INT. BEN'S POLICE VEHICLE -- NIGHT.
Chip sits, shivering. Looks exhausted. Coming down, maybe. Maybe just tired from crying. Cory opens the door, sits beside him -- leaves one foot outside so he doesn't lock himself in the car.
Chip looks at him, assumes the hard stare of a criminal.
CORY : Look at us.
CHIP : Look at you. I didn't do shit.
CORY : All you been doing is shit for three years.
Beat. Chip softens.
CHIP : ... It's this place. Look what it makes you do. What it takes from us. What it took from you.
CORY : I'm not going to sit here and say life's been fair. To either of us. This land is all we got left. Barely four thousand of us still breathing --
CHIP : What are you -- a fucking quarter Arapaho? Only thing Indian about you is your ex-wife and a daughter you couldn't protect. Maybe if you'd played detective then --
Cory slams his head into the front divider before he can finish the sentence.
CORY : You gonna lecture me about protecting our people? Hmm? While you deal the shit that's killing 'em? You know what you are -- you're just a 'hang-around-thefort' prairie nigger begging for smallpox blankets you can sell to your friends. That's what you sell, chief -- the smallpox of your generation. You had every chance to get out if that's what you wanted. Army. College. It was your choice. And look what you chose.
Cory swings open the car door. Gets out.
CHIP : (Small) I met him. Wanted to fight his ass. But he just took everything I said. Not like a coward. Like a man ... She loved him ... He works security on a drill site ... One of those guards, that's where the smallpox comes from.
CORY : What's the boyfriend's name?
CHIP : Matt something ...
CORY : He the smallpox dealer too?
CHIP : I doubt it. I don't know.
CORY : Who does?
Chip looks up at him.
CHIP : Sam knew. Why don't you ask him?
Cory looks at the criminal that used to be a boy he knew well.
CORY : You'll be talking to Sam long before I do, Chip. Of that I'm sure.
CHIP : You think this is who I wanted to be? I just ... I get so mad, I want to fight the whole world. You know what that feels like?
CORY : I do. I decided to fight the feeling instead. Know why?
Cory leans back into the car.
CORY (CONT'D) : Because I knew the world would win.
Cory closes the door. Sees Ben and Jane talking. They look at him as he approaches.
JANE : What did I tell you -- Did he say anything -- never mind, don't tell us. What did he say?
Cory's eyes are steel.
BEN : What?
CORY : You're going out to the rigs tomorrow morning?
Cory looks at Jane as he leans into Ben.
Whispers --
CORY (CONT'D) : Natalie's boyfriend worked there.
JANE : What? Don't tell me -- Fuck.
BEN : Hmm ... This thing is solving itself. We'll pick him up in the morning and see what he's got to say.
CORY : We're picking him up now. From three feet of snow --
BEN : Chip said that?
CORY : I say that.
Beat.
BEN : But you don't know it. I want you with us tomorrow.
CORY : You don't catch a wolf searching where he might be ...
Cory looks out over the snowmobile tracks leading through the snow. Shadows fill their slight indentations, and point toward the mountains like an arrow.
CORY (CONT'D) : You search where he's been ... and he's been here.
EXT. WILMA LAMBERT'S HOUSE -- NIGHT.
Cory stands at the door, his breath frosting in front of him. Knocks softly. Knows she'll never hear that, tries a little louder.
A light comes on. The door opens. Wilma stands there in a robe. For an instant, she seems worried about how she must look, then remembers issues far more grave surround them.
CORY : Hi.
WILMA : You okay?
CORY : I been better.
WILMA : Brings everything back, doesn't it.
CORY : Yeah.
She shakes her head.
Silence.
WILMA : You and Ben and this little FBI girl formed your own posse to go solve it all, I hear.
CORY : I'm just trying to help.
WILMA : You won't get the answers you're looking for. No matter what you find.
CORY : This isn't about Em --
WILMA : Don't you say her name.
Her venom brings out his.
CORY : I didn't kill her, Wilma.
WILMA : Yes you did. We both did ... We looked away. We let our guard down, and this place snatched her from us. (MORE)
WILMA (CONT'D) : We have one chance left at this, and I for one will not rest a second until he is grown and living very far from here. Where it's never cold and your baby doesn't--
She fights it back. Calms herself.
WILMA (CONT'D) : If doing this gives you some sort of closure, I'm happy for you. Closure for me will be Casey married and happy with a family of his own.
Beat.
CORY : Then what?
WILMA : ... Good night, Cory.
She closes the door.
EXT. CORY LAMBERT'S HOUSE -- NIGHT.
Jane's SUV pulls up as Cory hauls hay into the corral. He tosses it into the trough. Walks toward Jane's SUV.
She rolls down her window.
JANE : Matt Rayburn. Did you know him?
CORY : That the man in the snow?
