Cowboy For Hire (21 page)

“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 the 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.

“Are you sure you’ll be all right riding a
horse?” Martin asked her. “I know you’re not … ah … used to
horseback riding.”

“You mean I’m a terrible horsewoman,” Amy
said with a smile. “I know it, but that’s all right. The Peerless
village is only two or three miles off, and if the horse doesn’t
run away or anything, I’m sure I’ll be fine.

“I’ll ride with her and make sure nothing bad
happens,” Charlie offered instantly.

* * *

Martin eyed him thoughtfully for a second or
two, then nodded. “Good. That’s fine, then. I’ll entrust Miss
Wilkes and the rest of the cast who ride the horses to your care,
if that’s all right with you Charlie. You’ve got more experience
riding her on animals and people than anyone else.” Martin smiled,
but Charlie knew what he meant.

Shoot, Charlie had been sort of hoping he’d
have Amy to himself for an hour or so as they rode back to the tent
city. But he guessed it couldn’t be helped. “Sure thing, Martin.
I’ll try to make sure nobody drowns.”

He laughed and looked at the sky, which was
still spitting a raindrop or two every few minutes. It was a
tolerably lazy-looking sky to Charlie. Reminded him of Horace
Huxtable, actually. Huxtable, except when he was drinking, seemed
to prefer the exercise of sitting on his butt and criticizing
everyone else than doing anything useful.

Speaking of Huxtable, the actor stormed over
to Martin before Charlie had turned away, sputtering and shouting
about the possibility of a rainstorm. Charlie watched, just in case
Huxtable got carried away. Although he was pretty sure Martin could
deck the star, Charlie didn’t think it was worth it to take a
chance.

“I’m the star of this picture!” Huxtable
roared. “I’m not used to being treated like this! I’m accustomed to
being taken care of.”

“Pampered,” muttered Charlie under his
breath. Huxtable turned and glared at him, and he wished he’d been
more discreet. No sense in riling the salty old ham hock now, no
matter how much Huxtable deserved to be riled.

Huxtable pointed a trembling finger at
Charlie. “I’ll talk to
you
later. I have a bone to pick with
you. You’re a violent, unpredictable villain, and you’re a menace
to the civilized members of the cast!”

Charlie bridled even though he knew Huxtable
wasn’t worth getting mad at. People like him needed to be ignored
almost more than they needed shooting. “Right,” he said
sarcastically. “Unlike you, who only pick on tiny little ladies and
throw them off of raised platforms.”

“I did no such thing!”

“Stop it!” Martin yelled, sounding as near to
fierce as Charlie expected he could sound. He was also yanking hard
on his hair, which Charlie was sorry to see, since it meant the
poor fellow was at his wits’ end. “Please, don’t fight! We’ve got
to think about the cameras now.”

Charlie felt guilty about provoking Huxtable.
Making Huxtable mad was pathetically easy to do, and Charlie knew
it upset Martin. He said, “I’ll leave you to take care of your
star, Martin. I’ll go help the ladies saddle up.”

“Thanks, Charlie,” Martin said with patent
relief. “Huxtable, you can ride in the covered wagon with the
cameras.”

“A covered wagon?” Huxtable roared. “What do
you think I am? A pioneer? I’ve never heard of such a thing!”

So Charlie strolled off in search of Amy and
Karen, leaving Martin to sooth Horace Huxtable’s tender
sensibilities, a prospect from which he himself shrank as if from a
pack of wild boards. He heard the two men squabbling at his back,
Huxtable indignant, Martin sensible and very weary. As for Charlie,
he still considered the chance of any problems resulting from the
rain as remote as the possibility of Horace Huxtable going to
heaven when he died.

He was wrong. They’d only been riding for
about ten minutes when the sky opened up and the deluge began. Huge
forks of lightning lit up the sky which had gone as dark as
midnight, and booms of thunder rattled Charlie’s bones and the
earth around him. Rain came down in sheets so thick he couldn’t see
the ground in from of his horse’s hooves, much less the other
people in his small party of riders.

Pulling his collar up around his chin and
yanking his Stetson down on his forehead, he muttered, “Shoot, it’s
going on toward a regular gully-buster.”

“Beg pardon?”

That was another thing. The racket from the
storm was so great that voices had to be raised in order to be
heard. “It’s turned into a big storm,” he shouted to Amy, who had
asked the question He pulled his horse up next to hers and gazed at
her in some concern. “You all right, ma’am?”

“I’ll be fine.”

He didn’t believe her. She was soaked to the
skin already, and the day had been so insufferably hot that she
hadn’t thought to ring any sort of wrap out to the sawmill. Neither
had Charlie, for that matter, nor anyone else. She looked kind of
like a drowned kitten, and Charlie’s protective impulses soared
like the mercury in a thermometer on a blistering summer‘s day.

“Wish I had a jacket to lend you,” he told
her. “You look mighty cold and uncomfortable.”

She glanced up at him for a moment before
ducking her head to avoid getting drowned by breathing in rain.
“I’m no worse off than anyone else, “ she said shortly.

He guessed that was true.; Glancing about at
the five others in their little band of horseback riders, he saw
that Karen Crenshaw was every bit wet and miserable as Amy. For
some reason, while he wished he could do something for Karen, he
wasn’t paralyzed with worry about her as he was for Amy. That
probably meant something really stupid on his part, but he couldn’t
seem to help himself.

