Artie, I hate to bring this up,
but, uh, the telegraph key is missing.
What are you talking about?
Well, nobody's perfect.
No.
Did you get that?
Most of it. May I?
"Urgent...
..."proceed immediately,
sheriff's office, Ocala County."
What else?
"To take recaptured prisoner into federal custody.
Emphasize all necessary precautions be observed."
Well, if you ask me, it's a lot of fuss
over one prisoner.
Artie. Hm?
What was that name?
Liston Lawrence Day.
Why? Does the name mean anything to you?
It does.
Pretty tough hombre, eh?
Oh, let's just say important,
like Simon Girty
or Benedict Arnold was important.
Artie's sound asleep, sheriff.
Why don't you get some rest, too?
You sure you'll be all right?
I can handle him.
Help me.
It's the last time you can help me.
I'm home now.
Home to you.
Help me.
Don't let them take me away again.
All right, Day.
Come on.
Get moving.
It's hard to believe an old man like him
could bust outta jail and come all this way
into the bayou country on foot.
You'd have think it had killed him.
It almost has.
He's dying of swamp fever.
Yeah.
He sure don't look very dangerous.
Depends what you mean by "dangerous," sheriff.
About 30 years ago,
when Texas was fighting
for its independence under General Sam Houston,
this man, born in Texas, turned traitor,
and caused the death of a lot of his fellow Texans.
For that crime, he was sentenced to life in prison.
Thirty years in solitary confinement.
He's insane. Dangerous?
Don't you turn your back on him, sheriff.
You listen to me, Day.
We're going back to Beaumont.
There's a doctor there. He'll fix ya up.
And when you're well,
I'm taking you back to prison.
Understand?
Forget it, Jim. He can't hear a word you say.
I think he hears me very clearly.
Come on.
Sheriff, bring the lantern.
It's you who are going to die, Mr. West,
all of you.
Sheriff, bring the lantern.
Oh, yeah.
Who lives there, sheriff?
I got no idea.
I've never been this far from Beaumont.
Looks like they've all turned in.
Maybe they'll let us stay the night in the barn.
Well, I suppose we could ask 'em.
Sheriff,
lift the lamp up, will you, please?
No one's been here for a long, long time.
Artie, bring him in here.
Must have been the lady of the house.
Wonder who she was.
He's pretty bad off, Jim.
I don't think he'll make it till morning.
It's not the Palace Hotel.
It's gonna have to do for the night.
Sheriff, you get some firewood.
Get the blankets.
It's going to be cold here tonight.
Yeah.
I don't think blankets are gonna help him.
It's a woman...
crying.
What caused that? There's no wind in here.
Locked.
Yeah.
Look.
Hey, Mr. West.
What's going on around here?
Them shutters,
they're all slamming themselves shut
at the same time.
James, my boy, if it's all the same to you,
I'd just as soon stay at the Palace Hotel.
Bring the lamp, sheriff.
It's no use, Artie. Step back.
That pellet should've blasted this whole wall down.
Ohh...ohh...ohh...
Every time we hurt this house...
she cries.
It's as though they were one and the same.
Hurt the house?
What kind of nonsense talk is that?
Jim, lend me your knife.
Thank you.
Jim, I know this sounds insane,
but I don't think that's just a woman screaming.
It sounds like a woman to me.
Artie, if you're telling me you believe in ghosts,
I don't.
No, I'm not talking about ghosts, Jim.
It's this house itself.
It seems to have a life of its own.
There's some simple explanation.
There always is.
Whatever it is,
we're prisoners.
That's it.
All of them, like the shutters.
Think we oughta risk it?
No.
There may be a way out up there.
Fella could starve to death down here.
We'll wait until morning.
With this lantern, we'd be a perfect target
for whoever it is up there.
Look at those cobwebs.
There can't be anybody up there.
No one's been down that staircase in years, Jim.
Maybe there's another way up there.
We'll find out in the morning.
How is he, sheriff?
Not so good.
He's still in a coma.
I think he's dying.
Artie.
Huh.
What is it?
Nothing.
Keep an eye on him, sheriff.
Ah.
What was it, Jim? It was something.
I looked at his face.
It seemed to have changed.
Maybe it was just the moonlight.
Changed how?
He seemed younger, much younger.
You know, I think she must've been his wife.
This was home. He's come back to it.
In his crazed state,
he thought somehow that she'd be waiting for him.
In a way, she is waiting, you know? This-
She's...
She's this house.
She's-
What was that?
The door.
Stop it.
Wait here.
It came through this door.
It's no use.
Jim, wait.
Look at that.
It's a velvet ribbon.
The woman in that portrait wore a velvet ribbon, didn't she?
Let me see it in the light.
What is it, Mr. West?
It's a piece of velvet, sheriff.
Artie!
Stop!
Halt! Stop!
