ACT 2

LIGHTS UP ON AMBROSE BIERCE, asleep in his chair. The revolver is still in his lap, with his hand rested upon it. ALBERT is curled up on the bed, also asleep. Their wine cups are still sitting out. Out the window it has dawned. The bare tree limbs, once silhouetted by the moon in the previous scene, are now brightly shown upon by the morning sun.

Albert wakes slowly, groggily, sitting up on the bed. He has forgotten where he is for a moment, then in a silent quickening he remembers. He sees that daylight has broken and realizes the new complication to the situation. He rubs his eyes and sees his cousin Ambrose asleep. He gets up, listening first at the door for anyone outside, careful not to make a sound, then creeps toward Ambrose, focusing on the gun. He goes to spirit the gun away without waking him.

Just then a rooster crows loudly outside and Ambrose wakens with a jolt, grabbing the gun at the same time that Albert does. They wrestle for it. Ambrose realizes it is Albert and they freeze, the muzzle of the gun pointed squarely at Albert's face.

ALBERT Good morning, cousin.

AMBROSE
(still groggy) Albert! What are you doing?

ALBERT Trying to make the best of a ripening situation.

AMBROSE It's morning.

ALBERT Precisely why I greeted you with 'good morning.'

AMBROSE And we're still here.

ALBERT You noticed that too, did you?

AMBROSE We slept through dawn. What the hell are we going to do?

ALBERT Cousin, right now all I know is that a gun pointed in my face is not a cure for a tremendous hangover.

AMBROSE Sorry, cousin.

Ambrose finally realizes where the gun is and lowers it. Albert tries to collect himself.

AMBROSE (CONT.)
(sarcasm) Methinks it be too late to make a stealth getaway under cover of nightfall.

ALBERT We are fools.

AMBROSE One mere night of reminiscence under the influence of cheap wine, and now the hangman's rope.

ALBERT
(remembering he has a pocketwatch) May God help us.

AMBROSE Whether on the gallows high
Or where blood flows the reddest,
The noblest place for a man to die
Is where he died the deadest.

ALBERT
(trying to read his watch) Do you ever cease expounding? At a time as this, no less. A quarter past eight, give or take, if my sleepglazed eyes are not poorly focused.

AMBROSE
(rising, sticking the gun in the waistband of his trousers) I've got just the remedy for that.

Ambrose picks up one of the wine cups. He lifts it under Albert's nose.

AMBROSE (CONT.) Care for a hair of the dog, cousin dear?

Albert immediately becomes nauseous, races to the window, shoves it open and hangs outside to vomit. Ambrose strides over to pat his shoulder.

AMBROSE (CONT.) Just pretend its a pulpit, Reverend. And the weeds are Unitarians.

Albert has a quaking heave out the window. Ambrose robustly downs the contents of the wine cup. He then leans out to see what's happening. Albert hangs limply.

AMBROSE (CONT.) Yep, I do declare, there'll be dandelions growing there in a few days.

Ambrose pats Albert on the back, which makes him lurch painfully each time. Ambrose then goes over to the dresser and opens the top drawer.

AMBROSE (CONT.) Courage, cousin.

Ambrose retrieves a towel from the dresser drawer and dips it into the bowl of water on the dresser top. He wrings it once, then carries it over to Albert, holds Albert's forehead with it and pulls him upright from the window ledge. He sits him down on the bed. Albert is ashen.

AMBROSE (CONT.) There now. Feel better, or you need to hock up another one?

ALBERT
(woozy) No. No, I'm alright.

AMBROSE I don't know. You look like a ghost at a funeral.

ALBERT I'll... be fine. Thank you.

AMBROSE Want the rest of your wine?

ALBERT
(pained) Lord no!

AMBROSE Alright. Just sit there a minute and breathe. While I sit here a minute... and think.

Ambrose sits down in the chair. Albert holds the wet cloth to his pounding head. Ambrose stares blankly.

AMBROSE (CONT.) I think... we done run out of string.

ALBERT I should have taken a more authoritative stand last night, and dragged you out of here.

AMBROSE You did everything you could to make this old mule plow. I'm truly sorry, cousin. It's my fault.

ALBERT We can still light out of here. My horse is quite the runner.

AMBROSE No. We'd be lucky to make it a mile out of town. It's only a matter of time now. Besides, I told you I'm not going. Of course, you could still ride away alone with relatively little consequence.

ALBERT Not without you.

AMBROSE You should wrap that head of yours and hop on your mount right now.

