by B. J Daniels
* * *
AS FAITH TOPPED the hill in her pickup, her horse trailer towed behind, she saw the movie encampment below: the two circles of trailers and past it the small town that had been erected. All of it had a surreal feel to it—not unlike this opportunity that had landed in her lap.
Captured in the dramatic light of the afternoon sun, the small Western town in the middle of the Montana prairie looked almost real with its false storefronts, wooden sidewalks, hitching posts with horses tied to them and people dressed as they would have been a hundred years ago.
She’d barely gotten out of her pickup when Jud Corbett walked up.
“Feel like saddling up and going for a ride?” he asked.
“Sure.” She hadn’t been on her horse all day, and the offer definitely had its appeal. Even more so because it would be with Jud, although she wasn’t about to admit that, even to herself.
They saddled their horses and rode along the edge of the ravine overlooking the movie camp. She and Jud compared childhoods, both finding that they’d grown up on ranches some distance from town, both loved horses and both had begun riding at an early age.
“I can’t believe how much we have in common,” Jud said, his gaze warming her more than the afternoon summer sun. “Do you believe in fate?”
She chuckled. “Let me guess. It’s fate that you and I met?”
“Don’t you think so?” he asked. He was grinning, but she saw that he was also serious.
“I suppose I do.” If he hadn’t taken the back road to his family ranch that evening, and if Laney and Laci hadn’t gone into labor when they had so Faith could go riding, then what was the chance that she and Jud would be here right now?
“Fate, whatever, I’m just glad you and I crossed paths,” he said, then drew up his horse, as below them the ghost town came into view.
Jud leaned on his saddle horn to stare down at it. “Spooky looking, even from here.”
She felt a chill as she followed his gaze. A tumbleweed cartwheeled slowly down the main street of the ghost town to come to rest with a pile of others against the side of one of the buildings. Remarkable there were any buildings still standing.
“So are the stories true?” Jud asked.
“At least some of them,” she said. “The descendants of the Brannigan family still live on down the river.” She saw his surprise. “Some of the descendants of Kid Curry and his brothers also still live around here.”
He shook his head. “But what about the town and this thing with the rag dolls?”
She looked down at what was left of Lost Creek. “I’m sure you’ve heard the story, since apparently it’s what the script of this film is based on.”
“Some outlaws rode into town and killed a woman and her little girl while the townspeople stood by and did nothing. The husband and eldest son returned, saw his dead wife and child in the middle of the street and picking up the little girl’s rag doll from the street, swore vengeance on everyone who’d stood back and let it happen. Does that about size it up?”
She smiled. “Just about.”
“Then the townspeople started finding rag dolls on their doorsteps and terrible things began to happen to them until one night everyone in town disappeared.”
“That’s the way the story goes,” Faith admitted.
“Don’t you think its more than likely the townspeople left knowing that the outlaws would be back and more of them would die?” Jud asked.
She said nothing.
“What happened to the father?”
“Orville Brannigan and the rest of his children moved downriver to live like hermits. Their descendants still do. The little girl’s gravestone is about all that’s left up at the cemetery on the hill. Emily Brannigan. The historical society comes out a couple of times a year and puts flowers on her grave.”
“The poor family,” Jud said.
“It always amazes me how many families struggled to tame this land and still do.”
“Like your family.”
She nodded, remembering the school field trip she’d taken to the Lost Creek ghost town and the frightening sensation that had come over as she’d stood among the old buildings on the dirt street where Emily Brannigan and her mother had lost their lives.
That sensation had been the presence of evil. Evil fueled by vengeance. She’d known then that the settlers had never left town. Some years back, a local named Bud Lynch had sworn he found a pile of human bones in a cave west of the ghost town.
The bones, as well as any evidence of the more than hundred-year-old crime, had mysteriously disappeared before his story could be confirmed by the sheriff.
The Brannigans and their relatives called Bud Lynch a liar, but Faith had seen the man’s face when he told of what had to have been the skeletons of dozens of men, women and children, piled like kindling in the bottom of the cave.
There was no doubt that Bud Lynch had seen evil.
* * *
DIRECTOR ERIK ZANDER woke on the couch, confused for a moment where he was and how he’d gotten there. On the floor next to him lay an overturned empty Scotch bottle. He groaned when he saw it.
He had to quit drinking like this. He sat up, his head aching, the room spinning for a moment. The trailer rocked to the howl of the wind outside, the motion making him ill.
He glanced at his watch. Past two in the morning. With an early call, he really needed to get some sleep. Hasting would be arriving today, and who knew what the hell he really wanted.
Pushing himself to his feet, Zander stumbled toward the bedroom, slowing as he passed the kitchen and the fresh bottle of Scotch he knew was in the cabinet within reach.
“Don’t even think about it,” he mumbled to himself. He was already so drunk he had trouble navigating the narrow hallway, bumping from wall to wall like a pinball. Something about that made him laugh.
He was still chuckling when he reached the small bedroom. The trailer room was just large enough for a bed and a built-in dresser.
