On the run from the Sheriff and the toxicity of her mother's household, an eleven-year-old girl and her alcoholic father are taken in by a local rancher with secrets of his own. Hidden away in the hills of West Texas, she finds the childhood she never had, he becomes the father he never was, and the rancher discovers a path out of his own darkness.

SYNOPSIS:

TOP 5% (Characters 99% - virtually perfect, Dialogue 96%, Plot 97%, Overall Impression 96%)

Winner: WILDSOUND First Scene Festival https://firstscenescreenplay.c...

At a lonely highway gas station/liquor store in West Texas, NELLY (11) is desperate to buy a bottle of whiskey for her alcoholic father (ELLIS), passed out in their piece-of-junk Honda and suffering from withdrawal. TITO, the store owner, kicks her out of the store, threatening to call the Sheriff. Just a simple threat, but a dark horror to this desperate girl.

A set of headlights and a truck and horse trailer appear. WYATT, a local rancher not much older than her father and possibly her only chance. Her request for him to buy the liquor is pushed aside, but that doesn’t stop her. Her father’s gun, Wyatt at gunpoint, a desperate little girl, and her comatose father…all she wants to do is get to San Diego.

But they don’t make it to San Diego. Instead, Wyatt brings them to his horse ranch, out in the foothills of the West Texas Guadalupe Mountains. A sanctuary for them to disappear from the toxicity of Nelly’s mother’s household, but not for long. The Sheriff is looking for her…LEWIS, the local Sheriff is Nelly’s mother’s (CINDY) boyfriend. Wyatt knows him and Lewis respects Wyatt, enough that Nelly and her father are given a day. Enough time for Ellis to sober up and for Wyatt to figure out what the hell is going on.

The answer comes from Ellis. He and Cindy (long-time divorced) and Nelly, the daughter that neither of them wanted. Cindy fled to small-town Taber and Ellis stayed in Houston, to deal with Nelly and his addictions…a night of alcohol and Oxy, a police car, Ellis sent to jail, and Nelly sent to her mother. But why now? What happened that caused Nelly to call up her alcoholic father? Got him to drive halfway across the state to rescue her from her mother’s home. Desperate enough to hold a stranger at gunpoint. And why is she so terrified of Sheriff Lewis? Ellis won’t say. But Nelly doesn’t believe him, believing he has told her secret to Wyatt.

Feeling betrayed by everyone around her, she flees into the night on the back of one of Wyatt’s horses. The night is cold and the river is deep and fast-moving. Ellis is still unable to function as his daughter’s father and protector. Once again, it is left to Wyatt to rescue Nelly from the dark horror that surrounds her, leading him to fully understand her terror, her sexual assault at the hands of Lewis.

Nothing else matters now. Not the long-time relationship with Lewis, not the protective support that he granted Wyatt when Wyatt’s wife and daughter were killed in a drunk-driving incident, not even the law will prevent Wyatt from letting her back in the hands of that monster. Sheriff Lewis wishes that this could all be put behind them…left unsaid, forgotten about…but Cindy continues to fight for her daughter’s return. She won’t let it go, driving Lewis to his own desperate acts, back to the ranch to find Nelly and the truth of his darkness.

Wyatt does what he can, but is unable to stop the maniacal surge of Lewis. Leaving only Ellis to be the protector, the guardian, the father that she needs. Can he do it?