He didn’t know where the wagons were. Behind
them somewhere. Martin had insisted the riders go on ahead in an
effort to beat the storm. The crew had to remain behind and secure
the cameras and other equipment in the wagons, and make sure the
waterproof covers were strapped down tightly. Cameras were
expensive. More expensive than, say, Charlie and Amy, who could be
replaced with ease.

“Glad Martin knows more about California
weather than I do,” he shouted. “I didn’t think those few drops of
rain meant a thing. In the territory, we usually can spot a storm
coming for hours in advance. I didn’t even see any clouds to
predict this one. The air was just sort of thick and heavy.”

“I guess Mr. Tafft has experience with these
things,” said Amy.

Charlie’s heart turned over when he realized
her teeth had begun to chatter. Shoot, he wished he could think
of—wait a minute. Maybe he could.

“Just a minute, ma’am. I think there’s a
blanket rolled up behind this saddle. Let me unstrap it, and you
can wrap yourself up in it.”

“Don’t be silly, Mr. Fox,” Amy snapped. “I’m
in no worse shape than you or Miss Crenshaw. If the two of your
don’t have a blanket, I certainly won’t use one.”

Damn. She would have to go all noble on him
now, of all unhealthy times, wouldn’t she? A rumble from in back of
them made Charlie turn in his saddle. “There are the wagons.” He
wondered how those heavily laden wagons were going to traverse the
rocky road to the tent city. Already water was running over the
rocks and potholes like a river, and swirling mud was sucking at
his horse’s feet. He was pretty sure he could keep his own mount
upright and hoped the other horses wouldn’t flounder.

Through the curtain of rain, he saw that one
of the mules pulling the lead wagon had stumbled. He pulled his
horse around. “I think they might need some help back there.”

Amy turned, too. “Oh, the poor horse.”

He didn’t tell her that the poor horse was a
mule, figuring it didn’t matter.

She went on, “Yes, please try to help them,
Mr. Fox. I’m sure you have more experience with such things than
they do.”

“Yeah.” Charlie didn’t know how she’d gained
that impression—after all, his experience with cameras dated back
no further than his arrival on the Peerless lot—but he didn’t argue
about that, either. Instead, he guided his horse back to the supply
wagon. After a shouted conversation with the driver, he nodded and
went to the mules’ heads, where he could be of some use in
directing them around the biggest potholes.

It was a bedraggled motion picture company
that eventually stumbled into the Peerless lot a couple of hours
later. Charlie, far from having been private with Amy Wilkes during
that time, had spent the better part of it keeping the mules from
breaking their legs. He wasn’t a happy man when he left Martin and
the wagons and went off in search of Amy. If he hadn’t been of use
to her on the ride home, he might at least help her setting in
now.

There would be no settling in that night, he
soon discovered. Several of the tents had already been flooded,
including the tent provided for female crew members. When he
sloshed back through the muddy encampment, Charlie found Martin in
the tent reserved for the cameras, trying to build temporary
platforms in case the rain should get worse during the night. He
asked about Amy.

“Lord, I don’t know where anybody is,” a
frenzied Martin told him. “We’re still trying to secure the
cameras.” Martin waved a hand in the air and looked as if he might
never recover from this particular rainstorm. “Check out the chow
tent. I don’t think that one’s flooded. I know I saw Karen heading
there with her suitcase a few minutes ago.”

Shoot. The notion of Amy and Karen, and
however many other ladies might be working on this picture, fending
for themselves while everybody else worried about cameras didn’t
appeal to Charlie. He thought women deserved to be taken care of.
At the very least, somebody out to be watching out for them.

Because he thought it was important to Amy’s
peace of mind—perhaps even to her safety—he asked Martin one other
question before he set out for the chow tent. “What about Huxtable?
Is his tent flooded?”

“Good Lord, I hope not,” Martin said. “He’s
too much trouble when conditions are ideal. If we have to suffer a
flood and Huxtable’s temperament, too, I’m not sure I won’t go
clean out of my mind.”

Two crew members carrying a heavy burden
swathed in oilskin struggled up to Martin then, and his attention
was diverted from Charlie. What was more, it didn’t look to Charlie
as if it would come back to him any time soon.

With a worried mind and a heavy heart,
Charlie set out for the chow tent. He knew he should stay and help,
but some compulsion with which he was totally unfamiliar drove him
to find Amy before he did another single thing.

The first person he saw when he entered the
chow tent was Amy Wilkes. The worry lifted from his heart
instantly, and he smiled at her. She smiled back—rather shyly,
Charlie thought.

“You’re all right?” He hurried up to her,
holding out his hands before he realized what he was doing.

“Yes, thank you. We’re only a little bit
wet.” She ignored his outstretched hands and gestured at the rest
of the company, who were in various stages of toweling themselves
dry.

Charlie dropped his hands to his sides,
embarrassed at having been caught in a spontaneous and, he feared,
unwelcome gesture of intimacy. Shoot. When would he learn? He and
Amy Wilkes were poles apart, both socially and historically, and it
would take more than a single motion picture to draw them together.
Ding-bust-it.