Cowboy For Hire

by Duncan, Alice

  She turned and placed the other greased tin next to the mixing bowl. “Would you like me to pour this time Are your arms tired?”

  “No, thanks. I can do it.” Karen sighed. “I’ve never been much of a hand in the kitchen. I’m much more comfortable with a needle and thread.”

  “I like to cook,” said Amy. “I think it’s fun to feed people.”

  “I’ll hire you to cook for me when I’m rich.”

  Both women laughed, and Karen dumped the rest of the cornmeal batter into the second greased tin. Amy scraped out the last of the batter and put the tin in the oven. “There.” She dusted off her hands and went back to her soup.

  The crew, when they came in for lunch, were a sorry-looking band of water-soaked men. The women who’d been sewing patches onto canvas and mending tent flaps didn’t look very good, either.

  “Good heavens, they look like refugees from some strife-torn European country,” Karen muttered as she took up a ladle and prepared to serve the crew cafeteria-style.

  “They certainly do.” Amy positioned her tongs over a huge mound of cut-up cornbread. She supposed this wasn’t the best lunch in the world, but it would be warm and nourishing. And if Horace Huxtable complained, she might just whack him with her tongs.

  He didn’t. Actually, he looked too bushed to whine. Amy might have felt sorry for him if he were an otherwise decent human being. He wasn’t. He was a contemptible, miserable, selfish, and ghastly animal. She didn’t even react to his sneer as he passed, but plopped a piece of cornbread on his plate without comment.

  Next in line was Charlie, to whom she offered what she hoped was an engaging smile and two slabs of cornbread.

  “When you’re through serving, would you come sit by me, Miss Wilkes?” He nodded at Karen. “You too, Karen. You two have done a lot of work in the kitchen. You deserve to rest while you eat.”

  “thank you. I’m sure we’d enjoy that.” Amy was charmed.

  “Absolutely,” agreed Karen. “I’m feeling sort of bedraggled.

  “You don’t look bedraggled,” Charlie told her gallantly. “You both look as perky as ever.”

  Amy thought that was charming, too, even if it was blatant lie. Both Karen and she were dripping with sweat, undoubtedly redolent of onions and other vegetable matter, and feeling filthy and uncomfortable. She’d be mortally glad when the rain stopped and they could use some of the excess water to bathe with.

  The rain kept up for the rest of the day, forcing the cast and crew to spend another night in the chow tent. The atmosphere began to take on the aroma of a cave dwelling—or what Amy expected a cave dwelling might smell like. It was full of unwashed people and the odors of old cooking, and it wasn’t pleasant.

  The next day, although the sun came out, the mud was so deep there wasn’t much hope of getting any filming done. The mud was as thick and sticky as tar, and it covered the desert for as far as the eye could see. Amy and Karen opened all the window flaps on the chow tent to allow the air to come in and blow out the smell of too many people too long confined in too small a space.

  Martin and the cameramen spent a good deal of time testing the cameras and making sure the equipment was in working order. Amy and Karen spent that day, too, in the kitchen, since nothing, not even a mule train, could traverse the muddy river that used to be the road to town.

  Charlie and most of the other men spent their time shovelling mud from tents and trying to clean up the village. Care had to be taken in the tents, since a rattlesnake had been found curled up in a corner of one of them. Evidently, as some wag said, even snakes knew enough to come in out of the rain.

  Perhaps it was the same wit who said, as he looked around the mud-ravaged village, that the scene was a “royal mess” and suitable for the star of the picture. Everyone but Horace Huxtable laughed. He only turned up his nose and went to his tent, which he’d insisted be cleaned out first, to lie down and rest his royal bones. Amy thought justice would be served if he encountered a rattlesnake there, but he didn’t.

  She eyed the pile of potatoes in front of her with some misgiving. “What are we supposed to do with a hundred pounds of potatoes and nothing else.”

  Karen, her hands on her hips, looked at the potatoes, too. “I don’t know. You’re the one who’s supposed to know how to cook.”

  “I do, but generally one has something to put with potatoes—like meat stock for soup or something.”