JANE : His fingerprints are in the database -- he was enrolled at the Police Academy in Rock Springs. Supposed to begin in April. Worked as a security officer for a drill station out here.
CORY : You wanna come in?
JANE : Do you mind?
CORY : Come on.
He turns and walks to the house. She shuts down the SUV and follows.
INT. CORY LAMBERT'S HOUSE -- A MOMENT LATER.
Jane looks around the living room. Spots reloading equipment on the dining room table. The silver-colored rifle lays on a towel placed over the coffee table -- stretched out like a snake. Her hand goes to her sidearm, checking that it's still there.
She sees numerous photos of Casey, and the mini-shrine on the mantle. Looks at the girl's picture.
CORY (O.S.) : I got milk, coffee, and tap water.
JANE : Tap water's fine. Thanks.
She steps closer to the photo.
CORY (O.S.) : That's my daughter.
She turns, caught.
CORY (CONT'D) : She passed on three years ago.
She figured as much, buts feigns surprise anyway.
JANE : I'm sorry.
CORY : You wanna ask how, don't you?
JANE : I do ... But I won't.
Beat.
CORY : I was working as an outfitter out of Pinedale. There was a big snow, and I found myself with a night off, so I grabbed a motel room and told my wife to come up. (MORE)
CORY (CONT'D) : Just her -- You get precious little romance with two kids and a job that keeps you in the mountains half the year ... Emily was sixteen. Casey was five. You could trust her ... She was a good girl. We lived out on the Rez not far from her parents ... Should've made 'em stay with Wilma's folks ... I guess word got out that we were out of town and some school friends came over. Then more came over.
He looks up at Emily's photo on the mantle.
CORY (CONT'D) : Then some people came that weren't her friends. Get together turned into quite a party, and then, I don't know ...
He looks around like he might sit -- might need something to lean on to continue. Decides to tell it where he stands.
CORY (CONT'D) : A lot I don't want to know ... It was Natalie that called us the next day. Told us Emily was missing. They were best friends, so... Natalie was worried. She had a right to be ...
Can't go any further on his feet. He sits on the couch. Jane doesn't move an inch.
CORY (CONT'D) : You try to be so careful, try to plan for everything. Emily was such a good girl, we just ... let our guard down ... You'll have kids some day, and let me tell you, Jane, you can't blink. For eighteen years, not ever ...
Cory swallows the pain. Looks up at his daughter on the mantle. Then to his feet.
CORY (CONT'D) : Some guy was moving his sheep near Wind River. He's the one who found her ... Twenty something miles from our house. How she got there? What happened -- I don't know. (MORE)
CORY (CONT'D) : Couldn't find out much from the autopsy cuz the (he sucks in a pained breath) Coyotes had been at her pretty good.
He looks right at her.
CORY (CONT'D) : And I've been killing those sons of bitches ever since.
Jane tries to find something to say -- anything -- but there's nothing. All she can think to utter is:
JANE : Can you point me toward your --
CORY : Yeah, right down the hall.
She walks down the hall to the bathroom. Closes herself in.
Stares at herself in the mirror -- not a decade older than
Natalie was, than Emily would be. Splashes water on her face. Leans against the counter, relishing a moment without tension, terror, or heartache. Steels herself and opens the door.
She walks out and notices a poem, framed and hanging on the wall. She reads the heading -- A MEADOW IN MY PERFECT WORLD. She reads the poem.
Cory walks up, leans beside her.
CORY (CONT'D) : She got accepted to a summer program for creative writing at Colorado State. That's what got her in.
Jane looks at him.
JANE : She wrote this to you?
And for the first time, there is a
crack in the steel.
CORY : I don't know who she wrote it to.
Beat.
CORY (CONT'D) : I like to think it was me.
He disappears into the living room. She follows. Stands before him.
JANE : I don't know what the Hanson boy told you, but I don't want to stumble into something like today if I can help it. If he told you something I need to know ...
CORY : He told me one of those guards sells 'em meth. Which one? I don't know. Also told me her boyfriend worked security for West-Central.
Beat.
CORY (CONT'D) : You could've called for that.
JANE : I wanted to know why you're helping me. What your motivation was. (Gentle) Now I do.
Cory smiles.
CORY : Didn't trust me.
JANE : Didn't trust how good you are at it.
She works her way to the door.
JANE (CONT'D) : Is it possible to not drive the snowmobiles eighty-miles an hour tomorrow?
CORY : Sure, if you don't mind landing in a ditch you could've sailed over.
JANE : ... Great.
She offers him a smile and leaves. Cory returns to the task of making rifle rounds. Places one of the giant bullets on an ELECTRONIC SCALE. The reading says: 544 GRAINS.
He takes a FILE, expertly shaves the bullet down. Places it back on the scale: 540 GRAINS. Perfect.
He seats it in the machine, pulls the lever, driving the bullet into the casing. He holds up the round. Studies it ... This bullet has a home, and Cory is close to finding it.