The Kentucky Cycle

by Robert Schenkkan

  MICHAEL: Gonna get your ass shot off like that, boy. ’Course in your case that’d probably be fatal, seein’ as how that’s where all your brains are. (He drinks and then wanders over to the tub.) Has your leg been botherin’ you?

  STAR: I was gonna soak it, but maybe you’d rather wash up first?

  MICHAEL: I might at that.

  STAR: There’s hot water on the fire.

  MICHAEL: I can’t tell you how it warms my heart to see you so glad of the little gifts I bring you. It’s like when we were young and courtin’ all over again.

  STAR: What have you brought?

  MICHAEL: Greedy, greedy, greedy. Gimme, gimme, gimme. In time, love. But first, I bring news!

  PATRICK: What?

  MICHAEL: We’re a state! A full member of the United States!

  PATRICK: Yeah.

  MICHAEL (drily): Your enthusiasm is overwhelming, boy. Yes! As of June first, born in a tavern in Lexington! Whiskey and politicians, boy—a terrible combination!

  PATRICK: What do we care?

  MICHAEL: Don’t make the mistake of your ignorant neighbors and think these mountains is some kinda magic, gonna protect ya! Mark my words, boy, the day’ll come when those flatlanders in the city sneeze, it’s us in the hills’ll catch cold! (He drinks again.) Enough of that! I said I’d bring you back somethin’ special and by God somethin’ special I have. I’ve insured the future of the Rowen family in a single blow!

  He whistles. Beat. Out of the shadows steps a young BLACK WOMAN, carrying a large pack. Her face is bruised and her hands are manacled.

  Step in, step in! Let’em get a good look at ya!

  Patrick stares at her and then starts to laugh at Star.

  PATRICK: Blue-eyed?! Corn-silk hair?!

  MICHAEL: What’s that? What’re you laughin’ about?

  PATRICK: Nothin’! Foolishness! Dreams. I’d like a drink.

  Michael looks at his son curiously and then hands him the jug. Patrick drinks deeply, coughs, and then hands it back.

  MICHAEL: A Guinea princess! Full-blooded. How do you like that, eh? My father never owned a pot to piss in, but his son owns the daughters of kings! What a country! Go on. Take a look at her, she won’t bite—not anymore, anyway, believe me! (He laughs.) Thirty silver dollars, that’s what I paid for her. Every penny I had saved for years and a bargain at twice the price. I stole the man blind!

  STAR: What’ll you use her for?

  MICHAEL: Field work, of course.

  STAR: Field work! Look at her—she wouldn’t last a week, a day!

  MICHAEL: Oh, she won’t be workin’ in the fields. Or maybe only a little bit at first. And then . . .

  STAR: Then what?

  Beat.

  MICHAEL: Take a lesson from your old pa here, boy, on how to get ahead in the world. You got to think further than your own nose, further than your neighbor’s nose. You don’t get ahead just thinkin’ about tomorrow or the day after. You got to think years down the road. (He drinks.) With a slave, we can work half again as much land. More land, more corn. More corn, more whiskey. More whiskey, more slaves. More slaves—more land! I’ll own these damn mountains before I’m through.

  STAR: You won’t get much work outta one slave, and certainly not outta that one. You were robbed, old man—you’ve grown soft in the head.

  MICHAEL: Have I? Here’s your choice, boy—you can have one strong buck or one little woman. What do you choose?

  PATRICK: I . . . I don’t . . . know. . . .

  MICHAEL: One man in the fields is just one man, you’re right. But a woman? She’s a half dozen men in the fields. A half dozen sons.

  STAR: You’ll breed her. To who?

  Michael just grins at the two of them.

  MICHAEL: Let’s just hope this new litter is an improvement over the old!

  He laughs, drinks. Star looks at Patrick. He avoids her eyes. When she speaks, she is careful to control any hint of the triumph she is feeling.

  STAR: Go get that hot water for your pa, Patrick. Don’t stand there. Your pa’s water for his bath!

  Patrick goes off into the house.

  STAR: It’s a good plan, Michael, you’re right.

  MICHAEL (suspicious): You think so?

  STAR: Did you think I’d be angry? A long time ago, mebbe. But all that’s past. In the past. The future—you’re right, that’s what bears watchin’.

  Patrick enters and pours the water into the tub.

  STAR: Get the soap.

  Patrick goes inside. Star gestures to the tub.

