- David Royce: [to two state officials in his office] You know how many boys in this place have never been convicted of a serious crime? They don't belong here!
- David Royce: [handing John's file to Angela] Take a look at this.
- Angela Brannon: [taking file, reading] John Parsons?
- David Royce: [nods] Try to create a good situation for him. Let's push him to his potential, as unpopular as that might be here. They're stonewalling me up at the capital, and I have to deal with that insanity. I'm counting on you. This kid came in here intact, let's keep him intact!
- Narrator: [first lines, voiceover] In 1974, Congress passed the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, which had as its goal, in part, to prohibit the co-mingling of serious juvenile offenders with juveniles accused of non-criminal offenses. Of the hundreds of thousands of children locked up in juvenile detention centers across the country annually, the majority are not charged with serious crimes, and many are not charged with any crime at all.
- Will Waylon: You're gonna ask the county to bury Chris Parsons in a pauper's field?
- Bea Saunders: Chris had friends all over this basin, but that didn't stop him from being a saddle bum! Let some of his good friends put on a fancy funeral!
- Will Waylon: [sighs] I'll be back in an hour with an ambulance. I'll ride John back to his cabin.
- Bea Saunders: No, you're not gonna do that.
- [gets up]
- Bea Saunders: That kid ain't my problem! And you ain't gonna stick me with problems that ain't mine!
- Pop Saunders: Bea, he's only a boy!
- Bea Saunders: I'm selling that cabin.
- Will Waylon: What the hell for?
- Bea Saunders: I'm puttin' you on notice, Will! I'm taking possession!
- Will Waylon: That cabin was in such bad shape, even the drifters wouldn't stay there! Chris and John fixed it up, they made a home! They've been living there for ten years!
- Pop Saunders: Bea, you can't!
- Bea Saunders: You stay out of this, Pops! Let the sheriff do his job. I want him out of there, Will! That place is mine... and everything in it!
- Will Waylon: All right... I'll be back in an hour. If the snow's not too deep, I'll take him off your hands.
- Bea Saunders: [John has arrived at Bea's cabin, he has Chris' body over his shoulders in a fireman's carry... she answers the door] What happened, boy?
- John Parsons: My brother's dead.
- David Royce: [last lines, voiceover] That night, several years ago, we committed a felony. It was never discovered, but it was a felony. They escaped and they survived, with new identities, new names, new futures. In my experience, neglect was the disease, and crime was where it had to lead. I was always hoping people would demand a change... there's been some progress, but we need more. Lord knows everyday how many kids don't belong there. How many kids we're losing.
- Pop Saunders: [Sheriff Will has returned to the Saunders ranch to try and talk some sense into Bea. He gets out of his vehicle and Bea's father meets him] It didn't use to be like this, you know that, Will. She brought Chris and John their first meal. The day they came here, she brought John that sleeping bag in the tent, remember? It was after her own run away. Her only boy took off and went... then came the bitterness.
- Bea Saunders: [walking up] Stay outta this, Pops!
- Will Waylon: [softly] Sorry, Pop.
- [turning to Bea]
- Will Waylon: Bea, I wanna talk to you! You don't give a damn about that cabin!
- Bea Saunders: Whose side you on, anyway?
- Will Waylon: And that horse! That horse belongs to John! Everybody knows that! Chris bought it from ya!
- Bea Saunders: It was MY horse until it was paid up! And it wasn't! He stole it! I figured all along that kid might jump his track! He never knew about Chris, and he taught that boy what he knew!
- Will Waylon: Chris Parsons worked for you for ten years! What the hell are you so froze up about?
- Bea Saunders: That kid stuck me without a cabin. You're stuck with making him pay for it!
- Will Waylon: [holding warrant] Bea, these are FELONY charges! You're putting that boy in front of a judge!
- [Bea keep walking ahead of him]
- Will Waylon: Hold up, dammit!
- Tyrone: [in Royce's office after the glue-sniffing incident is discovered] Glue?
- David Royce: Get off it, Tyrone. We just shipped two boys from your cottage to the state hospital! And the doctor says one of them could be a basket case for the rest of his life! Now you tell me where it's coming from!
- Tyrone: What do you mean?
- David Royce: [losing his patience] What I mean is that at 4 foot 6, you've already taken over a cottage. Your teacher tells me you spend less than an hour a day in class, the rest of the time in the discipline room. Now your social worker thinks you're the most abused, fragile and sensitive child since Oliver Twist! And what I mean is that you're playing this place for all the sweet milk you can get. Now do you know what I mean?
