Cowboy For Hire

by Duncan, Alice

  “Do they have any artistic merit?” Charlie asked. He sounded honestly intrigued by the thought, and not at all as if he were making a joke.

  “Well,” she hollered, “I don’t think so, but I don’t know much about them.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  And wasn’t that a pleasant thought?—the two of them. Oh, dear, she had to stop thinking such things. Vernon would be shocked. Even she was a little shocked.

  “Struggle!” shouted Martin.

  With a sigh, Amy increased her struggle output. Thank God Charlie was strong and able to subdue her in not too many more moments. She was panting like a winded racehorse by the time he got her back against the log—the bumpy, uncomfortable log—and began lashing her limbs down.

  “Good heavens, this thing tastes awful,” she spluttered when the rope accidentally ended up in her mouth.

  “Sorry. Whoops! I’m not supposed to apologize.”

  Amy did her best not to giggle. Fortunately, she was so miserably uncomfortable that her impulse to laugh was short-lived.”

  “Good! Good!” Martin hollered from the sidelines. “Make it look good Charlie. Good! Perfect! Now throw the lever on the sawmill. Do it from behind so the audience will see what you’re doing! Look mean and evil. Good!”

  With her mouth still open, and feigning cries of terror and rage, Amy watched Charlie rush to the big metal lever that was supposed to start the cardboard saw whirling. In truth, a man beneath the raised set would begin cranking as soon as Charlie threw the lever.

  He was really quite good. He looked positively wicked as, with a huge gesture, he flung the lever up and grimaced horribly. The timing was perfect and the man with the crank started the saw to spinning. The other man, the one with the sawdust in a bucket, threw a handful of dust into the air.

  “Wait on the sawdust until the log gets closer!” Martin yelled.

  Amy was glad of that, since she didn’t need any more stuff falling onto her greasy makeup or into her mouth. As it was, she had to spit out a mouthful of sawdust, and flakes of it stuck to her sweaty body. “Pthht. Ew.”

  “All right!” Martin said with an anxious overtone to his voice. “We’re about ready to … Now! Horace! Rush in and save her!”

  It continued to amaze Amy that Horace Huxtable, who was about the most deplorable human being she’d ever had the misfortune to meet, should be such a superb actor. He burst into the supposed sawmill as if he were truly bent upon the salvation of his own true love. Charlie, still standing by the lever, managed a creditable expression of shock and dismay and , like the sneaky snake he was supposed to be, tried to slink away Huxtable drew out his trusty six-gun, which, Amy prayed, he’d loaded with trusty blanks—she personally wouldn’t trust Huxtable to brush his own hair if he didn’t want to—and fired at Charlie.

  As it had been scripted, Charlie staggered and clutched his arm. He shook a fist at Huxtable and ran from the set. Huxtable paused, as if torn between chasing the villain Charlie and rescuing the lovely Amy. Then, exhibiting a good deal of frustration, as he was supposed to do, he case one last baleful look at the place where Charlie had been, shook his fist, shouted, “To hell with you, Fox!” and charged toward Amy.

  While the scene had been going forward, the log to which she was strapped continued what probably looked like its relentless progress toward the vicious blades of—a cardboard saw. Amy was sure audiences would be thrilled. Really, the scene looked pretty good to her, although her vantage point flat on her back and tied to a log—wasn’t the best. She was glad she’d be freed from her uncomfortable situation soon.

  “Thank goodness. Now you can get me untied from this bumpy log.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” returned Huxtable, who still looked the part of a hero, although he didn’t sound like one at all. “I think it wouldn’t hurt you to get sawed in half. It would be awfully damned bloody, though.”

  “You’re perfectly disgusting, Mr. Huxtable.”

  “I’m flattered, my lovely Miss Wilkes. I didn’t think anyone was perfect.”

  “You’re impossible.”

  He laughed one of his oily, ugly laughs, and proceeded to the side of the conveyor belt where, with great dramatic gusto, he threw the lever to what was supposed to be its “off” position. The man underneath the set stopped cranking the saw, the other man stopped flinging sawdust, and Amy’s log halted within an inch or two of a wicked looking set of cardboard saw teeth.

