My Soul to Keep

by Davis Bunn

  “The lawn care company, right?”

  “Liz is president of a bank,” Stanley supplied. “She did the lawn thing to help out a man in need.”

  Candace came to a complete halt. “You trust him.”

  “Who, Brent? With my life.” Liz stepped in close. “Why don’t you tell me? At the very least, we’ll know what to pray for.”

  Candace related the problem in the midst of a very tight sigh. She finished with, “Sam Menzes took control of my first story, my baby, and turned it into a twisted, deformed, stunted, evil …”

  “Brent Stark will not do that,” Liz said.

  “My heart tells me you’re right. My head …”

  Liz asked, “Is it normal to have the screenwriter around while they’re filming?”

  “It almost never happens.”

  “Why hand this choice to you today? Why not last week?”

  “I just got in from Los Angeles this morning with the final changes.”

  Stanley had a big man’s ability to gentle his way through the most impossible of statements. “It sounds to me like Brent already has control. What he’s saying is you need to recognize that.”

  Candace did not move, did not breathe, did not look up from the rocky trail.

  “Brent wanted to make sure you understood the reality of this situation. He is the director. He has to have final say of, what did you call it?”

  When Candace did not speak, Liz supplied, “The shooting script.”

  “Right. He’s told you that if you agree to trust him implicitly, even when you disagree with him, he will give you the freedom to stay around and be a part of this creation. Trust,” Stanley repeated gently. “It’s a hard thing he’s asked from you.”

  Candace glanced at her wrist, though she was not wearing a watch. “We need to be going.”

  Liz touched the woman’s shoulder a second time and let her hand linger as they walked. “I will be praying for you.”

  Cables as wide as her ankles ran along either side of the trail they now took. Liz thought of it as a trail because it left the pasture and entered a forest so thick the sunlight dimmed to cool emerald shades. But the trail was graveled and freshly packed, hard and smooth and as broad as a two-lane road. Somewhere to their right a river ran in full spring rush, but the trees were too dense for her to spot the water.

  The trail joined several others, and they were joined by an astonishing variety of people. A trio of hulking bikers in beards and leather and tattoos joked with two young women in buckskin and tie-up moccasins. The lady who looked most like a genuine American Indian studied a script and smoked a cigarette and walked without looking at the trail. Construction workers mingled with what Liz could only call nerds, right down to their plastic pocket guards. There were hunters and more Indians and British soldiers in crimson uniforms and a trio of young girls in tattered homespun.

  Stanley said, “I keep spotting people I think are probably famous.”

  They rounded a final bend and entered a meadow bordered on one side by the river and on three others by forested hills. The meadow contained an Indian encampment. Rounded huts of branches and bark and deer hides were clustered into three distinct units. Between the forest and the encampment was a battery of equipment.

  “No tepees?” Stanley asked.

  “Shawnee didn’t use them so much in Kentucky and Tennessee,” Candace replied. “They called these dwellings wegiwa , which is where we got the name wigwam. That larger structure in the center is the msikamekwi, or council house.”

  They joined a gathering of perhaps forty people. A chuck wagon had been drawn up to the meadow’s opposite side from the encampment. Folding chairs dotted the grass. Candace asked, “You folks want anything?”

  “Absolutely,” Stanley said. “I’d like to know what it is I’m seeing.”

  Liz knew Candace wanted to refuse the request to explain. That talking shop would only make it harder to work through the jumble in her head. But the scriptwriter said, “Boone took his family on his third trek through the Cumberland Gap. Boone had used funds supplied by a Colonel Henderson to purchase fifty thousand acres in a land the Indians called Caintuk. Boone called it New Canaan, the promised land. He actually had visions …”

  Candace stopped talking because a woman Liz recognized walked over and said, “Mind if I join you?”

  “Sure. These are two friends of Brent. I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten—”

  Liz reached across the screenwriter. “Liz Courtney, Ms. Breach. A pleasure. This is Stanley Allcott.”

  For once, Stanley was beyond words.

  Candace said to Celia, “You’re not on today.”

  “I thought I’d see our fearless leader address the troops.”

  Candace turned back to Liz and asked, “Where was I?”

  “Visions.”

  “Boone envisioned a land of rich farmsteads and horse pastures. Which was in direct contrast to the life they’d had in Carolina, relegated to rocky highlands and indebted to the colonial merchants. But by the time Boone moved his family out, the Revolutionary War had started and the British had formed an alliance with the Shawnees. The Indians saw this as a chance to renege on their land deal. They kidnapped Boone’s two daughters and another young woman and threatened dire torments unless the Boones and the other settlers packed up and left.” Candace pointed to the settlement. “The first scene we’ll be filming is Boone rescuing his children.”

  Stanley managed to find his voice. “I thought Brent said you’d be rehearsing for another couple of weeks.”

  “Plans changed. Trevor Wright, our DP, suggested we could use the time better on location. Trevor also suggested we start with this major action sequence.”

  “He may well be right,” Celia said thoughtfully.

  “It’s a risk,” Candace fretted.

  “So is this whole project,” Celia said.

