by Peter Corris
The projectile soared, I sighted, fired and missed.
'Pull!'
I got the second one at exactly the right point, just before it began to drop, when there is an illusion that it's stationary. We tossed a coin. Grattan won and shot first. We shot five each. I missed once and so did Grattan. Draw. Same money up and we shot again with me taking first shot. Five hits apiece. Another draw. After another round we were still tied. By now the crowd had grown to fifty or more, all talking excitedly and making side bets of their own. Grattan and I tossed again to see who would shoot first and the quarter stood on its end.
'This could go on forever,' Slocum said. He flipped the coin again and I won. The stakes were now up to a hundred bucks, which was more than those Mexicans would have seen in a year. And it was more than I wanted to lose.
Grattan took off his jacket and wiped sweat from the band of his Stetson. He mopped his face with a handkerchief and flapped his arms to free his shirt which was sticking to his ribs and back. I was sweating too, but it's never a good idea to let an opponent see your discomfort. I made sure there was no sweat in my eyes or on my hands and didn't worry about the rest of me. I kept a close watch on Slocum to make sure he didn't pull a swiftie with the shotgun shells or the targets but he seemed to be playing it straight. He kept up a stream of talk with the Mexicans in fluent Spanish. I only caught a snatch or two, but I gathered that opinion was about evenly divided on which of us would win.
After four shots we were still locked together. My shoulder was aching from the recoil of the shotgun. The Mexicans were now cheering each shot.
'Pull!' The disc soared and I saw it as if it was the size of a dinner plate. I drew on it and fired and the thing shattered into a grey cloud. The crowd whooped and hollered and I could hear the clinking of coins.
Grattan looked relaxed, called for his target, drew on it and missed. The crowd cheered wildly as I picked up the money from the box. Slocum was stunned. Grattan simply stood and stared out to a point where the disc had landed. His eyes swivelled, following its path. He shook his head slowly, broke his gun and took out the shells. He flipped them into the box where the money had been and reloaded.
'You're a damned fine shot, sir,' he said in a southern drawl. 'Might I know your name?'
'Dick B…Kelly. It could have gone either way.' I unloaded the gun and handed it to him.
Suddenly there was a great clamour from the Mexicans and Slocum started shouting in Spanish and waving his hands around. Grattan walked away carrying both shotguns. If ever I saw a man in search of a drink it was him. Then I heard Slocum laughing and the sound of guns being loaded.
'What's happening?' I asked.
Two Mexicans were lining up on the shooting mats and another was crouched by the target firer. 'Would you believe it?' Slocum chortled. 'They want to shoot against each other. Willing to pay five hundred pesos a round and the guy putting out the targets is paying two hundred and fifty. I'm well up on this deal, and lookit them others. They all want to get into the act. Mister, you just jumped my business up a couple hundred per cent.'
I stood with Slocum and we watched the Mexicans shoot it out. None of them was much good but they all had a hell of a lot of fun and the betting was fast and furious. The action only stopped when Slocum ran out of targets. He examined the bundle of battered, greasy notes and the heaps of coins. 'Ought to give you a cut by rights.'
'Don't worry about it,' I said. 'I came out ahead. You're right about Grattan. He's a hell of a good shot, just let that last one get a little slow. I have the feeling he's not quite at his best.'
Slocum nodded. 'Man's got problems. Liquor and women. Was there ever a worse combination?'
'Or a better one.'
He laughed. 'Sure, that's right. Yeah. Well, a woman took old Hartley for everything he had and that's why he joined up with me. Something of a drop in class for him I admit.'
'What're you doing down here, if you don't mind me asking? Pickings must be pretty lean.'
'Sure are. Well, just for a change of scene, you know? And Hartley, he wanted to get himself a Mexican divorce. Got it all right, but I reckon he's still pining for the same woman.'
'Good to meet you, Mr Slocum. I enjoyed myself.' I put out my hand but he ignored it, making a great play of stuffing his pipe and getting it lit.
