“Perfect!” Martin jumped up from his director’s chair, excited. “Keep going! Perfect! And ... cut!” He rushed over to Amy and Charlie. “Great job! You two are really taking to this picture making stuff. By gad, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr. Lovejoy wanted you in lots more pictures!”
“Hmmm,” said Charlie.
Amy wrinkled her nose. “Thanks, but I don’t think so.”
Martin laughed. “I guess we can discuss that option later. One thing at a time.” He turned an scanned the group of people standing on the sidelines. “Huxtable!”
“Here,” said the star, who was looking pouty.
From his expression, Amy deduced he didn’t appreciate other people getting praise for their work. The miserable egoist. She looked him straight in the eye. “Please be careful when you lift me onto the horse, Mr. Huxtable.”
“Yeah, Huxtable,” Charlie said, and there was some threat in his tone. “Be careful. If you hurt her, you’ll pay for it.”
Martin tugged on his hair. Amy was sorry to see the gesture, because she liked Martin a lot and didn’t want to fuss him. In an effort to ease the situation, she said, “I’m sure everything will go smoothly.” Eyeing Huxtable with narrowed eyes, she added, “Won’t it, Mr. Huxtable?”
Huxtable huffed irritably. “Of course it will. I’m a professional, for heaven’s sake. I know what I’m doing.”
“Yes, I’m sure you do,” Amy said with some asperity. “And as long as you don’t try to get back at me for not liking you, I’m sure the scene will go well.”
“Don’t be an utter fool!” Huxtable stalked away to take his place on the set.
Martin sighed lustily. “Places, everyone.” He didn’t sound as happy as he had the last few times he’d given the same order.
Amy exchanged a glance with Charlie, who appeared unappeased. She hoped he wouldn’t do anything—unless, of course, Huxtable tried to hurt her. Then, she hoped Charlie would pound the ham bone’s head to pulp.
Goodness, she hadn’t realized that one could become hateful with so little effort. Small wonder people waged wars all the time.
Charlie wasn’t in this scene, but his presence was felt all the same. Amy was glad to see him standing with his arms crossed and his legs splayed—looking rather pirate-like, actually—watching like a hawk from the sidelines and ready to exact retribution if required to do so by any underhanded stunt Huxtable might pull. It comforted Amy to know he was there and overseeing her welfare.
The first part of the scene was the most difficult for her, because she had to appear overjoyed when she ran out of the door and into Huxtable’s arms. She was supposed to be still fleeing from Charlie. In other words, the script had it exactly backwards.
Nevertheless, Amy did her job. Still pretending terror, she dashed through the door—attached to the false front of what was supposed to be a ranch house—and saw Huxtable. His character was supposed to have just dismounted from his horse and begun running toward the ranch house in order to rescue Amy’s character. The two met outside the door in a huge embrace. Thank God the embrace didn’t last long, since Charlie’s character was still supposed to be in hot pursuit.
“Be gentle when you put me on that horse, Mr. Huxtable,” Amy said sternly, although her expression of rapture didn’t alter. Why any woman would be rapturous if she’d just run into Horace Huxtable, Amy couldn’t imagine, but she was doing her best.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, shut up,” Huxtable barked. “You’re supposed to be acting!”
“I may be acting—Ooof! Be careful!”
“Shut up.”
“I may be acting, but I don’t care to be hurt!” Amy finally got out, although she couldn’t talk very well since she was at present being carried to a horse by a very bouncy Horace Huxtable.
“Watch it, Huxtable,” Charlie growled from the sidelines.
Amy thought she heard Martin groan, but she couldn’t be sure. She was bracing herself for the upcoming ordeal. Even when she mounted that blasted horse on her own, she didn’t enjoy the experience. Being tossed into a saddle by a man who wished she were dead was not exactly her cup of tea. Not to mention the fact that she didn’t trust Huxtable. At all.
“All right. Upsy-daisy!” Huxtable sounded devilishly gleeful when he heaved Amy.