Every ounce of blood's been drained out of him.
How is that possible?
Artie.
Look at her eyes, Jim.
Tears.
Artie.
Yeah, I'm awake.
I was just thinking about that sheriff up there.
I know.
He's still up there like we left him yesterday.
Let's go on up.
Oh.
Boy, I feel like I'm 90, going on 100.
I know.
I feel exactly the same way.
Look.
It's all rusted.
Last night this belt buckle had a high, shiny gloss.
I don't believe it.
Only the weapons are rusted.
It's a set.
We'd better come up with a theory to cover that.
I've got a theory.
This house is seeped in age,
years piled upon years.
We're intruders here.
Maybe the house is striking back,
the only way that it can.
You mean, like, telescoping time,
so that the effect of years has worked on us overnight?
It's pretty wild, isn't it?
Yeah. That's a-
And while we're on the subject
of things that are pretty wild...
Artie, look at these windows.
That's the one you heaved the mini-grenade through yesterday.
Not a sign of the blast.
All right, how does that fit into your theory?
I'm through apologizing for what it does to logic.
It's almost,
like this house had the knack,
the ability to renew itself.
Tsk, well, how do you go about handling a house
that treats you as though you were an enemy?
I don't know.
Maybe the answer is to treat it like a friend,
and not like an enemy.
Let's go out to the foyer and check your theory out.
That's what I like about women,
they always tidy up for the new day.
Did you get any on you?
What could have happened to him?
They must have gotten him.
Come on.
This must have been her room.
She wanted us to come in here.
The doors.
Why?
You tell me.
Let's go over it again.
We came here last night with Day,
who was sick and dying.
We were made prisoners.
You were almost killed,
while he was our prisoner.
The sheriff was killed, trying to catch him,
and now she's got him somewhere in this house
hidden safely.
And maybe that's all she wants.
Maybe she doesn't want to do anything to us.
"Caroline L. Day."
It's her diary.
Let me see.
She wanted us to see it.
That's why she opened that.
"March-"
Hold on.
"March 3rd, 1811.
"We have named the baby Liston Lawrence Day.
Charles dotes on him."
I was wrong.
She wasn't his wife. She was his mother.
I'd think so, Artie.
Hmm.
"May 14th, 1830.
Charles says that Liston will make a brilliant doctor,
"like himself.
"They spend hours in Charles' laboratory.
"They're always together, thick as thieves.
"Charles has taught Liston to speak Spanish,
"and I must say that he is as handsome and dashing
"a young man as any don ever was.
"Charles says that as long as we live here in Texas,
"under the rule of the Spanish-speaking people,
it's only right that Liston know the language."
I must say the lady's spelling is atrocious.
"March 29th, 1836.
"Terrible news has come.
"General Santa Anna and his Mexican forces
"have ambushed and slain hundreds of our men.
"Luckily, our good general Sam Houston
"escaped the trap.
"Charles is disconsolate.
"it was downstairs in our drawing room
"that the movement of our troops
"was planned in secret.
How could Santa Anna have known?"
You have an entry for April 23rd, 1836?
That's when Day was arrested and sentenced to prison.
Yeah, here it is.
"April 23rd, 1836.
"This morning my husband confessed to me,
it was he who told Santa Anna."
What?
"Liston has begged me to remain silent.
"He said, 'Nothing must happen to my father.'
"He's a great doctor who will do great work.
"Earlier this evening,
"General Sam Houston himself came with some men,
"and it was Liston, my beloved, beautiful son
"who confessed to the terrible crime.
"And Charles,
"Charles just stood there in silence.
"Oh, my baby. My precious, precious darling,
"I shall wait for you
"here at home, praying for you,
wishing for your return."
Thirty years.
We've had the wrong man imprisoned, for 30 years.
Charles Day didn't live long after that.
Listen to this one.
"August 7th, 1839.
"This morning my husband Charles was killed
"in a hunting accident.
"I cannot weep for him now.
"He is released from his own private horror.
"Oh, how cruel the irony that my precious Liston,
"would have sacrificed himself
"so that his father
"might do great things as a doctor,
and now the sacrifice has been in vain."
She wants us to leave.
She wants us to take this diary and clear her son.
I don't think so, Mr. West.
After 30 years,
I'm returning to my ancestral home,
and I intend to stay.
She always liked me at that age.
Doesn't that surprise you?
A love like that, can reach out of the past,
transform the present?
Put that gun down.
So far, you're guilty of nothing
but defending your father's honor.
A terrible mistake has been made,
but you allowed it.
Don't make a worse one. Give me that gun.
I'll thank you to hand me that diary.
Listen to me.
We can get you free,
arrange for a pardon.
Give me that diary!
Give it to him, Artie.
Oh.
Caroline.
Caroline Day,
we must take him with us,
but don't worry, we have the diary now.
