no man. Massai: Then the Cherokee is a woman! Clagg: I am no woman! My people have fought the white man many times but have always been driven west. First from a place called Carolina, then the land of Tennessee and then at last to Oklahoma. But there our chiefs grew wise. They did not fight and they did not run. Massai: Neither does the turtle. Clagg: Are you afraid of the turtle? Then put your knife away. Massai: Apaches are warriors, not farmers. Clagg: You have seen the world of the white man...their numbers are like leaves on the trees. That taught you nothing? The warriors' day is over. Once we Cherokees were like the Apaches. We feasted when the hunting was good. We starved when it was bad. But the white man ate all year around...because he raised his own food. We found we could live with the white man...only if we live like him. Nalinle: But will they not say that growing corn is woman's work? Massai: I am a warrior. What I do can never be woman's work. Nalinle: My father wronged you. Many men have wronged you. But now you make yourself worse than they are. Now there is nothing in you but hate. You fight only yourself. You kill only for yourself. You are like a dying wolf biting at its own wounds. Al Sieber: You want us to kill you, don't you Massai, right out here in front of all your blood-thirsty brethren, so they can sing your praises around the campfire and start another war in your honor. It would be a sweet death, wouldn't it, Massai? A warrior's death. But you're not a warrior any more. You're just a whipped Indian... and nobody sings about handcuffs. [opening title card] Title card: This is the story of Massai, the last Apache warrior. It has been told and re-told until it has become one of the great legends of the Southwest. It began in 1886 with Geronimo's surrender. [first lines] Lt. Col. Beck: Do you think he means it this time? Al Sieber: We'll see. Al Sieber: I knew Geronimo and Cochise when they were that buck's age. That's another one of the same breed. A real bronco Apache. Massai: I cannot stop fighting. I am the last real Apache in all the world...except for the little one to be. Al Sieber: It looks like he called the war off. Lt. Col. Beck: Then why are you looking so glum about? Al Sieber: I'm getting old, I guess. This is the only war we had. And we ain't likely to find another. Massai: Every white man, every Indian, is my enemy. I cannot kill them all and someday they will kill me. Nalinle: Then we will live until someday. Massai: And there is no place in Massai's life for love. Love is for men who can walk without looking behind. For men who can live summer and winter in the same place. Massai: You are very silent. Nalinle: There are times when words come hard to a woman. Massai: Not often.