The Greatest Works of B. M. Bower - 51 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). B. M. Bower
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gunshot of me with their damned cameras, I'll shoot the damn guts out of the things. And that goes for my boys too."
"No need to get riled up over it," Tex drawled soothingly. "All they want is—"
"You tell them what I said, will you, please? Or if you won't do it, I'll tell them myself—and there won't be enough left of their cameras to carry home. I'm sorry, Tex, but that's absolutely final." The Kid walked off, and the three followed him, apologizing with their eyes to Tex, who gazed after them curiously before he turned and made his way back to the chutes where Andy was busily placing the men as they came up in response to Tex's request.
"This is about all, I guess," Tex observed.
"I thought I saw those Laramie boys around here, a little while ago," Andy replied, glancing along the fence at the riders and men afoot. "I wonder if the Kid would mind riding that sorrel out here for a few minutes. He's here somewhere, isn't he?"
"Yeah, he's in the stables," Tex told him. "What's the trouble between him and you folks, Green?" He took the time to light his cigar. "I didn't know you was even acquainted."
"Did he say there was trouble between us?" Andy glanced at the other members of the Happy Family who were standing near.
"Well," said Tex in his drawling voice, "he gave me a message to deliver, and I ain't sure it's going to do any good to anybody. I hate to be talkin' in the dark—"
"What was it, Tex? It may not do any good, but it can't do any harm, either. What did he say?"
"Well, I told him and them other blue shirts to come on over here, that you wanted to use 'em in a picture, and the Kid said you could go to hell, and to tell you if you ever come near him—"
"I guess we understand," Andy said with a short laugh. "It sounds about like the Kid. He's all pooched out over the publicity he's getting, I suppose. Well, you can tell him we don't want to ruin any film and we'd like him to stay off the lot. Some day," Andy predicted with contemptuous emphasis, "that boy's going to bust. If that conceit of his ever starts working, he'll blow up like a still with the cooling pipe clogged."
"You know him, do you?" Tex's black eyes widened with surprise.
"Know him? Say, I hate to peddle bad news, but that's Chip's boy! Used to be a regular kid, but they sent him to college and he's turned out to be the damnedest—"
"Chip? Chip Bennett?" Tex took his cigar from his mouth and looked it over gravely. "That's who he looks like, come to think of it. I knew he was a dead ringer for somebody, but Chip's dressed different and wears a small hat, and I couldn't seem to place the Kid. What's the trouble between him and his folks? He come here alone—rode all the way from Montana—and he never let on who he was. Entered as Montana Kid. Seems funny—"
"Ashamed of his folks, maybe; but he ain't half as ashamed as they are of him; or oughta be," snapped Pink. "Wouldn't speak to me yesterday. Passed us up like—like—" Pink's voice trailed off into muttering.
"Seems a nice, quiet boy, I thought." Tex looked from one to the other in puzzled questioning. "Too quiet. I set him down as bashful and sensitive, maybe. He sure is a hummer, though, when he gets on a horse. That boy keeps on like he's started, he'll have the world's championship in another year or two. I should think Chip Bennett would be proud of a boy like him; I know I would."
If the Happy Family felt a rebuke in Tex's words they gave no sign. Andy Green grunted and pulled a dog-eared script from his pocket, frowning as he scanned page after page. Whether he was conscious of the typed words is a question only Andy himself could answer. The Native Son, called Luis by his friends for professional reasons when others were near, signalled languidly to the assistant director who hurried up with a hand mirror into which the Native Son scowled, unseeingly retouching his make-up.
"Bashful and sensitive!" gritted Pink, close beside him. "If he's bashful, I'm a perfect lady!"
"He's a rider, though," Weary reminded them, a troubled look in his eyes as he stared out across the arena. "Tex is right about that. He's so much like Chip used to be, it—damn it, it kind of gets me when I see him going up against these champs alone. He—we ought to be backin' him, damn it! Chip's kid—and not one of the bunch willing to give him a good word or a pat on the back—I tell yuh, boys, it ain't right!"
"Pats on the back's what ails him, Weary," the Native Son said slowly. "Nobody hates this condition of things worse than I do, but I don't see how it's going to be helped when the Kid turns us down cold, the way he does. You know yourself—"
"All right, Luis," Andy called sharply. "You boys get on your horses and be ready to pick up the action when Luis has made his ride. But keep outside the scene, all of you, till I give the word. This horse is going to do straight-forward bucking, they tell me—easy to ride but showy. I want to get all of it I can. And Luis," he added, coming closer and lowering his voice, "Tex ain't going to stand over you with a club and make yuh muffle your spurs. I looked this horse over, and he struck me as being an old crow-hopper. So—"
"You want a little action, eh?"
"That's the idea, Mig. It's asking a lot of Tex to use his stock this way, when he's got a whole week of two contests a day. I've got a suspicion he's givin' you a cowgirl's bronk. One of the easy ones."
"Leave it to me, Andy." The Native Son smiled his slow smile, the one that photographed so well. "The way I feel right now, it's action I want and lots of it. You'll get a bucking scene, don't worry."
"Well, don't advertise them spurs. But if you forget the contest rule here, I won't wire in to have yuh fired. And you know, Mig, I don't want to pay for the horse, either!"
"Did you ever know of my cutting up a horse with spurs?" The Native Son frowned. "I know the story and I know the kind of a ride this scene calls for. That's the kind you're going to get, unless the old skate lays down with me."
The Little Doctor, Chip, the Old Man and Boy, with Dulcie Harlan and her father following a few paces behind, appeared suddenly at the little gate beside the chutes.
"Here's your audience, Andy," the Little Doctor called in her clear treble. "We want to see it all without being seen, so where shall we sit?"
Delay followed their coming, while Andy established the group where they would be sure to see all that was going on, and chatted with the Old Man about his rheumatism, which was better—so much so that the Old Man was walking with a cane and the help of some one's sustaining arms—and with the Little Doctor about the scenes they were going to "shoot" that morning, and with Chip who had refused to borrow a cowboy costume and ride with the others. You would think, to see him, that he knew Joshua's technique of making the sun stand still, and would apply it after awhile. But that is the way with movie directors; harried to death but never hurried, however much they may pretend to be.
It took Boy to jar Andy loose and start him to work on the scene.
"Say, Andy, there was a big long piece in the paper about the Kid catchin' a robber—"
"Yeah, I saw it," Andy broke in hastily. "Well, the light is just about right, now—I've got to go and make Mig earn his salary. You folks will have lunch with us, won't yuh? I've got it ordered at a good place up town—we'll eat at noon and get right down here for the afternoon show. Going to shoot some regular contest scenes." He gave Boy a quick, admonitory glance (wholly wasted) and lifted his megaphone to his mouth.
"All right, folks, we're going to make this without any rehearsal. Outa the scene, everybody! Ready there at the chutes?" He was walking toward the camera all the while he was speaking, and now he stood critically surveying the spot where Luis Mendoza—for the moment not the Native Son—should come hurtling forth from the shallow pen when the gate upon which he now sat was thrown open.
"All right, Luis! Head him straight out and down the field, if you can."
"Say, is this rocking-horse broke to neck rein?" retorted the Native Son, grinning as he let himself down into the saddle, removed his hat and shook back his heavy mane of hair.
"All right?" questioned Andy through the megaphone.