He'll come back to you a free man.
Jim, she doesn't want us to take him out of the house.
All right, we'll leave him,
but we must take the diary.
What's that?
Rats...
hundreds of them. They must be all around us.
Behind those walls.
Look at those.
You thinking what I am?
Ah.
Locked.
I have a feeling not for very long.
Ah.
I hear our friends have quieted down.
That's no way to create an appetite, is it?
They need exercise.
Wake up! Wake up!
Day,
I don't know what it is you're up to,
but don't do it. You're an innocent man.
The government owes you more than apologies, Day.
It owes you reparations, money.
Enough money for you to rebuild this house.
Me llamo Dias!
Dias! Do you hear?
Not Day. Dias.
Day...
...that was the name my grandfather chose
because he wanted to belong to the gringo's way of life.
He raised my father that way, too,
but blood is stronger than social aspirations, Mr. West.
My father was true to his blood.
To the gringo, he always remained Charles Day,
but in his heart, he was Carlos Dias,
a man of fire and steel,
a man of breeding!
And I am my father's son.
This house is the hacienda of Don Dias.
Who discovered Texas?
My father's ancestors, the noble Spaniards.
By the sacred honor of my father's memory,
and by the memory of my father's ancestors-
My ancestors.
-this land will be Spanish again,
and the gringo will be destroyed.
Day-
Dias!
Texas has been a state for a long time,
for 30 years, since you were sent to prison.
American barbarians!
What do you know of grace, of style, of manners?
I remember.
I remember,
once this house smiled,
with the sound of guitars,
in the gardens,
were courtly couples walking.
Seņora, buenas noches.
Con permiso?
Que noche.
Que linda,
la luna.
Que perfecto, la luna.
There are a lot of people in Texas, Day.
From what I've seen, they don't die very easily.
Do you know how many rats there are in those walls, Mr. West?
I don't know.
Thousands and thousands of ravenous rats,
and once those iron doors open...
Let me show you.
Those doors open automatically
the moment this clock strikes 12.
On the 12th stroke-
Let me show you what's in this case.
Ants, gentlemen.
Ants,
carrying the bubonic plague, the black death.
My father and I started with six rats,
and they multiplied.
An army, gentlemen.
Thousands upon thousands of rats,
and all of them infected by these ants.
And behind those walls,
an army is waiting.
We've been waiting for 30 years.
Thirty years.
At noon, gentlemen.
Noon.
And once their feast here is over,
they will spread from county to county
till all of Texas is infected.
In the middle ages,
the bubonic plague killed almost three quarters of Europe.
No pena, madre, por favor.
Soon this land will be free of these gringos.
Everything will be as it was.
Our hacienda alight, great fiestas in our ballroom.
Buenas.
Mantillas, lace,
everywhere.
Caroline.
Caroline Day, listen.
Your son is insane.
Maybe right from the start.
You've wasted your love on a madman, Caroline.
Paciencia, madre.
It will only be a moment or two.
Paciencia.
Open the cell door, Caroline.
Please.
We're only here to help him.
It's for him.
Artie.
Hold it.
Get him to come over
to the center of the cell, close.
How am I gonna do that?
I don't know. Sing, dance, recite Shakespeare, anything.
But get him over here,
then swing the lamp to me.
Ah.
Peon, que paso aqui?
Silencio! Bastante, bastante. Silencio!
A few thousand rats?
A few thousand rats
are gonna kill millions of people?
Suficiente! Bastante silencio!
Let us take him with us, Caroline.
If we leave him, he'll commit one
of the most horrible crimes in the history of mankind.
He isn't worth your loving.
Be rid of him,
and be happy with your memories.
Stay where you are!
Both of you!
I should have done this at the very first.
It would have saved a lot of trouble.
After all...
I don't care how you die,
as long as you die.
Once-
Once I'm rid of you,
I'll return to my laboratory...
and I'll release my army.
Mr. Gordon, I will kill you first.
Mr. West,
I shall take my leisure in killing you.
And now, sir, if you'll...
s-stand aside-
Stand aside from your friend-
Did you hear me?
I said-
I said...
He's dead.
What do you want to say in our report, Jim?
That we brought Liston Day here, and he died of...
swamp fever.
Good morning.
Jim,
what happened?
Nothing, except you spent half the night calling
for a girl named Caroline.
Now, whoever she is, you didn't seem to like her very much.
Dream...
It seemed so real.
Well, ahem, we'd better get moving.
Something wrong?
Oh, no, no. Nothing.
Jim,
do you believe in ghosts?
Of course not.
You know there's no such thing as ghosts.
Why?
Nothing. No such thing.
Who lives there, sheriff?
I got no idea.
I ain't never been this far from Beaumont.
Maybe he'll let us spend the night in the barn.
Well, I suppose we could ask him.