- Alfred: I followed all of the rules, man's and God's. And you, you followed none of them. And they all loved you more. Samuel, Father, and my... even my own wife.
- [First lines]
- One Stab: Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy, or they become legends.
- Colonel Ludlow: Indians! Indians were the issue in those days. I can assure you, gentlemen, there is nothing quite so grotesque as the meeting of a child with a bullet; or an entire village slaughtered while sleeping. That was the Government's resolution of that particular issue and I have seen nothing in its behavior since then that would persuade me that it has gained either in wisdom, common sense, or humanity.
- One Stab: That night we buried the bodies. We dumped the car in a deep pool in the upper Missouri. l remember when he was a boy. I thought Tristan would never live to be an old man. I was wrong about that. I was wrong about many things. It was those who loved him most who died young. He was a rock they broke themselves against however much he tried to protect them.
- Tristan: You see this man? His name is One Stab. He's a venerated elder of the Cree nation. He's counted coup on hundreds of his enemies. He is our friend, and he is thirsty.
- Alfred: When are you planning to be married?
- Tristan: Morning.
- Alfred: Damn you, Tristan. You will marry her.
- Tristan: And make a honest woman out of her?
- Alfred: Yes! God damn you to hell.
- Tristan: Yes, I will marry her if she'll have me.
- Alfred: If she'll have you? Do you love her? Or did you seduce her just to spite me?
- Tristan: It's not what I did.
- Alfred: And what about Samuel?
- Tristan: What about Samuel?
- Alfred: You tell me about Samuel.
- Tristan: We all loved Samuel. Samuel's dead. What?
- Alfred: How convenient that is for you.
- Tristan: Because you love her I will forgive you for that. Once! You say that again and we're not brothers.
- One Stab: Tristan died in 1963. The moon of the popping trees. He was last seen up in the North Country, where the hunting was still good. His grave is unmarked, but it does not matter. He had always lived in the borderland anyway, somewhere between this world and the Other.
- One Stab: She was like the water that freezes inside a rock and breaks it apart. It was no more her fault than it is the fault of the water when the rock shatters.
- Young Isabel Two: You're going to marry Samuel.
- Susannah: That's right.
- Young Isabel Two: I'm going to marry Tristan.
- Susannah: Then we'll be sisters.
- Alfred: I don't know what to say. Tristan's always been wild. You love him for that.
- Susannah: Do I? Yeah, I suppose I do.
- Alfred: Susannah, he does love you.
- [holds her as she cries]
- Colonel Ludlow: Alfred! She's to be your brother's wife.
- Alfred: Yes, though you might better remind him of that.
- Colonel Ludlow: He's not here to defend himself.
- Alfred: No, he's not but I see you are here to defend him and what is his. Even though he's abandoned her and you. And I won't even speak of who else he abandoned.
- Colonel Ludlow: Damn you, boy. Don't you blame my son for Samuel's death! Samuel chose to be a soldier and soldiers die. Sent to be slaughtered by the men in the government. Parasites like you! Damn and blast you!
- [turns to Susannah]
- Colonel Ludlow: Damn you too!
- Alfred: Shut your mouth! You leave her out of this!
- Colonel Ludlow: You get out of my house and off my land.
- Alfred: Why? Because I want to serve my country like you did? Or because, like you, I love a woman who doesn't love me? He used her and he deserted her. Your darling Tristan.
- Susannah: Alfred, don't, please.
- Alfred: I loved her! I love her still. And he stole her from me. If you want to know the truth of it he stole her from Samuel before the war.
- Colonel Ludlow: God help me, I'll kill you.
- Susannah: Tristan, I have nowhere to send this letter and no reason to believe you wish to receive it. I write it only for myself. And so I will hide it away along with all the things left unsaid and undone between us.
- Young Isabel Two: Tristan calls me a half breed.
- Colonel Ludlow: Tristan calls you a half breed?
- Young Isabel Two: He says I'm half gopher and half hawk.
- Tristan: Samuel, God bless you. You are good at everything you try to do. I'm sure it'll be the same with fucking.
- Samuel: Tristan, really. We're talking about my future wife.
- Tristan: Oh, you're not gonna fuck her?
- Samuel: No!
- Tristan: No?
- Samuel: No! I'm planning to be with her.
