Cowboy For Hire

by Duncan, Alice

  “I’m sure I shall,” murmured Amy, praying she was right.

  She undressed, uneasy about it. Not that she feared Miss Crenshaw would do anything untoward, or that anyone else would enter the tent during her fitting. But she’d never undressed in front of another person, and she was shy about it. She also had a feeling Vernon would disapprove. She disapproved, herself, if it came to that. She kept her back to Miss Crenshaw, worried as she did so that the costumer would believe her to be a big prude.

  With a heavy sigh, Amy came to the conclusion that she was a big prude. And since that was the case, she might as well behave as she wanted to. The good Lord knew, she reflected darkly as she gave a thought to Horace Huxtable, that everyone else around here seemed to do so.

  When she turned around again, she realized Miss Crenshaw had not been looking at her at all but had turned her back and was working at a large table set against the far side of the tent. Amy sighed, and the other woman turned.

  “All ready now?” asked Miss Crenshaw pleasantly.

  She guessed so. “Yes.” She tried to sound pleasant, too.

  “All right, let’s take a look first.”

  Amy felt like a china doll on display in a department store window.

  “Yes,” said Miss Crenshaw, eyeing her critically. “I think we’ll need very few alterations.”

  Assuming that was a good thing, Amy smiled. Her smile tipped a bit when Miss Crenshaw, treating her as Amy expected she might treat a dressmaker’s dummy, put two fingers against Amy’s shoulder and pushed it in an effort to get her to turn around. The seamstress frowned and stared at every inch of Amy’s figure, reminding Amy of Horace Huxtable in one of his shocking displays of salacious rudeness, except that Miss Crenshaw’s expression was much more critical.

  But this wasn’t rude. This was business, and Amy tried hard to keep her embarrassment from creeping out into the open.

  “We’ll have to shorten the skirts,” Miss Crenshaw said after Amy had just about decided she couldn’t take anymore.

  “Oh.”

  “But that won’t be difficult.”

  “Good.”

  “Madame Dunbar is very adept at designing costumes for the pictures,” Miss Crenshaw said. “She has an eye for it. You’re lucky to have her.” She turned and waltzed over to a rack against the west tent wall where several ladies’ and gentlemen’s costumes hung.

  “Oh. Good.”

  Great grief, she couldn’t go on saying “Oh” and “Good” all day, could she? Scrambling madly to think of something else to say, she suddenly lit on Pasadena. Thank heavens! Something she knew about!

  “Um, I understand Madame Dunbar has her business in Pasadena.”

  “It’s actually in Altadena, but it’s close by to Pasadena.”

  “Oh.” Irked with herself for succumbing to another “Oh,” Amy said, “Yes, Altadena’s just north of us. In Pasadena.”

  Miss Crenshaw, her mouth full of pins and her hands full of clothes, nodded. She handed Amy a pretty blue shirtwaist. Amy assumed she was supposed to put it on, so she did. Without speaking, Miss Crenshaw yanked Amy around to face her and buttoned the waist up the front. Amy blinked, rather surprised that this was all such a businesslike operation. Miss Crenshaw stabbed pins into the material here and there, taking up folds of excess fabric.

  “Er, whereabouts does Madame Dunbar have her establishment?”

  Speaking around a mouthful of pins, Miss Crenshaw said, “Foothill Boulevard and Maiden Lane. She had the house built last year.”

  Foothill Boulevard and Maiden Lane. Amy consulted her mental map of the area until she found the proper location. Then she was taken aback. “My goodness, that’s a very big house!”

  Miss Crenshaw nodded. Amy knew it was probably impolite to talk to someone who couldn’t talk back very well due to having her mouth full of pins, but she couldn’t account for Madame Dunbar’s house unless the woman was phenomenally wealthy. Could a dressmaker become so wealthy simply by designing costumes for the moving pictures? It didn’t seem possible.

  Still and all, that house was gigantic. It must have cost a fortune. Avidly curious, she decided to plunge ahead and ask questions, in spite of Miss Crenshaw’s pins. Heaven knew, everyone else in this stupid moving picture village seemed exempt from proper behavior. “Er, does she make a large amount of money from the pictures? I mean, so that she could afford to build that huge house?”