ALBERT No!

AMBROSE
(rising) Go on, before you're discovered.

ALBERT I am not here secretly. What's the difference?

AMBROSE Alone you'd be safe. Huerta's men wouldn't know you from Adam.

ALBERT Not knowing me, sounds like plenty reason to detain me on the spot, if not put me to the bayonet.

AMBROSE It's what you symbolize. You're a man of the cloth. A religious man, gringo or not. They wouldn't lay a hand on you.

ALBERT But here with you, that means nothing, I take it.

AMBROSE With me, you're one of Pancho Villa's fellow anarchists, nothing more.

ALBERT You make it sound like it is tattooed right on our foreheads.

AMBROSE I will deem you no less a man for escaping while the circumstance permits. Ride out, now.

Albert stares a moment. His gears are turning. Ambrose does not notice it. Albert rises, somewhat incensed.

ALBERT If the circumstance permits me, it does you too. Get dressed.

AMBROSE One step out onto that street and I'm a dead man.

ALBERT And you've argued all night that you're a dead man anyway once Huerta's soldiers come knocking. In fact, I would dare say you've spent the night bragging about it! Like some lone wolf waiting in the shadows for the roving pack, so that he can spring upon them one last futile--but nonetheless galant--battle in the name of his bloated, romanticized pride.

AMBROSE Here we go again. Is that your gentle, sympathetic way of calling me a coward?

ALBERT
(indicating the room) If execution is inevitable, why here? Like this? What would you lose by stepping outside? A gulp of fresh air? A moment alone standing in the sun...

AMBROSE Like a target in a shooting gallery for the swift convenience of Huerta's snipers.

ALBERT It would at least be overwith, and one would imagine, somewhat less painful.

AMBROSE Like those young soldier boys? The ones supposedly in my nightmares? Before venturing south, I visited all the old killing fields... I made my peace with the dead.

ALBERT What's wrong... not heroic enough?

AMBROSE Heroic? I am accused of preferring fame to life itself? I have no want of fame. The Jacob's Ladder leading to the vaudeville stage. Fiddlesticks.

ALBERT Your unadulterated pride is the great padlock on this cell, isn't it?

AMBROSE My pride again. What is it you want me to admit to?

ALBERT You so enjoy comparing yourself to him, one would think you wear the sin of Lucifer like a crown.

AMBROSE Alright. I'm too PROUD to walk out and be gunned down in cold blood. Said. Satisfied?

ALBERT You think it beneath you.

AMBROSE Chains not of iron, but of indignation, enslave me. Spartacus.

ALBERT Yes, very fitting, I must say. Spartacus.

AMBROSE The condemned gladiator being led to the cross, begging the sentries to unshackle him and hand him a sword.

ALBERT Then fatally attack him, so that his final memory would be that of a warrior. So also that the writers of history would remember him thus, instead of what he was; a mere prisoner.

AMBROSE What is this, cousin? Do you abandon your evangelical approach and attempt the secular art of reverse psychology?

ALBERT
(more collected, tossing away the towel) Wipe that smugness from your lips. Gladiators fought and died by an oath. And it occurs to me that you envision yourself somehow at least their intellectual kin, crusading for your own noble causes to the last.

AMBROSE An accurate portrait of yourself, too, cousin.

ALBERT But recall that gladiators ultimately served no real purpose, save to amuse the ruler, and the overindulged rabble. Bred like cattle. Consumed like cattle. You are no longer a gladiator here, Ambrose, but merely a prisoner, like Spartacus. You know death is coming, and now you beg, pray, that it will be a death worthy of the thing you were, at your greatest moment.

AMBROSE Now who seeks to entwine who with eloquence? Suddenly, cousin, I find myself confused just as to where you stand on this matter.

ALBERT I may be at the mercy of little sleep and too much wine... but I still know my cousin Ambrose... who never could fool me. I recognize your gloating hubris, showing its smirk even now upon the threshhold of the abyss. The very traits you've come to embody over your nearly seventy defiant years, now prevent you from accepting an end so... so pedestrian as that faced by we mere mortals.

AMBROSE Are you saying that deep down, I want this?

ALBERT What if there is no sniper outside, and we both can calmly walk to our mounts and ride away?

AMBROSE
(gazing cautiously out window) I think I know better than that.

ALBERT Of course you do! A quick, safe, easy getaway--how dare General Huerta ignore your presense! The audacity! There must be a hundred marksmen surrounding this dusty little cathouse! No, a thousand... at the least. And only AMBROSE BIERCE could hold them at bay with an empty six-shooter and sheer force of will. This whorehouse is your Alamo, isn't it, Ambrose.