  “Oh.”

  “I wonder if there are any onions left. And maybe some bacon or ham or something.”

  Karen shrugged. “I’ll help you look.”

  Both women started when a series of popping noises came from outside. They ran to the front of the chow tent and looked cautiously out. Neither fancied getting run over by a loose wagon or a rolling log, or drowned by a mud slide.

  “I don’t see anything,” Amy said after a moment or two.

  “Neither do I,” said Karen.

  They stepped cautiously onto the temporary bridge that was still the only means of getting from the chow tent to the rest of the encampment, unless one wanted to wade in mud up to one’s knees. They stood together at the other end of the bridge, their arms about each other’s waists, gazing into the tent village.

  “The tents look clean and washed after the storm,” Karen said.

  “They certainly do. On the outside at least.” They’d spent hours discussing how horrid it would be to discover one’s home—even one’[s temporary tent home—filled with mud. Since they hadn’t ventured further than the chow tent for two days, they didn’t know if either of their tents had suffered such a dire consequence of the rainstorm.

  Amy spotted Martin some yards off and waved at him. “Mr. Tafft!” she called.

  Karen huffed, said, “Honestly, Amy, you’re so polite,” and hollered, “Martin!”

  Amy clapped her hands over her ears and laughed. Martin, who’d heard Karen’s cry, looked over at the two women, waved and began slogging their way.

  “Where do you suppose he got those hip boots?” Amy asked.

  “He probably brought them along in case there was any fishing to do anywhere. He likes to fish.”

  “Fish? Are there fish around here?” Amy surveyed the desert. At the moment, she supposed that any number of fish might find places to swim out here, but before the deluge, it had seemed dry as a bone.

  Karen laughed. “I understand there’s a lake not too far off. I expect he was hoping he’d have a chance to get over there.”

  “Oh, I never would have suspected such a thing.”

  “No, it doesn’t look very much like there’d be lakes tucked away anywhere around here, does it?”

  Martin was close enough now that he could make himself heard without shouting. “I’ve got some good news for you, ladies.”

  Offhand, Amy could think of several things that might constitute good news, the primary one of which would be word from the outside world. She felt cut off and isolated, and she didn’t like it. Suddenly she wondered if ranch life would engender such a feeling of isolation and loneliness, and she frowned, not liking the train of that particular thought.

  “did Mr. Huxtable drown?” Karen asked innocently.

  Amy, startled by her friend’s verbal jab, laughed aloud and slapped a hand over her mouth.

  Martin didn’t look particularly amused. “No, he did not, Karen Crenshaw, you terrible woman you.”

  “I’m so ashamed of myself,” said Karen in a voice that held not a trace of penitence.

  “What was the good news?” Amy asked. She, unlike Karen, did feel somewhat abashed about laughing at so unkind a joke.

  “Charlie’s been hunting, and he’s got some meat for a meal.”

  The women looked at each other, then at Martin. Amy said uncertainly, “He’s been hunting?”

  “Yes indeed. He’s a real outdoorsman, he is. A little flooding doesn’t slow him down any.” Martin rubbed his hands together as if he couldn’t wait to eat whatever it was Charlie had b
een hunting.

  Amy wasn’t so sure. She’d never had anything to do with wild game, since she lived in the city of Pasadena where people ate things like chickens and cows and pigs and so forth. If he brought her a dead deer, she feared she might even be sick. And how in the world was a body supposed to get at the meat of such a large dead beast?

  She wasn’t equipped to skin a deer. Or a bear. Good heavens, what if it was a bear? Or—heaven forbid—a rattlesnake. Amy had read novels in which cowboys had cooked and eaten rattlesnakes. The notion made her feel queasy, even if the books did equate the taste of snake meat with that of chicken. Amy figured that if the good Lord had wanted people to eat rattlesnakes, he’d have made them into chickens in the first place.

  Karen, with her usual bluntness, said, “What’s he been hunting? If he’s got a great big dead animal slung over his horse, I’m not cooking it.”

  God bless Karen Crenshaw, Amy thought to herself. How nice it must be to feel free to ask any old thing of anyone, no matter how unrefined the question might seem.

