ALBERT Why did he not as easily hide you in a church, then?
AMBROSE He tried, but I refused. Churches are for weddings and funerals. I went kicking and screaming to the former; the latter will find me at least as disobliging.
ALBERT Churches are also houses of holy worship and inspiration. But of course, I'd never expect Ambrose Bierce to sit still for an hour a week and grudgingly acknowledge there was one greater in the universe than himself, now would I.
AMBROSE I have no quarrel with giving the Creator His due, cousin. It's His creations that trouble me. And I have done my time as a human dust cover on a chapel bench.
Allah's good laws I faithfully have kept,
And ever for the sins of man have wept;
And sometimes kneeling in the temple I
have reverently crossed my hands,
and slept.
ESPERANZA When he starts rhyming, I leave.
Esperanza begins to exit, placing her wine cups and pitcher on the dresser.
AMBROSE Goodnight, Madame Butterfly.
ESPERANZA Goodnight, Señor.
(to Albert)
Buenos Noches.
ALBERT Uh... vaya con Dios, Ma'am.
Esperanza exits. Alone with each other, Ambrose and Albert silently size each other up.
ALBERT (CONT.) Is this where I fall prostrate and beg you to leave with me? Or shall we face the hangman together? You could of course spare me your needless fate with a merciful bullet.
AMBROSE Shut up.
ALBERT No, cousin, I won't. A wise man would--
AMBROSE A wise man wouldn't have come here in the first place. Did it occur to you and Brand that you might not make it out alive, with or without me?
ALBERT You don't seem frightened, and it's your head has a price on it, not mine.
AMBROSE If Huerta's men find this place, anyone caught alive with me tonight, will certainly be found dead with me come dawn, cousin.
ALBERT You said this house was hallowed ground.
AMBROSE It is, but the middle of that street isn't. Or that tree orchard out there. (Indicate window.) One of those is assuredly where they will drag us. I'm betting on the orchard.
ALBERT You know positively that someone is coming to kill you. Or us, as the case may be.
Ambrose sits. He holds onto the pistol, letting it hang at his side as he sips from his cup. He melts wearily into the chair.
AMBROSE No, I don't know for certain that anyone is coming, but I have faith in General Huerta's promptness and efficiency routing and exterminating his enemies and their associates, formal and informal. Like a maggot scouring an old dry bone for the last miniscule spec of ripening flesh.
Albert lifts the wine pitcher and pours more wine into Ambrose's cup, to Ambrose's slight surprise. He even then pours himself a fresh cup, placing the pitcher back on the dresser.
AMBROSE (CONT.) Usually a final cigarette is afforded the doomed, cousin.
ALBERT Shut up, Ambrose.
Albert sits himself on the bed, swirling the wine in his cup gently, eyeing his cousin. They both sit still, staring at one another silently for a moment.
ALBERT (CONT.) Hah! I finally got the last word in!
AMBROSE What?
ALBERT And I told you to shut up and you did it; that's another first!
AMBROSE Horseshit!
ALBERT At least I lived long enough to see it! I prayed for a miracle!
AMBROSE Does it sound like you've shut me up, Bible slinger?
ALBERT You shut up for that iddy-biddy moment after I told you to, and that counts!
AMBROSE No it don't.
ALBERT Yes it does.
AMBROSE No it don't.
ALBERT Yes it does.
AMBROSE Don't.
ALBERT Does.
AMBROSE Don't.
ALBERT It do.
AMBROSE Do not.
ALBERT It do.
AMBROSE Do not.
ALBERT Shut up.
Ambrose is stunned by this. They are both silent again for an instant.
ALBERT (CONT.) See, I shut you up again!
Albert guffaws, slapping his knee with satisfaction. Ambrose cusses an ad-libbed protest. Suddenly there is a pounding on the door from outside.
ESPERANZA Eii-yi-yi! You two keep it down in there! I have working girls that need to sleep!
(from outside)
AMBROSE Sorry, Madame Butterfly. We'll not disturb you!
