31 Plays in 31 Days: #16 - "Confronting It"

And we're back to The Stand as subject matter! This one is about frontier dwellers Zachariah Harper and Clarissa Dunn as they make their decision to go back to the town of Reston together, to confront their respective responsibilities. I don't believe there's anything spoilery about this one, so it's fair game to all.

Day #16 - "Confronting It"

(ZACHARIAH HARPER, a young man dressed in buckskins, sits beside a campfire reading a letter, a distressed expression on his face.)

(Enter CLARISSA DUNN, a teenaged girl similarly dressed, with her big rifle Matilda strapped to her back. She is nervous and distraught.)

CLARISSA: Zachariah? Is that you?

ZACHARIAH: Clarissa? Hey, Little Sister. I ain’t seen you in months.

CLARISSA: I been looking all over for you. Mind if I set here with you a while?

ZACHARIAH: Course not. Any time.

CLARISSA: Thank you kindly.

(She sits, taking the gun from off her back and cradling it like a baby.)

ZACHARIAH: You all right there? You look like you seen a ghost.

CLARISSA: No ghost, but… things… things been rough. But-but what about you, you got a mug as long as a horse.

ZACHARIAH: Yeah. Stepped into the trading post this morning. There was a letter waiting for me.

CLARISSA: Oh, no. Was it bad news?

ZACHARIAH: From my mother. She’s… she’s real sick, Clarissa. She thinks she might not have much longer.

CLARISSA: Aw, Zach. I’m so sorry.

ZACHARIAH: She wants me to come back home. Before it’s too late.

CLARISSA: Well, sure.

ZACHARIAH: I never wanted to go back.

CLARISSA: Zach! Your ma might be dying! You got to go see her one more time!

ZACHARIAH: That ain’t it! If it were just that, wild horses couldn’t keep me from going back. She’s my mother, for Christ’s sake.

CLARISSA: Then what’s the hold up?

ZACHARIAH: She… she wants me to come back for good.

CLARISSA: For good? Why’s that?

ZACHARIAH: If she’s not going to be around much longer, she says… she says I got to take over her work in town.

CLARISSA: Her work? What work does she do?

ZACHARIAH: I’m not sure, exactly. All my life, she and my pa and my grandfather, they sat behind that big desk, doing what they called “town business.” I never rightly knew.

CLARISSA: But she wants to pass it over to you.

ZACHARIAH: It’s my family’s job, taking care of that place. I told you about my Grandpap, right?

CLARISSA: Sure did. About how he was a real roaming frontiersman before he settled in the territory and founded his own town.

ZACHARIAH: Right. I heard how he talked about those early days. Adventures, travels. Could hear the love in his voice. And I knew right away that was the life I wanted. Not… not the other part. The part with the desk and the same old patch of ground forever and ever.

CLARISSA: Going back would mean leaving everything you love.

ZACHARIAH: Just like Grandpap. And my ma’s worked her whole life to take care of it.

CLARISSA: Means a lot to them, don’t it?

ZACHARIAH: I can’t just… throw that all away.

CLARISSA: I see. Maybe… maybe you don’t got to give up your life. Maybe you can find a way to set things in order… find the right person to take of things. Do right by all you.

ZACHARIAH: It’s supposed to be my responsibility.

CLARISSA: Might be the right person is the person what wants to do it. Not somebody what got to be dragged back by wild horses.

ZACHARIAH: I just don’t know.

CLARISSA: Well… only one way to find out.

ZACHARIAH: Yeah. Got to do the right thing. I got to go back.

CLARISSA: The right thing, huh?

ZACHARIAH: It’s all a man can do.

CLARISSA: What if… you thought you was, but you don’t know anymore?

ZACHARIAH: Sis? What’s eating you?

CLARISSA: I done the wrong thing, Zach.

ZACHARIAH: What wrong thing?

CLARISSA: Zachariah… I killed a man.

ZACHARIAH: You did? What man?

CLARISSA: That’s it, Zach, I-I don’t know.

ZACHARIAH: Then why’d you kill him?

CLARISSA: I thought— I thought it was him!

ZACHARIAH: Him?

CLARISSA: The one I been looking for!

ZACHARIAH: You mean, the varmint what killed your father?

CLARISSA: Yes!

ZACHARIAH: Well— what happened? Weren’t it him?

CLARISSA: You got to understand— he had everything I remembered! I told you, the black hat, the Spanish silver coin hanging off the chain of a watch! How many fellows got Spanish silver hanging off the chain of a watch!?

ZACHARIAH: I don’t know, Sis.

CLARISSA: But… he didn’t have no mole. I shot him, and then I turned him over, but there weren’t no mole.

ZACHARIAH: You’re sure?

CLARISSA: I remember that mole, clear as day! So it couldn’t have been him, Zach. He couldn’t have been. I killed an innocent man.

ZACHARIAH: Gentle Jesus.

CLARISSA: I didn’t mean to. I never meant to kill no innocent man!

ZACHARIAH: I know, Sis!

CLARISSA: I ain’t no murderer!

ZACHARIAH: I know!

(He hugs her tightly.)

CLARISSA: What do I do? How can I… how can I fix this?

ZACHARIAH: Ain’t no fixing now, hon.

(CLARISSA sobs a little.)

ZACHARIAH: All that’s left is owning up to it.

CLARISSA: Owning up. Yeah. I’ve got to own up. Or else… what makes me any better than the outlaw what shot my father? I just…/ don’t know how.

ZACHARIAH: Come with me.

CLARISSA: What do you mean?

ZACHARIAH: Come with me back to Reston. There’s folks there what knows things about what’s gone on around here. Might be they can help you.

CLARISSA: How?

ZACHARIAH: I don’t know. But both of us got to try something. With what we got ahead of us… don’t want to face that alone.

CLARISSA: All right. I guess… there ain’t no running for either of us. Might as well go on together.

(They clasp hands, and begin packing up their camp.)