The Outcasts

[first lines]

Narrator:
In the decade following the Civil War, people of all creeds and colors were part of the West. This is the story of two of these people.

Corey:
Where'd you learn to shoot like that boy?

Jemal:
Different times, different places, mostly 'minding people I wasn't their boy.

[explaining why he doesn't know how many slaves he owned before the Civil War]

Corey:
I don't rightly know. It wasn't me that looked after the inventory.

Jemal:
With or without you, I'm going down there tonight.

Corey:
Well, you do have a natural advantage in the dark, don't you, boy - unless, of course, you smile.

Jemal David:
A few years ago, that man was master of one of the biggest plantations in Virginia. He owned over a hundred slaves. Crystal... horses... white linen on the table every meal.

Sheriff Rayburn:
Why, you came down just as long a road. Six yeaers ago, you was a slave, couldn't read, couldn't write. You told me once you was a stake at a poker game - more'n once.

Jemal David:
Guess we both came a long road - up or down.

Sheriff Rayburn:
Funny how you two hooked up and three months later you're still ridin' with him. Ever ask yourself why?

Jemal David:
Yeah.

Sheriff Rayburn:
Why?

Jemal David:
No reason. No reason a'tall... except...

Sheriff Rayburn:
What? You work good together?

Jemal David:
Well, if you need a reason, that's as good as any.

Earl Corey:
Come on, let's ride out of here. It's not our town; it's not our work!

Jemal David:
You're forgettin' about Sheriff Rayburn. He was my friend.

Earl Corey:
Oh, so that's why you're doin' it? For good old Sheriff Rayburn, heh-heh. Who you think you're foolin' with that kind of talk?

Jemal David:
All right, when he was shot it cost me five hundred dollars. That makes it my work!

Earl Corey:
And I'm still sayin' that's not all of it. I'm sayin' that you're beginnin' to like to view from up there. From up there wherever you think that badge puts ya! And now you're bound to hang an innocent man just 'cause he don't like the color of your skin!

Storekeeper:
We gave him the badge in good faith and it's all right to ask for it back if we think we made a mistake.

Earl Corey:
The only mistake you gentlemen made is not givin' him a chance.

Jemal:
There's a bad man out there, your friend Jeb. He's got you blinded by stories of the old days at Willow Hill and Yankee carpetbaggers that you can't see nothin'.

Corey:
Only a Southerner would understand.

Jemal:
You're forgettin', it's my South, too. You think just 'cause I left it, I don't love no mo'.

Corey:
How could ya love somethin' that brought ya such misery?

Jemal:
Maybe 'cause I had so little, I loved it more.

Earl Corey:
You don't remember him, do ya? He was a bounty we took down by the border.

Jemal David:
All right, I remember. What about him?

Earl Corey:
Later we found out his wife was pregnant.

Jemal David:
I don't wanna hear it!

Earl Corey:
We took him in dead!

Jemal David:
He had a shotgun on us. Why don't you remember that instead of his widow!

Earl Corey:
All those faceless people; all those people without names.

Jemal David:
Outlaws, killers, wanted men!

Earl Corey:
How many widows? How many fatherless children?

Jemal David:
I don't wanna know about them. I don't wanna hear nothing about what they was before the bounty posters went up on them. Guilty or innocent? We can't decide that. We ain't judge, we ain't jury and we sure in Hell ain't God.

Earl Corey:
Yes we are! When we pull the trigger, we are *God*!

Jemal David:
You're in it, same as me.

Earl Corey:
Yes, I'm in it, but I sure as hell am not proud of it. I remember that much of my background!

Jemal David:
And I remember mine! And if I'm proud of where I am, it's because I remember where I was and who I was a few years ago. If they don't want me in their town because I hunt bounty, that's fine with me; but when I leave it's on my own horse, with my own saddle and blanket under me, my wrists and ankles free.

Jemal David:
I'm a bounty hunter - make of it what you want - callin' or dirty job. But up to now, Corey, you ain't showed me you're any different with all your manners, your learnin', and your once-upon-a-time, one-hundred-slave plantation. But if you think you're too quality for it, now's the time to say. Before we ride another mile...

Sheriff Giles:
You a bounty hunter?

Jemal:
That's right. You put your finger on it, sir.

Sheriff Giles:
And that's how ya bought the fine horse and saddle and the rest of that fancy rig?

Jemal:
Over the years.

Sheriff Giles:
Must pay pretty well, bushwhackin' wanted men.

Jemal:
Mister, I don't bushwhack.

Sheriff Giles:
All the years I've been a lawman, I've known killers I'd trust better'n I would a bounty hunter. A killer don't say somethin' else. He don't hide behind the law. He is what he is.