ESPERANZA You promise!
AMBROSE Yes, we promise!
ESPERANZA It's only three hours until daylight. You promise!
ALBERT Uh... we promise, Miss Del Monte. We'll be quiet as church mice.
AMBROSE And he knows; he lives next to a church!
ESPERANZA Alright then, you two shut up.
AMBROSE Al-RIGHT!!
Ambrose and Albert silently wait for Esperanza to go away, back to her room. Once they are certain she is gone, they creep back to there places; Albert sitting on the bed, and Ambrose in his chair. He and Albert stare at one another.
ALBERT It do, too.
(whispering)
AMBROSE It don't, neither.
(whispering)
They both take a sip of wine.
AMBROSE (CONT.) Just asking if you might have a cigarette for a dying man.
ALBERT And leave it to you to ask a Minister for a cigarette.
Ambrose gulps his and motions for Albert to pour him more, which he does.
AMBROSE I have one bartending at the moment.
ALBERT I wish you would be serious.
(replacing the pitcher)
AMBROSE I have never been more serious. I pledged my loyalty to this noble cause, and my word on such matters is golden.
ALBERT Ambrose, Pancho Villa isn't worried about your dirty old neck in a hangman's noose. I'm sure he is quite preoccupied at the moment thinking about his own, no matter I'm sure, how noble or patriotic you've portrayed him.
AMBROSE I'm sure you're right, if they aren't fitting the black hood on him as we speak.
(rising)
ALBERT And am I to presume you welcome the same fate yourself? Seems quite a defeatist end for one whose life has been the epitome of defiance.
AMBROSE I dread the choking of age more than the noose. Dead is dead. Dying is hell.
Done with the work of breathing; done
With all the world; the mad race run
Through to the end; the golden goal
Attained, and found to be a hole.
ALBERT "O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!"
(rising to meet him)
AMBROSE Don't you quote that book at me.
ALBERT Job. Fourteenth chapter, thirteenth verse.
AMBROSE I remember as teenagers, ripping out the pages of that student bible you loved sermonizing from, holding you down and stuffing your anointed gullet with them.
ALBERT That's why I began memorizing. And I remember that not having to carry a book around also freed my hands up to bloody your nose a time.
AMBROSE Lucky punch. To hear you tell it, divinely guided.
ALBERT Your nose was a big enough target, I could scarcely throw a punch without hitting it.
The two realize they are talking together as they did in their younger days. There is a pondering silence between them. They turn away from each other.
ALBERT (CONT.) Ambrose, we are of the same flesh.
AMBROSE No shit.
(sarcasm)
ALBERT Cut from the same cloth. In our youths we were often mistaken for brothers.
AMBROSE Mind you, I did not always consider that a complimentary observation.
ALBERT I've come, at risk of my own life, to pull you out of harm's reach. Out of death's reach--and that not being possible, face it with you. My love for you affords me no third choice.
AMBROSE I could ride out of here on my own as easily as I could with you barking scripture at the back of my head.
ALBERT But you won't. I don't think you dare set foot out on that street to mount your burro. You're afraid of a dull whiffling sound--that has haunted you for half your life.
AMBROSE Ghosts and goblins? Cousin I write ghost stories. I've beget horrors in my works of fiction far more petrifying than anything I might confront in this world or the next.
ALBERT I believe there is no monster greater than man at his worst. I do not speak of disgruntled spirits. I mean that dull whiz of an approaching miniball.
AMBROSE What of it.
(affected but trying not to show it)
ALBERT The sudden shock of violently pierced flesh. How many young men have you seen meet death first hand, Ambrose? How many at Greenbrier? At Missionary Ridge?
AMBROSE Point made.
ALBERT Pickett's Mill? Stone's River?
AMBROSE Enough. Save your breath.
ALBERT Chickamauga? Shiloh?
AMBROSE Still your tongue, damn you!!