'Now look here, Dick, I can't just let you walk away like this. You've put me on to a money-spinner. You don't look as if you've got too much money to keep that century company. What say you join up with me? We put on a match between you and Hartley, just like now, and then every other guy in the audience fancies himself a sharp-shooter. I reckon there's money to be made, and you'd get your share.'
My shoulder was aching and I knew I'd been lucky to beat Hartley. Also I didn't fancy dragging myself around Mexico in a circus. I knew how circus people lived, having done a stint of it myself way back.30 It's all third-rate hotels, bad food and cheap liquor. I lit a cigarette and went through the motions of appearing to consider the proposition, but ended by shaking my head.
'No thanks, Mr Slocum. I appreciate the offer but I've got business back in the States in a few weeks. I've had enough of Mexico.'
'Who said anything about staying in Meh-hi-co? We're crossing the border tomorrow and heading for El Paso.'
Browning's luck, and skill, of course.
14
CROSSING the border was a breeze. I rode in the truck with Slocum at the wheel and the border guards looked more closely at the animals than the humans. The circus staff consisted of Grattan, Jack and Elsie Turnbull who acted as high-wire and trapeze performers as well as manning the horse-shoe ring and coconut shy, Joe Campesi who was a clown and animal trainer both and a half-Navaho roustabout named Ben who could fill in for just about anyone else at a pinch. It was a shoe-string affair, operating with modest expectations on low turn-over and low overhead. Slocum was proprietor, manager, cook, paymaster and money-lender. He was a decent man who treated the company right, keeping Grattan off the liquor and Ben away from Elsie.
I stayed with Slocum's circus for almost three weeks, playing small towns along the border and slowly relaxing into a casual way of life after my time of stress. Sometimes I beat Grattan in the shoots and sometimes he beat me. He was a better shot in fact, but his moodiness and occasional late-night bottle sessions dropped him back a notch into my class. As Slocum had expected, the format worked as well in California, Arizona and Texas as it had in Mexico, maybe better. These westerners were used to guns of all kinds and stationary and moving targets, but only at ground level. They shattered thousands of bottles per year and blasted hundreds of jack rabbits and desert critters to kingdom come, but the fast-flying, easy-to-see-hard-to-hit clay targets were a novelty they couldn't resist.
Slocum adjusted his prices to the prosperity or otherwise of the crowd. He was a shrewd judge of marksman and there were some real sharp-shooters among the audience — ranch hands, coyote killers and men who had served in the Second World War and Korea. Slocum took to making bets himself on the contests and he won more often than he lost. He was as good as his word — paying me a base salary and giving me a small cut of the takings. He was a busy man, attending to all the other aspects of the circus operation as well as the shooting and I was amazed at his energy. It was hard to tell how old he was or how much of his stories to believe. He claimed to have played for the New York Yankees, to have swum in the 1928 Olympics and to have had a hand in training Jack Dempsey. He said that Dempsey had used plaster of Paris against Willard and he claimed that Sharkey went into the tank against Carnera.31 He was an entertaining man to listen to.
All in all, it wasn't such a bad life, although I quickly got tired of the routine of the shoot-outs and the sameness of the country towns. I hit Sydney when I was a teenager and I've been a city man all my life. For me, the city represents good health and comfort and the backwoods the reverse — mostly because of the number of times I've had to run and hide among the rocks and trees. I could
have stood it for a few months at least and built a solid bankroll, but I was anxious about my future and missing Louise. Hollywood is no place to leave a pretty young wife if you want to hang on to her, and the more miles I travelled on back roads and the more times I ate Slocum's basic meal of beans and bacon, the more anxious I became to take up James Dean's offer.
I left the circus in El Paso with Slocum's thanks and best wishes, a nod from Grattan and no tears from anyone else. Circus folks are used to the passing parade. El Paso was hot and dry and looked more Spanish than American. I took a room in a good hotel and set about improving my appearance. A haircut and beard trim got rid of the Wild West look that had been useful to Slocum, and I spent some money on clothes — lightweight casuals, a seersucker suit, a quality denim outfit and some tooled leather riding boots with chased silver buckles. I threw away the dirty Panama and the sweat-stained cowboy hat Grattan had lent me along with his second-best Purdey and invested in a brand new Stetson with a woven leather band. When I boarded the train for Marfa I looked like a prosperous cattleman and I did what I'd promised myself all those miles in that rattletrap Dodge truck — I travelled first class.
