The Phantom Herd

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  "PLUMB SPOILED, D' YUH MEAN?"

  Luck came out of the dark room with the still, frozen, look of a troublethat has gone too deep for words. Annie-Many-Ponies eyed him aslant andstraightway placed the hottest, juiciest piece of steak on his plate, andpoured his coffee even before she poured for old Dave Wiswell, whom shefavored as being an old acquaintance of the Pine Ridge country.

  Once when her father, old chief Big Turkey, had broken his leg andrefused to have a doctor attend him, and had said that he would die ifhis "son" did not make his leg well, Luck had looked as he looked now.Still, he had set chief Big Turkey's leg so well that it grew straightand strong again. Annie-Many-Ponies might be primitive as to her natureand untutored as to her mind, but she could read the face of her brotherWagalexa Conka swiftly and surely. Something was very bad in his heart.Annie-Many-Ponies searched her soul for guilt, remembered the smile shehad given to Ramone Chavez whom Wagalexa Conka did not like, andimmediately she became humbled before her chief.

  Shunka Chistala--which is Sioux for little dog--she banished into thecold, and hardened her heart, against his whining. It is true thatWagalexa Conka had not forbidden her to have the little dog in thehouse, but in his displeasure he might make the dog an excuse forscolding her and for taking the part of Rosemary, who hated dogs in thehouse, and who was trying, by every ingratiating means known to woman,to make a friend of Compadre. Rosemary was a white woman and the wife ofWagalexa Conka's friend; Annie-Many-Ponies was an Indian girl, not evenof the same race as her brother Wagalexa Conka. And although her vanitymight lead her to believe herself and her smile the cause of Luck'smask-like displeasure, she had no delusions as to which side he wouldtake in an argument between herself and Shunka Chistala on the one side,and Rosemary and Compadre on the other; and in the back of her mindlived always the fear that Wagalexa Conka might refuse to let her stayand work for him in pictures.

  Therefore Annie-Many-Ponies crouched humbly before the rockfireplace, until Luck missed her at the table and told her to comeand eat; she came as comes a dog who has been beaten, and slid intoher place as noiselessly as a shadow,--humility being the heritage ofher sex and race.

  No one talked at all. Even Rosemary seemed depressed and made no attemptto stir the Happy Family to their wonted cheerfulness. They were worn outfrom their long day that had been filled with real hardships as well aswork. In the general silence, Luck's deeper gloom seemed consistent andonly to be expected; for hard as the others had worked, he had workedharder. His had been the directing brain; his hand had turned the cameracrank, lest Bill Holmes, not yet familiar with his duties, might failwhere failure would be disaster. He had endured the cold and the storm,tramping back and forth in the snow, planning, directing, doing literallythe work of two men. Annie-Many-Ponies alone knew that exhaustion neverbrought just that look into Luck's face. Annie-Many-Ponies knew thatsomething was very bad in Luck's heart. She knew, and she trembled whileshe ate with a precise attention to her table manners lest he chide heropenly before them all.

  "How long do you think this storm will last, Applehead?" Luck asked, whenhe had walked heavily over to the fireplace for his smoke, and had drawna match sharply along the rough face of a rock.

  "We-ell, she's showin' some signs uh clearin' up to-night," Appleheadstated with careful judgment, because he felt that Luck's question hadmuch to do with Luck's plans, and was not a mere conversational bait."Wind, she's shiftin', er was, when I come in to supper. She shore comedown like all git-out ever since she started, and I calc'late she's aboutstormed out. I look fer sun all day to-morrer, boy." This last in a toneof such manifest encouragement that Luck snorted. (Back by the table inthe kitchen, Annie-Many-Ponies paused in her piling of plates andlistened breathlessly. She knew that particular sound. Wagalexa Conkawould presently reveal what was bad in his heart.)

  "That would be my luck, all right," her chief stated pessimistically.

  "What's the matter with the sun, now?" Big Medicine boomed reprovingly."Comin' in, you said you had your blizzard stuff, and now if the sun'djest come out, by cripes, you'd be singin' songs uh thanksgivin'--erwords to that effect. Honest to gran'ma, there's folks that'd kick if--"

  "But I haven't got my blizzard stuff," Luck stated, harshly because ofthe effort to speak at all. "All that negative I took to-day is chuckfull of 'static.'"

  Annie-Many-Ponies, out in the kitchen, dropped a granite-iron plate, butthe others merely stared at Luck uncomprehendingly.

  "Well, say, by cripes! What's statics?" demanded Big Medicinepugnaciously, as though he meant to ward off from his mind therealization of some new misfortune.