AMBROSE Cease your nonsense.

ALBERT I think the only thing missing is a coonskin cap on that self-important head of yours.

AMBROSE
(incensed) Oh, how they teach otherwise useful young men to babble in seminary.

ALBERT Tell me, at least, the name of your fear. In their darkest hours, even the bravest of men are allowed to own a shred of cowardice.

AMBROSE I killed more men by the time I was twenty-six than you'd preached to at that age. I assure you, I am not afraid of dying.

ALBERT No, you are afraid of being figured out!

AMBROSE
(nailed) Bah!

ALBERT Always have been. And I'm the last person on Earth you wanted to do it. A damn Bible toter. And to make it worse, your own flesh and blood. Your one last link to the past.

AMBROSE
(taking the gun out, waving it) Before I was asking you to leave out of concern for your life. Now I ask you to leave out of concern for my sanity.

ALBERT
(holding out a hand to Ambrose) You are not held here by fear, cousin, but by your own misguided arrogance. I may be wrong, but I'm willing to bet even Davey Crockett would've died of old age if he'd had the choice.

AMBROSE Now you sermonize out of history books. Scraping the bottom of your barrel, are you?

ALBERT No one sent you here, Ambrose. There is no duty to keep, no flag to surrender. You needed one last dragon to slay. The job is done. Mission accomplished. Now, please, come home with me.

Ambrose is sullen, the gun lowered. He gazes down, silently surveying his situation and perhaps his reasoning for placing himself in it.

AMBROSE Have I really been so foolish?

ALBERT You are what you've always been. A fighter. A rebel-rouser. The rector of that ever present congregation called 'the loyal opposition.' I would expect no less from you.

AMBROSE A pain in the ass.

ALBERT A challenge.

AMBROSE Say it. Just once, preacher. For me. A pain in the ass.

ALBERT
(pondering, turning away) Ambrose...

AMBROSE
(following) Say it for family.

ALBERT
(shaking head, turning back) Father forgive me. Ambrose you have been a very large... pain in the ASS. Now let's go home.

AMBROSE
(jubilant, replacing pistol, taking Albert's hand) To hear that, it was worth it. I'll go with you, cousin. I'll go.

ALBERT
(barely containing his relief) Finally. Finally... hurry, let's not waste another minute.

AMBROSE I have to gather some things.

Ambrose begins collecting his typewritten papers and his clothing. Albert is outwardly calm, but inside he is leaping with joy. He paces nervously, closing his eyes now and again as if to piece together a silent prayer of thanks.

ALBERT Oh hurry. Do you need help?

Before Ambrose can answer, there is a tumbling sound outside that startles them both. They freeze and look at one another. Then Ambrose takes out the gun, knowingly.

AMBROSE You alright out there, Esperanza?

There is another tumbling sound, like the first, accompanied by breaking glass.

AMBROSE (CONT.) Madame Butterfly?

Suddenly there is a hard thump against the outside of the bedroom door. The knob is jiggled. Ambrose and Albert dart to defensive positions.

ALBERT Do you have bullets for that thing?

AMBROSE I've got just the one.

Now yelling is heard beyond the door, with the voices being those of Esperanza, some other females and one male voice.

ALBERT That all?

AMBROSE Unless you can conjure up a miracle akin to the loaves and fishes...

ALBERT Aim well, cousin.

The door bursts open. It is BRAND, trying to escape the angry ESPERANZA. She is fuming, cussing in Spanish, beating and kicking him.

AMBROSE Bill!

ALBERT Mr. Brand!

BRAND
(pummeled) Ambrose, get this goddamn harpy off me!

Ambrose wedges himself between Esperanza and Brand and separates them.

AMBROSE Madame Butterfly calm down.

ALBERT Mr. Brand, why didn't you answer? He was ready to shoot.

AMBROSE And my only remorse would've been for that expensive suit of yours.

BRAND Sorry for not knocking, Ambrose! When you two never showed up back at the farm, I figured you were both either shot, hauled off or had just never left. I was hoping on that latter-most possibility.

ESPERANZA He sneaks in. He knocks over my expensive Brazilian lamps! Both of them!

BRAND I was attempting to come and go unnoticed. Things are really hopping out there, Ambrose.

ESPERANZA Smashed to bits. Both! Puto cabrone!

BRAND Well, look at it this way; at least the lamps are still a matching set.