  Who will wash Master Rowen, now that he’s home again. Wife or slave?

  Michael grins at her. He drains the jug and drops it to the ground.

  MICHAEL: Wife!

  As Patrick returns with a bucket of soap, Michael pulls out the pistol that hangs on a lanyard around his neck and puts it on the ground. He quickly drops his buckskin shirt and pants, and then, in his tattered and nearly black-with-dirt long johns, climbs triumphantly and a little drunkenly into the tub. Star pours water over his head. Michael hoots and hollers. Star rubs his shoulders and his chest and then begins to wash his hair, working the soap into a thick lather. Patrick watches, his eyes unnaturally bright.

  STAR: Your son is thinkin’ of gettin’ married, Michael.

  MICHAEL: Married?! The boy’s not out of his diapers yet!

  STAR: Has his eye on that Talbert girl.

  MICHAEL: That titless creature?

  STAR: She’s a pretty thing.

  MICHAEL: She’s no Rowen. You wait, boy. Wait and someday you can pick and choose any woman in these hills.

  PATRICK: I don’t wanta wait. We’re ready now.

  MICHAEL: Then pack up and go. I won’t stop you.

  Beat.

  PATRICK: We need us some land.

  MICHAEL: Then talk to her pa.

  STAR: He ain’t got a third of what you got, and he got a boy of his own.

  MICHAEL: Then go find your own! Country’s full of land west of here. . . .

  PATRICK: Full of Injuns . . .

  MICHAEL: Well, it didn’t stop me, now, did it! And I didn’t have your great advantage, bein’ half brother to them savages and all.

  PATRICK: I want a share of this. It’s mine. I want a piece of what’s comin’ to me.

  MICHAEL: Are you slow, boy? Did you hear what I said to you? I’ve got plans for this land. For these mountains! I’m not goin’ to start cuttin’ it up like some half-wit Irish bog trotter. They’ve more stone walls than fields over there because they’ve more sons than vision! You tuck your pecker back in your pants and don’t talk to me about marryin’!

  PATRICK: It’s all for m-m-me, innit?! It’s all comin’ to m-m-me anyhow! There’s no one else!

  MICHAEL: Your concern for my health is touchin’, lad, but it’s a little early to be worrying about your inheritance.

  PATRICK: Then what’s the d-d-difference! What’s the difference between me out there workin’ the land for you and s-s-some slave!

  MICHAEL: I can s-s-sell the slave! It’s worth somethin’!

  PATRICK: Tell me! I got a right to know!

  MICHAEL: Don’t push it, boy!

  PATRICK: DOES IT COME TO ME OR DON’T IT?!

  MICHAEL: I’d sooner give it to my slaves, first! I’d sooner the forest covered my fields than turn them over to some half-blooded, half-witted, droolin’ excuse for a man! You were never my son. She saw to that! Never a Rowen! Not from the first! I SHOULD HAVE LEFT YOU ON THE MOUNTAIN WITH YOUR SISTER! WATCH WHAT YOU’RE DOIN’, NOW! GOD DAMN IT, WOMAN, MY EYES! AAAAHHHH!

  Star has deliberately pushed the lye soap into Michael’s eyes. He frantically splashes water in his face, in his burning eyes, then staggers upright in the tub, tears streaming down his face.

  GOD DAMN IT! GET ME SOM
ETHIN’ FOR MY EYES! DAMN YOU!

  Star backs slowly away from the tub.

  STAR: Help your father, Patrick.

  Patrick pulls his knife out and stabs Michael once in the back. Michael staggers. He looks up, virtually sightless, at Patrick.

  MICHAEL: Is that your best, boy? WELL, COME ON, THEN! COME ON!

  Patrick steps in and stabs him repeatedly. Michael grapples with him, his arms around his neck. Patrick pulls away and stabs him one last time, then backs away. Michael lies half in and half out of the tub, bleeding profusely. His eyes close. There is silence.

  STAR: Chuji?

  Patrick staggers off to the side of the house and throws up. Star hurries to him and kneels beside him, stroking his head.

  Chuji. Sshh. Sshh.

  PATRICK: I kilt him.

  STAR: Sshh.

  PATRICK: I kilt him!

  STAR: All right now. Hush.

  PATRICK: What . . . what’ll we do now?

  STAR: We’ll bury him somewheres. Where nobody’ll ever find him. And nobody’ll ever know. Just us.