  Luck's lips twitched in the faint impulse toward a smile that would notcome. "Statics," he explained, "is that branch of mechanics that relatesto bodies held at rest by the forces acting on them. In other words, itis electricity in a stationary charge, the condition being produced byfriction, or induction. In other words--"

  "In other words," Big Medicine supplied glumly, "I can shut up and mindmy own business. I get yuh, all right!"

  "Nothing like that, Bud," Luck corrected more amiably, warmed a little bythe sympathy he knew would follow close upon the heels of understanding."Static is a technical word used a good deal in motion-picturephotography. In this case it was caused, I think, by the difference oftemperature in the metal parts of the camera and negative, and theweather outside the camera box. I've been keeping it here in the housewhere it's warm, and I took it out into the cold and startedwork--_sabe_? And the grinding of the bearings, and the action of thefilm on the race plate, generated static electricity in tiny flasheswhich lighted up the interior of the camera and light-exposed thenegative, as it was passing from one magazine to another. When it'sdeveloped, these flashes show up in contrasty lights, like tiny grapevines; I can show you that part; I've got about a mile of it, more orless, there in the dark room."

  "Plumb spoiled, d' yuh mean?" Big Medicine asked, his voice hushed beforethe catastrophe.

  "Plumb spoiled." Luck threw his cigarette stub viciously into theblaze. "All that drifting herd, all that panoram of Andy andMiguel--all--everything I took to-day, with the exception of those lastscenes with the cow and calf. The one where the cow is down and the snowdrifting over her, and the calf huddled there by the carcass,--that'sdandy. Camera and negative were cold as the outside air by that time.That one scene will stand out big; it's got an awful big punch, providedI had the stuff leading up to it, which I haven't got."

  "Hell!" said Andy softly, voicing the dismay of them all.

  Presently old Applehead unlimbered himself from his chair and went outinto the cold and darkness. When he came back, ribbing his knucklesfor warmth, he stood before the fireplace and ruminated dispiritedlybefore he spoke.

  "Ain't ary hope of it blizzardin' to-morrer, boy," he broke his silencereluctantly, "'less the wind changes, which she don't act to me likeshe's got ary notion of doin'; she's shore goin' to blind ye with sunto-morrer, now I'm tellin' yuh."

  "Well, there won't be any more static in my film," Luck declared withsudden decision, and carried his camera outside. When he returnedApplehead eyed him solicitously.

  "We-ell, this ain't but the middle uh November, yuh want to recollect,"he said. "We're liable to have purtier storms 'n what this here one was,'fore winter's over. Cattle'll be in worse condition, too,--ribs stickin'out so'st you kin count 'em a mile off 'n' more. Way winter's startin'in, wouldn't s'prise me a mite if we had storms all through till springopens up."

  Luck knew the old man was trying in his crude way to encourage him, buthe made no reply, and Applehead relapsed into drowsy meditation over hispipe. The boys, yawning sleepily, trailed off to bed in the Ketch-allcabin. Rosemary and Annie-Many-Ponies, having finished washing the dishesand tidying the kitchen, came through the room on their way to bed,Annie-Many-Ponies cunningly hiding the little black dog behind herskirts. Rosemary frowned at the two and went to the door and calledCompadre; but the blue cat, scenting a dog in the h
ouse, meowed hisregrets and would not come.

  "I'll take 'im down with me," said Applehead, rising stiffly. "He cain'ttake no comfort in the house no more--not till he spunks up and licksthat thar dawg a time er two. Comin', Luck?" he added, waiting at thedoor. But Luck was staring into the fire and did not seem to hear him, soApplehead went off alone to where the Happy Family were already creepingthankfully into their hard bunks.

  The house grew still; so still that Luck could hear the wind whisperingin the chimney, coming from the quarter which meant clearing weather. Hesighed, flung more wood on the coals to drive back the chill of thenight, and got out his scenario and some sheets of blank paper and apencil. He had sold his typewriter when he was raising money for thistrip, and he was inclined now to regret it. But he sharpened the pencil,laid a large-surfaced "movie" magazine across his knees, and prepared torevise his scenario to meet his present limitations.

  With a good thousand feet of film spoiled through no real fault of hisown, and with the expenses he knew he must meet looming inexorably beforehim, he simply could not afford a leading woman. Therefore, he mustchange his story, making it a "character" lead instead of theconventional hero and heroine theme. Chance--he called it luck--had senthim Annie-Many-Ponies, who "Wants no monies." He must change his story sothat she would fit into it as the necessary feminine element, but he wasdiscouraged enough that night to tell himself that, just as he had herplaced and working properly, the Indian Agent or her father, old BigTurkey, would probably demand her immediate return. In his despondentmood he had no faith in his standing with the Indians or in the letter hehad written to the Agent. His "one best bet", as he put it, was to makeher scenes as soon as possible, before they had time to reach him with aletter; therefore he must reconstruct his scenario immediately, so thathe could get to work in the morning, whatever the weather.