ESPERANZA Chingow pendejo!

ALBERT
(asserting himself) I'm sure the Examiner will replace your lamps, Miss Esperanza.

BRAND Yes, Miss Del Monte, Mr. Hearst can afford you a hundred Brazilian lamps. Maybe even some statuary to boot.

ESPERANZA
(incensed) This Mr. Hearst, he will pay for all the damage?

AMBROSE Yes, Madame Butterfly. He's telling the truth. Mr. Hearst is exceedingly wealthy--owns most of America.

ESPERANZA Well... alright. But this man cannot stay.
(To Brand, coming after him again) Vamos! You are going!

AMBROSE
(wedging himself between them again) Just a moment, Madame Butterfly, please. Bill, what did you mean by 'everything's hopping?'

BRAND You haven't heard, have you.

AMBROSE Heard what?

BRAND Your beloved revolutionary, Pancho Villa, made a jailbreak last night.

ALBERT He escaped!

Esperanza silently crosses herself out of eyeshot of the men.

BRAND He not only escaped, he managed to set loose most of his fellow bandits from Huerta's prison, too. They 'disappeared into the night' and I imagine have all now been promoted into Villa's army.

AMBROSE And the Generalissimo?

BRAND Mad as a tomcat dowsed with dishwater. I've actually spent part of the morning with His Excellence, getting his side of it, you might say. And Presidenté Diaz, being on vacation... I'll have to make up something presidential and stick quotes around it.

ALBERT You've been with General Huerta?

BRAND It is my job, after all. Rumors are spreading throughout Mexico like wildfire about Villa's escape, growing more and more heroic with each retelling even as we speak.

AMBROSE Filed your story yet, newsman?

BRAND No. And rest assured. I skidaddled just as the biggest posse on earth was being called to arms, near Ojinaga. You might say I was overcome with a compulsion to start my retirement early, safely back across the Rio Grande.

AMBROSE Nobody followed you? You're positive?

BRAND Are you kidding? You know me, Ambrose; I've snuck out of bigger wars than this one. However, I'm sure that inside you must be glowing.

AMBROSE Like the sun at lunchtime.

BRAND Looks like London was right. If the fighting spreads to the Gulf, or worse, threatens the Canal, President Wilson will have to decide whether or not to send in the Yanks.

AMBROSE Exactly that for which you have no desire to be present.

BRAND If we stick our tails between our legs and run now, we just might make it. Are you two of a mind to join me?

ALBERT
(moving to Esperanza) Miss Butterfly knows we were here. Are we safe, Miss Del Monte, should you be questioned?

ESPERANZA Hermano Albert, do not insult me, please; you gringos all look alike. You act alike, too.

BRAND We'd better get gone soon. I imagine before too long, part of that posse will stop in here for a little break from the manhunt.

ALBERT So much for hallowed ground.

ESPERANZA Si. And I don't think I could disguise you three so good in garters and silk stockings.

ALBERT Miss Del Monte... please.

BRAND We wouldn't bring in much, either, Ma'am. I think our options have been pared down to one, gentlemen.

ESPERANZA I am not sure what that means, but I think you all better leave. Now!

ALBERT Cousin, this is our chance! General Huerta's attention is solely on recapturing Villa; we can make our getaway unseen. Let's ride, now!

AMBROSE I've changed my mind, I'm not leaving.

Albert, Brand and Esperanza are incredulous and react.

ALBERT Ambrose! What?!

BRAND Are you crazy? If you weren't in deep manure before, you certainly are now. Even I'm not certain of a free passage at this point.

ALBERT We have to get out now.

AMBROSE No. I won't. Everything has changed.

ALBERT What has changed? You were willing to come a moment ago.

AMBROSE
(sitting down before the typewriter) A moment ago there was no more to tell. The story was finished. A new chapter has suddenly been opened.

Ambrose puts a blank sheet of paper in the typewriter and begins typing.

ALBERT Ambrose, of all the...

BRAND Well great! A hell of a time for journalistic integrity to kick in, eh?

AMBROSE
(still typing his lead) Give me everything you know, Bill. Don't leave out a thing.

ALBERT I don't believe this. Ambrose we should make our escape. Let duty call indeed; once we're clear of all danger.

BRAND
(pulling the paper out, crumpling it) I have no intention of giving you a damn word, Ambrose. Your cousin the minister is preaching good advice. I will file my story only after my feet touch home soil. I advise you to do the same.

Act 2 Continued | Back to Start Page