Dead Man - Plot

Plot

William Blake (Johnny Depp), an accountant from Cleveland, Ohio, rides by train to the frontier company town of Machine to assume a promised job as a bookkeeper in the town's Dickinson metal works. During the trip, a Fireman (Crispin Glover) warns Blake against the enterprise while passengers shoot buffalo from the train windows. Arriving in town, Blake discovers that his position has already been filled, and is driven from the workplace at gunpoint by John Dickinson (Robert Mitchum), the ferocious owner of the company. Jobless and without money or prospects, Blake meets Thel Russell (Mili Avital), a former prostitute who sells paper flowers. He lets her take him home. Thel's ex-boyfriend Charlie (Gabriel Byrne) surprises them in bed and shoots Blake, accidentally killing Thel when she tries to shield Blake with her body. A wounded Blake shoots and kills Charlie with Thel's gun before climbing dazedly out the window and fleeing Machine on a stolen pinto. Company-owner Dickinson, the father of Charlie, hires three legendary frontier killers, Cole Wilson (Lance Henriksen), Conway Twill (Michael Wincott), and Johnny "The Kid" Pickett (Eugene Byrd) to hunt down Blake as the murderer of his son and Thel, although he seems to care most about recovering the stolen horse.

Blake awakens to find a large American Indian (Gary Farmer) attempting to dislodge the bullet from his chest. The Indian, calling himself Nobody, reveals that the bullet is too close to Blake's heart to remove, and Blake is effectively walking dead. When he learns Blake's full name, Nobody decides Blake is a reincarnation of William Blake, a poet whom he idolizes but of whom accountant Blake himself is ignorant. Nobody resolves to escort Blake to the Pacific Ocean to return him to his proper place in the spirit-world.

Blake and Nobody travel west, leaving a trail of dead and encountering wanted posters announcing higher and higher bounties for Blake's death or capture. Nobody sends Blake into a camp of psychotic fur trappers, whom he and Blake dispatch. Blake learns of Nobody's past, marked both by Native American and White racism, which includes Nobody's abduction to Europe as a model savage and subsequent return to America. Nobody leaves Blake alone in the wild when he decides Blake must undergo a vision quest. On his quest, Blake kills two U.S. Marshals, experiences visions of nature spirits, and grieves over the remains of a dead fawn that was killed accidentally by his pursuers. He paints his face with the fawn's blood and rejoins Nobody on their journey. Meanwhile, the most ferocious member of the bounty hunter posse, Cole Wilson (Lance Henriksen), has killed his comrades (eating one of them) and continued his hunt alone.

At a trading post, a bigoted missionary (Alfred Molina) identifies Blake and attempts to kill him, resulting in a shootout which Blake and Nobody survive. Shortly after, Blake is shot again and his condition rapidly deteriorates. Nobody takes him by river to a Makah village and convinces the tribe to give him a canoe for Blake's ship burial. Blake deliriously trudges through the village before collapsing from his injuries. He awakens in a canoe on a beach, wearing Native American funeral dress. Nobody bids Blake farewell and pushes him out to sea. As he floats away, Blake watches Cole sneak up behind Nobody, but he is too weak to cry out and can only watch as the two shoot and kill each other. As Blake gazes up at the clouds for the last time, he dies and his canoe drifts out to sea.