The Darkness Rolling

by Win Blevins

  Careful not to stammer, I said, “Mr. John won’t want you sketching the stars.”

  Iris looked at me with a tickled expression. “Jeez, Yazzie, I won’t embarrass you. I’m only going to put a few up for sale to the highest bidder. Maybe sell them to a gallery in Santa Fe…”

  Oh, boy, there went my job.

  “I’m kidding. God, you look whiter than a white guy right now.”

  Linda put her head back and laughed. Those two women could be a dangerous pair. At least to any shred of dignity I imagined I had, or might have, someday.

  Colin was silent, his eyes flicking everywhere.

  Linda led us through the crowd around the camera and introduced Iris to Mr. John. He said, “What about you, Yazzie? You vouch for this young woman?”

  “Sure, she’s my aunt.”

  Iris fidgeted again. I got it. She was uncomfortable with “aunt.”

  Mr. John said, “Welcome to the movies, Miss Goldman.”

  Iris saw his right eye flick down to her sketchpad. She said quickly, “Don’t worry. I won’t do people.”

  “People in general would be fine,” he said. “Stars, no. Stick with Yazzie and Colin. They’ll show you the ropes.” He took another look at her. “Plenty around here to fire up an artist.”

  He turned and walked away, his focus already in three other places at once.

  * * *

  Linda was front and center, Mr. John was taking care of business, and that left me and Iris looking at the light settling to the earth and the glow on the bluffs. She was right. You could get delirious over this place. I was so used to it, I didn’t see it sometimes. The quiet between us was easy. She turned to me, looking puzzled.

  She gave Colin a stealthy glance and said to me softly, “You understand that I’m not really your aunt, don’t you?”

  “Navajo way, yes, you are.”

  “Maybe Navajo way, but I’m not your blood relative. You know that, right?”

  “Uh…” Sometimes it wasn’t easy living in two worlds. At least two worlds.

  “Never mind. So what are these ropes I need to learn?” she said to both of us.

  Colin spoke up. “Aside from ‘Shhh, don’t make a breath of sound during a shot’ and ‘Don’t get in front of the camera during a shot,’ not so very much.”

  We were standing in the street of the false-front town, with an angle into a window of the tavern. Crew members were busily doing stuff I only half understood.

  “What do you do all day?” she said, giving me her look. “I already know what you do during lunch break—I mean the rest of the time.”

  I felt myself flush. “Basically, my job is to stick tight to Linda, be on guard, listen to stories, guard Linda, tell old stories, repeat bad jokes, and guard Linda.”

  “Same as I,” said Colin, “except I’m studio and Yazzie’s personal.”

  “Whoo-ee!”

  “Iris, it’s an education,” I said. “I like to watch people’s postures, their gestures, their expressions, and especially their strange little habits. That story is a lot closer to the truth than whatever they’re saying.”

  “An artist knows that, too.”

  “All but movie stars,” Colin said. “They’re different kinds of artists. Don’t even know if that’s exactly the right word for them.”

  “Are you interested in the truths that are in gesture and expression? You see it in all the great portrait painters.”

  Colin and I stumbled over each other saying, “Cops know.…” We smiled sheepishly and stopped.

  “Caravaggio is my favorite for that,” Iris went on. “There is the soul, stark-naked, in the bodies and the faces. They’re fully alive, telling all their secrets.”

  I was really stuck. I’d never been to any big museums, didn’t know any art but Navajo and Pueblo. I loved those, but human expressions and body language weren’t part of that art.

  Colin smiled—it was a fine, quirky smile—and shrugged. Evidently he was as out to sea as I was.

  Mr. John saved us by calling, “Lights.”

  I put a finger to my lips and pointed to Victor Mature and Cathy Downs. Iris wandered off with her sketchpad, despite the fact that we had told her, in no uncertain terms, that it was a foolhardy idea to go anywhere. But there was no stopping Iris.

  * * *

  Colin was intense, watching them setting up the shoot, and Iris’s exploration was starting to ramble farther away from us. That made me anxious. Very. I asked Colin, in a muted whisper, to double up on his guard-duty for a few minutes. While Linda was shooting a scene, or with the crew and cast, the situation felt fairly safe.

