- Sitting Bull: She's from New York.
- Catherine Weldon: I thought you liked New York.
- Sitting Bull: Too many people with too much. Too many people with nothing at all. Your society values people by how much you have... ours by how much we give away.
- Sitting Bull: Soft. Feel. We used to use the buffalo's brains to soften the hide. Every animal has exactly enough brains to tan its own hide. Never too much. Never too little.
- Silas Groves: Would you mind if I gave you some practical advice?
- Catherine Weldon: I don't really care for practical advice from someone who's such a poor judge of character.
- Chaska: When Lakota first meet, we don't speak for a while.
- Catherine Weldon: Oh.
- Chaska: Words get in the way of getting to know each other.
- Catherine Weldon: I met you two minutes ago, and already you have accused me of being a spy and a liar.
- Silas Groves: I work for the War Department, darling. I didn't mean to be presumptuous, but you do have that certain look.
- Catherine Weldon: What look is that?
- Silas Groves: The look of someone filled with good intentions.
- Catherine Weldon: Oh! And that's bad?
- Silas Groves: West of Missouri, it can be lethal.
- Catherine Weldon: You're not good at keeping still, are you?
- Sitting Bull: Shoot me, then I will be still.
- Catherine Weldon: What would be the point of shooting you? Bullets don't seem to have any effect.
- Catherine Weldon: I want to speak to him.
- Chaska: So, speak to him. He speaks English well enough. When he wants to.
- Catherine Weldon: [to Sitting Bull] Excuse me. I have traveled many miles from the east...
- [clumsily pantomimes]
- Catherine Weldon: across many... rivers and hills... for the honor of speaking with you.
- Sitting Bull: You got a train from New York, right? Did you get a Pullman?
- Catherine Weldon: [chagrined] Yes.
- Sitting Bull: Nice. They gave me free cigars too.
- Silas Groves: You're an admirer of George Catlin.
- Catherine Weldon: You know his work?
- Silas Groves: You bet. I can't look at these the way most people do, though. The scalp dance. Saw my first scalp dance in the Black Hills back in '75, but when I saw it, there were little blonde scalps. The warriors had stumbled across some Swedish immigrant children walking to school. The little girls had blue ribbons tied up in their hair.
- Silas Groves: General Crook. We have a problem at Standing Rock. Mrs. Weldon is buying food for the Indians, thereby... thereby undermining the ration system. I recommend we arrest her, keep her locked up until after the vote.
- General Crook: Thought you said I didn't need to worry about Sitting Bull.
- Silas Groves: I was wrong. She's agitating him. She has him wearing buckskins and feathers.
- General Crook: You can't arrest someone for spending their own money.
- Silas Groves: Sir, with all due respect, our job here is to deliver a ratification of the Allotment Act.
- General Crook: I bet my old friend Sitting Bull feels about potatoes the way I feel about you, Mr. Groves.
- Silas Groves: She's agitating the Bull, sir. She's agitating him to act.
- General Crook: No, she's a painter painting what she sees. When she sees the Bull, she sees a warrior. I, too, am a warrior. Our destinies appear to be entwined.
- Silas Groves: Sir, I fear that for some among your regiment, this return to Dakota is about revenge.
- General Crook: Vengeance is for the Lord to take. But maybe our good Lord sent us Mrs. Weldon.
- Silas Groves: Sir...
- General Crook: Permission to issue an arrest warrant is denied.
- Sitting Bull: [to Weldon] To find our way on the open prairie, we stop sometimes and look, remember. With people too. You stop sometimes and look and remember. It's called cantognake. To place and hold in your heart. This moment. Our power returning. Young again. Hold it in your heart.
- Old Man at Train Station: Colonel.
- Silas Groves: This lady here, she came all the way from New York to paint Indians.
- Old Man at Train Station: Is that a fact?
- [walks toward Weldon and spits in her face]
- Catherine Weldon: Oh!
- Old Man at Train Station: I hope they fuck you. Cut the baby out, like they did the Robinson girls. Indian-loving bitch.
- [turns and walks away]
- Old Man at Train Station: I'm sorry, Colonel. My blood boils.
- Sitting Bull: You'll never be free on the prairie if you don't ride.
- Catherine Weldon: Freedom's in the head.
- Sitting Bull: And in the feet.
- Catherine Weldon: Oh... my feet are just fine.
- Sitting Bull: Try these.
- [pulls out a pair of moccasins]
- Sitting Bull: My old ones, soft buckskin.
- Catherine Weldon: [struggles to remove her heels] Uh!
- Sitting Bull: You got big feet for a woman.
- Catherine Weldon: You got small feet for a man.
- Sitting Bull: [speaks Lakota] Sihathánka, it means "big feet." Maybe that could be your Indian name.
- Catherine Weldon: They called George Catlin "Mystery Spirit Painter." Think of something like that.
- Catherine Weldon: [sketching passing landscape from pullman]
- [knock at door]
- Catherine Weldon: Hello?