  “But to take a raw crew and start on a major shoot.”

  Celia shook her head. “I agree with Trevor. Going straight to set gives everybody a chance to acclimatize. Just like when Brent was off doing his frontier thing.”

  “And the other actors. I heard four of them were ready to quit before the weekend was over.”

  Stanley said, “I never did feel comfortable listening to words I’m supposed to know and not understanding a thing.”

  Candace explained, “Instead of rehearsing the script, they have slotted in more advance work for the big action sequences.”

  Celia leaned forward so she could look around both the writer and Liz. “Rehearsals mean sitting around in a room and practicing your lines. Brent is treating everybody on the set as pros. Which is a risk, but I think he’s right to do so.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Candace said.

  “Action sequences like this are camera dominated,” Celia went on. “Brent wants to get as much as possible in uninterrupted shots. Which means this isn’t just about hitting their mark and saying their line. This is run and shoot and run some more. The cameras and the lighting have to be in direct and constant sequence.”

  “You trust him to get this right?” Candace asked.

  Celia smiled. “That’s right. I do.” Her hair was almost white in the sun and pulled back tight from her face. Liz spotted the scars on her temple, a trio of shadow lines revealed by the afternoon light. She felt a tug deep inside her at the suffering the scars represented. Perhaps it was the absence of makeup, but Celia looked both fragile and immensely strong.

  “This is some role reversal,” Candace said.

  “You don’t trust him anymore?”

  Candace opened her mouth to reply, then said, “Here he comes.”

  The crowd quieted as the man appeared from the trailhead and strode purposefully toward the wooden deck. The raw-wood platform held a camera and what to Liz looked like a television draped in a white plastic tent stenciled with the words Director Only.

  Stanley asked uncertainly, “Should I go to him?”

  Liz wonde
red the same thing. For here was both a man she knew and a man she had never seen before. And it was not merely the longer hair or the frontier clothing. A definite change had come to Brent Stark.

  Celia said, “Maybe you should let him be the director now. When he’s done, he can come over and be your friend.”

  A gray-haired man climbed the steps behind Brent. Candace said, “That’s Trevor Wright, our cinematographer. Also known as DP, director of photography. He’s responsible for all lighting and cameras. Trevor also pinch-hits when the sound man is away, which he is.”

  Trevor fit Brent with a mike and battery pack, said, “Test, test. Larry, can you confirm they can hear us in Wilmington?”

  “They’re piping this to the studio?” Celia asked.

  Candace shrugged. “News to me.”

  A voice at the back said, “Good to go, Trevor.”

  But when the Englishman started to depart, Brent said, “While you’re up here, why don’t you lead us in an opening prayer. Folks, for those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, I’d like to introduce Trevor Wright, our resident wise man.”

  Trevor’s British accent added a certain formality to a benediction that covered the film, the story, the backers, the workers, the set, the action, the day. When he was done and the group had intoned an amen, he started to leave, only to turn back a second time. He embraced Brent and said, “I thank God for the day you called me to this duty,” which the body mike picked up.

  A voice from somewhere in the crowd intoned, “Amen.”

  Brent stood and watched the Englishman clamber down the stairs and seat himself on the front row. Liz studied this man she thought she knew so well and wondered how she had missed noticing the incredibly potent force that now surrounded him. Brent’s vulnerability and wounded spirit were still evident. But his aura of power, this she did not recognize. She felt as much as saw how Candace Chen shivered slightly, and nodded agreement. There was something remarkable about this moment, so vital an augury she did not need to name it to be affected.

  “You all know why we are here,” Brent started. “We intend to honor a great man, a founder of our nation. Daniel Boone was the most famous of the early American scouts, a legend before he reached middle age. A score of books were written about him while he still lived, some of which even contained a morsel of truth. Lord Byron even wrote a poem in his honor.

  “Boone was born and raised a Quaker, and with simple humility believed that God had granted him a divine mission—to lead his nation westward. But neither his faith nor his strength nor even God’s mission kept Boone from knowing one enormous failure after another. Those of you who have read Candace Chen’s remarkable script know we intend to honor both his successes and his setbacks. Because it is in the balance of both that we come to know this man as the hero he was.”

  Brent paused so long Liz wondered if he was done. Even in this silent repose, the man radiated a commanding presence. When he spoke, she realized he had not hesitated; he merely gathered himself for what was now to come.

  “You all know why I am here. A film set thrives on back story, and I have supplied more than my share. You know about my drinking and my drugs. You know about the accident and the imprisonment and the hurt I caused so many others.”

  He paused then, for his gaze had found Celia in the crowd. Liz saw the physical effort it took to tear his eyes away. She felt a lump grow in her throat, swallowed hard, and listened harder.

  “How could it happen, that I would transform my early success into such a massive failure? The answer began at age five, when my father packed his bags and took off. Just another family argument, just another kid without a dad. I’m not offering excuses. I’m telling you because I want you to understand who I am today. And to do that, you need to know where I’ve come from.

  “My five-year-old brain decided my dad had left because I was a bad kid. This became the core truth that I built my life around. I spent the next twenty-three years living up to that fact. I decided nobody would ever see me again. I would hide the secret me, the bad kid that drove his daddy away.