  “Unless, of course,” said Colin, “someone substitutes a real bullet for a blank.”

  “I just want to make sure Iris is okay. I don’t want her wandering off too far on her own.”

  He put his arm on my shoulder and whispered to me, “You’re a good nephew. I’ll keep double watch, and you take care of that spectacular woman.”

  There she was, engrossed in the cedars on top of the hill. I hung back and watched her. My holster felt like a warm friend and fiend at the same time. Iris had spotted a bone, a big one. It was the leg of a horse. I had no idea what she thought it was—probably a dinosaur bone. She tucked it under an arm and walked on. The steepness of the hillside and the loose rocks made her clumsy.

  She spotted a piece of Navajo sandstone, probably millions of years old. She picked it up, spat on it, rubbed the spittle around, and put it in a pocket.

  Another rock, this one shaped like a fist with a finger. Then another, like the wing of a dove. Each she held up to the light, and the shaped shadows fell around her.

  She walked another twenty yards, and that was as far away as my nerves would allow. I ran and scrambled to keep up with her, and loose rocks scattered behind me.

  She turned. “What are you doing here?”

  “Keeping an eye on you. Iris, anyone or anything could be here.”

  “I have spent a few months alone, eating Spam and camping with the sheep. This is nothing.”

  “And there wasn’t a possible crazed ex-boyfriend on the loose.”

  I shouldn’t have said anything, and I couldn’t believe I had.

  “Or a jealous husband … Why hasn’t anyone thought about him?” She barreled on. “And don’t worry, Linda told me about the mess when I got here today. My lips are sealed.”

  Oh, great … And about the husband, I didn’t have an answer. Maybe he had become too much of a nothing in Linda’s life to take him seriously. On the other hand, sometimes a man will take just so much, and then he breaks. A dry reed sucking on a dry pond.

  “I don’t know about the husband, Iris. I only know one thing. You’re coming back down this hill with me.”

  “Okay, okay. Relax, would you?”

  We made it down to the edge of the flat between the hill and the false-front street.

  Iris looked at the sky. She liked the wing shapes of the ravens. She took out a piece of charcoal and sketched the shape and light quickly. I was amazed. One look, and she had the feel in under two minutes. My guess is that she used those shapes as clues to what a painting might become. She took a last look up into the cedars.

  Then she stood very still. “Yazzie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Look at that tree trunk, that one, just to the left of the pinyons.”

  Odd. Uncanny. One spot on a tree trunk had gnarled itself almost into the shape of a human head. Nature is a true wonder. I liked seeing the world through Iris’s eyes.

  She fished a piece of charcoal out of one pocket, shifted her sketchbook to the other arm, and took a couple of steps toward the tree. For some reason she stopped, fingered her angled tooth, and decided against it.

  “What?” I asked her when she got back to me.

  “Another awkward uphill walk for something spooky? I don’t think so. Spooky isn’t my cup of tea. It’s the light I love.”

  We walked back down to the set, and Colin s
miled up at both of us as we cleared the rise. All was well with Linda.

  * * *

  Buzzard let himself breathe, and then breathe again. I’m getting out of here.

  And as he walked away, close call with Iris, he heard it again, the snick. He surveyed the horizon. Nothing. He looked to the place where the sound had come from. Nothing but a slight trickle of water dropping into an ancient Indian step carved in the stone. That is what he told himself.

  * * *

  “Lights.”

  Iris slipped between me and Colin, and they traded looks that were sort of flirty. Linda caught my eye, jiggled her hips, and smiled at me.

  I passed a script to Iris. No sound anywhere. Cathy Downs was leaning against a wall, Victor Mature sitting on the hitching post. They’d been there, doing nothing, for several minutes. Now they jumped up and stood so that it looked like they were talking, and not peaceably.

  “Camera.”

  “Action.”

  They spoke a couple of lines—Cathy Downs was trying to put the Doc Holliday character on the straight and narrow. He got rid of her and her idea of how he should live his life.

  “Cut and print.”

  Lots of happy faces.

