- Lazarus meets a man from his past who lures him to a place where Lazarus' former supervisor on President Lincoln's security detail hopes to capture him.
- Lazarus looks over Civil War photos on display in a town where he has taken a job. Boys set off firecrackers outside, giving him a flashback. He sees a man who looks familiar (McHattie), but when he looks back the man is gone.
Later he's drinking in a bar and sees McHattie get in a fight. Lazarus punches the man McHattie is fighting. McHattie seems to recognize him, then lights into him.
Mac: "A man without memory is worse than the walking dead. It's just desserts."
Next we see Mac send a wire to the war department.
Cut to the war department, where an aide reads the telegram to Major Gaffney.
Aide reading the wire: "I hear you want Quinn. I can serve him up to for a price. Meet me three days hence, dead noon where I say."
Back out west, Mac asks Lazarus to go in with him to an old mine in Purgatory, Arkansas.
Major Gaffney and the aide meet four men who are going to Purgatory with them.
Lazarus and Mac are driving a wagon loaded with gunpowder to Purgatory and get stuck.
Mac says he had a family once. "But after the war they just didn't fit."
Now it's night and they're still traveling.
Lazarus wants to stop. Mac doesn't. A confrontation ensues. Lazarus now remembers being with Mac are year or two ago.
Lazarus: "What happened that night?"
Mac: "You ran out on us you son of a bitch."
Lazarus now has a flashback
He and two others (including Mac) are outside at night. Lazarus goes to take care of some Rebels. Tells his companions to stay put.
End of flashback
Now Lazarus and Mac are holed up in a cave.
Mac: "Don't come looking to me for forgiveness because I've none left to give."
Lazarus: "I have to know what happened to you and the others."
Mac: "The Rebs had us dead to rights. You didn't have a chance to do a thing. Why they didn't shoot us on the spot I'll never know. Maybe because they knew they had a better way of shutting us down. Captured. Clapped into Andersonville. 82,000 men crammed into 36 acres. Swamp and sand. Burning up in the sun during the day. Huddling together like pigs at night. Rotten food. Rotten water. No medicine. Men killed each other for as little as a ... We were dying so fast they were throwing the bodies into trenches, hundreds at a time."
Lazrus: "Is that what happened to the others?"
Mac: "No. By God no. I swore to heaven and hell that I'd see them through. That they'd all survive. And they did. Every one of them. By the time the war ended we were skin and bones; walking skeletons. Seems the Army was in a big rush to get some of us home. So they crammed us onto a Mississippi steamer called the Sultana. Two thousand men jammed on the decks. We didn't care. We were going home. We got as far as Memphis before three of the boilers blew. I was sleeping on the main deck with my boys. The next thing I know I was floating on a plank. My arm was half broken. And the Sultana's ablaze; a floating bonfire. And that sound. Two thousand men burning to death. I got the through eight months of Andersonville. And that one night on the Sultana... I know I survived. Why? Why? There must be some reason; some purpose."
Lazarus: "I'm sorry, Mac."
Mac: "I don't want your sympathy."
Mac asks Lazarus about the scars on his chest. "I died and came back."
Mac: "For vengeance."
Lazarus: "Justice."
Mac: "You'll have a hard time finding that in this black world."
The next seen takes place at Major Gaffney's camp on the road to Purgatory. It's basically a filler scene to fill the air time.
Lazarus and Mac are traveling again; Lazarus on his horse, Mac driving a two-horse wagon. They're heading to Purgatory.
A wheel falls off the wagon, and Lazarus insists on being told why they're going to Purgatory.
Lazarus guesses that Mac is leading him to Major Gaffney, whom he calls "the derby man," and they fight.
Mac almost falls into river but is saved by Lazarus, who has another flashback.
It's a continuation of the last flashback. Lazarus hears shots shortly after he leaves Mac and the others, returns to help.
Back in present, Lazarus tells Mac "I thought you were a dead man."
Mac: "How'd you know about that?"
Lazarus: "I heard the gunfire and was coming back to help. Another Johnny hit me in the skull with the butt of a rifle. I guess he left me for dead."
Mac: "Then you didn't run. You didn't run out on us."
Mac shows Lazarus the view from a ridge.
It's an old mine.
Lazarus recognizes the scene: "This is he place. This is where it happened."
Evidently, Mac has brought Lazarus back to the scene where Mac was shot and Lazarus knocked out.
Mac pulls a gun on Lazarus and makes him dig holes for gunpowder bombs. While Lazarus works, Mac tells the story of how (in the old fight) There were 14 Union soldiers "armed to the teeth" nearby who were supposed to enter the picture if the small group was in trouble. But they didn't.
That's why he wants revenge on Major Gaffney. Turns out he told Gaffney he'd bring Lazarus to Purgatory not to turn Lazarus in but to kill Gaffney.
Lazarus wants to capture Gaffney and "turn him over to the authorities."
Mac: You are noble, aren't you? He IS the authorities. When do they ever pay for their crimes? It's the likes of us that get chewed up and spat out. The ghosts of our men are crying out for vengeance."
Lazarus: "If this is the only way to stop them I'll throw in with you right now."
Mac: "You are an honorable man. Which is why I can't trust you unless..." (Sticks gun in Lazarus' chest.)
Mac ties Lazarus to a tree after the bombs are planted.
Lazarus: "Mac, this is suicide."
Mac: "No, this is peace. You make sure my horses are well treated."
Major Gaffney and company arrive; wait for Mac, unaware that he has already been there.
Lazarus is working free from the rope that Mac tied him with.
Mac sets off the charges.
Gaffney is hustled into the mine.
Mac goes after Gaffney.
Gaffney shoots Mac with a derringer, but Mac still manages to light a fuse.
Lazarus enters the cave; fires at Gaffney and misses.
Lazarus gets Mac and takes him out of cave behind Gaffney, who tells his men to fire at Lazarus and Mac.
That happens, but Lazarus and Mac fire, too, and get away without being shot. Lazarus shoots the gunpowder barrels and blows the mine.
Gaffney and one other man survive.
Lazarus and Mac say goodbye, the latter seeming to have recovered nicely from being shot.
Lazarus rides off during this closing narration:
"It is painfully unsettling to have no memory of the chaos and confusion of a war that rent the whole nation but now I see how much more painful it must be to remember."
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