- Tristan: I recommend fucking.
- Samuel Ludlow: [singing] As evening fell, a maiden stood, at the edge of a wood, in her hands laid the reins, of a stallion, and near I've seen, a girl as fair, heard a gentle voice anywhere, whisper, alas, she belong, belong to another, another, forever, yes she belong to the twilight and mist.
- Susannah: Were you going to say goodbye? Tristan? How long will you be gone?
- Tristan: Not long. A few months.
- Susannah: I can make it better for you.
- Tristan: No.
- Susannah: If we'd had a child or if I were pregnant, would you still be going?
- Tristan: Yes.
- Susannah: Just give me a chance.
- Tristan: Don't do that.
- Susannah: Look at me. Please, look at me. I'll wait for you. However long it takes. I'll wait for you forever.
- Alfred: What is he wanted for, Sheriff?
- John T. O'Banion: That would be of a private nature
- Colonel Ludlow: A private nature? That's a public office you hold, isn't it, Sheriff?
- Tristan: Alfred's going to do well wherever he is.
- Colonel Ludlow: Except here with us.
- Tristan: That's my fault.
- Colonel Ludlow: I didn't say that.
- Tristan: I couldn't bring Samuel back home alive either, could I?
- Colonel Ludlow: Don't you dare say that boy! That was in God's hands.
- Tristan: Was it?
- Tristan: You know when Samuel died... when Samuel died, I cursed God. Did I damn everybody around me as well as myself?
- Colonel Ludlow: No. You are not damned, Tristan... I won't allow that.
- Alfred: Susannah, you know how much I loved Samuel. And I think you know. Out of respect for him I wanted to say it in this place. I think you know that I'm in love with you. From the first moment I saw you. Like in a novel. That's my mother's romantic imagination coming out in me, I suppose. You're not making this very easy for me, Susannah.
- Susannah: Sorry.
- Alfred: Is there any hope that you could learn to love me? Not the way you loved Samuel, of course, but enough to. Susannah, we could make a life together. A happy life.
- Susannah: I don't think so, Alfred.
- Alfred: It seems like you're not sure though. Maybe there's a chance. What?
- Susannah: I think I can only cause you pain, Alfred.
- One Stab: [Describing Tristan] I think it was the bear, growling inside him. Making him do bad things. Nothing that Tristan did was truly his own fault. It was the bear.
- [going off to war]
- Samuel: I'll bring you back the kaiser's helmet.
- Colonel Ludlow: Bring yourself back. That'd please me more.
- [Regarding Tristan's departure]
- Susannah: Will he come back?
- Colonel Ludlow: I don't know.
- Colonel Ludlow: [One Stab speaks Cree] Stab says yes.
- Tristan: Miss Finncannon. It's a pleasure to meet you. I hope you and Ugly here find every happiness together.
- Alfred: Please excuse my father. It makes him feel young and powerful to treat us like idiot children.
- Canadian Soldier: MacKenzie was just brought in, his leg's turned bad. He said...
- Tristan: What?
- Alfred: He said what? Go on, man, what is it?
- Canadian Soldier: He said your brother, he volunteered to take his place and go over on the reconnaissance.
- Alfred: [to Tristan] God damn it! I told you to stay with him!
- Tristan: Because you love her, I will forgive that, ONCE! Say that again, and you are no longer my brother.
- Tristan: Samuel! Samuel, come here! Run along now. Go with Pet. Get him in the house!
- John T. O'Banion: He's a fine boy. You know we're not here to arrest you.
- Tristan: You take me to the woods. I don't want my boy to see. I don't want my boy to see. Let's get on with it.
- Samuel: The men who served under you worshipped you.
- Colonel Ludlow: And they were damn fools, all of them, weren't they?
- Colonel Ludlow: Ah, Isabel, I have tried to shelter our sons from all the madness, and now, they go to seek it.
- One Stab: The Old Ones say, "When a man and an animal have spilled each other's blood, they become one."
- Colonel Ludlow: I spoke in plain English, sir. What do you want for yourselves should my son be elected?
- Alfred: Father, I really don't think that these gentlemen...
- Colonel Ludlow: Did you ask that question yourself, Alfred, or do you honestly believe these good gentlemen back you simply out of the sense of patriotic duty in your own inestimable worth?
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