ALBERT Those young men have been paying you visits, haven't they? With the snuffing of the lamp.
AMBROSE Still your tongue.
ALBERT When you close your eyes in the darkness, you see theirs open.
AMBROSE You've kept quite a mental chronicle of my actions during the Old Cause.
(sullen, enraged)
ALBERT You wrote of it all; extensively, poetically. I was among your most avid readers. Your war writings were enthralling to me, second only to the Holy Book of course.
AMBROSE You were always an avid reader, period.
ALBERT After the war you began writing your... dark fictions. I preferred your earlier journalistic work.
AMBROSE Where death the protagonist was real, and the numbers in his wake were too of the non-fictional variety.
ALBERT Spare me your morbid insinuations. I loved your eloquent summations of history--your authority over precise and compelling description of momentous events, battles, politics... yours was truly a gift.
AMBROSE Eloquence is simply the act of speaking convincingly, usually to fools. Are you not also a master of that craft, Reverend?
ALBERT But I found the terrible ideas you dabbled with in your fiction to be most disturbing. Some think you bargained with the Devil himself to be the harbinger of such visions.
AMBROSE The Devil. Author of all earthly woes. And accused proprietor of all earthly delights. How do you know I'm not the Devil himself?
(getting eye-to-eye with Albert)
ALBERT Would the Devil tremble within at the prospect of death paying an unannounced visit?
AMBROSE I have witnessed death's passing, times without number. During the war, with rifle or pistol in hand, I myself invited him upon my brethren across meadows once green, stained crimson. I nearly joined their ranks at Kennesaw Mountain and again at Gaylesville. And I can say one thing in old Patch's favor...
(slumping toward the chair)(takes out gun, waves it at Albert) He is the most unprejudiced master I have ever worked along side.
Ambrose slumps into chair, the gun dangling. Albert is stunned and stiffens.
AMBROSE (CONT.) Some of them had only just begun to shave. Some of them had yet even to know the caress of a woman's lips, when death, with great detachment and just neutrality, chose them; uninterested in the color of their uniforms, the potential in their young hearts, the hopes and desires of their youth. Then at last, with no lesser or greater dispatch he placed his withering hand on the brow of him that authored the very freedom for which they had dutifully fought and been sacrificed...
ALBERT Ambrose...
Ambrose suddenly cocks the gun and holds it under his chin!
AMBROSE And here am I. A jaundiced, battling old misanthrope, enslaved only to my personal melancholy, incuriously dealt the biblical three score and ten.
ALBERT None of it was your fault, Ambrose. War and death are bride and groom.
AMBROSE I'm tired of waiting on him. Come old Reaper! Come!
(rising to commit the act)
ALBERT Ambrose, no!!
Albert lunges to pull Ambrose's wrist away so that the shot will miss. Ambrose pulls the trigger as he does. The gun is of course empty. The clack of an empty chamber is heard. Albert nearly faints from the shock. Ambrose, grim and collected, watches his cousin groping to relocate his senses.
ALBERT (CONT.) Ambrose, good God!
AMBROSE It was unloaded the whole time; how stupid do you think I am?
ALBERT Ambrose, you... you...
AMBROSE C'mon, preacher, let's hear it. Just once before that noose finds me I want to hear one bona fide cussword, just one, slither out of that pious windpipe of yours.
ALBERT You...
AMBROSE C'mon... Betty!
ALBERT You... old heathen!
AMBROSE Auuugghh, damn it, cousin. I had my hopes up too high, I suppose.
ALBERT Your very life is in danger! Don't you at least have the good sense to be fearful? Concerned? Anything?
AMBROSE You should practice what you preach, Reverend. Brand may have a temporary license to roam, but even he won't be safe for long. You've put yourself in danger's way along with me by coming here; you may never see home again.
ALBERT Where I have placed myself, is in the hands of the Almighty.
AMBROSE Please...
ALBERT By faith I have journeyed here. And by faith I shall return with you in tow, be His will.
