- Ennis: [Elsa is crying when she finishes playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata] Don't know any happy ones?
- [Elsa laughs]
- Alina: There is pants. Should fit you. Too small for him. You have skinny hips.
- Elsa Dutton: [flattered] Oh, think so?
- Alina: I know. I looking at you. When you have baby, its head come out looking like eggplant.
- Elsa Dutton: What's eggplant?
- [Alina wryly chuckles as she turns and walks away]
- Shea Brennan: It shocks me, Thomas, that they haven't quit yet.
- Thomas: I don't know why them folks'd want to go home. Their home sound like hell.
- Shea Brennan: 'Cuz it's the hell they know. Most terrifyin' thing on this planet is the unknown.
- Thomas: That's 'cuz you ain't never been whipped, Captain. Let someone put a whip to your back, tell me the unknown is what scares you. These folks ain't never goin' home.
- Shea Brennan: It takes a lot to surprise me, Thomas. These people, they've never been allowed to think for themselves. Now they can hardly think at all.The fact they ain't headed for Galveston and begging their way on a boat for home shocks me. It shocks me, Thomas. That they haven't quit yet.
- Alina: Let's talk trade.
- Elsa Dutton: What do you want?
- Alina: What do you have?
- Elsa Dutton: What do you need?
- Alina: We need everything.
- Elsa Dutton: [pulls a charm off her bracelet] It's gold.
- Alina: What good is gold to me out here?
- Elsa Dutton: If everything is what you need, gold can buy it.
- Alina: [sarcastically] Oh. I just walk over to store then.
- Elsa Dutton: There's stores in Abilene.
- Alina: [skeptical] Why you have gold?
- Elsa Dutton: [defensively] Why I have it is none of your business.
- Alina: [turns to leave] Then you stole it and we have no trade.
- Elsa Dutton: [grabs Alina by the elbow] Wait. My father made jewelry of his money to hide it. He hid some on me.
- Alina: Not yours to hide anymore. I get you pants.
- Josef: [sighs, rises, walks away, stops and turns] Uh Oregon. You've seen it?
- Shea Brennan: [nods his head] I've seen it.
- Josef: What was it like?
- Shea Brennan: It's worth the risk if that's what you're asking.
- Josef: That's what I'm asking.
- Wade: [mounts horse, reins and rides off] Well, have a look around, Captain. We're starving already.
- Shea Brennan: [discontented] This talking back is getting contagious.
- Thomas: [sardonically] You need to have a word with that farmer. A word that sticks. Let me do it, I'll make sure it sticks.
- [Shea chuckles quietly]
- Ennis: [as Elsa sings to the herd, doffs his hat and kisses her] Guess I'm the one being forward now.
- Ennis: [stutters] I... I'm... I'm sorry, I probably should...
- Elsa Dutton: [exhilarated, smiling] Do it again.
- [James watches the two until they stop then look in his direction, he then canters up]
- Ennis: You gonna shoot me?
- James Dutton: [deadpan] Thinking about it.
- James Dutton: [to Elsa] We're moving the wagon across the river.
- Elsa Dutton: When?
- James Dutton: Now.
- Elsa Dutton: I should stay with the herd. It takes three to move it.
- James Dutton: Herd ain't going nowhere with you two swapping supper. You got a job to do. Y'all do it.
- Elsa Dutton: Yessir.
- Elsa Dutton: [James reins and rides off] Daddy.
- Elsa Dutton: [reins, clicks tongue, rides to her father who's waiting] You mad?
- James Dutton: You like him?
- Elsa Dutton: [hesitant] I do.
- James Dutton: Then why would I be mad? I can't treat you like an adult when it suits me and a child when I'm worried. You're one or the other. Your mother is gonna be a different story.
- Elsa Dutton: [concerned] You gonna tell her?
- James Dutton: [metaphorically washing his hands] Hell, no. I ain't gonna tell her. You're gonna tell her. Y'all hold the herd till every wagon is across that river.
- Elsa Dutton: Yessir.
- [reins, clicks tongue, returns to the herd]
- Elsa Dutton: [James sighs, click his tongue, rides away from herd]
- Ennis: He ain't gonna shoot me?
- Elsa Dutton: [mockingly] No, he said I could shoot you. If you act up.
- Ennis: Well, acting up is my only skill.
- Elsa Dutton: No, it ain't... do it again.
- [chuckles]
- Ennis: [doffs both hats playfully] Come here.
- Elsa Dutton: [internal monologue] This place seems confused by the rules of night and day.Or perhaps it simply ignores them, refusing to cool when the sun fades. It's as if God has not yet decided what this place should become. Will it be desert? Will it be prairie?
- Elsa Dutton: [gently picks up a Texas horned lizard, holds the horned lizard in both hands and examines the lizard] Every living thing is armed with thorns and horns and fangs as the land wages war on itself, seeking the answer... I knew that war. That war between what you should become, and what you could become. I looked at this place and saw my unfinished soul. I looked at this place and knew, for me that war was over. I know what I am now. I'm a cowboy.
- Elsa Dutton: [returning to camp] It seems the farther we get from civilization, the more of its rules we leave behind. Its traditions. Its inhibitions... The farther west we travel, the more those rules and customs become a burden.
- [watches intently as an immigrant woman, wearing pants, rides by]
- Elsa Dutton: [awakens, eventually rises]
- [...]
- Elsa Dutton: There are few things that focus one solely on the present. Terror is one. Grief another. But nothing washes the world away like the lips of another. Seems an odd custom, strangers putting their mouths together and exploring each other with their tongues. When you think about it, kissing makes no sense at all.
- Elsa Dutton: [...] What a silly thing, kissing. What a pointless, purposeless thing. And I couldn't wait for another.
- Elsa Dutton: [...] I had abandoned every memory of Tennessee, as though I was born on this journey. But I wasn't... we were leaving a place and seeking another. And the journey was the necessary, miserable road between the two. Somehow, I felt immune to the dangers of this place. As if the land and I had struck a deal. I could pass unharmed so long as I loved it. And I did. I loved everything about it. But crossing the Brazos taught me there was no deal. No matter how much we love it, the land will never love us back.
- Thomas: [Noemi prepares a bowl of stew for Thomas] Oh, no, don't go wasting your supplies on me, ma'am. You just just keep them children fed. You fed, too.
- Noemi: I would have no supplies if it weren't for you.
- Thomas: [doffs his hat and receives the bowl, Noemi sits at Thomas' feet watching him eat] What're you doing?
- Noemi: Watching.
- Thomas: Don't do that.
- Noemi: Why not?
- Thomas: [contemplative] Marrying a black man ain't gonna solve your problems, ma'am. It's gonna create a whole bunch of new ones.
- Noemi: [smiles] This is free country.
- Thomas: There's degrees of free, ma'am.
- Noemi: What does that mean? Government can tell me who to love?
- Thomas: Your government says you can't swim. Can't protect yourself. Damn right government can tell you who to love. And how to love 'em. They shouldn't. But they can.
- Noemi: Then we go somewhere they can't.
- Thomas: [chuckles with a faint smile, slightly shakes his head] Ma'am, you don't want nuthin' to do with me. I'm too old. Too set in my ways. I don't like talking. I like sleeping outside and I like bathing in a river. That ain't what a woman wants.
- Noemi: Men have no idea what women want.
- Thomas: [chuckles] Can't argue that.
- Noemi: Know why? Because they never ask.
- Thomas: What do you want?
- Noemi: I want to watch you eat.
- Thomas: [grumbles relentingly and takes another spoonful] Okay.