 An alternate ending was shot, but cut from the final version. This  other ending apparently takes place a few weeks (or perhaps months)  after the main events of the movie. It appears in  author/screenwriter James Dickeys original script as part of the  final "dream" sequence, but not as the storys literal conclusion.  The scene shows Lewis (Burt Reynolds (I) (qv)) walking with a  crutch. (In Dickeys screenplay, his leg is supposed to be amputated  below the knee.) The sequence depicts Ed (Jon Voight (qv)), Lewis  (Reynolds) and Bobby (Ned Beatty (qv)) meeting with Sheriff  Bullard (James Dickey (qv)) near the dam in Aintry. The sheriff  displays to them a body placed on a stretcher and uncovers it, so  that they can look at its face. No identifiable details of the body  are shown, which was a deliberate choice, to make the audience  uncertain whether the dead man is Drew (Ronny Cox (I) (qv)), Don  Job (Bill McKinney (qv)) or the Toothless Man (Herbert Cowboy  Coward ). The body was played by Christopher Dickey (qv) (James  Dickeys son), who writes about the scene in his memoir, "Summer of  Deliverance", and even HE doesnt know whose body it was supposed to  be. In the screenplay, Ed awakens terrified from this dream, just  before the face of the corpse is to be revealed.