Cowboy For Hire Read online

  Amy had as many dreams for her future as any other young, modern woman, although her dreams might be considered by more romantic young women as awfully dull. And even Amy had to admit that her dreams weren’t outrageous. She didn’t long to become a hot-air balloonist, for instance. Nor did she want to conquer Mount Everest or swim the English Channel or join Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show.

  Her dreams were much more reasonable than that. In fact, some people might call them prosaic. They didn’t seem prosaic to Amy. They seemed golden, probably because her own family life with her mother and father had been cut so tragically short.

  But she knew one thing for certain: Someday she was going to have a home and family of her own. That was all, the extent of her most precious and idyllic hopes for her future. Her friends thought she was remarkably shortsighted, but Amy knew what it was to lose life’s most priceless gifts; she knew what was important in life and what was mere window dressing.

  She even had a young man, Vernon Catesby, who appeared at this time to be the most likely means for Amy to achieve her dream. If he was the least bit stuffy, Amy didn’t mind. She craved security. Predictability and security, to her at least, went hand in hand, and Vernon was nothing if not predictable.

  At this particular moment, however, Amy wasn’t contemplating her life’s dream or Vernon Catesby. No. At this moment, she and Martin Tafft were seated in the snug lounge of the Orange Rest Health Spa, and Amy was staring at him thinking he didn’t fit into her dream-achieving pattern one tiny little trifling iota of an atom. In fact, she believed she’d misunderstood him and wondered if she could possibly be going deaf. Admittedly, she was rather young for that, but she couldn’t conceive of what she’d heard any other way.

  The lounge at the Orange Rest was furnished in a South Seas style with palm trees, Hawaiian prints on the sofa cushions, and woven grass matting on the floor. The afternoon heat had driven most of the inmates to their rooms, where electric fans added a modicum of comfort to the still air. This room, which was shaded by a row of stately pepper trees, was fairly comfortable.

  With her hands folded modestly and resting on the table between herself and Martin, Amy stared at him, dumbfounded, unable to believe what her ears had just heard. She scarcely found the wit to say, “I beg your pardon?”

  Martin repeated himself patiently and added, “I understand why you might be surprised, Miss Wilkes. After all, it isn’t every day a young woman with no prior acting experience is invited to play a principal part in a motion picture opposite a famous star of stage and screen.”

  Unable to think of anything to say, Amy nodded.

  “Mr. Huxtable would like you to act as his leading lady in the Peerless Studio’s next production.” Martin smiled pleasantly. “It’s an ambitious prospect. Four whole reels, and it will take probably three weeks or more to shoot.”

  This was another surprise for Amy, because Martin’s time scheme contradicted articles she’d read in newspapers and periodicals. She blurted out, “I thought people made moving pictures in a day or two.”

  Martin shook his head. “Not this one. This one’s big. Mr. Lovejoy is counting on it to secure the studio’s reputation. After this one is seen, when the public thinks of moving pictures, they’ll think Vitagraph, Biograph, and Peerless, and of the three, only Peerless will be out here on the West Coast, where the sun shines year-round and pictures can be made in the dead of winter if they need to be.”

  “Oh.”

  Warming to his theme, Martin went on. “This picture will be what we’re calling a ‘feature’. It’s a new term, and it’s going to take off like wildfire. Folks will flock to the theaters to see featured motion pictures along with a one-reel short or two.”

  “Theaters?” Amy’s voice had dropped and was very small.

  Martin nodded. “Oh, yes. Folks are building special theaters for moving pictures these days.”

  “Oh.”

  Amy noticed that Martin’s eyes sparkled, and she thought it was nice that he enjoyed his work. But—act in a movie? Amy Wilkes? From Pasadena, California? She couldn’t imagine herself doing anything so … so … so … bizarre. Amy craved continuity, not out-of-the-wayness.

  She also couldn’t feature her young gentleman banker friend Vernon Catesby, who had been paying her particular attentions of late, approving of this venture. She didn’t approve, herself, if it came to that.

  Martin went on. “It’s a western picture, and it’ll be called One and Only. Cowboys are very popular these days.”

  “One and Only,” Amy said dully. “But why me?”

  “Why not you?” He gave her a charming smile that Amy would bet a dozen of her uncle’s oranges he’d practiced in front of a mirror, rather as Mr. Huxtable had practiced his sneer. “You’re a lovely young woman. This will be a tremendous opportunity for you.”

  Glancing through the window to the patio, Amy spotted Horace Huxtable still there, the only inmate remaining outdoors, sprawled, glaring gloomily at his empty orange juice glass. “What kind of opportunity?”

  “Why, to get in on the ground floor of a brand-new venture, to make money doing something enjoyable, and to see a little of the way in which motion pictures are made. Most of the industry is still located back East with Mr. Edison, but the Peerless Studio is at the forefront of Western production.”

  “Oh.”

  “Absolutely! Why, simply take a look around. We here in Southern California have wonderful weather and grand locations. The sun shines everywhere, all the time! Especially now when the public fascination with cowboys is at its peak, why should movies be filmed in New York? It makes no sense.”

  “Oh.”

  “So you see, you’ll be getting in at the beginning of a major innovation in a brand-new industry! And if you do well, you’ll certainly get more work. You might even catch the public’s fancy and become a star. There are monumental opportunities for money and fame in the movie business, Miss Wilkes.”