  “I became such a good actor because I’d already spent my life building a false face. My life off the set became just another way of masking the evil little kid who chased me everywhere. My success only fueled this certainty. If people knew who I really was, I’d be shunned. A failure. They would drop-kick me out of the game.

  “The car I drove, the women I dated, the booze I drank, the coke I snorted, were all parts of the armor I built around myself. The house in Malibu, the prizes, the public scenes. Shields, one and all.

  “I never really enjoyed my success. Even so, fear drove me higher and faster. The fear’s name changed, but the need to drive myself stayed the same. Without success, without all these lies that masked the true me, I had no place. No value. I was worthless. Down deep where it mattered, nothing changed.

  “I watched myself win the Oscar for best-supporting actor through the wire-mesh cage that held the prison television. In that moment, all my shields fell away. I was left completely and utterly broken. Two months later, I found the only way to change everything.”

  Stanley’s amen was so unexpected Liz jumped in her seat.

  Brent looked over, started to say something, only to be interrupted by applause from a group of roadies and a pair of Indians. He waited for silence, then went on. “Some other time, if you’re interested, I’ll share with you the road back. Right now, this is what’s most important. I am here to do a job for Jesus. I have been called back, and I hope to be of service to God. This responsibility is not just to the film. It extends to each and every one of you. If there is any way we can help you, pray for you, reach out to you, believers and nonbelievers alike, I am here for you. This is the atmosphere I would like to foster within the crew at large. That we are all part of God’s family, bound to a higher service than profit or even just one film.”

  This time, the amens resounded throughout the gathering.

  “God willing, and with your help, we are going to make a sixty-million-dollar film for eighteen million dollars. I know there’s a lot of talk about our changing the way Hollywood looks at entertainment. I can’t see that far ahead. All I have room for is my responsibility, to the film and to you. My crew. My family for the shoot. I hope and pray we will find this a period of great growth and astonishing miracles. When it comes time to pack our bags and leave, I hope we will, each of us, feel that we have accomplished two things in the time we share here.

  “First, that we have produced the finest work each of us is capable of doing.

  “And second, that we have, as a team and as individuals, grown closer to God.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Liz saw the two ladies seated to her left, Candace Chen and Celia Breach, both wipe their faces with shaky hands. And this time it was she, the banker in her city suit, who called the first amen.

  Brent said, “Jerry Orbain, did you make it here in time? Great. Everybody knows Jerry, my AD. Jerry, would you come up here and lead us in the closing prayer?”

  The man moved with head bowed so low his back was hunched over. He climbed the stairs very slowly. When he reached the top, he whispered something.

  “Wait a second,” Brent said.

  The director fumbled with his mike and finally unplugged the battery pack. No one heard what was said. But they all saw the two men, director and assistant, embrace.

  23

  Liz and Stanley found themselves in the solitary company of a star after Candace rose without a comment and made a beeline for the platform. Brent now stood on the bottom stair, one hand on Jerry Orbain’s shoulder. He spoke with Trevor and a pair of roadies. To Liz’s eye, Jerry still looked seriously bent out of shape.

  Stanley said to no one in particular, “Wonder what’s going on up there.”

  Liz replied, “Looks to me like that young man got hit by more than Brent’s words.”

  “Those words weren’t bad.”

  “That’s not
what I said. Jerry’s had a problem since we saw him in Austin. Remember we thought he was a fed? He was uptight and angry back then. He was like that when he met us today. This change wasn’t Brent’s work.”

  “Would you look at that,” Stanley said as Candace ignored the two men to either side of Brent and said something that left Brent smiling and reaching for her as well. “Guess somebody’s found an answer to her prayers.”

  Celia turned and gave them a hard look. “Just exactly why are you here?”

  “We’re not certain,” Liz replied.

  “Bobby called and sent his plane,” Stanley said. “We thought it was to give Brent support on his first day of filming.”

  Liz added, “But Bobby seemed to think we could report back on this to investors down in Texas.”

  “What possible information we can give to folks with money is beyond us,” Stanley said. “I couldn’t be any more lost than if I was up there in those woods.”

  Celia looked from one to the other. “What is this, an honesty convention?”

  “I could think of worse places to be,” Stanley said.

  “Why does that bother you?” Liz asked.

  The star shifted in her seat. “I need a coffee.”

  Stanley was already up and moving. “I’ll get it. How do you take it?”

  “One Sweet’n Low.”

  “Liz?”

  “Please.”

  Celia followed him with her gaze. “He moves like a dancer.”

  “Stanley boxed in his younger years. Won a couple of regional titles as an amateur heavyweight.”

  “Are you two an item?”

  Liz started to backpedal herself out of that. But before the denial could form, she stopped. And rubbed the place over her heart.

  “Never mind,” Celia said.

  “I sent Stanley to prison.”

  Celia was the one who rocked back in her seat. “Whoa.”

  “Brent’s not the only man who came back from the pit armed with a different mindset. Stanley ran Brent’s AA group until he was named head pastor of one of the largest churches in Texas.”