Ride with the Devil (I) (1999)
Skeet Ulrich: Jack Bull Chiles
Photos
Quotes
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Mr. Evans : You ever been to Lawrence KS young man?
Jack Bull Chiles : [scoffs] No, I reckon not Mr. Evans. I don't believe I'd be too welcome in Lawrence.
Mr. Evans : I didn't think so. Before this war began, my business took me there often. As I saw those northerners build that town, I witnessed the seeds of our destruction being sown.
Jack Bull Chiles : The foundin' of that town was truly the beginnin' of the Yankee invasion.
Mr. Evans : I'm not speakin' of numbers, nor even abolitionist trouble makin'. It was the schoolhouse. Before they built their church, even, they built that schoolhouse. And they let in every tailor's son... and every farmer's daughter in that country.
Jack Bull Chiles : Spellin' won't help you hold a plow any firmer. Or a gun either.
Mr. Evans : No, it won't Mr. Chiles. But my point is merely that they rounded every pup up into that schoolhouse because they fancied that everyone should think and talk the same free-thinkin' way they do with no regard to station, custom, propriety. And that is why they will win. Because they believe everyone should live and think just like them. And we shall lose because we don't care one way or another how they live. We just worry about ourselves.
Jack Bull Chiles : Are you sayin', sir, that we fight for nothin'?
Mr. Evans : Far from it, Mr. Chiles. You fight for everything that we ever had, as did my son. It's just that... we don't have it anymore.
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[Camping out, Jack Bull Chiles and Jake Roedel discuss Jake's finger, which was shot off in a skirmish]
Jack Bull : My father's under the dirt to stay. Like that's gone to stay, too.
Jake : My finger?
Jack Bull : Mmm-hmm.
Jake : Well, so it is. And it makes me notable by the loss.
Jack Bull : You sound pleased... as if that finger'd been pesterin' you for rings.
Jake : No. It was a fine finger and I'd rather have it still, but... it was took from me and it's been et by chickens for sure. And I say, what is the good side to this amputation? And there is one.
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Jake : I say what is the good side to this amputation and there is one.
Jack Bull Chiles : Name it, Jake.
Jake : Well, you say one day some Federals catch up to me in a thicket. They would riddle me and hang me and no Southern man would find me for weeks or months and when they did I'd be bad meat pretty well rotted to a glob.
Jack Bull Chiles : That's scientifically accurate, I'm afraid. I've seen it.
Jake : I'd be a mysterious gob of rot. And people would say, "Who was that?" Then surely someone would look up and say, "Why it's nubbin fingered Jake Roedel." Then you could go and tell my father that I was clearly murdered and he wouldn't be tortured by uncertain wonders.
Jack Bull Chiles : And that's the good of it?
Jake : Yes sir, that's the good.
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Jake : I've been thinking, Jack Bull, a wedding is a peculiar thing.
Jack Bull Chiles : No more peculiar, Jake, than slavery.