  Again Miss Crenshaw nodded. Greatly impressed and feeling a trifle more kindly disposed toward her new pursuit, Amy said, “My goodness.” The notion of becoming morally corrupt didn’t sound so awful if a great deal of wealth was provided as compensation. She’d never say so to Vernon. Or anyone else, for that matter.

  Swirling around, Miss Crenshaw took the pins out of her mouth and headed back to the rack of clothing. “Oh, yes, ever since she started working for the pictures, she’s been making gobs of money.”

  Gobs. How nice. “I see. I—er—had no idea working in the pictures was so profitable.”

  “You’ll find out.” Grabbing a fringed skirt from the rack, Miss Crenshaw whirled again and turned to Amy.

  She moved quickly. And gracefully. Again. Amy thought about how Charlie Fox would probably admire Miss Crenshaw, and again, she felt a little blue.

  “Here, hold up your arms and I’ll slip this over your head.”

  Without speaking, Amy did as she’d been bidden. She felt sort of like a department store mannequin. The skirt slide over her shoulders, and Miss Crenshaw caught it at her waist so it wouldn’t fall to the floor. The fabric seemed to be some kind of soft and supple chamois or animal hide. It felt nice and soft to the touch as Amy fingered it.

  “Please don’t touch,” Miss Crenshaw admonished, making Amy jerk her hand away from the fabric as if she’d been slapped. “It’s buckskin, and the oil on your fingers will discolor it. We try to keep them in pristine condition, at least until the shooting’s over. Then they’ll probably use them again and again and again. Peerless is frugal about sets and costumes.”

  “I see.” There was no reason on earth, Amy told herself, why she should be suffering from embarrassment. There was no crime attached to not knowing something until you’d been told.

  She was embarrassed anyway.

  “I didn’t mean to bark,” Miss Crenshaw said with a laugh in her voice. “I tend to get involved in my work and forget to be polite when I’m working with people instead of dressmakers’ dummies. I’m sorry if I startled you.”

  Much mollified, Amy said, “Oh, no, that’s quite all right. I didn’t know about the buckskin discoloring.”

  They got along well, considering that Amy was almost too afraid to open her mouth during most of the fitting. Miss Crenshaw seemed like a pleasant person, though, a fact that slightly altered Amy’s opinion about females who smoked cigarettes. She still deplored the activity but she was relatively certain that not every single female who smoked was heading straight to hell.

  In other words, she disagreed with her minister. Oh, dear. That meant, she supposed, that either she herself was headed straight to hell, or the minister was too harsh in his judgments. She decided not to worry about this particular conundrum at the moment because she had plenty of other things to worry about. She concentrated on them, and on trying not to appear too awfully foolish in front of Miss Crenshaw.

  * * *

  “Damn, blast, and hell.” Huxtable had escaped again.

  So Martin swore out loud—something he seldom did—when he peeked into Horace Huxtable’s tent, expected to find the actor nursing a sore jaw. Instead, he didn’t find the actor at all.

  Immediately Martin set out to find him. On the way, he met Charlie ambling along, and he perked up. Charlie was a good egg, even if he did seem to possess a violent streak and variable grammatical leanings. Martin was sure he’d help in this instance.

  “Charlie!” he called.

  Charlie, a slow-moving cowpoke from head to toe, Martin noticed with an inter
nal chuckle, stopped moseying and turned. When he spotted Martin, he smiled and gave a small salute.

  “I’m glad I saw you.” Martin hurried up to him and held out his hand. He noticed that Charlie gazed at his hand for a moment before taking and shaking it. Must be unused to such a civilized custom as shaking hands, Martin presumed.

  “Listen, Charlie, I just dropped Miss Wilkes off at the costume tent and went to see how Huxtable’s getting on.”

  Charlie’s expression clouded. “I know I probably shouldn’t’ve plugged him, Martin, but he made me mad. No man should talk to a woman the way he talked to Miss Wilkes.”

  “I know, I know. Horace makes everyone mad. But, listen, Charlie. He wasn’t in his tent when I looked. I’m afraid he’s gotten loose and is looking for booze. Will you help me find him?”

  With narrowing eyes, Charlie muttered, “That guy’s got a real problem with the booze, doesn’t he?”

  “I’m afraid he does.”

