- You do swear by Almighty God,
the searcher of all hearts,
that the evidence you give shall be the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the truth,
as you shall answer to God on the last great day?
Ripped By mstoll
- In the matter of the United States versus Ruth Cole,
the defendant stands accused
of unlawfully, feloniously and of malice aforethought
shooting into Sidney Snow two mortal wounds of which he died,
contrary to the law, peace and dignity of the Wyoming Territory.
Having heard these charges, what say you?
- Guilty.
- Miss Cole...
...in my hand, a written statement by head of Railroad Police,
Cullen Bohannon.
He says you aided and protected an officer of the law from an armed felon.
This would not only prove you innocent,
but mean you saved a life, if not several.
Now, this court asks a second time.
What say you?
- I say I am guilty. - Ruth, don't do this. Ruth.
- Order, sir.
- Miss Cole, it is unclear to me
whether you're of fit mind to defend yourself.
I move for a continuance to afford Miss Cole time to acquire proper counsel.
- I murdered that man, Governor.
Not out Of fear, nor aiding the law,
but for no purpose other than to end the man's life who took my son's.
I am guilty. I have pled so.
- Mm.
- You, Ruth Elizabeth Cole,
are guilty Of murder
and shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead tomorrow.
May God have mercy on your soul.
- Have the gallows constructed in the town square.
- A public execution? - Transparency, Judge,
followed by a strict adherence to the law.
- A death warrant should be drawn up. - Do it. No mistakes.
- You got nothing to gain by this.
- I gave Miss Cole every opportunity to acquit herself.
Her refusal to do so means that justice must be served.
- Hanging a grieving mother? That don't serve nobody.
- Neither does allowing a confessed murderer to walk free.
No one is above the law, not even the church lady.
- Then pardon her. You got that power as Governor.
- I do, but a pardon must be affirmatively accepted
by the guilty party to be recognized by the courts.
The woman in that courtroom did not appear interested in clemency.
- I get her to accept a pardon, you'll sign it?
- With pleasure.
The law requires the noose go on tomorrow.
- Alright, keep your guilty plea.
Take your stand.
Then you'll accept a pardon from the governor.
- The governor hasn't pardoned me. - He'll give you one. He told me so hisself.
- I never asked for that.
- Hanged by the neck until dead. D'you hear him in there?
- Pardons are for cowards, like Sidney Snow.
- Taking a pardon...
that ain't a coward's choice.
Dying is.
- Either way, the choice is mine.
And my choice is no.
- My father was a judge.
After a bad ruling,
well, he'd sneak out and take my mother dancing.
Do you waltz?
- I haven't come to dance, John.
- Come on.
It's simple.
A waltz requires a man to lead.
- I've never excelled in that arena.
I've come for comment on the kangaroo court you authorized on your arrival
and your acquisition of McGinnes' casino thereafter.
- Ancient history, Miss Ellison.
- I prefer to call it context.
- This is the story I won't like?
- It starts and ends with a federally approved hanging.
- I extended Miss Cole a pardon.
If she should refuse,
that would be her decision.
- Mr. Snow's appointment to Marshal, I suppose that was her decision as well?
And his subsequent burning of her church.
We are all complicit, John.
Men with power and money are guilty while a woman with no currency
except her own convictions is set to hang!
- Burn this city down,
you'll have no friends left but the ashes.
- Exactly as much as Ruth Cole.
- You'll cast her as some saint?
- I'm still deciding on the devil.
- Come on. Ain't got time to waste.
Train leaves in five minutes.
- Train? - For New York.
Mary, my first wife, still got folks in the city.
I sent them a telegram. They said you could stay with them
till you get back on your feet. - I'm not going to New York.
- Yes, you are. I'm putting you On that train.
You're putting this behind you.
- I won't be a fugitive from the law. - No one will come after you.
You'll disappear. That'll be that. You can start fresh.
- The only life I have is here.
- Yeah, I thought that once in Mississippi. Train ride changed all that.
- I intend to stay and accept the consequences for what I've done.
- You'll stay and you'll die. For what?
Teach everybody some lesson about right and wrong?
- It's not your responsibility to save me, Mr. Bohannon.
- You're getting on that train. - I've made my decision.
- Yeah? Well, I just unmade it. - What? No, no.
Let me go!
- Come on, you're leaving. - No! No!
I was ready to leave after Sean died!
I was ready to go back to Omaha with Ezra.
You asked me to stay.
And I stayed for you.
This time, I stay for me.
- Bohannon!
Bohannon!
Delaney is quite capable of putting the final pieces in place
if you need to be somewhere else. - I'm right where I need to be.
Son of a bitch.
- When we lost my only son to cholera,
I was away working.
Do you know where I was and what I was doing?
- No.
- Neither do I.
- There ain't nothing I can do for Ruth.
- The thing to do is be with her.
- Church lady's not gonna hang.
- The casino you can keep.
But if you think you can prevent me from enforcing the law through intimidation,
you haven't been paying attention.
- If Ruth Cole sees an early grave,
you best be digging too.
- She refused my pardon offer.
There's nothing else I can do.
- You'll find a way.
I'm sure of it.
- Step aside.
Why don't you go get a drink, Dutch?
I couldn't sleep.
- Me neither.
Would you do anything different...
...if you could go back?
- I would be a better husband.
A better father.
- I would be more patient with Ezra.
- They don't get more patient than you.
Boy didn't make it easy on you.
Setting fires,
rustling horses,
gigging frogs.
- What I would give for a church full of frogs.
- I'd let the both of you go to Omaha.
- I don't blame you.
- I would kill Sidney Snow.
- So would I.
- After the war...