  With even more dramatic gusto, Huxtable drew out what looked like a very sharp knife and began hacking through her bonds. She eyed him with concern, although she tried not to show it. “Be careful with that, if you will.”

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I won’t nick your precious skin.”

  “I’m glad of that.” She was proud of the acidic quality she managed to pour into her voice.

  “Good! Good!” Martin encouraged from his director’s chair. “That’s the ticket! As soon as the last knot is cut through, haul her into your arms and kiss her! This is going to be wonderful! Perfect!”

  Yuck, thought Amy, who wouldn’t have cared to be kissed by Horace Huxtable even if he had rescued her in truth. She wished Charlie were the hero of this piece. She’d much rather be kissed by him.

  But that was only because she wouldn’t find it revolting to be kissed by him—she told her better nature when it recoiled at her faltering moral resolve—as she would to be kissed by Huxtable. No wonder actors had such dreadful reputations. They were always required to kiss people to whom they weren’t married. She knew that Vernon hadn’t merely been fussy when he’d written his letter.

  Her attitude toward Vernon Catesby softened still further when Horace Huxtable, flinging aside a host of rope ends and his knife, drew her up from the log and embraced her tightly.

  “Aha,” he said into her ear. “Now I’ve got you. And I’m going to enjoy myself, too.”

  Good heavens! He was actually kissing her! Amy, who’d had to force herself to struggle earlier in the scene, started struggling ling a wildcat.

  “No! No, Amy! Don’t try to get away from him! He’s your lover! He’s the man you’re madly in love with! Kiss him back!”

  Fortunately for the scene, Martin’s commonsensical words penetrated Amy’s seething brain in time for her to stop her instinctual attempt to escape. She pretended to melt into Huxtable’s embrace—the melting part was easy—but she decided Martin was just going to have to be disappointed about the kissing-him-back part. She’d be fricasseed and served with dumplings before she’d kiss Mr. Horace, the most awful man she’d ever met, Huxtable.

  “I’m so glad you haven’t been able to drink lately, Mr. Huxtable,” she hissed into his ear. “Your breath is not nearly so foul as it is when you’ve been drinking.”

  “Bitch,” Huxtable growled. “You’re a pretty little bitch, though, and I wouldn’t want you to think you’ve won your game, sweetheart.”

  And with that, he whirled around so that they both faced the camera, dipped her in a manner Amy had only seen illustrated in magazines, and kissed her with what she might have sworn was genuine mad passion if she’d seen it on the screen. She undertook manfully to hide her revulsion—and she successes for the first thirty or forty seconds. Unfortunately, the kiss went on. And on.

  Finally, Amy decided she’d taken enough. Wrenching her lips from Huxtable’s, she whispered furiously, “That’s enough, Mr. Huxtable!”

  He didn’t alter his position one iota except to chuckle hatefully and say, “We go until the director cuts the scene, my lovely Miss Wilkes. It’s our job.”

  Fiddle. He was right. “You don’t have to bend me over so far. My back is hurting.”

  “What a shame.” He dipped her lower.

  “Fiend!”

  “Bitch!”

  “Cut!” cried Martin at long, long last.

  Amy breathed a relieved sigh that lasted long enough for her to feel Huxtable withdraw the hands from her back. He didn’t bother to lift her up f
irst, but let her fall, whack on her back, onto the bumpy log from which he’d just “rescued” her. She banged her head and elbow on the log, scrambled madly for a purchase on the conveyor belt, didn’t find any, and rolled off of the raised set.

  She landed with a thud on the floor with her skirt up around her knees, her bottom bruised, and her mortification complete. When she raised her head to see what had happened, she viewed Huxtable’s ironically smiling face peering down at her. What was more, he was twirling his mustache like a real celluloid villain.

  “Oh, I say, how terribly clumsy of me.”

  Amy’s temper flared up like a skyrocket. “You wicked brute! You did that on purpose!”

  “Horace, if you’ve hurt her….”

  Amy heard Martin’s angry voice trail off as his feet began pelting toward her.

  “You lousy son of a bitch.”

  That was Charlie, and as soon as Amy heard the words, she saw Huxtable’s face vanish from above. She clambered to her feet and tried to run around the set to see what the two men were doing. She hoped Charlie was beating the horrible actor to a pulp.