She shrieked when she felt how hard he was shoving her, but she manage to grasp the saddle horn in spite of Huxtable’s best efforts to throw her clean over the horse’s back. “You rat! Are you trying to kill me?” She said it with a smile because she could hear that the camera was still cranking away.
“Don’t be such a baby!” Huxtable mounted his own horse with an ease Amy resented.
“That was it!” Charlie bellowed. “I’m gonna kill him.”
“No!” hollered Martin. “Wait until I call cut!”
Somebody grabbed Charlie’s arm to hold him back from rushing over to the horses and hauling Huxtable out of his saddle.
“You rotten louse!” Amy yelled furiously as she pulled on her horse’s reins. They snapped, and she was left holding two strips of leather, in real horror this time.
The horse, upset by all the jostling and screaming, starred off at a gallop, and Amy could do no more than cling like a barnacle to the saddle horn. Later, she couldn’t recall another time in her life when she’d been so scared. Even when her parents had died and she’d been left alone in the world, she hadn’t feared or her immediate life. It would, after all, have taken several days to die of starvation. Dying by falling off a horse and breaking her neck seemed perilously imminent.
“Oh, my God!”
After it was over, Amy was told by Karen, Martin and at least a dozen other people that Charlie stormed over to Horace Huxtable, who was trying to escape on his horse, grabbed him by the leg, hauled him out of the saddle, dropped him on the ground, and, without even looking to see if he was out of the way of the horse’s hooves, leaped up into the saddle and raced after Amy as if all the demons in hell were after him. Actually, most of the observers joked, the only demon around was scrambling in the dust to avoid being kicked to death by the horse Charlie had mounted.
At the time, Amy had no idea that rescue was close at hand. She was frozen with fear, trying with every ounce of her strength to maintain her seat in the saddle, and losing the battle inch by inch. She knew she couldn’t stay mounted for many more seconds, but everything happened so fast that she couldn’t think of anything to do. She did yell, “Stop!” at the top of her lungs several times, but the horse didn’t seem to be paying attention. Or perhaps it understood only Spanish, since it was one of the horses Mr. Archuleta had brought to the set.
When she saw Charlie and his horse gallop into sight, she would have taken heart if her heart hadn’t been occupied at that moment in jumping around in her chest like a demented jackrabbit. When he leaned over and his hand reached out to grab the bridle, she wanted to squeeze her eyes shut because she feared for his balance. When she realized that the horse that had run away with her was slowing down, she felt a smidgen of hope. When the horse finally came to a stop, panting and wheezing, and Charlie lifted her out of the saddle and onto his, she did something she couldn’t help, but which embarrassed her to death. She burst into tears.
He held her tight, right there in front of him on the saddle and spoke sweet words into her hair. Amy tried to stop crying but couldn’t. She was making an awful noise, but Charlie didn’t seem to mind. He stroked her hair—her hat had blown off somewhere during her headlong ride—and rocked her gently, crooning softly all the while, “It’s all right, honey. You’re all right now.”
Somehow or other, being called “honey” by Charlie Fox made her cry harder. She clung to him as she’d been clinging to her saddle horn only seconds earlier—but she felt ever so much more secure than she had then.
She managed to choke out, “I’m sorry,” although she wasn’t sure exactly what she was sorry for. Crying, probably.
“It’ll be all right, sweetheart. It’l
l be fin in a minute.”
“Sweetheart” had the same effect on her that “honey” had, and Amy, who was trying to gulp breaths of air in an effort to stop this unladylike display of tears, made a horrid choking noise and cried harder.
“You’re okay now, Amy, darlin’. You’ll be fine. I’m going to kill Horace Huxtable as soon as we get back to the set, and he’ll never be able to hurt you again.”
That stopped her tears instantly. She whipped her head up, bumping Charlie’s chin. She stroked it with her hand to sooth the bump, and stared at him, terrified that he’d meant what he’d just said. “No!” she cried. “You can’t hurt him!”
“He hurt you.” Charlie took the hand she’d stroked his chin with and kissed its palm. “Any man who hurts you needs killin’, darlin’.”