  PATRICK: She saw it

  Star looks to the Black Woman.

  STAR: She didn’t see nothin’. Ain’t that right?

  BLACK WOMAN: Yes’m.

  PATRICK: I didn’t wanta kill him. I didn’t.

  STAR: Sshh. What you bein’ so scared for? It’s over now. Listen to me. He woulda kilt you one of these days. You didn’t hardly have no say in it. We free now, Patrick. You freed us! Ain’t nothin’ we can’t do now!

  Patrick continues to sob. Star walks over to Michael.

  I dreamed you dead so much, I’m ’fraid if I touch you I’ll wake up. (She reaches out and strokes his face.) Ain’t nothin’ like what I thought’d be. (She lifts his head.) Who was there, old man, in the darkness? Who raised their hands to you? My father? My brothers? Our daughter?

  PATRICK: Leave him alone.

  STAR: You hear your son, old man? His hands are still wet with your blood, but he won’t have you mocked. Aaahhh, a son’s love is a wonderful thing.

  PATRICK: I SAID, LEAVE HIM ALONE!

  Star releases Michael. She stops, then calls out into the darkness.

  STAR: Who’s out there?!

  Rebecca steps out of the shadows. Behind her, and carrying a rifle, is her father, JOE TALBERT.

  REBECCA: Patrick?

  PATRICK: What . . . what’re you doin’ . . . ?

  REBECCA: I was supposed to . . . You told me to . . .

  Beat.

  STAR: We free now, Joe. We free.

  JOE: It’s all right now.

  Patrick stands.

  PATRICK: You Joe Talbert?

  JOE: That’s right. (He gestures toward the body.) You kill him? Kill your own pa?

  PATRICK: Yessir.

  JOE: Lord have mercy on your soul.

  Patrick starts to cross into the house. Joe raises his rifle.

  I’d feel a whole lot better iffen you’d just stay where you are, son.

  Patrick freezes.

  ’Becca? Go git your daddy that gun offen that porch.

  REBECCA: Pa?

  JOE: Just do as I say, Rebecca.

  PATRICK: Rebecca?

  JOE: Git it, Rebecca!

  She gets the gun and brings it to Joe.

  STAR: Joe?

  JOE: We didn’t talk about nothin’ like this, Star. You was just to walk away. That’s all. There warn’t s’posed to be no killin’.

  PATRICK: Talk about what?

  STAR: I told you what he was like. He’da killed me. He’da killed you. He wouldn’t’ve just let us walk away!

  JOE: That don’t mean . . . Who’s that?

  STAR: A slave! Michael bought him a slave in Louisville, gonna breed her to himself!

  JOE: Sweet Jesus.

  STAR: That’s the kind of man he was! Ain’t no curse in his death! Ain’t nothin’ but a judgment and a blessin’!

  JOE: Ain’t no question but what he was a wicked man, but I cain’t turn my back on this. Murder’s murder.

  STAR: What do you mean?

  JOE: I’ll take Patrick on down to Morgan. Get him a fair trial, front of a real judge.

  STAR: A fair trial? He’s half Cherokee, done kilt a white man—what kinda trial he gonna get, ’cept a quick one?

  JOE: What we done talk about all this time, Star, but how you gotta be trustin’ in God?

  STAR: I ain’t got no problem with God, I gotta problem with some white man in Morgan gonna hang my boy!

  JOE: I know he’s your only child, Star, but we ain’t a buncha savages no more, up some holler, squattin’ ’round a campfire. Michael Rowen never gave a tinker’s damn about the law and he died like he lived. How are we gonna be any different ’less we live with the law? Hard as that is!

  STAR: He’s my son!

  JOE: Don’t make no difference, Star. The law be full-time and you cain’t be pickin’ and choosin’ with it.

  STAR: Nobody’s hangin’ my son! If you love me, Joe, you stop this. You stop it right now.

  JOE: You know how I feel about you, Star, but there ain’t nothin’ I can do here. The boy done tied my hands.

  PATRICK: You love him? Ma?

  STAR: Chuji . . .

  REBECCA: Pa?

  PATRICK: Do you love him?!

  Beat.

  STAR: Everybody gotta right to some happiness. I gotta right.

  PATRICK: He’s just after the land! Can’t you see that?!

  JOE: Land don’t mean nothin’ to me, not when you by yourself. I love her, boy. I mean to marry her.

  PATRICK: This is what you meant to happen all along, innit? Innit?!