  Her effort to run was hampered by her muscles, which didn’t seem to want to cooperate. First they’d been cramped into an uncomfortable position on the log, then they’d been flung from a high precipice—well, a semi-high precipice—and they rebelled now. So she limped around the set, hoping there would still be some excitement going on.

  She heard lots of noises. She heard what sounded like flesh meeting flesh, several muttered curses, and the grunts of men who were, with luck, pounding each other to dust. Or, she amended, with luck, Charlie was pounding Horace Huxtable to dust.

  It occurred to her that she’d never experienced bloodthirsty impulses before she’d taken to acting. This job of hers was definitely damaging her character. She resolved to write a conciliatory letter to Vernon this evening after supper.

  In the meantime, it was gratifying, when she finally struggled to the front of the set, to find that Charlie had taken Huxtable by the front of his shirt and was shaking him violently. Martin and several crew members tried to pull the men apart.

  “Stop him!” Huxtable screamed, his words falling like corrugated cardboard from his mouth. “He’s trying to kill me!”

  “It’s what you deserve, you filthy bastard,” declared the valiant Charlie, who was resisting interference fiercely.

  “I didn’t mean to drop her!” Huxtable screamed. “Honest.”

  “Don’t make me laugh,” said Charlie, who sounded far from laughter.

  “You did, too, mean to drop me,” Amy cried, indignant that Huxtable should voice so blatant a lie. She’d seen his face. She knew he’d planned exactly what would happen at the end of their kiss. “You’re lucky you didn’t hurt me badly, you horrible man!”

  “There! Did you hear that?” roared Charlie. He hauled his bunched fist back, intending, Amy was sure, to crush Huxtable’s jaw with it. Fortunately for her, the problems associated with the star’s broken jaw paraded across her mind’s eye in the split second she had to think about thing, and she leaped for Charlie’s fist, grabbing it with both of her hands.

  He was certainly a strong man. Amy could hardly credit the fact that, even with all of her weight dangling from his fist, he still managed to hit Horace Huxtable. It was her misfortune that it was the back of her head that connected with Huxtable’s jaw.

  “Aaaaah!” bellowed Huxtable in what sounded very much like excruciating pain.

  “Aaaaah!” cried Amy in what was certainly awful pain.

  “Oh, shit,” hollered Charlie, who seemed to understand all at once what had happened. “Amy! Amy, are you all right?”

  He dropped Horace Huxtable like a rock and drew Amy into his arms. Amy caught the merest flash of Martin Tafft before her face was buried in Charlie’s shirtfront. Martin was tugging his hair, and his expression conveyed his consternation.

  “Oh, God, Amy, did I hurt you?” Charlie cried.

  She tried to shake her head, but Charlie’s hand was pressing the back of her head too firmly against his chest for her to do so. She feared she might smother if this kept up much longer, so she made a big effort and got her nose free. Her mouth was another matter, but she did succeed in uttering a muffled, “Nomph.”

  It was good enough for Charlie, who breathed, “Thank God, thank God,” in what sounded like a truly heartfelt prayer of relief.

  As much as she appreciated Charlie Fox’s acting as her champion—again—Amy was awfully tired of being mauled and manhandled on such a miserably hot day in such a hellishly hot building. She ground out, “Please let me go, Mr. Fox. I’m fine now.”

  Charlie must have heard an edgy quality in her voice, because he let her go. He blinked down at her, though, and looked worried. “You sure you’re all right?”

  She pulled her shirtwaist down and made a stab at straightening her skirt. She was certain her makeup had been smeared beyond redemption when she saw the mess it had made of Charlie’s shirtfront. “Yes. Thank you.”

  Karen rushed up and began helping her tidy up. The two women exchanged a smile. Amy couldn’t recall another time in her life when she’d appreciated a person’s friendship more. She wished foolishly that Karen had been around when her parents died.

  Martin hurried over to her. “I guess he’ll be all right once he calms down.”

  Amy assumed he was referring to Horace Huxtable, and she didn’t care. She frowned at Martin to let him know it. As far as she was concerned, Martin ought to be spending his thoughts on her.

