Jim Parker
I'm not a killer. I never meant to hurt no one. I'm tired of my cattle being butchered. That's the fourth one this month.
Season 1 · Episode 19
Shapes
Character-labelled dialogue prepared from the official DVD subtitle track.
Production code1X18Original airdate · April 1, 1994
175 dialogue entries
Scene 02
(thunder pealing)
(animal howling)
(neighing, mooing)
(animal roaring outside)
(growling)
(screams)
(growls, yells)
Fox Mulder
Who or what do you think was responsible?
Jim Parker
That cow looked like a piece of paper that went through a shredder. No animal could do that.
Fox Mulder
Then are you saying that a person was responsible for this?
David Gates
I want to remind you mr. Parker is free on bond pending trial. He's willfully speaking solely in regards to this incident and not about other litigation.
Dana Scully
We can't talk about mr. Parker's case against the trego indian reservation?
David Gates
That's exactly what I mean.
Jim Parker
Wait a second. This ain't the time for lawyer crap. I want to get this in the open. You think I killed an indian because we're having an argument about where my land ends?
Lyle Parker
We want to settle in court.
Dana Scully
Joseph goodensnake is dead with a wound from your shotgun.
Jim Parker
All I'm saying, it was no animal I know of. But it damn well didn't seem human, neither. Take a look at my boy's scars. It was dark. We heard a growl. We went out to protect the cattle. I could have swore I saw... Red eyes and fangs. I thought my boy lyle was... Look, nobody--nobody-- was more shocked and upset than I was to find out it was that young indian boy but if he killed our cattle I'm very sorry that we had to find out about it that way but as far as I'm concerned that's the end of it.
Fox Mulder
Can we see the corral?
Lyle Parker
I'll take you out there. Agent Mulder?
Fox Mulder
Yeah?
Lyle Parker
Agent Scully... I suppose if I were hearing our side of the story it might not hold up too well-- parts I don't understand myself-- things my father could never try to explain to a stranger.
Fox Mulder
What kinds of things?
Lyle Parker
For the last few months whenever we'd go outside at night to check the cattle we never saw anything out of the ordinary-- not a mountain lion, not a coyote not even any tregos, agent Scully... But I can feel it-- something not human-- out there... Watching me. The air was more still. The night animals more quiet. It was like nature herself was terrified. Gave me the creeps.
Dana Scully
The creeps?
Lyle Parker
Yeah. The creeps. Don't you ever get the creeps?
Dana Scully
The victim was shot there about three meters from where parker fired. There's no way he could have mistaken a person for an animal. It's open-and-shut, Mulder. You know, I'm surprised you volunteered for this assignment. Any bureau agent could have investigated this reservation homicide. Why are you interested? Well, there seems to be nothing unexplainable about this case.
Fox Mulder
Nope. Not a thing.
Dana Scully
This is so odd. It's almost like a snakeskin that's been shed. I suspect the parkers knowingly killed goodensnake. They hardly seem the type to skin their victim.
Fox Mulder
Police and coroner's report make no mention of such an act.
Dana Scully
We'll have to look at the body ourselves.
Fox Mulder
The body's been transferred to reservation authorities. We're supposed to get in touch with a sheriff tskany.
TREGO INDIAN RESERVATION, NORTHWEST MONTANA
Fox Mulder
Excuse me. We're not from around here. We're looking for sheriff tskany. Anyone know charley tskany?
Ish
Go home, FBI
Fox Mulder
How did you know?
Ish
I could smell you a mile away.
Fox Mulder
Well, they told me that even though my deodorant's made for a woman it's strong enough for a man.
Ish
I was at wounded knee in 1973. What I learned fighting the FBI is you don't believe in us, and we don't believe in you.
Fox Mulder
I want to believe.
Ish
Why you here? What are you looking for?
Fox Mulder
You know what we're looking for.
Ish
You tell me what I know.
Dana Scully
We're looking for information on the homicide of joe goodensnake...
Fox Mulder
We're looking for anything that can create human tracks in one step and animal tracks in the next.
Ish
Parker. He found what you're looking for. He killed what you're looking for, FBI
Gwen Goodensnake
Parker and his kid killed my brother. You're all too afraid of some stupid indian legend to do anything.
Ish
Gwen!
Gwen Goodensnake
The suits come when they want something but when we need help they're nowhere to be found.
Dana Scully
Sheriff tskany? I'm agent Scully and this is agent Mulder.
Sheriff Tskany
Goodensnake's body is in my office. Bill, tom. Let them through. Come on, boys. Let them through.
Fox Mulder
Who are they?