If that wasn’t the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to her, Amy didn’t know what was. She was sure as anything that Vernon would never ever say such a sweet thing. Not even if he rescued her from a runaway horse. Not that he could. Which was totally beside the point. “But, no, Charlie. Please don’t hurt him. You’ll get in trouble if you do, and that would be awful.”
“Would it?”
His eyes held an expression that was soft and warm as cocoa on a winter day, and Amy melted like a marshmallow as she gazed into them. Unable to get her mouth and tongue coordinated enough to form words, she nodded.
“Well, then, maybe I won’t kill him. Maybe I’ll just hurt him. It’ll go against the grain, though. He needs killin’ bad.”
His face was blurring. Amy had only a second or two to consider this phenomenon when his lips touched hers and she understood that the blurring had been because he was learning toward her.
She kissed him back passionately. Thoroughly. With love.
Thirteen
The following night, a Friday, the entire cast and crew were promised a trip to the city of El Monte to have a good dinner in a restaurant, visit a nightclub, and spend the night in a hotel. Martin estimated that the picture would wrap up in another three or four day’s shooting, and this was a pre-celebration.
“It’s not much of a treat, but after the flood and all the hard work we’ve all done, I think we deserve it,” Martin said as he made the announcement later on the day of the horse incident.
Everyone in the throng gathered around Martin turned to stare at Horace Huxtable. Huxtable, as everyone knew, had been promised a trip to town in return for helping out during the flood.
Charlie, who’d been keeping particular tabs on Huxtable since Amy’s latest accident, noticed that the majority of the stares trained at the actor were disapproving. Which, he thought, was absolutely appropriate.
It wasn’t Horace Huxtable’s fault that Amy Wilkes hadn’t been killed today when her horse had bolted. Charlie was pretty sure he was the only one of the set who’d seen Huxtable flick the rump of her horse with a twig. And although Charlie couldn’t prove it, he was morally certain it had been Huxtable who’d cut Amy’s reins so that she couldn’t stop the horse when she tried. The lousy bastard. He might be a murderer this minute if Charlie hadn’t saved Amy’s gorgeous hide.
It wasn’t Charlie’s fault that Huxtable was still alive, either. His intentions post-rescue had been directed at homicide, and in his opinion had been valid.
It was the way Amy had kissed him that had distracted him from his purpose. By the time she’d finally pulled away from him he’d been fit for only one thing—procreation—and that was about as opposite to murder as it could be.
Unfortunately, the act of procreation was denied him, too. Not only were they on top of a horse in the middle of a motion picture set, but he and Amy Wilkes weren’t married. Shoot, they weren’t even promised.
And that, Charlie swore to himself as he, too, glared at Huxtable, was a situation he aimed to fix tonight. The evening would be given over to relaxation and fun, and he was sure to find an opportunity to have Amy to himself for a little while. It wouldn’t take long, he hoped, to convince her that, no matter how remote the possibility seemed when they’d first met, he knew—and he’d convince her of it or die trying—they were made for each other.
Charlie had been to saloons in Arizona Territory. He expected that any nightclub in El Monte, California, would be comparable. Maybe a little fancier. But there would be music and laughter, and maybe he could get Amy to dance with him. And then maybe he could get her to walk outside with him. And then maybe they could get to talking, and he could tell her how well fixed he was to begin married life.
Or, he amended, since he needed to be honest with himself and with her, he would be well fixed after this picture was finished and he added his pay to the money he had in the bank. Charlie had been saving for years. With the big pile of cash he’d earn from this picture, he’d be ready to make his move.
He aimed to have himself a real, honest-to-God cattle ranch. No ostriches or any other silly thing for him. No, sir. He was going to have himself the finest herd of Jersey cows west of Texas. He was particularly fond of Jerseys because they produced the richest milk, and Charlie aimed to have at least a dozen kids, all of whom would need that good, rich milk.
Cattle ranching was the life he knew and loved. Shoot, he might even branch out into dairy farming if such a move seemed profitable. He’d been reaching up on both industries, and they were absolutely compatible. Dairy farming might be better for California, which Amy might prefer. Charlie had been reading up about California, too.