AMBROSE What if His will dictates this is the end of the line, for both of us? Will you humbly abide, holyman?
ALBERT I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded, that He is able...
AMBROSE Oh will you plug that leaky faucet!
ALBERT By faith...
AMBROSE Will faith stop a bullet?
Ambrose pulls a gleaming bullet from his pocket, holding it up for Albert to see, then inserting it into the .45.
AMBROSE (CONT.) Would it stop... this one?
ALBERT We've had this discussion before, Ambrose, a thousand times.
(turning away)
Ambrose spins the chamber and cocks the gun, pointing it at the back of Albert's head. Albert hears it cocked behind his back.
AMBROSE But I don't believe we've ever settled it.
ALBERT What are you doing?
(slowly turning back)
AMBROSE A little game Pancho Villa taught me. A variant of Russian Roulette, played by drunken officers during the war... the last man standing, is the righter.
ALBERT I don't think I like this, cousin. Put it down.
AMBROSE The odds are decidedly in your favor; five to one.
ALBERT I said put it down.
AMBROSE Just the same, a little prayer might be in order.
ALBERT Ambrose, brother by blood, this is insane.
AMBROSE Where's your Almighty now, preacher?
ALBERT Oh. So that's what this is.
AMBROSE I want an exposition of that powerful faith of yours.
ALBERT At gunpoint.
AMBROSE Only until I pull the trigger.
ALBERT What should I pray for? The bullet to make a sudden right turn, out of mercy for an innocent target?
AMBROSE Is your God big enough to stop my fist from squeezing?
ALBERT Big enough to see me through this mad episode to its conclusion, what ever that may be. And he's your God, too, cousin.
AMBROSE I think, given the situation, a prayer to me might serve you a little better.
ALBERT I need not your false compassion. If you are man enough to shoot your own kin and live with yourself thereafter, by all means...
AMBROSE I suppose you'll forgive me in advance?
ALBERT It isn't MY forgiveness you need.
Ambrose suddenly pulls the trigger. Albert gasps. The chamber is empty. Albert exhales relief.
ALBERT (CONT.) There now. Are we finished?
AMBROSE No. Now it's your turn.
Ambrose hands the pistol, handle first, to Albert. Albert retains his composure, but is visibly astonished.
AMBROSE (CONT.) Here. It's your turn. Take it.
ALBERT I will not.
AMBROSE Just how far are you willing to go for a conversion, pastor?
ALBERT I will not play this game any further. You shamelessly mock all I stand for with this.
AMBROSE Take it. You've damned me to Hell from behind the skirts of Peter & Paul plenty of times. How about Smith & Wesson?
ALBERT I am a man of peace. A disciple of the Prince of Peace. You, my dear cousin, are depraved.
(growing indignation)
AMBROSE Depravity is merely the moral condition of any gentleman holding an opposing viewpoint.
ALBERT An Atheist.
AMBROSE More accurately a Deist; one who believes in God but reserves the right to worship an idol should it be more convenient. Now take it!
ALBERT We share one thing in common, cousin.
AMBROSE Which is...?
ALBERT I, like you, am a Bierce.
Albert takes the gun, does not spin the chamber, but cocks it and points it confidently at Ambrose. Ambrose remains calm but is caught off guard. He stiffens, silent a moment.
ALBERT (CONT.) Let us now test your faith... in random chance.
AMBROSE Remember cousin, you are a man of peace.
(unsure)
ALBERT The odds are decidedly in your favor.
AMBROSE I am not a man without faith.
ALBERT You seem to despise mine.
AMBROSE What has your faith in this great 'Unseen' ever done for you?
ALBERT It has put me on the other side of this gun.
AMBROSE Granted.
(pondering)
ALBERT Just what do you have faith in, Ambrose?
AMBROSE I have faith in destiny.
ALBERT Ah yes. Destiny. A force alleged to control all earthly affairs, principally quoted by erring human beings to excuse their failures.
AMBROSE That isn't from the Good Book.