As he aimed himself for the bed, he spotted the doll propped against the pillow and lurched back, stumbling into the wall and sitting down hard. Now eye to eye with the damned doll, he saw that it had to be the ugliest thing he’d ever seen.
Worse, it appeared to be looking right at him, reminding him how much he hated this script. A Western thriller? As if his life couldn’t get any worse.
He reached for the doll, squeezing it in his big hand as he stared into its grotesque face. It wasn’t until then that it registered in his alcohol-saturated brain that it wasn’t one of the dolls from props.
He stumbled to his feet, still clutching the doll. “What the hell is this?” If it wasn’t from props, then where had it come from? And why had someone left it on his bed?
At least that answer was easier to come up with. Anyone who’d read the script knew that the rag dolls were the harbinger of bad luck and had made it thinking to scare him.
Erik Zander began to laugh, a big belly laugh that sent him sprawling backward on the bed. As if some ugly doll could make his life any worse.
Chapter Five
“It’s a ruse,” Nancy told Zander the next morning. She’d come straight to his trailer before the others were even up.
The director had stumbled to the door, still half-asleep, wearing blue cotton pajama bottoms. His graying blond hair stuck out at all angles, and there was a red crease line on his unshaven jaw where he’d slept on something that had left a mark.
Although in his early fifties, he still looked like the boy next door—the drop-dead good-looking boy who never gave a second glance to nondescript girls like Nancy Davis.
She couldn’t help but stare at his muscular bare chest. It was covered with blond-gray fuzz that fell in a V to the tied pj bottoms. Even at this age, he was still a damned good-looking man. She felt her face heat and hurri
edly averted her eyes.
“I have to talk to you,” she stammered.
“What the hell time is it?”
“I came by before anyone else was up so we wouldn’t be interrupted.”
He grunted. “Well, come in then.” After a hasty retreat to the back of the trailer, he returned wearing a faded and worn publicity T-shirt from his last movie over the pajama bottoms.
“I’m sorry to wake you so early, but I knew you’d want to know,” Nancy said. “It’s about Chantal and Nevada.”
He held up a hand as he got the coffee going. “It’s too damned early to even talk about them, okay?”
“They’re only pretending to hate each other,” she blurted. “I saw them together last night.”
“The moment will pass, believe me. Like the quiet before the storm.” He hovered over the coffeemaker as if intimidation could force it to brew faster. “Don’t you know? They do this all the time.”
“I’ve seen their fights on YouTube. I didn’t buy it then and I certainly don’t now. They’re deceiving everyone.”
He turned to frown in her direction. “Okay. Who cares?”
Nancy was surprised by his lack of interest. Was the man daft?
“Believe me, by this morning they’ll be at each other’s throats again and trying to destroy this film,” he said with a sigh as he lifted the coffeepot and motioned in her direction.
“No, thanks,” she said and watched him pour himself a cup. He turned his back to her to add a shot of Scotch to the coffee, as if everyone didn’t know about his drinking.
“It just seems strange that they’d want everyone on the set to think they hate each other. I mean, they’ve hung their dirty laundry out for everyone to see for months now. Why the secrecy? It has to be a publicity stunt to keep their photos on the front of every tabloid out there.”
Zander scowled as he took a gulp of his coffee and leaned back into the kitchen counter as if he needed the support. “When I think of the heated battles they’ve put us all through on the set...” He shook his head and took another gulp of coffee. “But quite frankly, I could give a damn what they do as long as they don’t destroy this film, and this morning I’m not even sure I care about that.”
She gave him a disapproving look. “Well, I just thought you should know since I’m aware how much this film means to your career.”
“Yeah,” he said and took another gulp of coffee and Scotch.
She rose and walked to the door, turning to look back at him.
He was squinting down into this coffee cup. He’d completely forgotten she was there.
Nancy wondered what would happen if he ever really took a good look at her. One thing was certain. It wasn’t going to happen today.
* * *
THE SET WAS a beehive of activity the next morning when Faith came out of her trailer. She’d been on other location shoots and knew that filmmaking was a lot of standing around and waiting. It was never as exciting as she’d originally thought it would be.
But today was completely different. She couldn’t have been more excited. Jud was waiting for her at catering, a bunch of tables and chairs under a tent with a trailer next to it. The set was too far away from anything to be catered, so cooks had been hired to feed everyone.
He handed her a cup of coffee, smiling broadly.
“How’s the nerves?” he asked.
“Steady as a rock.”
He laughed. “I’ll bet. Have some coffee and then I’ll fill you in on what’s planned for today. Once we get your paperwork taken care of, next stop is makeup and wardrobe.”
Since she would be standing in for the leading lady, Faith was going to be dressed identically to what Chantal would be wearing today. Her blond hair was close enough in color to the star’s that at least she wouldn’t have to wear a wig—just a large bonnet, which would hide most of her hair anyway.
