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Ending title card: The massacres of 1898, year of the Great Blizzard, finally brought forth fierce public condemnation of the bounty killers, who, under the guise of false legality, made violent murder a profitable way of life. For many years there was a clapboard sign at Snow Hill which carried this legend: MEN'S BOOTS CAN KICK UP THE DUST OF THIS PLACE FOR A THOUSAND YEARS, BUT NOTHING MAN CAN EVER DO WILL WIPE OUT THE BLOOD STAINS OF THE POOR FOLK WHO FELL HERE.
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[Silence remembers his first encounter with Pollicut... a candle in the present match-cuts to a candle burning several years earlier, as Pollicut and two bounty killers ride towards Gordon's house, who is loading a rifle]
Silence's Mother: No, dear. You can't... you'd better surrender!
[Pollicut and the two killers walk up to the house]
Fake Sheriff: Gordon, I've got a warrant for your arrest. There's no sense for resistin'. Better let a lawyer prove you're innocent! I'll answer for your safety before you come to trial. Now act sensible. Safer for you if you're put in prison! But if you're not... some bounty hunter'll kill you for the reward!
Gordon Sr.: Okay, sheriff. I'm surrenderin'.
[Pollicut gestures to the two bounty killers to kill Gordon and his wife, and they do so by shooting them]
Silence as a Boy: Ah! Dad, dad! Mama! Mama! Mama!
[as Gordon's son cries over the body of his mother, the bounty killer disguised as a sheriff enters, and throws away his star]
Fake Sheriff: Well, Pollicut? You got no call to worry about Gordon now.
Pollicut: Maybe not. But the kid...
Fake Sheriff: Nah...
[the fake sheriff pulls out a bowie knife]
Fake Sheriff: He'll never talk again.
[Match cut from candle in flashback to candle in the present: Gordon's son is Silence himself]
Franco Ukmar
Extended Reading