ALBERT No, that's from YOUR book; a quote from noted author and pundit, Ambrose Bierce. And you dare accuse me of not practicing what I preach.
AMBROSE You presently have fire and brimstone at your command, Reverend. Do you hold equal mastery over your guts?
Albert pulls the trigger. Another empty chamber. Ambrose is a grim statue at the blast that doesn't come. His shoulders lower in relief. Albert holds the gun to Ambrose, handle first. Ambrose can't believe Albert is doing this.
ALBERT Your turn, cousin.
Ambrose, slowly, almost reluctantly accepts the gun.
ALBERT (CONT.) I forget again. Tell me the point of this insane little contest.
AMBROSE I hope only to speed you on your way, padre, to what ever awaits you.
(sullen)
ALBERT Of course, a bargain. A bargain with the Devil.
AMBROSE Present.
Ambrose cocks the gun and points it at Albert.
ALBERT I am either about to die, or the chamber will be empty.
AMBROSE Quite a grasp of the obvious, there, prophet.
ALBERT Then let us truly test my faith, and if you are satisfied, you will return home with me. If not, I will leave; be it on my feet or in a pine box.
AMBROSE I have no care for a final sermon. Get to the point.
ALBERT Should the chamber again be empty, you will cease all nonsense, pack your belongings and follow me to the farm where Mr. Brand waits. No questions. No editorial asides.
AMBROSE And if I should kill you with this next shot?
ALBERT Then you can stay.
AMBROSE I see. And just how would another empty chamber coming up at random, be a convincing argument on behalf of Christian faith?
ALBERT Not Christian faith. Familiar faith. You will give me your word that you will keep the bargain. I place my faith in your smug, sanctimonious honor as Ambrose Bierce, my own flesh and blood, and self-appointed champion of cynics. You view humanity itself unworthy; if you are truly above us all, prove it.
AMBROSE How can I refuse? Let's do it up royal, shall we?
(pondering, skeptical)
Ambrose gives the chamber a second, even harder, more flamboyant spin, then levels the gun directly at Albert.
ALBERT Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Forgive the actions of my cousin Ambrose, for his soul is coarse, and not of thy will.
(closing his eyes)
AMBROSE Shut up!
(thrusting the gun angrily at Albert)
ALBERT A bit higher, cousin. Right between the eyes. That's it. (Closes eyes) Wash my sins from me, oh Lord, by thy blood which was shed--
(opening his eyes)
AMBROSE Damn your relentless piety! Damn you!!
(screaming)
Ambrose pulls the trigger. An empty chamber. Albert ceases praying and stares at him. Ambrose cocks and pulls the trigger again. Another empty chamber. His anger grows maniacal. He cocks and pulls the trigger three more times in succession. Three more empty chambers. There is only one left; by odds it is the chamber containing the bullet. Ambrose pauses, the gun still pointed at his cousin. Tears are welling in Ambrose's eyes.
ALBERT Five empty. One left. I'm all out of luck, cousin. All I have left is God's holy will. And you are now, by proxy at least, its instrument.
There is a pounding on the door. Ambrose holds the gun steadily at Albert. His arm tenses. He cocks the hammer for the sixth shot.
ESPERANZA ¡Maldígalo dos, he oído bastante! ¡Usted dos pendejos se callan antes voy loco! ¿Juro llamaré Huerta general yo mismo, usted me oye? ¡Usted maldice a putos se callan o salen esta casa, yo corro un negocio aquí y yo seré maldecido si gasto uno más minuto con usted maldijo a pinche pendejos que nieganme uno más minuto del sueño! ¡Los cabrones se callan!
(behind the door, yelling angrily)
During the above; Ambrose cannot do it. Tears roll down his cheeks. The gun is finally uncocked and tossed onto the chair. Ambrose embraces his cousin.
As Esperanza continues to berate them from offstage, Albert and Ambrose stay embraced.
LIGHTS FADE OUT.
END OF ACT 1
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