  “You might want to see about usin’ other folks in future pictures, Martin. Once folks get to drinking all the time, there’s no doing anything with them. But I’ll be glad to help you look for him.”

  “Thanks a lot, Charlie. You’re a trump. And I’m sure you’re right about using other people in future films. But it’s an awful shame. Huxtable is a wonderful actor, and he has a great presence on the screen.”

  His companion regarded Martin as if he didn’t have a clue to what he was talking about. Which he probably didn’t.

  Martin continued, “We’d better check in at the chow tent. Chances are, if he went looking for alcohol, he’d look there first.”

  “Doesn’t he have any of his own? He got a snootful last night somehow or other.”

  Martin shook his head. “I made him give it all to me, and then I searched his tent on my own. Didn’t want any more of these things to happen.” He snorted. “For all the good it did.”

  “A man can only do what he can do,” Charlie said philosophically. “It isn’t your fault the man’s a pain in the ass and a drunk.”

  “I suppose not.” It would be his problem if his star got plastered and delayed the shooting of the picture, though. And it would be his problem if Huxtable harassed Amy Wilkes so much she quit, too. IT would also be his problem if he insulted someone who took exception to one of his diatribes and beat him up and broke his arm or neck or something, as well.

  Every now and again, he wished Peerless had enough money to hire a few more people. Phineas Lovejoy, the owner of the studio and Martin’s best friend from childhood, was a whiz at finding money and backers for his pictures. Unfortunately, finding money and backers took a lot of time. And that left all the legwork and most of the other work to Martin.

  As if he’d read Martin’s mind, Charlie said, “You sure have a lot to do with this picture-making business, Martin.”

  Discovering it pleasant to be talking to someone who understood, if only a little bit, what his work entailed, Martin nodded. “Yes, I do. I don’t mind, really, and I enjoy the variety, but looking after Horace Huxtable isn’t one of my favorite pastimes.”

  “You ought to get some assistants. Or chain him to a wall or something.”

  “I’m hoping to do that very thing—hire assistants, that is—if this picture is the success we think it will be. Assistants cost money, and you can see already how large a crew it takes to make a picture.”

  “Yeah. I was kind of surprised.”

  “We need cameramen, people to write the musical score, people to write and paint the subtitles, people to create scenery, costumes, all sorts of things like that. Not to mention people to scout out locations and set the scenes and pick up and clean the tents and other stuff. When we use animals, as we do in this picture, we need to find them, and the people to take care of them, too. And don’t forget food service when we’re on location, as we are this time.”

  “That must cost a bundle.”

  “It does, believe me. So I don’t begrudge Mr. Lovejoy his job, believe me. He’s a whiz at finding money.”

  “Now, there’s a fine, useful quality in a man,” said Charlie with approval.

  “It is indeed. But it leaves everything else to me. One of these days, though, we’ll be able to hire assistants.”

  “Good luck to you. I hope you make a fortune.”

  Charlie sounded as if he meant it, and Martin was glad to accept his good wishes. “Thanks, Charlie.”

  They had to look into every tent they passed. It pleased Martin that Charlie was so eager to help. Unless it was because he wanted to punch Huxtable again. He decided not to dwell on that unlikely possibility. After all, Charlie was a sensible fellow. He’d only hit Huxtable the first time because the man had been an insufferable boor. In Huxtable’s last picture for Peerless, an assistant cameraman had popped him with much less cause.

  Which brought to mind a whole slew of scenarios in which they might find Peerless’s errant star. Lord, what if Huxtable had insulted a native and been shot for his efforts? This was El Monte, after all, where Wild Western sensibilities might yet prevail.

  Opening a trunk and peering inside, in case Huxtable was sleeping it off in there, Charlie asked, “What-all kinds of jobs do you have to do for these pictures, Martin?”

  Silently blessing Charlie for taking his mind away from the mental image of Horace Huxtable with a bullet hole in his egotistical head, Martin said, “Oh, I’m the one who has to search out locations and so forth. That’s the first job to be done when a picture is in the planning stages.”

  “You mean like here?”

  “That’s right. We do a lot of cowboy stuff, so I hang around deserts a good deal.”

  “Hope they aren’t all as ugly as this one,” Charlie opined.