  He read the script through from beginning to end, and his heart wentheavy in his chest. He did not want to change one scene of that BigPicture. Just as it stood it seemed to him perfect in its way. It had thebigness of the West when the West was young. It had the red blood ofcourage, the strength of achievement, the sweetness of a great love. Itwas, in short, Luck's biggest, best work. Still, without a woman to playthat lead--

  Luck sighed and dampened his pencil on his tongue and drew a heavy linethrough the scene where "Marian" first appeared in the story. It hurt himlike drawing a hot wire across his hand. It was his first realcompromise, his first step around an obstacle in his path rather than hisusual bold jump over it. He looked at the pencil mark and consideredwhether he could not send for a girl young in the profession, who wouldbe satisfied with her transportation and thirty or forty dollars a weekwhile she stayed. He could make all her scenes and send her back. But alittle mental arithmetic, coupled with the cold fact that he did not knowof any young woman who was capable of doing the work he required andwould yet be satisfied with a small salary, killed that new-born hope. Hedrew a line through the next scene where the girl appeared.

  When he had quite blotted the girl from his story, he was appalled at thegap he must fill in the continuity and in the theme. He had left old DaveWiswell, his dried little cattleman, a childless old man--or else a"squaw" man whose squaw has, presumably, died before the story began.Somehow he could not "see" his cattleman as one who would set aside thebarrier of race and take a squaw for his wife. He could not seeAnnie-Many-Ponies as anything save what she was--a beautiful young savagewith an odd adornment of civilized speech and some of the civilizedcustoms, it is true, but a savage for all that. He did not want to spoilher by portraying her as a half-caste in his picture.

  He must make his story a man's story, with the full interest centeredabout the man's hopes, his temptations, his achievements. Thewoman--Annie, as he saw the woman now--must be of secondary interest. Helaid his head against the chair back in his favorite attitude foruninterrupted thought, and stared into the fire. In this way he hadstared out into the night of the Dakota prairie; at first brooding indiscontent because things were not as he would have them, then driftinginto dreams of what he would like; then weaving his dreams together andcreating a something complete in itself. So had he created his BigPicture,--the picture which was already beginning to live in the narrowstrips of negative. A few hundred feet of that negative were even dry andfiled away ready for cutting; unimportant scenes, to be sure, with all ofhis "big stuff" yet to be produced. His mind went methodically over thecompleted scenes, judging each one separately, seeking some change ofplot that would yet permit these scenes to be used. From there histhought drifted to the day's work in the blizzard,--the day's work thathad been lost because of atmospheric conditions. Blizzard stuff he musthave, he told himself stubbornly. Not only was that a phase of the rangewhich he must portray if his picture were to be complete; he must have itto lead the story up to that tragic, pitifully eloquent scene which hadcome out clear and photographically perfect,--the scene of the old cow'sstruggle against the storm and of her final surrender, too weak to matchher puny strength against the furies of wind and snow and cold. Thatscene would live long in the minds of those who saw it; that scene alonewould lift his picture above the dead level of mediocrity. But he musthave another blizzard....

  His eyelids drooped low over his tired eyes; through their narrowingopening he stared at the yellow glow of the fire. Only half awake, hedreamed of the herd drifting down that bleak hillside, with Andy and theNative Son riding doggedly after them. Only half awake, his storychanged, grew indistinct, clarified in stray scenes, held aloof fromhim, grew and changed, and was another story. And always in thebackground of his mind went that drifting herd. Sometimes snow-whitened,their backs humped in the wind, their heads lowered and swaying weaklyfrom side to side, the cattle marched and marched before him, sometimesobscured by the blackness of night, a vague procession of movingshadows; sometimes revealed suddenly when the lightning split theblackness. Like a phantom herd--

  "The phantom herd!" Aloud he cried the words. "_The Phantom Herd_!" Hesat up straight in his chair. Here was his title, for which his mind hadgroped so long and could not grasp. His title--

  "What--that you, Luck?" Andy Green's voice came sleepily from the nextroom. "What yuh want?"

  "I've got my title!" Luck called back, his voice exultant. "And I've gotmy story, too! Get up, Andy, and let me tell you the plot!"

  Whereupon Andy proved himself a real friend and an unselfish one. He feltas if getting up out of bed was the final, supreme torture under which aman may live; but he got up, for there was something in Luck's voice thatthrilled him even through the clogging sleep-hunger. Presently he wassitting in his trousers and socks and shirt, sleepy-eyed beside Luck.

