FADE IN:

EXT.  VANC ISLAND, ZEBALLOS, ZEBALLOS HOTEL C 1940 - NIGHT

MUSIC UNDER (The Hearse Song - instrumental- uptempo)

It's dark and drizzly outside, but inside, the bar is hopping.
A single performer (CHORAL CHARACTER - DIAMOND JOE) can be
heard SINGING. MUSIC UP

                       CHORAL - DIAMOND JOE (V.O.)
                (singing and playing)
           Cause you're driving down the highway
           of your making/Headed for the crossroads
           known as fate/You've got to do some
           hasty choosin'/Which way to go from
           here/I can hear the devil knocking on
           your gate...

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INT.  ZEBALLOS HOTEL, BAR - NIGHT

ON Diamond Joe, a ghostly presence - unseen by the bar patrons -
singing and playing.

                       CHORAL - DIAMOND JOE
           Sometimes times are bad/Sometimes times
           are golden/Sometimes you think
           you're/Born a bit too late

PULL OUT to reveal a 56-year-old trapper with mischief in his
eyes, JIM RYCKMAN, who makes time with a PARTY GIRL. The
remains of a card game lie on the table.

                       CHORAL - DIAMOND JOE (V.O.)
           But the times your baby loves you/
           That's the times you hold in store/
           For when you've got to/Hang around and
           wait...

PULL OUT FURTHER to include the rest of the room, which is
filled with men and women, loggers, miners, trappers and shop
keepers of various denominations - Native, Caucasian, Japanese.

Jim makes a show of buying drinks for his table.

CONTINUED                  

CONTINUED

                       CHORAL - DIAMOND JOE (V.O.)
           Well I seen my hearse a-comin'/Up behind
           me in my mirror/There was nothing I
           could do/To try and stop her/Hit the
           brakes or hit those bushes/Slow it
           down and start to pray/And repent for
           all the times/You ain't been proper....

MUSIC DOWN AND OUT

DISSOLVE TO:

EXT.  VANC ISLAND, VERNON LAKE, FOREST, MAIN CABIN - DUSK

A shabby cabin sits in the forest a hundred yards from the
edge of Vernon Lake.

The wind blows a gale and the rain pelts down.

Diamond Joe, standing in the bushes, looking toward the cabin,
taps out a song, a beat ahead of the rain. HE SLOWLY WALKS IN
CLOSER

                       CHORAL - DIAMOND JOE
           Two trappers on the Island
           of Vancouver along the shores of Vernon
           Lake. Winter of 1940. Rain more than
           Noah ever saw, and you'd think animals
           hadn't been invented - They weren't
           comin' one by one or two by two. The
           boys are getting hungry....

Surveying the exterior of the cabin, a trapper's licence number
is engraved on a plank and nailed to one wall.  An eagle
carcass is nailed to another.  An axe and kindling and various
bones lie on the porch floorboards.  A fallen-over stack of
marten skins blows away.

Two shadowy figures, not quite discernible but outlined by a
coal-oil lamp, are spied through the cabin's single window.
They're getting into their respective bunks.  Jim (from the
bar), the older, smaller man of the two, flips a coin and
studies it.

                       JIM
           I'm checkin' the traps tomorrow.

The younger man, LLOYD COOMBS, responds.

                       LLOYD
           Come hell or high water, eh, Jim?

CONTINUED                  

CONTINUED

Light from the lamp goes out.


INT.  MAIN CABIN - MORNING

Jim, grey, bearded, and somewhat emaciated, opens his eyes to
sunshine on his face.

Lloyd shrivels deeper into his blankets.


EXT.  LAKE EDGE - MOMENTS LATER

Morning light illuminates both the devastation and the splendor
of the storm.  Jim, peeing over the embankment, looks around
to size-up the situation: fallen trees, caved-in lean-to,
ruined dock.  Extending from beneath the rubble is the bow of
a canoe.

Teetering slightly, Jim makes his way to the water where
something appears to be caught in a tangled wire mesh.
renewed agility, he scampers over the planking to retrieve
the snared TROUT.  Clutching the fish in his hand, he runs
child-like toward the cabin.

                       JIM
           A pound!  A pound!  It's a good one-
           pounder.


INT.  MAIN CABIN - LATER

Jim and his companion, Lloyd, a bearded, weathered and much
younger man, drink tea and eat fish for breakfast.

                       LLOYD
           All that praying must have done some
           good.

                       JIM
           Funny how God and Nature are always
           scrapping.  Who're ya putting your
           money on today, Lloyd?

                       LLOYD
           Mother always said to put your faith
           in the Lord.

Amused, Jim gets up, pulls on his coat and his pack, picks up
the 30/30 and makes his way to the door.

CONTINUED                  

CONTINUED

                       JIM
           Mine, too, but my money goes on the
           trap line.


EXT.  FOREST - LATER

Jim slogs through some marsh and checks a marten trap; it's empty.


INT.  MAIN CABIN

Lloyd sits on his bunk and writes with a pencil in a notebook.

                       LLOYD
           ...first day in seven I've had the
           strength to write.  Jim caught a trout.

Lloyd closes the notebook and leans back in his bunk.  He
turns over on his side to sleep.


EXT.  FOREST, ANOTHER SPOT - LATER

Jim checks another trap.  Nothing.
He moves a few feet deeper into the brush where there's a
SMALL MAKESHIFT STORAGE CABIN.


INT.  STORAGE CABIN - CONTINUOUS
Inside, Jim takes stock.  Not much left: a dozen furs
(squirrel, marten, beaver), a couple of fishing lines, a canoe,
a paddle, a couple of traps, and a couple of tins.


EXT.  STORAGE CABIN - CONTINUOUS

Jim hauls the canoe out and piles everything else into it.

He opens one tin, looks inside, it's FLOUR.  He puts some in
his hand, it's full of LARVAE, but he carefully pours it back
in the tin, licks his hand, and packs it up anyway.

PRUNES are in the second tin.  He takes one out, his mouth
waters and he's about to eat it, but thinks better and puts
the prune back in the tin, too.

EXT.  CREEK - LATER

The sky is clouding over. Jim, fishing from the canoe, hauls
in a little trout, adds it to a basket with five other little
fish - about eight ounces each.  He feels some drops on his
face, looks up to the rain clouds, pulls in his line, and
starts paddling.


INT./EXT.  MAIN CABIN

Lloyd stands at the cabin door looking out at the rain. With
a smoking twig, he burns a notch in the giant fungus nailed
to the door.  Engraved on the fungus are the words DAYS OF
RAIN.  Beneath the words are too many strokes to count (at
least 97).


EXT.  CREEK/RIVER - DUSK

Jim's canoe slides over a rock and into a set of falls, the
canoe tips; Jim and everything else comes bouncing out.

Jim struggles to grab some of the supplies.  He gets the paddle
and manages to rescue a few pelts and his fishing line, but
the canoe and the remainder of its contents are carried away
in the main current.

Jim wades to the river's high, rocky bank and throws his few
possessions onto the rocks.  But when he tries to stand and
throw himself up, he finds he hasn't enough strength to manage
it.

He slides back and gets caught in a crevice.

He looks down at his leg to see his thigh gashed and bleeding.
He reaches for a pelt, gets it and wraps it around the wound,
then struggles to climb up again.  As he does so, something
catches his eye.

It's a vein of gold.

                       JIM
           Little darlin'.

Jim pulls out his knife and sticks it in the vein, trying to
dig out a piece.  A few kernels drop into his hand but the
knife tip breaks off.  Jim looks at the glittering treasure
in his hand.  He smiles.

CONTINUED