Before getting on the train in El Paso, I did a very unusual thing for me — I bought a book. It was Edna Ferber's best-seller Giant, and I figured I ought to know a bit more of what it was about. Louise had given me the gist of course, but that was all from the woman's point of view. Who had fallen in love with who and how everybody had felt about things. I wanted to know what happened. I read some of the book on the train and I was pretty impressed by the opening when all the rich assholes in Texas fly to the birthday party of the richest and biggest asshole of all — Jett Rink. I could well see that Jimmy Dean would have a lot of fun playing that part.
I'm no great reader, never have been, but there was something about reading the book, with its descriptions of the plains and the sky and the winds as the train rolled across the exact same kind of landscape, that held me for an hour or so. Maybe I'll take up reading some day, although I doubt it. I have to admit that expressions like a 'Jovian quadrille' leave me totally in the dark.32 I skimmed the book and didn't finish it, but I read enough to see that there was a movie in it. Good scenes of cattle driving, a few convenient deaths and some sob stuff about the poor Mexicans. I'd have been a bit worried if I'd been Rock Hudson's agent. For my money the standout scene in the book was when Jett Rink strikes oil. I could imagine Dean playing that for all it was worth and stealing the picture. I'd only seen Hudson in a few forgettable things like Has Anybody seen my Gal? and The Lawless Breed. I couldn't see him stealing a scene from James Dean or even holding his own, and I hadn't even seen Dean act!
What should have been a pleasant eight-hour trip ending in the early evening turned into a nineteen-hour misery. First, there was a signals failure that held us up for four hours, then there was a derailment where the main line met a spur and that cost another six hours. We had to try to get some sleep in our seats which is never easy and the food and drink on the train were inadequate to the demands of the tired, angry travellers. I was one of the tiredest and angriest and I made fairly heavy use of the bottle of Wild Turkey I'd had the foresight to bring with me. I played poker with a couple of drummers and lost, not soothing to my temper. I was bone weary, half-drunk and gritty-eyed when the train finally rolled into Marfa just before dawn.
The railway station itself was almost deserted but there were plenty of people nearby, all standing behind a rope and watching what was happening near a little double-track shunting line slightly off to one side. It was the sort of thing I'd seen hundreds of times — cameras, lights, people in position, actors ready to act and technicians ready to be technical. There was no doubt who was the boss — a stocky, thick-waisted man in baggy drill trousers, open-neck shirt and white Stetson. There were more cameras set up than you'd usually expect to see for a scene like this, but I was to discover that was George Stevens' signature. He shot everything from every angle you could think of and some you couldn't.
A train that looked to be in better working order than the one I'd travelled on was shunted slowly onto the line and a calaboose that had been standing by was attached.
Frantic activity beside the line then a shout of 'Quiet, please!' Stevens pulled off his heavy horn-rims and gestured for the cameras to roll. The train backed up and then pulled slowly into shot. It stopped. A handtruck with a coffin on it was rolled into place. The train pulled out and when the last carriage was gone the handtruck with the coffin was left there, silhouetted against the dawn sky. Impressive stuff — the return home of Angel Obregon, Mexican war hero, killed in Korea. Not a dry eye in the house.
As they began to set up for another take — Stevens wouldn't have shot a scene in just one take on principle — I wandered over in the direction of the gaping locals. It looked as if most of the townsfolk were there — babies, grandparents, teenagers, the rich and the poor. The making of the movie must have been the biggest thing ever to hit Marfa. As usual, there was a hell of a lot of standing around waiting for things to happen. The Marfans didn't seem to mind. Some of them had coffee in thermoses and sandwiches and looked ready to make a real picnic of it.
