My Soul to Keep

by Davis Bunn

  The governor’s representative looked ready to leap for joy. “This is the biggest production studio east of the Mississippi.”

  “I like the way you say that,” Bobby replied. “Not was. Is.”

  “We wanted to use this as a beacon to draw in other production companies fed up with the Hollywood way of doing business.”

  “There you go again,” Bobby said. “Singing my song.”

  Trevor cleared his throat. “Sorry to be the one to throw cold water on this moment. But there’s just a tiny problem we need to be addressing.”

  “It’s not tiny,” Brent said.

  “The issue,” Trevor said, “is timing.”

  Jerry took up the worry. “Wardrobe is gone. Our people have been working 24-7, getting the frontier and British and American soldier outfits ready.”

  “Not to mention the sets,” Trevor said. “Even if we had immediate access to a warehouse that was made to order, we would need three weeks to get up and running again.”

  Bobby nodded. “That long.”

  Celia Breach spoke for the first time. “Maybe we should talk about putting off the project for a release cycle.”

  “Is that what you think?” Bobby asked.

  “It would be the logical course,” Trevor said. “The pressure we were under to beat Galaxy’s release date was already enormous.”

  “No question there,” Bobby agreed.

  “Not to mention whether we could even locate a proper space to begin rebuilding,” Trevor added. “Given the shots we envision, I need at least forty feet of ceiling height to string the camera platforms.”

  Bobby looked from one face to the other. “Are y’all about done?”

  “Here it comes,” Stanley said.

  “I don’t want to be starting until y’all have gotten all the worry out in the open,” Bobby said.

  “Tell them, brother,” Stanley encouraged.

  “All right. I will.” Bobby pointed to the ashes. “You know what I see there? I see a sign. If we weren’t doing God’s will, you think they’d be bothering with us? No, they wouldn’t.”

  Stanley drummed deep in his throat, something between a tune and a chuckle.

  “This entire business is impossible. It’s impossible that I would be standing here, between a world-class actor and a director and an Oscar-winning photographer.”

  “Cinematographer,” Stanley corrected.

  “It’s impossible that I would have brought together a major list of investors by calling around a prayer chain. It’s impossible that I’ve gotten a dozen calls since I got word of the fire, and didn’t tell a soul myself, everybody phoning in to ask how they could help. It’s impossible not one of those investor folks would pull out. It’s impossible the only thing they’ve told me is they’re praying hard as they know how.”

  Bobby stabbed his finger at the ashes. “A sign I said and a sign I meant. Now here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to join hands and we’re going to pray. And we’re going to ask God to be just what He is. A great God. A God of miracles. We’re going to thank Him. You know why? Because right there, we have a chance to watch our Lord perform.”

  29

  I am utterly against it,” Trevor said.

  “We don’t have much choice,” Brent pointed out.

  They had returned from the coast late the previous night. They had shown up at their shooting location to find a trio of pastors waiting for them. The filming of Daniel Boone was apparently big news throughout the region. Reports of the fire played on the local nightly news. The pastors had arrived with North Carolina’s film representative in tow, bringing with them an offer of help.

  Trevor said, “We could postpone the release date. I fail to see how we must remain bound by a calendar designed around Sam Menzes and Galaxy Films.”

  They were crammed into the trailer Brent used as an office—Bobby Dupree, Celia Breach, Jerry Orbain, the chief set designer, the chief gaffer, and Candace Chen. The assembly left the cinematographer with very little room to pace. But he gave it his best.

  Bobby had taken Brent’s chair from behind the desk and jammed it into the far corner. Even so, he continued to swivel in time to Trevor’s movements, causing the back of the chair to thump the walls. “I got to tell you, it’s tempting. Except for one thing. Every time I pray about this, I feel like I’m being pressed to keep going.”

  Brent said to his chief cameraman, “Explain to us again why this is a bad idea.”