Sheriff Tskany
Guardians of the dead. They escort the deceased spirits to the new world. I let them as far as the front door. I keep ancient beliefs out there and police work in here.
Fox Mulder
The woman in the pool hall said people were afraid of some legend. What do they believe happened?
Sheriff Tskany
I'm not a park ranger here to answer questions about indians. Whenever I need federal help I never get it. Since this case falls under the jurisdiction of the FBI you're entitled to examine the body. So let's get it over with.
Fox Mulder
Was the woman in the pool hall is his sister?
Sheriff Tskany
Gwen. She and joe are primarily responsible for fueling the boundary dispute with parker. They felt he had been grazing his cattle farther and father onto the reservation. Parker probably told you it was his idea to settle in court. Joe and gwen filed the suit.
Dana Scully
Take a look at that scar tissue. Looks like he had been attacked by an animal as well.
Sheriff Tskany
Could joe have been attacked also? Maybe the parkers did see an animal.
Dana Scully
No. Those wounds have been healing for quite some time. The shotgun wound indicates point-blank range. The pellets entered the body in a single mass. The assailant couldn't have been more than three feet away.
Fox Mulder
We're need to take a look at goodensnake's dental records.
Scene 04
Fox Mulder
These are the canine cuspids. They're normal.
Dana Scully
Could his records have been switched?
Fox Mulder
The second incisor is chipped just like the ones in his mouth. These match joe goodensnake's.
Dana Scully
There are cases of calcium phosphate salts developing abnormally with age but...
Sheriff Tskany
That could account for what jim parker claims to have seen. He was out that night expecting to see a mountain lion. He gets rattled and the flashlight beam catches joe here.
Dana Scully
Parker saw what he wanted to see-- an animal.
Fox Mulder
Lyle has scars just like joe. Do you have a facility for an autopsy?
Sheriff Tskany
Why?
Fox Mulder
If joe's teeth are abnormal, an autopsy might reveal abnormalities in the interior of his anatomy.
Sheriff Tskany
I can't allow that.
Dana Scully
I'm fully qualified.
Sheriff Tskany
No. The funeral is tonight.
Fox Mulder
It's a cremation. After that we'll have nothing.
Sheriff Tskany
Tregoes believe that the recent dead are unsettled by their new condition as spirits. Any desecration of the body angers the spirit and keeps it haunting this world.
Dana Scully
A law enforcement officer can't destroy evidence.
Sheriff Tskany
Don't tell me what I can't do. Native americans believe there are laws greater than that of the u.s. Government. If they want joe at rest that's the way it's going to be. If you want to make an issue out of it with your authorities go right ahead.
Fox Mulder
Charley, do you believe that the spirit of joe goodensnake is in that room?
Sheriff Tskany
All I know is tomorrow, the day after, you're going to leave but I have to stay here. I've got to answer to these people. You can continue your investigation. You're going to have to do it without joe goodensnake's body.
(man chanting)
Dana Scully
Since we've been here you've acted as if you expected to find every piece of evidence we've come across. What aren't you telling me? Why are we here?
Fox Mulder
A true piece of history, Scully-- the very first X-File initiated by j. Edgar hoover himself in 1946. During world war two a series of murders occurred in and around the northwest. Seven here in browning alone. Each victim was basically ripped to shreds and eaten as if by a wild animal. However, many of the victims were found at home as if they allowed their killer to enter. In 1946, police cornered what they believed to be such an animal in a cabin in glacier national park. They shot it but when they went in to retrieve the carcass they found only the body of richard watkins.
Dana Scully
Sounds like the parker scenario.
Fox Mulder
The murders stopped that year. Because the cases were unsolved and so bizarre hoover locked them away hoping that people around here would forget about them.
Dana Scully
This file indicates that they started again in 1954.
Fox Mulder
And '59, '64, '78, and now again in '94 but...
Dana Scully
Here it comes.
Fox Mulder
These animal-man related murders predate the oldest X-File by 150 years. Members of the lewis and clark expedition wrote of indian men who could change their shape into that of a wolf.
Dana Scully
What this folder describes is called lycanthropy. It's a type of insanity in which an individual believes that he can turn into a wolf. I mean, no one can physically change into an animal.
Fox Mulder
How can you just dismiss the evidence-- the tracks in the mud, the shredded skin a man with the teeth of an animal?
Dana Scully
Even if you're right and joe goodensnake did somehow have the ability to transform physically into an animal he's dead. Jim parker shot him. In a couple of moments his body will be burned. End of mystery.
Fox Mulder
Let's hope so.