  Martin still appeared flustered. He’d stopped pulling at his hair, but it stuck out all over his head. He was chewing his lower lip as he gazed a Amy, critically surveying her person. “Are you all right, Miss Wilkes? I’m terribly sorry about what happened. I’m sure it was an accident.”

  “It wasn’t an accident,” Amy told him flatly. “He did it on purpose.”

  She almost wished she’d lied when Martin started tugging at his hair again. Charlie and Karen helped her off the set and outside, where, even though the weather still hovered in the upper nineties, it was relatively cool compared to the sawmill.

  But, according to the crew, the scene had gone very well. Amy supposed that counted for something. She’d never been so happy to see a day end in her life.

  Ten

  The first fat droplets of rain spattered down on the exhausted cast and crew of One and Only as the crew members were packing up to return to the Peerless Studio’s tent village. The air smelled of rain, which was a refreshing change from selling like dust.

  When Charlie glanced around, he saw Martin Tafft peering at the lowering sky. He was surprised that Martin was now looking even more worried than when he’d been dealing with Horace Huxtable earlier in the day. As far as Charlie was concerned, weather was no problem at all compared to Huxtable.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Martin, still squinting at the sky, chewed on his lower lip. “It’s raining.”

  Charlie squinted at the sky, too. A couple of drops of rain, in his estimation, didn’t mean it was raining, but he wasn’t accustomed to California ways. Perhaps this was considered “raining” in California.

  Amy Wilkes walked up to them. She looked hot and tired and bruised, although her spirits were good and she’d finally washed the rest of her makeup off. She looked much better without it. Fresh. Pretty. More lovable than any other girl Charlie’d ever met.

  He’d apologized at least fifty times for hitting Huxtable with her head, and she’d accepted his apologies, but he was still worried about her. Huxtable was a tough customer. Charlie feared for internal damage inside of Amy’s lovely head. Huxtable himself hadn’t spoken a word to either Charlie or Amy since the incident occurred. That was fine and dandy with Charlie. He suspected that Amy wasn’t offended by Huxtable’s silence either.

  “Will the cameras be all right, Mr. Tafft?” Amy asked. “I think you ought to put them in the covered wagon and let the cast ride in th
e rain. We won’t rust like they will.”

  Martin squinted at the sky, then at Amy, and then at Charlie, who shrugged and said, “Sounds reasonable to me. The cameras are likely to get ruined if it starts raining any harder. We humans can dry off and not suffer any consequences, I reckon.”

  “Exactly.” Amy nodded.

  She looked totally exhausted, and Charlie experienced a fierce urge to take her in his arms and cuddle her until she slept. She needed somebody to care for her. Why the devil was a woman like Amy Wilkes working out here in a stupid moving picture when she ought to be married to some nice man—himself, for instance—who would support her and care for her and not let her tangle with the likes of Horace Huxtable. She’d be better occupied in keeping house and raising kids than in making movies, in his opinion.

  As soon as those notions tiptoed through his head, Charlie stopped thinking and mentally shook himself.

  What in the name of holy hell was he thinking things like that for? He couldn’t believe it of himself. He, who didn’t have a single thing in the universe to call his own, except some money in the bank, had no business even contemplating setting up housekeeping with a delicate damsel like Amy Wilkes. Maybe if he was secure; owned his own ranch, or was rolling in riches or something…. But he wasn’t. Damn it.

  “I’m not sure,” Martin said, still chewing on his lip and beginning to pull that tuft of hair he seemed so fond of. “I don’t want anybody to get sick if we have a downpour.”

  “Don’t worry about us,” said Amy stoutly. Charlie was as proud of her as if he had a right to be. “We’d be much safer in a rainstorm than the cameras would be.”

  Martin made up his mind. “You’re right, of course, May. Thank you for your consideration.”

  “Don’t be silly,” she said, coloring slightly. “It’s the only sensible thing to do.”

  And that was another thing. While, when he’d first met her, he’d pretty much thought she was a stuck-up prude, Charlie had come to understand that she was only trying to present a fearless front to the world. Underneath the act, she was soft and vulnerable and as sweet as a ripe peach. He sighed inside and wished he’d never discovered the truth. His life would be much less complicated if he didn’t have these tender, mushy feelings for Amy Wilkes that seemed to have taken possession of him recently.