  Trevor pointed beyond the closed door leading to the cramped foyer and out to the burgeoning spring day. Through the trailer’s front window, Brent saw the crew mill about the graveled lot, where a pair of church buses were now parked.

  “What you have out there are enthusiasts.” Trevor turned the word into a disease. “They are dreadful to work with. A walking horror. They will second-guess your every step. They have spent years researching the minutiae of the era and the dress and the food and the guns. They consider themselves experts on Boone, the Revolutionary War, the Yanks, the Brits—you name it, they know everything. And there is one thing they love above all else. And that is, to argue. They will drown you in disputes. They will annoy you to death.”

  Trevor bent over and began pinching the back of his arm. His face screwed up in a miserable little scowl. “Oh, you can’t put the bowl on the fire like that. No, no, no, the British soldiers couldn’t possibly be in the water. Wait, now, the children were captured in the autumn, and here you have it the spring.”

  Brent glanced at his chief set designer. “How long do you need to rebuild?”

  The art director was a smallish, delicate individual with the unlikely name of Roy Crabbe, for he was eternally cheerful. Not even seeing the sets he had spent weeks designing and building turn to rubble had diminished his easy smile. “Find me a decent structure that doesn’t require refitting, get me all the equipment I need and an army of seamstresses, four weeks.”

  Trevor kept worrying his arm. “Pick, pick, pick, pick.”

  Brent had his chair up on two legs, leaning against the wall opposite Bobby. He asked his AD, “Jerry?”

  Jerry Orbain leaned against the windowsill next to the chief gaffer. The two men could not have been any more different. The assistant director looked churchgoing formal, his clothes carefully pressed, his hair trimmed and neat. The gaffer was a bearded giant with a torn black T-shirt and tattoos. Jerry said, “You say go, I’m gone.”

  The gaffer had a voice that was born in a cement mixer. “I’ll give that a big amen.”

  “Explain,” Bobby said.

  “I talked to the crew,” the gaffer told him. “They’re ready. You point, we shoot.”

  Trevor stopped picking at his arm and looked up.

  “That how you feel, Jerry?” Bobby asked.

  The AD jammed his hands deep in his pockets. “I’ve spent too long being the whiner on this crew. The day we shot the first scene, what you said up there on the shooting platform …”

  Candace Chen said, “It convicted me.”

  Bobby Dupree leaned back and crossed his arms behind his head. “Looks to me like you’ve got yourself a team, sport.”

  Brent asked Candace, “You’d be willing to rewrite your script to fit what we can use for backdrops?”

  “Like the man said, you’re the boss. Wind me up and let me go.”

  Bobby said, “We’ve heard everybody’s opinion but yours, Brent.”

  He was tired. He could still smell the smoke, though he’d scrubbed his skin raw. But he also felt easy enough with himself to reply, “There is no logical way we could possibly make this happen. But if God is offering us a miracle, we need to grab hold with both hands.”

  Bobby thunked his chair to the floor, got to his feet, and walked over and opened the door. He said to the pastors and governor’s rep gathered on the front porch, “You folks want to join us in here? I reckon there ain’t much more for us to do but pray and go have a look at what’s on offer.”

  The e
ntire crew went basically because they were invited. The church bus seat dug at Brent’s back, and the seat in front jammed hard against his knees. But he did not complain because no one else did, not even the massive roadies. The journey took just over two hours and covered some seventy miles of twisting two-lane roads. When they finally pulled up, they discovered themselves surrounded by astonishments.

  Trevor descended the steps behind Brent. He blinked in the noonday light and asked, “Where precisely are we?”

  “Chatham County, North Carolina,” Brent replied. “Wherever that is.”

  “I thought perhaps we had traveled back in time.”

  The county seat was a village carved from a bygone era. The building directly in front of them was a stodgy relic of the colonial era, with a broad front veranda and a Georgian cupola that gleamed in the sun.

  The state’s film representative stepped up beside them. “The valleys prospered at the turn of the nineteenth century when they discovered a vein of marble that folks claimed was as fine as anything from Italy. They shipped the stuff as far as San Francisco.”