  Linda trotted to Mr. John, shadowed by Colin. I checked the circumference of the set. Nothing unusual.

  Linda had been transformed by costume into a Mexican whore, and now her name was Chihuahua. She nodded to Mr. John and strode into the tavern, easily visible to us and the camera through the big false window. She sidled up to Doc at the bar, bringing news about the Cathy Downs character. For Iris, I pointed out the script lines they were speaking.

  CHIHUAHUA

  She’s packing, Doc. She’s leaving town.

  DOC

  Happy, aren’t you?

  CHIHUAHUA

  I ain’t sad.

  DOC

  Chihuahua, I’m going to Mexico for a week or ten days. And while I am gone—

  CHIHUAHUA

  Take me, Doc, will you?

  DOC

  Why not? Why not? Tell François to fix a bridal breakfast, flowers, champagne. You get your prettiest dress. Tell him the queen is dead. Long live the queen!

  CHIHUAHUA

  Oh, oh, Doc.

  “Cut!” barked Mr. John.

  I whispered to Iris, “Notice, not ‘Cut and print.’ Meaning what he saw and heard wasn’t what he wants. Maybe the way the actors stood or moved wasn’t the right body language. Maybe a line reading wasn’t good. Maybe the sound man didn’t get what he needed. No telling.”

  “So they’ll do it again.”

  “And again. Sometimes they wait until the light is just so.”

  “Light,” said Iris, “is everything.” She held up the bone of the horse leg against the sky, and I scratched my head.

  “Anyway…” I said, “when the shot actually rolls, only a small part of the crew and a few actors are involved. Mr. John is always next to the camera and the guys who operate it. He talks over and again to the lighting man and his helpers, and then to the one, two, or three actors, typically, in a shot. Danny Borzage makes that accordion sing to set the mood.

  “Mr. John works the actors like a slave driver until he says every actor’s favorite words, ‘Cut and print!’”

  “You think Linda’s good?”

  “She doesn’t seem to give much thought to what she’s going to do in front of the camera. But at least half of the time,” I said, “she surprises everyone by getting it just right.”

  “I sure don’t envy Linda,” Iris said.

  “You may be one of the few women in America who doesn’t.”

  “Please. Bodyguards! And apparently she needs two, and right out here in the middle of nowhere, a country populated mainly by ravens and buzzards. Freedom,” Iris said, “is a pretty steep price to pay for what she’s got—expensive stuff and only a few people she can count on.”

  “Mr. John says she’s naughty, and you never know when that’s going to cause trouble.

  “Naughty? Well, you know that firsthand,” Iris said. “At least you can be trusted.”

  Best to let that one pass. “I hear the studio head of her next picture is concerned about her and wants to make sure she arrives in one piece. That’s why I still have a job.”

  It was Iris’s turn to shrug. “If he’s the possessive type, he sure didn’t hire the right bodyguard, did he?” She slapped me on the ass, sat down on a boulder, and opened her sketchpad. She studied the cedars on the hill, made a face of frustration, and started positioning the bone just the way she wanted it.

  Talk about an infuriating woman.

  I stepped forward to watch the next take. Always, I kept one eye on Linda and one on the crowd. When she was in front of the camera, or being touched up by the makeup man, or having a cameraman take a light reading off her face, I talked with whoever was handy, but I was always eyeballing everyone around her. My job.

  What mattered to me right then was her safety. Also what mattered was that the time we spent together was good, and not just the sex. When we were alone, she was a different person and a lot more likable, a country woman, full of laughs, plenty of fun, and not a bit taken in by all the fancy people who ran the show. Linda was real with me, and we both liked that.

  * * *

  Zopilote could find his way around that place he had once called home in the dark. He had done just that many times. In broad daylight? Easy.

  He picked the padlock on the door of Iris’s shed. Also easy. Inside he found nothing. Well, two huge books that were like folders with loose drawings, plus a box with paintings stretched on wood frames. Silly things on decent canvas. No trinkets or personal things that belonged to Iris. And really, who gave a damn, other than she seemed pretty uppity and could use a lesson? His idea was already set in place.

  He slipped back outside and ran low from boulder to boulder to his hiding place.