“I feel as if I’ve stepped back a hundred years,” Faith said later as she came out of the costume trailer to find Jud waiting for her. She was wearing a prairie dress, lace-up high-heeled boots, her hair drawn up under the bonnet.
His gaze was hotter than the sun peeking over the horizon. “Wow. You look...”
She couldn’t imagine him being at a loss for words.
“Perfect,” he said finally and laughed.
They walked to a waiting SUV that drove them to the temporary set. A facade of a town had been erected to resemble what Lost Creek would have looked like over a hundred years ago.
The storefronts appeared real enough, but behind each was nothing but supports or, in the case of the hotel, a building that housed a saloon with a staircase up to the second floor where there was a hallway and one room that looked out over the main street.
Horses were already tied to the hitching posts and several wagons were parked along the street. Crew worked to move props and camera equipment into place. The cast and crew were smaller than some of the films she’d worked on, which made it feel more intimate. Or maybe it was just being this close to Jud Corbett.
“That’s our leading lady,” Jud said, as Chantal Lee came out of the saloon and stopped on the wooden sidewalk. She appeared irritated as she dusted at something on her sleeve. From a distance, she could have been Faith’s twin.
“And our leading man, Nevada Wells.” Nevada stood in the swinging doors at the front of the saloon as if posing for his picture. But no one was paying any attention to him. He, however, had his gaze on Chantal.
Faith recognized them both from films and the tabloids and movie magazines.
Jud walked Faith through the stunts they would be performing. He would be doing Nevada’s stunts and stand-ins, she Chantal’s.
He pointed to a wagon pulled by a team of horses. “Have you ever driven a team before? It’s not that hard since the object is to let them run so the hero, that would be me, can chase you down and save you. Of course they don’t run as fast and as out of control as they will appear on film.”
Faith smiled at him, thinking this was a lot like her fantasies as a girl on the ranch. Only in those, she did the saving.
“I’m a quick study,” she said as they walked over to the wagon and she climbed up on the seat.
“We’re going to do a few slow-motion run-throughs, then the main event later. You ready?”
Faith grinned. She couldn’t wait.
* * *
THE RUNAWAY WAGON was a stunt straight out of old Westerns. On a higher budget film, most of the action would have been computer generated.
“I want this film as authentic as we can make it,” Zander had said to Jud. “None of that computer-generated stuff.”
Jud had only nodded, although he knew the director was just being cheap. Computer-generated material was costly. And even though Zander would have to pay Jud more for the dangerous stunts, he would still save money. Stunt money hadn’t been as good the last few years because a lot of films had gone with computer-generated action scenes.
Not that Jud worried about making more money. He didn’t do this for the money. He liked to do the stunts. The runaway wagon stunt could be dangerous. Driving a team of horses wasn’t as easy as it looked. Not that he was worried that Faith couldn’t handle it.
But there had already been a few minor accidents on the film. Not unusual in the filmmaking industry, but he just wanted to be sure that Faith was as safe as possible since he’d gotten her into this.
He climbed up onto the wagon seat next to her and unhooked the reins. “Let’s take a little ride first to let you get the feel of it.”
They took off down the dirt track. They hadn’t gone far when she took the reins. At the foothills, she turned the team around.
“Let’s try it with some speed,” she said with a grin and snapped the reins down. The team took off, gaining speed as they raced back toward the fabricated town.
Faith slowed the wagon on the outskirts of the set and brought the team to a halt. “Well?”
Jud grinned over at her. This woman could handle anything she set her mind to. “The idea is to let them run, but not too fast.”
She nodded. “I know. It’s all illusion.” The team wouldn’t actually be out of control. The wagon seat was rigged so it rocked. All Faith had to do was play along.
“You got it.” Jud jumped down and lifted her from the wagon. Her waist was slim, her body warm beneath the dress. He set her down and for a moment he had this wild desire to kiss her.
She must have sensed it because she stepped away from him.
At the sound of raised voices he turned to see Chantal arguing with the director.
“You don’t need me at all today,” Chantal was saying, even though she was down on the call sheet for the first scene, where she has a discussion with the leading man while sitting on the seat of the wagon.
The runaway wagon scene would follow. Although most scenes were shot out of sequence, the cinematographer had wanted these in order to make sure the light was the same and save filming yet another day since, according to the weatherman, a storm was moving in.
Jud walked over to see what was going on.
“Shoot my double,” Chantal said. “I told you, I’m ill. I’m going to my trailer.” Without another word she stormed over to one of the trucks used to ferry crew and actors from the encampment to the set and took off.
Zander swore and turned to Jud. “We’ll shoot around her.” It was becoming the film’s mantra.
Jud glanced toward Faith, who must have overheard. She gave him a thumbs-up and climbed back onto the wagon bench.
Jud headed for his horse, motioning to the cinematographer and director that they were ready.
The scene would be shot from several angles. This scene required that Faith as Chantal’s body double race across the prairie on the runaway wagon after a fictional gunshot from the saloon spooked her team.
As he started to swing into the saddle, Jud caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Something flew past. The rest happened so quickly, all he could do was react.