- Waiter - Sleeping Car: [enters pullman] Fresh linens, ma'am?
- Catherine Weldon: Oh, yes, please. How long till we get to Omaha?
- Waiter - Sleeping Car: Half a day.
- Catherine Weldon: You're an Indian, aren't you?
- Waiter - Sleeping Car: Yes, ma'am.
- Waiter - Sleeping Car: Which tribe?
- Waiter - Sleeping Car: [flatly] Presbyterian.
- Catherine Weldon: [narrated excerpt from a letter] 'Recently, I visited an exhibition of George Catlin paintings of American Indians and my breath was taken away. It was the freedom that struck me. Even inside the paintings, the people were free.'
- Catherine Weldon: I'm heading to Standing Rock Reservation. I'm going to paint Sioux Indians. Have you ever been to Standing Rock?
- Waiter - Sleeping Car: The Sioux hunted my people like rabbits, cut out their hearts and fed 'em to the dogs.
- [opens door to exit pullman]
- Waiter - Sleeping Car: You call if you need any more towels.
- Catherine Weldon: You think you could wear your feathers?
- [shakes his head]
- Catherine Weldon: Why not?
- Sitting Bull: Same reason you don't wear your wedding dress.
- General Crook: Sometimes, the sadness I feel for the passing of the old days is such that I find it hard to swallow. The Dakota wind, the smell of buffalo and churned-up grass, smoking pine, burning fat, tobacco, Indian girls wearing cut sage, sleeping on soft furs.
- General Crook: [protracted pause] But, you see, it is time. Time cannot be resisted. Change comes the way the rain comes. Those days cannot return.
- Sitting Bull: I would like to speak.
- Silas Groves: No, no... he got... No, you won't.
- James McLaughlin: [quietly to General Crook] He's not a registered member of any tribal council. We have the power to say no.
- General Crook: [quietly in response] Power?
- [laughs]
- General Crook: You wanna speak, Bull? You go ahead.
- James McLaughlin: General...
- General Crook: [interrupts] Let the man speak, for Christ's sake. This is a free land.
- General Crook: [to Sitting Bull] What do you have to say, my old friend?
- [Sitting Bull speaks Lakota]
- Susan McLaughlin: [translates Sitting Bull's words] Since the white man came... and broke up the grassland... with his ploughs... the earth has turned to dust.
- Susan McLaughlin: In this dust, there is the body of Crazy Horse...
- Susan McLaughlin: American Horse...
- Susan McLaughlin: Spotted Tail...
- Susan McLaughlin: Black Kettle...
- Susan McLaughlin: Sword...
- Susan McLaughlin: Two Moons...
- Susan McLaughlin: Rain in the Face.
- Susan McLaughlin: When the wind blows...
- Susan McLaughlin: it blows our heroes in our faces.
- Susan McLaughlin: our diplomats...
- Susan McLaughlin: our doctors...
- Susan McLaughlin: our priests...
- Susan McLaughlin: our dead children.
- Susan McLaughlin: [Sitting Bull pauses] The Great Spirit speaks to us in clouds of dust.
- Susan McLaughlin: [Sitting Bull rises] You cannot sell...
- Susan McLaughlin: pieces of the earth...
- Susan McLaughlin: because the earth belongs to God.
- Susan McLaughlin: [Sitting Bull in Lakota and Susan overlap] We must tell these people to go home...
- Susan McLaughlin: back to Washington, and not hurt the earth any more.
- Susan McLaughlin: [overlapping speech ceases] Enough. Enough.
- [Sitting Bull grasps a fistful of soil and allows it to run through his fingers]
- Susan McLaughlin: We will give no more of our land away.
- Susan McLaughlin: [holds a speck of dust between his thumb and forefinger] Not even this much.
- Silas Groves: [enters and shuts door] Good afternoon. Agent McLaughlin? Colonel Groves. War Department. Special Envoy for General Crook. Where's the rest of it? Yeah, General Crook's ordered a 50% cut in rations of flour, bacon and sugar to take effect immediately. When a new treaty needs to be ratified, it's our experience that hunger concentrates the Indian mind. This is my wife Susan. Susan? Do you find that hunger concentrates your mind?
- [SPEAKS LAKOTA]
- Silas Groves: We don't encourage the use of the old language on the reservation. Thank you, dear.
- James McLaughlin: Where's the rest of it?
- Silas Groves: Yeah, General Crook's ordered a 50% cut in rations of flour, bacon and sugar to take effect immediately. When a new treaty needs to be ratified, it's our experience that hunger concentrates the Indian mind.
- James McLaughlin: [woman enters carrying tea service] This is my wife Susan. Susan? Do you find that hunger concentrates your mind?
- [Groves doffs his hat and speaks Lakota]
- Susan McLaughlin: We don't encourage the use of the old language on the reservation.
- James McLaughlin: Thank you, dear.
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