- Flint McCullough: It wasn't one of our wagons and the direction it was headed would bring it nothing but grief. I couldn't figure out why anybody would try and make it alone to California.
- Bill Hawks: What are you limping about?
- Flint McCullough: I've been walking for the last four hours.
- Bill Hawks: Where'd you find 'em?
- Flint McCullough: [Bill hands Flint a container of water] Thanks. Oh, about eight miles south of here off the trail.
- Bill Hawks: Just the two of them?
- Flint McCullough: Yeah, from what I can gather, the husband took a team horse and left her most of the water.
- Walt Keene: Not like Andersonville, is it Doc?
- Dr. Allison Day: No, not like Andersonville. Sixteen and a half acres of Hell, thirty thousand people.
- Walt Keene: Yeah. Sixteen acres of Hell.
- Dr. Allison Day: It's gone now, Walt, torn down, destroyed. There's nothing left there.
- Walt Keene: Is it, Doc? My brother's grave, the others.
- Walt Keene: Have you ever been hungry, Mister? I mean not just for a day or two. But everyday and every night for sixteen months. Four hundred and eighty seven days so hungry you'd eat strap leather. A day's ration was a pinch of meal, a dried up sweet potato. Sometimes, if you were lucky, a scrap of vermin infested meat.
- Dr. Allison Day: You've heard of Andersonville, Mr Hawks?
- Bill Hawks: You mean the Confederate prison in Georgia?
- Ross Amber: Pesthole of the South.
- Dr. Allison Day: Prisoners sometimes develop strong habits of survival, hoarding scraps of food is one of them. Sometimes it carries over.
- Flint McCullough: You all there is, Ma'am?
- Rheba Polke: No, my husband. He left three days ago to fetch help.
- Flint McCullough: He take the horses?
- Rheba Polke: Just one. I guess the others wandered away.
- Flint McCullough: Which way'd he go?
- Rheba Polke: [She slowly raises her arm and points into the desolation of the desert] You didn't see him?
- Flint McCullough: No, Ma'am. But I ride scout for a wagon train, he might have come upon that.
- Carlton Polke: Were you in the Big War?
- Dr. Allison Day: I was an Army Surgeon. Sun's gone down. Be more pleasant for you out by the fire.
- Rheba Polke: I'd rather stay here.
- Carlton Polke: My Pa was in the war. He didn't like it. He never likes to talk about it.
- Dr. Allison Day: Some things are best left forgotten. I understand they're bringing your wagon in soon. It'll help having your own things.
- Rheba Polke: Thank you. Doctor?
- Dr. Allison Day: Allison Day.
- Rheba Polke: I'm Rheba, Mrs Jed Polke. You, you know my husband?
- [He rises abruptly and leaves the wagon, ignoring the people at the campfire as well]
- Rheba Polke: .
- Otto: Yep, I was a cabin boy aboard a ship just like this for five years. The old Mary Anne. Best whaler to ever set sail out of Buzzards Bay.
- Carlton Polke: You mean you used to catch whales out of that boat?
- Otto: Caught them on the smaller boats we carried on this one, dories, we called them. They were smaller than the whale we went after. Sure took a lot of strength to harpoon one of those whales. Remember the harpooner in my boat, Tony the Porterkey. Why he had an arm on him like that.
- Carlton Polke: My Pa was strong too. I bet he would have been the strongest harpooner on your boat.
- Otto: Sure, sure, he would. Here, let me show you the tattoo put on me in a port called Shanghai.
- Flint McCullough: I've already got the wrong impression, DOCTOR.
- Dr. Allison Day: You shouldn't have brought him in, McCullough. You should have let Jed die out there.
- Flint McCullough: There's strange words coming from a man who's taken an oath to save human lives.
- Dr. Allison Day: An oath I don't need to be reminded of. Take a look around you, McCullough. You know all of us, by name at least. Ever wonder why none of us were married?
- Flint McCullough: Well, I'm single myself.
- Dr. Allison Day: Ah, but by choice, my friend,
- Flint McCullough: What's that got to do with Polke?
- Rheba Polke: You hate Jed, don't you and Dr Day?
- Walt Keene: A mild word for what we feel about Jed Polke. We're gonna kill him.
- Ross Amber: [a speechless Rheba leaves] She didn't know, Walt. She didn't know about us and Andersonville.
- Walt Keene: Don't you go soft on me now. Not now.
- Carlton Polke: Best Pa in the whole world. But he ain't got much time for me. He wanted to take me fishing like he promised but he has other things to think about first. Grown-up things. Ma calls them worries.
- Flint McCullough: You planning on leaving the train?
- Ross Amber: Any objections?
- Flint McCullough: Well, there's a Kiowa war party somewhere in these hills. They get pretty tough on a single wagon.
- Ross Amber: We'll chance it.
- Flint McCullough: [Flint hears a boy whimpering] Sounds like you're not travelling alone.
- Walt Keene: you done us a turn bringing him in, McCullough. Jed don't belong with this wagon train. When you move out in the morning, leave him behind.
- Flint McCullough: I don't know anything about Jed Polke. He's got a wife and a kid that don't know anything about Andersonville. When we move out, his wagon goes with us.
- Ross Amber: We just want Jed, McCullough.
- Flint McCullough: That's a matter for the Army courts.
- Walt Keene: Jed's already had his trial. Fourteen of us, Ten dead,four who will never forget.
- Flint McCullough: We'll be in Fort Stockton in five days. When we get there you can press charges to the Military authorities.
- Walt Keene: No, you're wrong, Mr McCullough. Jed ain't never gonna make it to Fort Stockton.