- Tyrone: I don't know their names, Mr. Royce! I just know some of the guys got these girlie magazines!
- David Royce: I don't want to hear your rap about the magazines! I'm concerned with the glue.
- Tyrone: There ain't been a boy brought to my cottage since I took over! How come you think that happened?
- [voice breaking]
- Tyrone: How you think we protect ourselves against the big guys? You run this place, so tell me!
- John Parsons: [Brannon walks into her darkened classroom and stares out a window, John is sitting at a desk] Tell me about Dennison.
- Angela Brannon: [moving towards door] I think I should go get David Royce.
- John Parsons: Why? He doesn't know who I am... or what I am. Nothing.
- Angela Brannon: John...
- John Parsons: Chaser runs this place... not Royce. He put Joey in the hole and he put Tyrone in the hospital.
- Angela Brannon: You told me you wanted to go to college. You said maybe become a veterinarian. That's what your brother wanted.
- John Parsons: My brother's dead.
- Angela Brannon: But not what he taught you!
- John Parsons: Doesn't work here! I'm nothin'! I'm a bed, and I'm bad, and I'm nothing!
- Angela Brannon: That's not true!
- John Parsons: Then why am I here?
- Angela Brannon: [to John] You were put into this place for the wrong reason. And people started telling you that you were worthless, and you're starting to believe it! You know better than that! You know who you are! And we can work through this.
- John Parsons: What works is Chaser.
- David Royce: [on the phone in his office] Does the governor know that I'm trying to call?
- [pause]
- David Royce: I see.
- [pause]
- David Royce: No, that's all. Thank you very much.
- [slams down receiver]
- David Royce: Well, he's leaving it up to the Director of Institutions, Frank Bernard.
- Angela Brannon: You're the superintendent here. How can he send those boys out of here over your objections?
- David Royce: Bernard would have had me fired months ago, but the governor was against it. That Bernard, he's been trying to stick it to me for a long time. He thinks he's got it.
- Angela Brannon: They love all the talk of reform.
- David Royce: Yeah, but it doesn't pay the groceries. This does! We're an industry, Angela! We support this town! We buy their food, we hire the unemployed, you try and fire someone, their state senator comes in here screaming.
- Angela Brannon: All to keep the beds full.
- David Royce: You got it.
- [beat]
- David Royce: I gave a speech... a dinner speech. I told them what was going on here, about the damage we were doing. They were shocked. Some of them even started to cry. Oh, I got a standing ovation, they thought I was wonderful. And when I told them what they could do to help, write letters, raise money for special homes for these kids, they looked at me with blank expressions. They were glad there were people like me! People who cared, they said, and they left. They don't want to change anything... they just want to feel good about themselves.
- Angela Brannon: [looks out the window] You know, sometimes I think I can see the eastern face of the Rockies.
- [Royce looks puzzled]
- Angela Brannon: My brother Sam and I still have a ranch on the western slopes. He's kind of a mean and stingy guy, but when his wife was alive, they really ran the ranch well. Now, cattle roam all over the country, but he needs hands, just to mend fences and bring in the cattle.
- David Royce: [interested] How many?
- Angela Brannon: [with some hesitation] Two... maybe three.
- John Parsons: Where'd you grow up?
- Boise: Fosters. My mom had all these guys... it was a sex thing, you know? Couple of them with me. So the school found out about it and they put me in homes.
- John Parsons: What was that like?
- Boise: I think it was OK, I guess. Unless you didn't like something, then they get kind of weird. This one guy threw me down a flight of stairs, so I ran. They put me somewhere else, then they finally ran out of places.
- Thomas Holmes: How old are you?
- John Parsons: Sixteen.
- [Tom shakes a small baggie in front of him]
- John Parsons: What is that?
- Thomas Holmes: It's gold, dude! Scrounged cigarette butts! It can keep you from getting cut. You're a big one for 16.
- [lights one of the butts]
- Thomas Holmes: I doubt they keep you in the 15 to 16 cottage. I bet you end up in the rat shack like me... 17 to 18s. Some of them's 19 and 20!
- Mr. Platt: John, I've tried to consider all the options open for this case. And I regret that I must... I must find you guilty of willful and malicious destruction of private property. So you will be committed to the Boys Industrial School at Sierra Mesa.
- John Parsons: [shocked] No.
- Mr. Platt: ...for an indeterminate period not to exceed the attainment of your eighteenth birthday. I will direct Mrs. Groves to make the necessary arrangements.
- [gets up and leaves]