  “Farther,” one of the pastors corrected. “I hear tell they got palaces in Mexico City with walls from our little valley. Not to mention the state house in Hawaii and some big building in Rio.”

  The art director said, “But this entire square is distinctly colonial.”

  “Fake as my granny’s teeth,” the pastor said. “They got plans from the Smithsonian in Washington, scaled down the buildings, and built a fantasy. Washington as it should have been.”

  “It’s magnificent,” the set designer exulted. “What about the interiors?”

  “Three big chambers are museums, left pretty much as they were. The mayor’s that fellow in the general’s uniform. His county council is all officers with horses. They say, long as you can put things back like they were, you’re free to dress them rooms up like you want.”

  “There are no wires,” Trevor commented.

  “Yeah, we buried everything a while back. Seemed like a waste of good money at the time. But I got to admit, it prettified the place.”

  Trevor walked back and forth, examining the shots. Now and then he cast glances back over his shoulder at the opposite side of the square, where several hundred townspeople were gathered around trestle tables. All the people were dressed in colonial garb. Every single one. Right down to the children.

  The art director was ecstatic. “We can haul in dirt, hide the streets and the sidewalks, and have you ready to do the exteriors while we go to work on the interior chambers.”

  The pastors were grinning now. “One thing we got plenty of around here is dirt.”

  The governor’s film man said, “There’s more.”

  “More?” Trevor asked weakly.

  “I’ve been on the horn to my counterparts in Tennessee and Kentucky. Word from them is the same as here. We’re ready to pull out the stops and do what we can to keep you folks up and running.” He opened a file. “What you see here is just a sample they’ve put together over the past day and a half. I downloaded these and printed them off in the church office, so you’ll have to excuse the quality. There are two outdoor museums—one is a fort and the other a colonial settlement.” He flipped through the photographs. “Trading post, general store, jail, here’s the fort, and a pair of colonial encampments. You can use what you want for free.”

  “Excuse me?” Bobby said.

  “We meant what we said, Mr. Dupree. We can’t rebuild your studio. But we’re here to offer a helping hand.”

  “Y’all are gonna give us the sets for free?” Bobby said.

  “If you want ’em, they’re yours for the duration.”

  One of the pastors said, “We got folks walking away from their jobs, claiming vacation time or sick leave, whatever works.”

  The state film rep said, “Got a call from some feller outside Chattanooga. Says to tell you the Tennessee volunteers are ready to ride. He’s got almost a thousand men, a third of them dressed and drilled as a battalion of Redcoats.”

  Candace said, “I could get busy and write you some super crowd-and-battle scenes.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Brent said to Bobby.

  Brent helped Candace climb onto the table, then took a step back. On one side stood Trevor, the look of quiet astonishment having completely erased his earlier skepticism. On his other side stood Jerry Orbain.

  Brent resisted the urge to embrace them both.

  “Hi, folks. If I could have your attention please.”

  Two of the pastors shouted for silence.

  Jerry said, “You could do worse than using the reverends as crowd control.”

  Brent whispered, “Make it happen.”

  “Me?”

  “You’re hereby in charge of all extras. And the second camera crew. And coordinating Candace’s new scenes into the shooting schedule.”

  “What about you?”

  Brent let his smile emerge. “I’m gonna be busy making a film.”

  The lady on the table said, “My name is Candace Chen, and I’m the writer of Long Hunter . Down here is Brent Stark, the film’s director. Hold your applause, please, or we’ll be here all afternoon. Thank you. And over here is Celia Breach—good to know you’re fans. Okay. And Jerry Orbain, our assistant director. Raise your hand, Jerry. And Trevor Wright, director of photography. Bobby Dupree is over there. Bobby is the producer and chairman of Shoestring Productions. And we’re all friends. I guess that’s as good a place as any to start. We’re friends, and we’re here because we need you.”

  Trevor murmured, “I take my hat off to the lady.”