The sky was clear and there was no wind. The sun wasn't yet up and the air was warming fast. A real Texas summer day was brewing and it was lucky for the technicians making adjustments to the flag-draped handcart and supervising the positioning of the train that the scene was being shot so early. Later on, their jobs would be hot ones. Stevens, puffing on a pipe, pointed, waved, barked orders. He looked like a man who knew what he wanted and wasn't interested in discussion. I couldn't help wondering how he'd get on with James Dean. The Marfa folk were laughing and chattering, swilling coffee and smoking, but they all fell dead silent when the command was given.
They shot the scene again. I couldn't see any difference from the first take and neither could some of the spectators. A few broke away and headed off towards their daily business. I'd seen towns besotted by movie-making before. The fascination usually lasts a couple of days before the people find out that it's one of the most boring activities in the world to watch. Stevens was being smart. If the director tries to keep the locals away, shrouds the whole thing in mystery, the fascination lasts longer. The more people hanging around a set the greater the chance of an interruption or a mistake. The best way to get rid of the gawkers is to give them as much of a look as they want right at the start.
Movie directors may think of themselves as gods and behave like them but they can't stop the sun from coming up at its own pace. Stevens wanted another take and everyone was stepping on the gas to get the shot before the light was wrong. They got it, and the handcart carrying the coffin, which had been treated as if it was made of glass, was unceremoniously rolled away. The crowd started to disperse.
'Bullshit, pure bullshit.'
My recollection is that I smelt him before I saw or heard him, but maybe all three happened at once. He'd been hanging around on the edge of the crowd. He was wearing a plaid car coat with the fleecy collar turned up hiding most of his face. Dark glasses and a forward-tilted hat completed the disguise. James Dean, muttering to himself and smelling of sweat, stale tobacco and wine.
'It wasn't so bad,' I said. 'Anyway, it's in the book.'
'Fuck the book. Who're you?'
'It's Dick Browning, Jimmy.'
He took off his glasses and squinted at me. I think that was the first time I realised how short-sighted he was. 'I knew that,' he said.
15
MARFA was a desert town, very hot and dry, especially that year when the region was experiencing a drought. Water was in short supply. The air was supposed to be healthy for its cleanness but I never noticed any improvement in my health in the time I was there. The movie people had had a big impact on the place, soaking up most of the available hotel space and renting a number of houses for the leading players. Some members of the company were billeted on local families and cash was flowing into t
he economy of the town on a grand scale. On the other hand, the townsfolk had to put up with various inconveniences like an extra load on the already stretched water supply, interruptions to the town traffic and some eccentric behaviour, so I guess the Marfans thought it was fair to try to get as much out of the event as they could.
Dean was sharing a house with Rock Hudson and Chill Wills and he drove me there in a red convertible, treating it with considerable contempt, stubbing his cigarettes out on the dashboard because the ashtrays were overflowing.
'No motor cycle,' I said.
'Banned,' he said moodily. 'Like just about every goddamn thing. But hey, Dick, I'm real glad you turned up. This picture is a bitch to work on.'
'Aren't they all.'
'I guess so, but this is special. Here's the house. Just moved in t'other day. Liz Taylor's across the street.'
The house was a large, comfortable ranch-style building, like a prosperous small-town doctor or lawyer might own. Dean left the car parked at the beginning of the driveway where it would be sure to obstruct his fellow tenants and clomped across the grass to the porch. He was wearing denims and cowboy boots, both items of clothing completely filthy. He shucked off his coat to reveal a blue work shirt, encrusted with sweat and grime, and a sleeveless denim jacket.
'Be hot as a whore's asshole in an hour,' he said, 'an' I've gotta do my first scene with Liz. Mean to tell you, man, I'm nervous.'
I followed him into the house and put my valise in the hall. I didn't figure to be staying in the stars' digs. Dean stomped through to the kitchen, humming to himself and snapping his fingers.
'Gotta woman here cooks for us. I think Chill's bangin' her, but she might be around some place. You want a li'l breakfast?'
He was working hard on his Texas accent and doing pretty well. I said that there'd been no food to speak of on the train and that some eggs and coffee would go down well.
