‘1883’ Season 1, Episode 7, Lightning Yellow Hair...

 

With the Duttons firmly out into the Wild West, Elsa’s eyes open to the truth of nature and the horrors of man.

“The best way to know if land is truly undiscovered is to seek words to describe it. When you can’t, you know it’s virgin land. Untouched by our dirty hands. To see it is to be silenced by it. Made speechless by its endless uniformity… One must read the sun and stars like a sailor to navigate this place. We’ve seen nothing but grass for over a week. No grass, No birds. No snakes. Not even a lizard. And no evidence the human race still exists. But the plains are littered with bones.

“The dirty man of hand can go unnoticed in a city. because his dirty hand made the city. But in this place, where innocence is a mineral in the soil, the filth of our touch is an apocalypse.”

And after her mother, Margaret (Faith Hill) is forced to kill a horse thief, Elsa sees this horror through her mother’s eyes.

“She wouldn’t speak when she got back to camp. Wouldn’t look at my father. Wouldn’t look at me. I heard her crying by the fire before dawn. I sat beside her and asked her what was wrong. She said she killed a man over a horse, and now John was the only hope our family has of reaching heaven.

“I didn’t have the heart to tell her there’s not heaven to go to. Because we’re in it already. We’re in hell, too. They coexist right beside each other. And God is the land.”