  With a soft laugh, Martin said, “Deserts aren’t my favorite places. And we usually have to shoot during the hottest part of the year, because of the sunlight, so it’s not awfully pleasant sometimes.”

  Charlie, an Arizonian, nodded as if he understood completely.

  “Of course, I search out new talent, too. I found you, remember.”

  “I remember.”

  Shooting a sharp glance at him, Martin wondered why Charlie didn’t sound more cheerful about it. Figuring he should deal with one crisis at a time, he opted to ask later.

  “And I often direct, as I’m doing on this picture. I’m part owner of the studio, but I generally leave the business side of it to my partner, Mr. Lovejoy. He’s better at it than I am.”

  “You trust him not to cheat you?”

  “Absolutely.” Martin was shocked that anyone would question Phineas Lovejoy’s integrity. Then again, Charlie had never met him, so he couldn’t know that Phineas would sooner cut his own throat than perpetrate a swindle. That was the only reason Martin had felt comfortable in joining his moviemaking enterprise. That and the fact that he had no money of his own and Lovejoy was rolling in it.

  Charlie simply nodded complacently, as if he’d only wanted to know.

  Martin guessed it was a cowboy thing, and went on explaining his role in Peerless as he and Charlie lifted tent flaps and searched under benches and chairs. Damn Huxtable anyway.

  “I have to line up extra people if we need crowd scenes and so forth. If we’re filming near a town or city, the local folks are generally happy to oblige for five dollars or so.”

  “You mean you’d pay them five bucks a day to stand around and be part of a crowd?”

  “Oh, yes. When we filmed Betsy of the Badlands, we needed a whole bunch of people milling around during the lynching scene.”

  Again, Charlie nodded. “Not bad. Five bucks is a lot of money for some of us.”

  “Right. Then there are the animals.”

  “Animals.”

  “Yes. If we need horses or cows or something, I have to find them. For instance, in this picture, we have several horses and we’ll be using a lot of cattle eventually. Those are some of the horses.” He pointed to a fenced in area where six horses
grazed lazily beneath some trees.

  “I see. Better go over there and see if he’s got himself kicked by a horse and had his head stove in.”

  “Don’t even say something like that!” Martin cried, horrified by the mere thought of his star being killed by a horse.

  Chuckling, Charlie said, “I don’t think you need to worry about it. Huxtable don’t seem to me to be the horsy type.” He climbed the fence and strode over to the horses.

  Martin bit his fingernails and watched with great anxiety, expelling a huge gust of breath when Charlie ambled back, shaking his head. “He isn’t there.”

  “Thank God,” breathed Martin, thinking he wasn’t up to this sort of nonsense, and that if Phineas did want to use Horace Huxtable in another picture, he’d have to pay Martin triple his regular salary for putting up with the big ham and seeing that he stayed out of trouble.

  “So that’s a whole lot of stuff you have to do, Martin,” Charlie said, making Martin’s mind veer back to their earlier conversation. “Do you have to do other stuff, too?”

  “Yes, indeed. I have to make sure the cast is fed and housed. Sometimes we can rent rooms in a hotel. Often we can make an entire moving picture in a single day of filming. The short stuff, you know. We’ll take the cast and the camera, head to the park, and voila! We have a single-reeler all set to go.”

  “I didn’t know that. How come this one’s takin’ so long?”

  “This one’s different.” Martin couldn’t keep the swell of pride he felt from leaking into his voice. “This is going to be a major motion picture. A feature. It’s not just one of those cheap shorts. It’s going to make people sit up and take notice. Why, Charlie, pretty soon the moving pictures will be the biggest thing in the whole U.S. of A.”

  “That so?” They’d finished with the Peerless village and the outlying pastures, and now headed out to the desert. Charlie vaulted over a fence and jogged over to inspect a pile of boulders.

  Martin raised his voice so Charlie could hear him. “Oh, yes. Why, you can send a can of celluloid anywhere. It’s not like the theatre, where a person has to travel to New York or Chicago or San Francisco to see a good stage production. Pictures have the potential of reaching everyone in the world eventually. They’re already building picture palaces in some of our bigger cities. That’s why the premiere performance of One and Only is going to be held in Chicago.” He was disappointed when he saw Charlie head back empty-handed.