  "Shoot it outa your system," he mumbled, and began feeling stupidly forhis cigarette papers. "_E--a-ough!_" he yawned, if so inarticulate asound may be spelled. "I knew you'd have to work your story over," hesaid, more normal of tone after the yawn. And he added bluntly,"Rosemary's one grand little woman--but she couldn't act if you trainedher a thousand years. What's your next best bet?"

  "No next best; it's _the_ picture this time. _The Phantom Herd_. Get thatas a title?"

  "Gee!" Andy softly paid tribute. Then he grinned. "By gracious, theysure didn't act to me like any phantom herd when we first headed 'eminto that wind!"

  "Them babies are going to march us up to a pile of real money, though,"Luck asserted eagerly.

  "Listen. Here's the story--the part I've changed; all the first part isthe same--the trail-herd and all. You're old Dave's son, and you'rewild. You quarrel, and he turns you out, thinking he'll let you rustlefor yourself awhile, and maybe tame down and come back more like he wantsyou to be. But you don't tame that way. You throw in with Miguel, and youtwo turn rustlers. You hold a grudge against your dad, and you rustlefrom him mostly, on the plea that by rights what's his is yours--youknow. Annie is Mig's sweetheart, and she's a kind of go-between--keepsyou posted on what's taking place on the outside, and all that. Ihaven't," he explained hastily, "dope
d out the details yet. I'm givingyou the main points I want to bring out. Well, here's the big stuff; youget a big herd together. You're holding 'em in a box canyon,--I know thespot, all right,--waiting for a chance to drive them outa the country;see? This blizzard hits, and you take advantage of it to drive the herdout under cover of the storm. But the blizzard beats you. You trail 'emalong, but there's only two of you, and you can't keep 'em from swingingaway from the wind. You try to hold the herd into the storm,--that'swhere I'll get my big storm effects,--but they swing off in spite of you.Your horses get tired; all you can do is follow the herd. Lord! I wishthat stuff I took to-day wasn't spoiled! I sure would have had some bigstuff there. Well, Mig's horse goes down in a drifted wash. You're tryingto point the herd then, and the storm's so thick you don't miss him atfirst, we'll say.

  "Anyway, as I've doped it out, Mig loses his life. You find himdead--whether then or later I don't know yet. The punch is this: You havebeen getting pretty sick of the life, and wishing you had behavedyourself and stayed with your dad. But you've been afraid of Mig. Youcouldn't see any chance of taking the back trail as long as he was aliveto tell on you. Now he's dead. I guess maybe you better find him rightthere in the blizzard--hurt maybe--anyway, just about all in. You try tosave him, _sabe_? You can't, though."

  "I still don't see no phantom herd," observed Andy, wriggling his toesluxuriously in the warmth of the fire.

  "Well, listen. You'll see it in a minute. You go back home after yourpard's dead. You have a close squeak yourself, see? And the thing workson your mind. Cutting out the frills, you see things. You see a herddrifting before a storm, maybe,--a blizzard like yesterday, with your palriding point. You try to come up with it--no herd there. You come toyourself and go back home. Then maybe some black night you're broodingbefore a fire like this--I can get a great firelight effect on your face,sitting like this"--Luck, actor that he was, made Andy see just how thescenes would look--"have a flare in the fire to throw the light back onyou; see what I mean? And outside a thunderstorm is rolling up. A brightflash of lightning startles you. You go to the door and open it; you seethe herd drifting past with Mig trailing along on his horse--blackshadows, and then standing out clear in the lightning--"

  "How the deuce--"

  "I'll do that with 'lap dissolves' and double exposures. Lots of workthat will be, and careful work, but the result will be--why, Lord! Itwill be immense! That herd and the lone rider haunt you till you're onthe edge of being crazy. Then I'll bring out somehow that it's a nervouscondition, which of course it is. And I'll bring old Dave in strong; hefollows you some night, and he finds out what you're after. You tellhim--make a clean breast of your rustling, see? Just unburden your mindto your dad. He's big enough to see that he isn't altogether clear ofguilt himself, for sending you off the way he did. Anyway, that pulls youout of it. The phantom herd and rider pass over the sky line somenight--Lord, I can see what a picture I can get out of that!--and out ofyour life."

  "Unh-hunh--that's a heap better than your first story, Luck."

  "Andy, are you boys going to talk all night?" the voice of Rosemary cameplaintively from the next room.

  "Here. You go back to bed," Luck generously commanded. "I just wanted toget your idea of what it sounds like. I'll block it out before I turn in.Go on, now."

  So Luck wrote his new story of _The Phantom Herd_ that night. He had amidnight supper of warmed-over coffee and cold bean sandwiches, but hedid not have any sleep. When he had finished with a last big, artisticscene that made his pulse beat faster in the writing of it, the whiteworld outside was growing faintly pink under the rising sun.