Gwen Goodensnake
You don't belong here.
Dana Scully
Gwen...
Gwen Goodensnake
You're around to wrap up your investigation.
Dana Scully
I just wanted to say I'm sorry about your brother. I feel sad for anyone who loses a part of their family.
Gwen Goodensnake
A part? He was my whole family. I'm it now. As a demonstration of sorrow I'm supposed to give away all my brother's possessions.
Dana Scully
Gwen, I don't know what to say.
Gwen Goodensnake
It's no big deal. He had more possessions than he had friends.
Fox Mulder
I read the report of your investigation into the goodensnake homicide. It was very good. It was thorough, professional. But what I want to know is off the record. What do you think really happened?
Sheriff Tskany
Your explanation, agent Mulder is lying on that burial platform. Why don't you just accept that and go home?
Fox Mulder
Charley, do you believe in shape-shifting?
Sheriff Tskany
This is a funeral.
(drums beating)
(man chanting)
(group chanting)
(chanting)
(chanting continues)
Gwen Goodensnake
Get out!
Lyle Parker
I want to show my respects.
Gwen Goodensnake
I don't want your respects. I want your heart to grow cold. I want you to feel what I'm feeling!
Sheriff Tskany
I think you better leave, mr. Parker.
Lyle Parker
I wish your brother could be here. I wish that more than anything else.
(faint growl)
(clinking)
(growling)
Scene 05
Dana Scully
By the way the body's been mutilated I'd say he's been attacked by a large predator or somebody wanted it to look that way. Do you think this is retaliation for the death of joe goodensnake?
Sheriff Tskany
I don't know.
Dana Scully
Have you talked to gwen goodensnake? She seemed pretty upset last night.
Sheriff Tskany
She's gone. Nobody has seen her since the funeral. I've put an a.p.b. Out on her.
Dana Scully
And what about lyle parker?
Sheriff Tskany
We can't find him either.
Dana Scully
He could be dead as well. I'll take a look around.
(growling)
(growls)
(scully gasping)
Fox Mulder
That's not from any animal I've ever seen. Sheriff, I think it's time we had a talk. An exchange of ideas?
Dana Scully
Mulder! I'm taking lyle to the hospital. He's suffering from exposure. When he's been checked out I'm gonna question him.
Fox Mulder
What are you hiding?
Sheriff Tskany
I thought it was over.
Fox Mulder
Over? Is that why you wouldn't allow an autopsy on joe goodensnake's body? You thought it would all end when he was cremated? What were you afraid we'd find?
Sheriff Tskany
I can't tell you but I'll take you to somebody who can.
GROVE MEDICAL CLINIC, BROWNING, MONTANA
Lyle Parker
I'm ashamed to say it after what happened at the funeral. I picked up some bourbon and I don't remember a thing after that. Sometimes, when I'm down I go out to where me and my dad keep stray animals that wander in on the ranch. I just watch them, you know. Keeps things in perspective. Anyway... My mom-- when she was alive-- was the one that started keeping those animals. I guess I go out there and think about her too. God, I must have been really wasted to run around there naked. You must have thought I was one of those animals.
Dana Scully
When you did go home, did you talk to your father?
Lyle Parker
No. He'd have been mad I even went to the funeral. I... I have... An image of him sitting on the front porch but... I don't remember talking to him. Why?
Dana Scully
Your father is dead. I'm sorry.
(sighing)
Dana Scully
It appears as if he's been... Attacked by an animal, but... I suspect it may be homicide. Lyle, I lost my father recently and I know how overwhelming...
Lyle Parker
Was it my fault? By going to the funeral did it anger them into killing my father?
Dana Scully
I don't know.
Lyle Parker
I can deal with death. You know, living on the ranch, being close to nature and all you see how it all works. Things are born. Things die. Everything else falls in between. But if I caused it... If I brought it on I couldn't, uh... I... I...
Ish
I saw it once with my own eyes. It was a long time ago. It seemed like a dream. I was a boy. Was that 1946?
Fox Mulder
The watkins case?
Ish
I sense you're different, FBI than some native americans. You even have an indian name-- Fox. You should be "running Fox" or "sneaky Fox."
Fox Mulder
Just as long as it's not "spooky Fox." tell me, ish-- what did you see?
Ish
Watkins had been attacked by an animal when he was alone in the woods. His scars healed. It was forgotten. Then the murders began. The tregoes-- we realized that watkins had been attacked by what the algonquins call the manitou an evil spirit capable of changing a man into a beast. To be attacked by a manitou causes the victim to become one.
Fox Mulder
The healed scars on joe goodensnake's body.