After all, he had Amy’s wishes to consider as well as his own. If Amy had a particular attachment to California, well, then they could settle in California. He wouldn’t mind California. He liked it here. He’d even plant her an orange tree, if she wanted one. Or a whole danged grove of the things. Oranges were good for kids, too.
Of course, first he had to talk her into marrying him. He saw her standing next to Karen Crenshaw across the way from him. She and Karen seemed to be real chummy lately, a circumstance Charlie found amusing. She’d been so upset when she’d first seen Karen smoking.
But she wasn’t as much of a prig as Charlie’d at first believed her to be, and she’d been willing to overlook Karen’s smoking habit because Karen was a nice girl. Charlie approved of such flexibility in personal relationships, because it made life easier. Anytime a body required folks to behave in a prescribed manner, a body got to losing friends. Charlie knew from experience that a man could never have too many friends.
Martin called the casual meeting to a halt, and dismissed the cast and crew to prepare for a trip to town. He cornered Charlie before he was able to lope over to Amy and make arrangements to have dinner with her.
“Charlie, will you try to keep an eye on Amy this evening?” Martin asked. He looked a little worried.
Startled that Martin should ask him to do exactly what he’d planned to do, Charlie nodded his assent. “Sure. How come?”
“Well....” Martin took a glance around the clearing that had lately been full of people. “I hate to say this, but I think Huxtable has it in for Amy. He resents her for not falling in love with him. He thinks he’s God’s gift to women, you know, and doesn’t like it when women don’t agree with him. Also....” He broke off abruptly and looked embarrassed.
Charlie tried to appear kind and approachable because he wanted to hear what other interesting tidbits of information or speculation Martin had to divulge. He knew he himself was being less than forthcoming—after all, if Martin added any more fuel to Charlie’s already huge heap of Huxtable detritus, Charlie probably wouldn’t be able to restrain himself from killing the bastard—but he wanted to know the worst. “Also what?” he asked encouragingly.
“Well,” Martin said, and he seemed very uncomfortable to be speaking so, “I wouldn’t want to accuse anybody unjustly, you understand, but I have a hunch Huxtable might have been behind that runaway horse incident this morning.”
Charlie stared at him, unable to imagine even the kind-hearted, sweet-natured Martin Tafft being so
naive as to feel any reluctance to blame Huxtable for so Huxtable-like a maneuver. “He was behind it, all right. I saw him hit the horse with a twig.”
Martin’s eyes went huge. “You what?”
Charlie shrugged. “I saw him. He might have killed her.”
“Good God, I think the man’s lost his mind.”
“He’s going to lose more than that if I can get him alone.” He smiled amiably to let Martin know he didn’t hold him responsible for any of Huxtable’s antics.
“Good God,” Martin repeated, as if bereft of more cogent speech.
“At first I thought I might just break one of his arms, but I think he’d learn more from a couple of broken legs.”
Martin’s eyes looked as if they might bug out of his head. “I can’t believe you’re actually saying this.”
“Believe it,” Charlie suggested. He warmed to his subject, glad that Martin knew Huxtable had spooked Amy’s horse. “I saw him. I’m going to break both his legs for spooking Miss Wilkes’s horse as soon as I can get him alone.”
“Good God,” Martin said for the third time.
Charlie was sorry to see the horrified look on his face. He liked Martin Tafft and didn’t want to upset him. But enough was enough. “Sorry, Martin, but that’s the way it is. Somebody’s got to teach the man a lesson, and if nothing else will work, I expect I can at least lay him up so that he can’t get around for a while.”
“You can’t do that. Lord above, you can’t do that, Charlie! Think about what you’re saying! The police will arrest you. You’ll be thrown in jail!”
Charlie obligingly thought about it for approximately five seconds, which was all the time he needed. He shrugged again. “It’ll be worth it.”
If he did get thrown in jail for performing such a worthwhile public service—and he supposed it could happen. After all, he was in California now and not Arizona Territory, where people looked upon justice in a more practical light than they did here. Still, he was sure he’d be let out in plenty of time to get ready for his wedding.
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