...I found myself walking the streets of D.C.
- What were you doing in D.C.?
- There was this crowd outside a federal building.
Political rally, I thought.
Some senator speaking on national unity.
Come to realize...
...it wasn't a rally.
It was an execution.
They march this poor bastard out and...
read him his rights.
I swear, it felt no different than... you and me talking right now.
Civilized, even.
But his, uh...
...his neck didn't snap right and...
...we spent...
...10 minutes...
...just watching him choke.
- I know what you're doing.
- Piss ran down his leg, five minutes in.
The shit come at eight.
Worst part was the popping sound his neck made.
It was like a firecracker on the fourth of July.
And there I am,
in the nation's capital,
watching this...
savage...
...act.
They call it civilized.
There wasn't no civility to it.
- You won't scare me out of this.
- There ain't no worse way to leave this world, Ruth.
- Burning alive is worse.
I hated the sight of you.
When you came back to Cheyenne.
The three of you.
I got myself wound up so tight that day,
I stormed out of the church...
and trudged through the mud and the rain.
And I saw your tent...
and I was ready to say it all.
But what you don't see...
when anger grabs hold over you, are puddles.
Giant ones in the street.
One wrong step, my feet slipped...
and I fell hard into the mud.
What I thought was mud.
But then I smelled it. It was...
...well, horse-- - Shit?
- It's not funny.
- Oh, what'd you do? - What else could I do?
I walked back through town. - Covered in...
- No walk has felt so long in my life.
When I got back, Ezra was there.
You know what he said to me?
"You smell like shit."
Well...
What'd you tell him?
- I told him, "Don't say 'shit,' " and went and washed myself off.
That was God... answering my prayers.
He was telling me I already had a family of my own.
Ezra and me.
Still, I don't know...
...why it took you so long to come see me.
I didn't want you to explain.
I just wanted to see you.
I never thought... you'd show up at the church that night.
- I'll always show up, Ruth.
Come on out here.
Just to the window.
Come on.
This town needs their preacher.
- I'm nobody's preacher anymore.
The hammering stopped.
- Mm.
Hmm.
- They finished.
- Yeah.
- It's almost dawn.
- Yeah.
- Do you love me?
- Of course I do.
- But do you love me?
- I can't lose you, Ruth.
- I love you.
I was a coward.
I should've told you how I felt.
I should've taken you and made you mine.
The three of us could've been a family.
Do you love her?
It's alright, you can say. - I don't know.
- You always know...
...deep down.
- I think I might.
- Go to her.
Tell Naomi.
- I don't know if she'll have me.
- The brave choice is always family.
- Come on, get up. - Mm.
- Cullen.
Cullen.
- Mr. Bohannon, please step out of the cell.
- Just...
just give us a minute.
- The law requires the death warrant be read aloud
the morning of the execution by the officer on duty.
You asked for this role, Mr. Bohannon.
- I didn't ask for this. - Badge on your chest says different.
- Miss Cole... will accept her pardon now.
- Is that right, Miss Cole?
- No, Mr. Campbell.
- I won't be party to this. - Cullen!
Cullen!
Say you'll be there.
Please.
- Thirteen coils, hemp, from St. Louis.
It's the only kind I trust.
Your hair, ma'am.
It's the oil. Sees the knot don't catch.
March you out five minutes before.
Exactly five minutes before.
There'll be a crowd.
You don't got to worry, I'll be there.
Thirteen steps up to the platform where I'll tie your hands and your feet first.
Noose comes next.
The hood is last.
- Will it hurt?
- Daddy never hung nobody before who come back to have it done over.
- You don't got to worry.
I'll be there.
- There's $50 in an account in the Cheyenne Bank
and a pile of clothes at the laundry.
See that they're donated to the Council Bluffs Mission.
Wallace comes in to talk on Tuesdays. Someone should look in on him.
Tomorrow's Tuesday.
A pittance and some laundry.
- You're forgetting about a city full of people who you've touched.
You have my word, they won't forget you.
- You're writing an article about me?
Don't.
It won't be remembered and neither will we.
- It's time.
- Is there anything you need?
Anything at all?
- Have you seen Mr. Bohannon?
- I haven't. But I can find him-- - No. Thank you.
- Looser, please. - No, ma'am.
- Wait!
- Any last words?
- All aboard! Train to Council Bluffs! All aboard!
Final call!
- We're ready to escort Miss Cole's body to the Council Bluffs Mission.
- Buried her this morning.
She's with her son.
- God hasn't given up on this place yet!
- This wasn't God's doing.
- "The railroad may be America's dream,
"but what's left behind in Governor Campbell's Cheyenne...
is a nightmare."
This is how you see Cheyenne?
- I told you you weren't going to like it.
- I thought we shared a vision for what this city could be.
- The only vision that I have is that poor girl swinging from a rope.
- What befell Miss Cole was a tragedy,
but printing this won't bring her back.
- The governor controls a great many things; the press is not one of them.
- I'm not asking you as Governor.
- I've always been a terrible dance partner.
- By this time next week, you'll be back covering America's dream,
having authored nothing substantial but the end of a relationship.
- This is far more important, John.
- In your nightmare, I'm a monster?
Enjoy your ashes.
Everybody back out of the way!
- The pressure's too high!
- Alright, y'all quit your yapping and get back to work!
- Heard the man. Back to work!
- I'm afraid the champagne and cigars will have to wait
until we've taken the summit.
Send for 300 workers from Omaha to lay track
and two trainloads of lumber from Chicago.
Oh, and throw up a wire to General Grant.
Tell him we'll summit before month's end.
Well... what is it, Bohannon?
- I quit.
Ripped By mstoll