Ish
The manitou overtakes a man by night, not by full moon but when its blood lust builds to uncontrollable level the man changes to a sickening creature. It kills, releasing a savage energy. The man returns to his true self unaware of what has happened. The cycle begins anew the next day. This continues until death. One night when I was 16 years old I was coming back from fishing in the cut bank creek. I knew a short cut behind watkins' house. There was a... A groan. Not animal, but not human. I looked into his window. He was covered in sweat and blood. He was in a great, great pain. His arm-- the skin ripped. It tore up and fell to the floor. Claws sprang from his fingernails. He turned, screaming and he saw me. His eyes... His eyes were still human. They begged me to kill him and if I had been hunting and had my gun I'd have done it without a second thought. But being a boy, and scared to death I ran away.
Fox Mulder
Shortly after, the police killed him.
Ish
But the manitou rose again.
Fox Mulder
Eight years later. But with watkins dead how could there have been an attack by a manitou?
Ish
Watkins had a son. It could be passed along bloodlines.
Sheriff Tskany
Gwen. If joe goodensnake was this creature then perhaps it didn't originate in him by the first attack but was handed down through the bloodlines. Gwen could have it also. Gwen could have killed parker.
(low metallic clank)
(engine starting)
Fox Mulder
Gwen!
Gwen Goodensnake
No, no, no..!
Charley
You're under arrest for stealing ish's car.
Ish
What happened? What are you running from?
Gwen Goodensnake
I saw it. I saw it kill parker.
Fox Mulder
Let her up.
Gwen Goodensnake
I went there after the funeral. I was going to mess up the kid. So I waited. Parker was on the porch. Then this thing, this animal-- oh, my god!
(sobbing)
Gwen Goodensnake
I've never been so scared. I ran, and I hid in the woods all day. I wanted to get out... I wanted to get out of here. I wanted to get out of here.
Ish
Bring her inside.
(crying)
Dr. Josephs
Thank you. Hello. This is doctor joseph.
Fox Mulder
This is agent Mulder from the FBI I was told I could reach agent Scully at this number.
Dr. Josephs
We released lyle parker from the hospital. She's taking him back to the ranch.
Fox Mulder
I can reach her there?
Dr. Josephs
Uh-huh. They just left. There's something I feel you should know. I received the blood tests performed on lyle parker and there's something rather unsettling.
Fox Mulder
What's that?
Dr. Josephs
Traces of his father's blood type. It can only be there through ingestion.
Scene 07
Dana Scully
Power's out.
Lyle Parker
Yep. Happens to us all the time being out here in the sticks. I'll fire up the generator.
(gasps)
Dana Scully
You okay?
Lyle Parker
I feel sick. Please, help me into the bathroom.
Fox Mulder
Damn. Keeps disconnecting. The mountains must be blocking the signal. How much farther?
Sheriff Tskany
About seven Miles.
(gasping)
Dana Scully
Lyle, let me come in. Lyle, I want to take you back to the hospital. Okay?
Lyle Parker
No! I'll be all right.
(gasping)
(gasping)
Dana Scully
Lyle? Lyle, answer me.
(gasping)
Dana Scully
Lyle, are you all right?
(grunts)
(roaring)
(grunts)
(growls)
(yelling)
(gasps)
Fox Mulder
(whispering loudly:) Scully!
(growls)
(growling)
(gunshots)
(growls)
Fox Mulder
Aah!
Dana Scully
It's okay. It's me. I don't know what happened. Something jumped me downstairs. I lost my gun.
Fox Mulder
I heard it come up here. Come on.
Dana Scully
Okay.
(growling)
(gunshot)
Sheriff Tskany
You all right?
Dana Scully
Oh, my god. He was in the bathroom sick and then we were attacked by the mountain lion.
Fox Mulder
It wasn't a mountain lion.
Charley
It's still in a cage.
Fox Mulder
Where's gwen? She said she'd come see us before we left.
Sheriff Tskany
She left last night. Gave away all her possessions to her friends.
Fox Mulder
Just pulled up and left? Why?
Sheriff Tskany
Her brother's gone, no family. Trouble with parker is all over. Maybe she saw something that she wasn't ready to understand.
Dana Scully
Maybe.
Fox Mulder
Well, thank you.
Ish
FBI see you in about... Eight years.
Fox Mulder
I hope not.
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About this transcript
The dialogue comes from the official DVD subtitle track supplied by Boggsfiles. Speaker and scene attribution was cross-checked against character-labelled reference material. Subtitle wording is preserved while capitalization and spacing are standardized for easier reading.