  Martin laughed. “Ha! I can see the headlines now: ‘Motion picture actor saves cast and crew from starvation on the desert of Southern California by shooting a herd of antelopes.’”

  Karen laughed. Amy didn’t think it was very funny, but she smiled. The notion of having to shoot one of those pretty little creatures she’d seen pictured in The National Geographic for meat didn’t appeal to her. There was a lot to be said for civilization.

  “No, I don’t think he’s shot anything awfully big. I think he managed to bag a couple of rabbits. Do you ladies think you can cook up a rabbit stew if you tried real hard.”

  The light dawned in Amy’s brain. “Oh. Those noises were from Mr. Fox shooting rabbits?”

  “They were. I think he bagged three of them.”

  “Um, what kinds of rabbits, do you know?” Amy didn’t know much about the wonders of the camping life, but she clearly recalled her uncle laughing about how he and Amy’s father had tried to eat a jackrabbit they’d shot once. It had not been a successful venture.

  “What kind?” Martin looked at her blankly, and Amy realized that he was as much a child of civilization as she.

  I understand cottontails are good for eating, but jackrabbits aren’t,” she explained.

  “Oh.”

  “Really? I didn’t know that.” Karen beamed at her, as if Amy had demonstrated some kind of esoteric frontier knowledge that had impressed her greatly.

  Another child of the city, Amy realized at once. Perhaps she wasn’t such an odd duck after all. The thought gave her an odd feeling of kinship with Karen and Martin that she hadn’t had before. She murmured, “I’m sure Mr. Fox already knows that.”

  “Hey there!” another voice called to them, and Amy’s heart warmed instantly. Charlie Fox. She’d never forget that lovely deep drawl.

  The trio turned, and Amy saw Charlie walking toward them, having very little trouble in the mid—and he had on no hip boots, but only his usual, everyday cowboy boots. She admired his athletic grace.

  Bother. She’d forgotten to write to Vernon again. Tonight, she promised herself, she’d see to it.

  In the meantime, she enjoyed the sight of Charlie Fox walking to the chow tent. He was quite a manly sort of fellow, Charlie was. Not soft and pallid and city-like, like Vernon, but rugged. Tanned. Westernish. She sighed before she could stop herself.

  Karen peered at her slantwise for a second, and Amy felt her cheeks warm. Fortunately, Martin was waving at Charlie and missed the exchange.

  “What have you brought to our cooks here, Charlie” he called, sounding happy. Amy thought it was nice that the motion picture fellow had such a friendly personality.

  ”Three nice plump rabbits,” Charlie sang out. He sounded cheerful, too.

  Amy appreciated people with bright, sunny natures. Her own nature tended to be gloomy when she didn’t watch it. She knew her aunt and uncle used to worry about her a good deal, and for good reason. When they’d taken her in, Amy had been a pathetic specimen. Not any longer. These days, she was quite satisfied and secure.

  She had to write to Vernon. It wasn’t fair of her to ignore his letter as she’d been doing. Not, of course, that she hadn’t had cause to fail to write him. After all, floods didn’t happen every day of one’s life. She wondered if Vernon would worry when she wrote about the flood, and realized she hoped he would.

  Vernon was a very nice gentleman, and he was enormously proper and refined, but Amy wouldn’t have minded if he were a teensy bit more demonstrative of his devotion to her. If he were, say, to pine to be with her, she wouldn’t mind A woman liked to know she was cherished. At least, she thought, she wouldn’t mind being cherished.

  Charlie strode up to them and held out his rabbits. Amy took a step back and wrinkled her nose before she could stop herself. He said, “I skinned ‘me for you. Didn’t think you ladies would like to have to skin rabbits.”

  “God, no!” Karen said. She sounded as if she were appalled by the sight of the naked, helpless-looking rabbit corpses.

  Amy was glad. She was also glad she hadn’t gasped or said anything to suggest that she didn’t appreciate Charlie’s thoughtfulness. She really did appreciate it. She wouldn’t want to skin a sweet little bunny rabbit.