  He studied the trading post again. Nizhoni must have hidden all that cash somewhere inside, but where? She rarely left home, and the old man sure didn’t go anywhere, so he couldn’t search the house without getting caught. Just details. I’ll steal a gun. Some binoculars, too. Need to see better.

  The money his son gave his wife and the crippled old man? I’ll have plenty of time to look around for it when they’re gone.

  * * *

  Mr. John got two shots in that afternoon. During the second, Iris stood between me and Colin, holding out her pad. The sketch was of the Clanton and Earp boys playing liar’s poker, a favorite way of killing time on the set. The drawing was terrific. Faces and postures were a little exaggerated, but for a reason. What Iris had done made their moods clear. Each one was individualized in a way that’s hard to put words to. It was like she knew them better than they knew themselves. Also, the lines of the drawing were vigorous, confident, and suggested the camaraderie and competitive spirit of the players.

  Mr. John called, “Cut and print,” and the assistant director added, “That’s a wrap today.”

  Linda walked toward us, taking time to trade pleasantries with people she passed.

  Watching her, Iris said to me, “Her career is … she’s streaking up like a comet. But something behind the way she holds herself … it’s like she’s not comfortable in her skin. I hope things change for her.”

  I said nothing. Too many thoughts. Colin watched us curiously as Linda approached.

  Iris said softly, “I don’t know. I suppose anyone would get a kick out of being a movie star, if only for a day.”

  “Did you like watching the shoot?” Linda said to Iris.

  “I enjoyed this part,” said Iris, and handed her the sketch.

  Linda took a long look. “You are a true talent,” she said. “Sensational.”

  “A gift to you,” said Iris.

  “Oh, thank you. Thank you.” She tucked it under an arm. “Would you do some sketches of me?” Linda said.

  “Glad to,” said Iris. “Also gifts.”

&nbs
p; Linda took a deep breath in and out.

  “Iris Goldman, you are a friend.”

  She turned to me. “Seaman, you said you’d stay and have supper with all of us in the food tent.”

  “Sure.”

  “Iris, why don’t you join us?”

  Iris hesitated. “I promised Nizhoni I’d—”

  Colin pitched in. “Oh, come on, it’s fun. We’ll be sitting at Mr. John’s table with Henry Fonda and Victor Mature and—”

  Iris held up a hand. “You’re right. I want to stay. Just let me walk up to Goulding’s and radio her to say I’m not coming.”

  “Tell Mom I’ll be late tonight,” I said.

  She gave me one of her teasing looks. It asked, How late? And, Why are you staying? Then, Don’t bother, I know. All that at once. She ran off toward the Goulding’s office.

  * * *

  Danny Borzage stood at one of the entrances to the food tent, playing “Bringing in the Sheaves” on his accordion. Linda, Colin, and I started toward him. I chuckled. “Sheaves for the supper song,” she said. “Jack’s idea of humor.”

  We walked through the crowd and wound between tables. Everywhere, we were Miss Darnell, Seaman Goldman, and Colin. They knew what Linda and I did alone in her cabin. But as long as she didn’t parade it, everyone would keep up the pretense. Reality was a created mirage.

  She led the way to Mr. John’s table, which was mostly full. He sat at the head, sunglasses on, patch covering the left eye, the eternal white handkerchief in his mouth. I hoped he took it out to eat. Several seats down the table was Victor Mature. Linda paused to give Mature a touch on the shoulder. He reached for her hand, and she slapped his fingers lightly and giggled.

  I wondered how many love scenes started when Mr. John called “Action” and didn’t end when he called “Cut,” but were consummated in a cabin or behind a bush. Victor Mature shone with dazzling good looks and was a threat to lift every skirt. He also seemed natural enough playing a learned doctor who had come to hate himself and was half-consciously looking for death at the bottom of a bottle. By pulling away from his hand, the dance-hall girl was setting boundaries. I liked that.

  Linda said hello to each of the others seated at this table. Flanking Mr. John were his wife, Mary, on one side, her brother, Wingate Smith, on the other, next, Henry Fonda and an actor people said Mr. John always found a part for, Ward Bond, then the producer across the table, and Victor Mature.