Friday Fiction Fix (Now With Cinematic Twist!): "The Only Good Indian"

If, and I'm taking a shot in the dark here, you found this feature a tad confusing in the past, well keep your pants on. Today we're including another element. KC FilmFest kicked off on Wednesday night, and the wife and I sat one row behind Bob Uecker. The theater was stadium-seating style, which is never good on the neck, but it does rock when the star/executive producer/complete badass gives a Q&A afterwards. Such badass is Wes Studi. If you've never seen "Dances with Wolves," or "Last of the Mohicans," or "Geronimo: An American Legend," well, you're just plain missing out. Those films are good places to start, if you're interested, though.

As I mentioned, the film stars Studi, along with J. Kenneth Campbell, and cinema newcomer, Winter Fox Frank. It was directed by Kevin Willmott, and written by Thomas Carmody. It's not really playing in the major-movie market, so you'll have to dig around for it, which I highly recommend. One of the many cool things about the picture is that the storyline uses, incorporates, and runs parallel with the text from Bram Stoker's Dracula. I know. Super-dope fly, right?

For the sake of consistency, Bram Stoker was born in Dublin in 1847. He published a dozen novels, three short-story collections, and four non-fiction pieces before taking a wooden stake to the heart in 1912. Either that or he had syphillis. Anyway, in the same sense that I hoped Wes Studi needed no introduction, I hope the same for the story of Dracula.

"I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I had all sorts of queer dreams. There was a dog howling all night under my window, which may have had something to do with it; or it may have been the paprika, for I had to drink up all the water in my carafe, and was still thirsty. Towards morning I slept and was wakened by the continuous knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been sleeping soundly then..."



"They were evidently talking of me, for every now and then they looked at me, and some of the people who were sitting on the bench outside the door--came and listened, and then looked at me, most of them pityingly. I could hear a lot of words often repeated, queer words, for there were many nationalities in the crowd, so I quietly got my polyglot dictionary from my bag and looked them out."



"The strange driver evidently heard the words, for he looked up with a gleaming smile...



...The passenger turned his face away, at the same time putting out his two fingers and crossing himself...There is a flask...underneath the seat, if you should require it....

...I found my dear one, oh, so thin and pale and weaklooking.



All the resolution has gone out of his dear eyes, and that quiet dignity which I told you was in his face has vanished.



He is only a wreck of himself, and he does not remember anything that has happened to him for a long time past. At least, he wants me to believe so, and I shall never ask...I do believe the dear soul thought I might be jealous...Then one night, just as the moon rose, he grew quiet, and kept murmuring to himself...It was a strange thing that the patient had humour enough to see their distrust, for, coming close to me, he said in a whisper, all the while looking furtively at them, They think I could hurt you! Fancy me hurting you! The fools!"

"It was soothing, somehow, to the feelings to find myself disassociated even in the mind of this poor madman from the others, but all the same I do not follow his thought. Am I to take it that I have anything in common with him, so that we are, as it were, to stand together. Or has he to gain from me some good so stupendous that my well being is needful to Him?

I am in doubt, and so have done the best thing I know of. I have written to my old friend and master, Professor Van Helsing,...who knows as much about...the world...



Van Helsing would, I know, do anything for me for a personal reason, so no matter on what ground he comes, we must accept his wishes. He is a seemingly arbitrary man, this is because he knows what he is talking about better than any one else. He is a philosopher and a metaphysician, and one of the most advanced scientists of his day, and he has, I believe, an absolutely open mind. This, with an iron nerve, a temper of the ice-brook, and indomitable resolution, self-command, and toleration exalted from virtues to blessings, and the kindliest and truest heart that beats, these form his equipment for the noble work that he is doing for mankind, work both in theory and practice, for his views are as wide as his all-embracing sympathy. I tell you these facts that you may know why I have such confidence in him. I have asked him to come at once."

"You will, of course, understand...that when a man is so loved and honored...everything regarding him is of interest in our little community...



...When an individual has revolutionized...conventional forms are unfitting, since they would seem to limit him to one of a class...He made this last appeal with a courtly air of conviction which was not without its own charm."

"So I contented myself with making a general statement that...I...would then see what I could do in the direction of meeting his wishes."



"We have now had so many changes and find the same thing so constantly that we are encouraged to think that the journey will be an easy one...It is a lovely country. Full of beauties of all imaginable kinds...

...our enemy is still on the river...



...we travel, always getting closer to the mountains, and moving into a more and more wild and desert land..."

That's today's installment. Find out more about "The Only Good Indian" here, and get your copy of Stoker's masterpiece here.