  “She’s good,” Jerry agreed. “Maybe you should offer her a job.”

  Candace went on, “But this will only work, ladies and gentlemen, if you can work with us on our terms. Let me explain what that means. I spent three years researching Daniel Boone. He was a hero from my childhood, and I became passionate about the man and his era. But when it came time to write my story, I spent a year and three drafts unlearning much of what I had learned. Because in the process I discovered something very important about myself. I did not live in that time, and no matter how much I study, I will never belong to that era. And neither does our audience. They do not come to the movies for a history lesson. They come to be entertained. They will accept history only so long as they enjoy the show. And that is our first challenge. To keep as much as we can about the essence of the truth while not becoming enslaved by the facts.”

  “Oh, I say,” Trevor murmured.

  “There can only be one decision-maker on the set. And that person is Brent Stark, our director. Not me. I wrote the script, and now I have passed it into his hands. I trust Brent with a work that I have struggled with for … well, let’s see.” She faltered and looked down at Brent. “Has it really been eleven years?”

  He nodded and called up to her, “You’re doing just fine.”

  Candace gathered herself. “All I’m saying is, if you’re here because you expect us to make things exactly as you have envisioned them, then you will do us all a great favor if you’ll just pack up and go home. Because we don’t need you. But if you are willing to help us do our best to bring my hero back to life again, then please stay and help. But only on our terms. And the first of these terms is simply this: no questions. We can’t cope with a hundred different people thinking they’ve got something vital to either ask or say. To help us, you have to accept that you are extras. You listen carefully. You go where you’re told. You do what you’re asked. And you trust Brent to make it all right in the end.” She looked down at him again. “Just like I do. Trust him, I mean. Because I know this for a fact. He will do everything in his power to make us all immensely proud.”

  The Bald Mountain Resort had a landing strip long enough to take Bobby’s jet. Brent drove him over at sunset. Celia Breach was in the backseat basically because she had insisted on coming along. And Bobby wasn’t about to tell a star to stay behind.

&nbs
p; Brent drove the rented minivan up to the plane and cut the motor. “When will I see you again?”

  “You holler, I’ll come. But otherwise I’m leaving this whole shebang in your hands.”

  “You think that’s wise?”

  “I’ll tell you what I think. I think signing you on was just about the finest deal I’ve ever pulled out of my hat.” Bobby opened his door. “I’ve gotten a couple of phone calls today from folks in my music-video group. Seems one of the country singers they worked with has heard about our troubles and wants to help. They say he’s a big star. You got any idea what you want to do for a soundtrack?”

  “A film’s music director is usually selected by the producer.”

  “Yeah, well, that might work okay in Hollywood. But I’m just another lost soul in need of a pilot.”

  Celia spoke for the first time since they had left the gathering. “If your singer is willing to give us original recordings, you could put together a money-spinner of a soundtrack.”

  “Now you’re talking.” Bobby slid from the van. “I’ll bring the folks together, see what they got in mind.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  Bobby grinned through the open door. “Naw, son, that’s where you’re wrong.”

  30

  The late afternoon was balmy enough for Brent to roll down his window. Springtime flavors laced the early evening air. There was a distinct spectacle to the Carolina spring, one he had never seen before. The humid air was packed to overflowing. Brent drove the winding road and reveled in the surrounding rebirth.

  Celia lowered her window and propped her head on the seat back’s corner, far enough over to revel in the warm air. “I was beginning to believe I would never have any time alone with you.”

  Brent glanced over. Celia’s eyes were mere slits against the wind. “Are you hungry?”

  “I don’t want to share you right now, not even with a restaurant full of strangers.”

  The matter-of-fact way she spoke only heightened the impact of her words. Brent stopped at a roadside grill and bought a couple of burgers with fixings. Celia remained in the car. He drove in silence as the road climbed the rise separating them from the shoot. At the pinnacle was the pull-off he had spotted on the way out, a narrow parking area fronting a pair of picnic tables and their sheltering pines.