Cowboys also had souls

From one direction, astride a mule, a lonely cowboy named Joad rides through the desert.

From the other direction, inside a stagecoach, a dying nun named Sister Madalyn travels to her New Mexico mission.

How the two intersect, what they share about faith and forgiveness, and who else is touched by their lives is the story of "The Staircase," airing on CBS on Easter Sunday, April 12.

Chapel stairs
The cowpoke and the sister meet in Santa Fe in 1878 at a new chapel she and her order of sisters have built for the white, Hispanic and Indian populations of the area. But something is amiss: the contractor and architect have neglected to construct a stairway to the choir loft, and there is no room to add one. Without it, the chapel will be music-less, and Sister Madalyn's mission will be literally and figuratively unfinished.

That's the outline of the true story on which "The Staircase" is based. There was a real-life mysterious carpenter who appeared from nowhere and found a solution to the conundrum, using no nails or center support to build a spiral staircase, which can still be seen by tourists.

But around that historic core, the TV movie builds a fictional story involving Geronimo, a conniving contractor, an Indian raid and Joad's ability to build new lives as well as new staircases.

TV rarity
When it ends, viewers will realize that "The Staircase" is one of those TV wonders: a movie that respects religion, finds believers to be admirable, teaches that faith is a positive force in the world, underscores that prayers can be answered and demonstrates that reconciliation is possible.

Most of all, the movie makes little effort to conceal its underlying theme: that Joad, played by William Petersen, is really St. Joseph. He rides a mule, is an expert carpenter, comes in answer to prayers, heals people's emotional and spiritual lives, performs a minor miracle or two, and disappears into the desert.

Sister Madalyn, played by Barbara Hershey, is a wonderfully rounded character. Given only a short time to live, she reacts first with anger (expressed in an inappropriate expletive at dinner with her sisters), then with a bargain ("let me finish the chapel, Lord, before I die") and finally with resignation to God's will.

Rounded character
She is by no means a perfect nun. She picks on her friend, Sister Margaret (played by Diane Ladd) and harbors a hatred for an Indian child that seems out of character, irrational and petty. Slowly, however, the movie unveils the cause of her prejudice -- and then shows how forgiveness can heal both her and the Indian child.

To Joad, Sister Madalyn is like a piece of wood: strong enough to build with but flexible enough to change its shape when it's needed for another purpose.

"The Staircase" is not perfect; the entire episode involving Geronimo is distracting and unnecessary, and the little Mexican boy who helps Joad can be a little too precious. But most of it is a delight, including its unspoken premise: that those people we always see in westerns -- the sheriff, the cowhand and the Apache -- had souls as well as holsters.

(WMHT, channel 17, has set a date for the special I reviewed in the March 26 issue. "Father Roy: Inside the School of Assassins" will be shown on May 14 at 10 p.m.) (04-09-98)

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