A set piece would be when Texas Rangers with the help of a local sheriff are making their way through the impregnable thickets that cover the floor of the piney forest. All is quiet. All of a sudden dogs rush out of nowhere and everywhere in the underbrush, barking, snarling, and howling. The Rangers raise their weapons, expecting to see the feudists burst out of the woods. Instead, their ears are met by the sound of cow horns blowing through the tree limbs. One comes from the northeast. Does another blow come from the south? Southeast? As soon as the dogs appeared, they vanished toward the blowing of the horns. “Well, that does it,” says one of the Rangers, lowering his Winchester. “We’ve lost the element of surprise and might as well head back to Hemphill.” The local sheriff smiles with relief.
It is called Whiskey Chitto Woman
It is a Western road trip drama.
In the vein of Nomadland
It is like Little Women meets Cold Mountain
It follows determined pioneer woman Ellen Johnson
And naïve teenage boy Sammy Jones
As they take a hazardous journey through the outlaw-infested, devastated countryside of post-Civil War Louisiana to retrieve her husband Aaron whose leg has been amputated.
Problems arise when they encounter highwaymen and Ellen wonders how Aaron will adjust as a disabled man in an agrarian society.
Together their determined pioneer spirit and love will overcome the obstacles in their way and finish their journey strong.
The idea came to me when I was doing genealogy research while reading Whiskey Chitto Woman I found out that Aaron and Ellen Johnson were my great-great-great uncle and aunt.
And if written and directed in the tradition and with the maturity of David Lean, John Milius, and Kevin Reynolds, it could be a classic which blends the action and adventure with thought provoking lessons in the futility of nation building, the arrogance of imperialism, and the empty self-defeatism of refusing to know when to give up, surrender, forgive and bury the past. If told right, Shelby’s Expedition into Mexico could be a healing journey.