  “They’re cottontails,” Charlie went on blithely, “so they’ll be tasty.”

  Poor little things. Amy took herself to task for worrying about rabbits when a whole crew of people needed to be fed. That’s what rabbits were for—eating. She said, “Thank you,” and hoped she sounded as merry as he.

  “Yes. And thanks very much for skinning them. I’d have been sick all over the chow tent if I’d had to do that,” Karen said in her downright fashion. Amy grimaced, and wished she hadn’t been quite so downright in this instance.

  Charlie laughed. “I saved you that, anyway. Want me to cut ‘em up for you, too? You can make a good stew with these babies.”

  “Oh, would you?” Feeling reprieve in the air—and from a man who had become her very favourite cowboy in the whole wide world—Amy beamed at him.

  He swallowed, as if her beam were more than he could take with equanimity. “Sure. Got any potatoes and onions?”

  “We’ve got lots of potatoes.” Amy turned and led the way into the tent. She was feeling sort of light-headed all of a sudden, and feared it had something to do with the look Charlie Fox had just given her.

  “You start peeling the potatoes,” Karen said. “I’ll look for onions.”

  “See if there are any carrots and celery and stuff like that, too,” Charlie called after her.

  “Will do.”

  Charlie and Amy smiled at each other, Amy a little uncomfortably. She found Charlie so attractive and appealing. She didn’t want to show him exactly how appealing, because she sensed that that would be not merely disloyal to Vernon, but unwise, fantasies about being a ranch wife notwithstanding. “Well, ah, I suppose I’d better get started on these potatoes.”

  “Right. And I’ll get started on the rabbits.”

  Amy couldn’t seem to look away from him. His gorgeous eyes held her there for what seemed like hours. It was silly, she thought later. There he was, with his hands full of strings wound around skinned rabbits, and there she was, in her big stained apron and holding two huge Irish potatoes, and they were staring at each other as if some invisible bond connected them. At that moment, the bond was a palpable thing, and it seemed to attach her hear to his.

  It was all make-believe, Amy told herself later. She was a practical person and not given to whimsical fantasies. She didn’t believe in deathless love or fated passions. All of the operas she’d seen in which soul-deep love was featured ended tragically. Look at Carmen, for heaven’s sake. Or La Traviata.

  Anyway, all of that was fiction. Amy had learned young to be hard-headed when it came to her own welfare. No fanciful dreams for her,. No sirree.

  And she couldn’t look away from Charlie Fox at that moment t
o save her immortal soul.

  It wasn’t until they heard Karen’s cheerful cry of “I found the onions!” that the spell broke, and they turned away from each other as if their movements had been choreographed. Amy’s heart didn’t stop whacking at her ribs until she’d peeled at least ten pounds of potatoes.

  Charlie didn’t say another word, but chopped up the rabbits as if doing so was going to save his life.

  She absolutely had to write to Vernon. And the sooner, the better.

  Twelve

  The air was as clean as if God had scrubbed it with soap and water, and the pungent scents of the desert kissed Amy’s nostrils pleasantly. The sky was as blue as her own eyes—a coincidence Charlie had pointed out to her earlier in the day—and Amy had a delicious sense of belonging and of being an integral part of a new enterprise that appealed to her. Her mood of satisfaction didn’t quite last through the first paragraph of Vernon’s letter.

  Dearest Amy,

  I am sorely distressed to read about the miserable conditions in which you have been living and working, and I pray that you will come back to Pasadena safe and sound, soon. I also trust you will never agree to participate in another motion picture production.

  Amy sighed heavily. On the third day after the rain stopped, the ground had been dry enough to renew work on the picture. She and Karen had also been able to cease being camp cooks, for which she was enormously grateful, and the roads were traversable. She had therefore sent a letter to Vernon by the first available transport.

  Today she received his reply, and she was perusing it as Horace Huxtable and Charlie Fox had a fistfight. For the picture. Amy was relatively sure that both men would just as soon fight in earnest, but Charlie, at least was too much of a gentleman to do such a thing unless he were defending a lady’s honor or something equally gallant.