  STAR: No.

  REBECCA: What if Patrick and I just went away? Went off somewheres? We wouldn’t bother anybody—nobody’d have to know!

  JOE: You ain’t goin’ nowhere, Rebecca.

  STAR: But what about Patrick?

  JOE: What about him?

  STAR: What if he went away? Give him a day, that’s all. Just one day.

  PATRICK: Ma?

  STAR: You’ll be safe, Chuji! You move fast enough, the way you know these mountains, ain’t no man alive gonna catch you.

  JOE: I cain’t do that—just let him run off.

  STAR: Why not?!

  JOE: I told you why! I cain’t just turn my back on this!

  Beat.

  STAR: You take my boy down to Morgan, you gotta take me.

  JOE: Star . . . !

  STAR: No! I was right there, I’m as guilty as he is. They gonna hang him, they gotta hang me.

  JOE: Star, you cain’t—

  STAR: You ready to live with that? That’ll be my blood on your hands! Don’t your God say nothin’ ’bout forgiveness?

  Beat.

  JOE: What you want me to do?

  STAR: He leaves right now! Tomorrow, you go into Morgan. Tell’em what he done. Tell’em whatever you want. Tell’em how you tracked him up the Shilling and clear over to the Buckhorn and then you lost him.

  JOE: You askin’ me to lie for you, too.

  STAR: I give you your life back there, Joe, and I didn’t ask fur nothin’. Now I’m askin’ you to give me back mine. Give me my son!

  Beat.

  JOE: It won’t work

  PATRICK: You hear him? He wants me dead!

  STAR: Why not? Why won’t it work?

  JOE: ’Cause I don’t trust him, that’s why! ’Cause I don’t aim to spend the rest of my life lookin’ over my shoulder.

  STAR: He’s no threat to you! Tell him, Chuji.

  JOE: The hell he ain’t!

  STAR: He’ll give you his word—to go away and never come back. You will be safe, Joe, you and yours. On my life, I swear it. Tell him, Chuj
i. Tell him!

  Beat.

  PATRICK: Yes.

  STAR: Yes what?

  PATRICK: Yes. He’s safe.

  STAR: Your word?

  PATRICK: My word.

  STAR: You hear him? His word. And mine. Joseph?

  Beat.

  JOE: All right.

  Star hugs Joe.

  STAR: Thank you.

  PATRICK: I’ll need my gun.

  JOE: Your rifle stays here.

  REBECCA: You cain’t do that to him, Pa!

  JOE: Be quiet!

  PATRICK: What kinda chance I got without a rifle?

  JOE: The only chance you get. No, Star! No gun. That’s the deal. He leaves like he is, right now, or he don’t leave at all.

  PATRICK: Ma?

  Beat. Star looks to Joe, then to Patrick.

  STAR: Do yu jiskanoqi. Skidoliga. [I am sorry. Forgive me.]

  Patrick stands and looks at her. He crosses to the tub and looks at Michael’s body.

  PATRICK: All my life, you two been pullin’ and tearin’ at me. Not so much ’cause you wanted me, but ’cause you didn’t want the other one to have me. I been a blade that you both ground down so much that I ain’t nothin’ left but edge. (Beat.) You mind if I bury my pa ’fore I go? Or you figure I’m gonna be too dangerous with a shovel in my hands?

  Joe is about to object, but Star cuts him off.

  STAR: That’d be all right.

  Patrick moves to the pile of clothes by the tub.

  PATRICK: I ain’t buryin’ him naked. Man’s gotta right to that much at least.

  Joe nods and then looks away. Patrick kneels down and then pulls out his father’s pistol.

  STAR: JOOOEEEE!

  Too late. Patrick fires and Joe drops.

  REBECCA: Pa?!

  Star crouches over Joe’s body, keening. Patrick crosses quickly and grabs Joe’s rifle and his own. He retreats to the porch.

  STAR: You were free, Chuji! You heard him! All you had to do was walk away.

  PATRICK: This is my land! Rowen land! I ain’t leavin’!

  STAR: They’ll hang you for this. I’ll see to that.

  PATRICK: Who’s gonna witness against me—a black slave and a Cherokee squaw? Ain’t no man gonna hang in Kentucky on their say-so, not even no half-breed.

  STAR: Rebecca.

  PATRICK: A man’s wife cain’t witness against him.

  REBECCA: Wife?

  STAR: Don’t listen to him!