  Mercy sakes, wouldn’t Vernon pitch a fit if she became a famous motion picture actress.

  She shook her head to dislodge the notion. This was getting silly. She sat up straight and frowned slightly. “I’ve never been interested in fame, Mr. Tafft. I think it would be awful to be recognized by strangers on the street. And I don’t want to make money if it means sacrificing my morals.”

  “Sacrificing your morals?” Martin Tafft looked positively shocked.

  Amy, feeling uncomfortable, said, “Well, I’ve read things.”

  “Tosh. Miss Wilkes, the articles you’ve read have painted a faulty picture, if that’s what you think. Why, the movies are supremely moral.”

  “They are?”

  “They are. Why, they’re going to break down barriers between nations!”

  “They are?”

  “Absolutely! They’re going to help us understand that we’re all part of God’s family. Nations will be able to view the way people in other nations live. They’ll come to understand that people are alike the world over.”

  “Mercy.”

  “Pictures are marvelous! They’re entertainment for the entire family. They promote community values and family togetherness.”

  “They do?”

  “Of course! Why, fathers will be going to the movies with their families on Sunday afternoons instead of heading into pool palaces and gin mills! Pictures will be the salvation of our great country!”

  “I … ah … hadn’t heard that.” She would, however, keep these arguments in mind should she need them when discussing this opportunity with Vernon.

  Martin huffed. “You never need fear for the moral tone of a Peerless picture, Miss Wilkes. In fact, do you realize that when Peerless made a moving picture of The Scarlet Letter, Mr. Lovejoy made sure that Hester and Mr. Dimmesdale were married?”

  Amy blinked, trying to take it in. “But—what was the story about, if they were a married couple? I mean, wasn’t the whole plot—” She broke off, embarrassed to be talking about illegitimate c
hildren, adultery, and so forth with a stranger.

  Martin waved her question away. “But, you see, don’t you, that Peerless deals in nothing but material of the highest moral caliber.”

  Again peering through the window and taking in the spectacle of Horace Huxtable slouched at his table, Amy shook her head. “I’m sure Mr. Lovejoy’s morals are of the highest caliber, but I don’t care to be corrupted by anyone whose morals don’t match his.”

  Martin glanced at Huxtable, too, and sighed. “Of course you don’t. Believe me, I’ll see that nothing bad happens to you. We even have matrons to assist our actresses on the set.”

  “What’s a set?”

  He looked at her blankly for a moment. Amy might have been embarrassed by her ignorance, except that she perceived this opportunity as too serious to gloss over. She needed to know everything in order to make an informed decision. Her future might depend on her choice.

  “The set is where the picture will be shot.”

  She squinted at him. “I’m afraid I still don’t understand, Mr. Tafft. Don’t you just set up a camera somewhere and paint a backdrop or something? As they do in the theater?”

  His expression held a little condescension. Amy opted to overlook it for the moment in favor of gathering information. “Not any longer, Miss Wilkes. Not for this picture. The days of shooting moving pictures just any old where are gone for good. The public is demanding realism nowadays, and Peerless is going to give it to them with One and Only. That’s why Peerless is setting up out here in California. Whoever heard of a cowboy in New York?”

  He chuckled, but Amy didn’t get the joke.

  After clearing his throat, he went on. “One of my jobs is to scout out suitable locations. One and Only will be filmed not too far from here in the desert outside a small community called El Monte.”

  She nodded. She knew El Monte; had even been there once. It was way out in the country and was full of cows. People grew an assortment of agricultural crops there as well. The rest of it was, well, desert. It was, in her limited experience, at the end of the earth.

  Martin continued. “There are hundreds of movies being made every year now, and opportunities are better than ever for an ambitious young person to earn a good deal of money. Ever since The Great Train Robbery, the industry has taken off like a frightened rabbit.

  An apt metaphor. Amy said with great reserve, “Thus far, I haven’t found my association with moving picture folks a particularly happy one, Mr. Tafft.”

  She saw him heave another sigh. “Has Huxtable been a trial for you?

  “Yes.” Although Amy was generally the most polite and well-bred of young women, she saw no need to mince matters at present. “He’s been perfectly awful.”

  “Well, but look here, Miss Wilkes, the rest of the cast is nice. The man who’s been hired to play the love triangle interest is a real cowboy, and he’s as polite and shy as anything.”

  “He is, is he?”

  Martin nodded. “And think of the money. Where else can you earn so much by doing so little? And remember, you don’t need to stay in the pictures forever. You can save your money and set yourself up anywhere. This is an opportunity that isn’t offered to just anyone.”

  Having been brought up by relatives with strict ethical principles and old-fashioned ideals, Amy sniffed at that. “Making money for doing very little is not what I think of as suitable employment for an industrious, honest, hardworking young woman, Mr. Tafft.”

  He lifted his hands as if her starchy attitude was getting the better of him. “So you can work harder on the set if you want to. For heaven’s sake, Miss Wilkes, we need you!”

  She didn’t like the turn this conversation was taking. Any time a person said he needed her, her immediate reaction was to leap in and help that person out. “Surely there must be other young women available to act the role?”

  He shook his head emphatically. “You’re the one. You’re the only one. The one and only. You fit the description of the heroine to a T.”

  Amy remained unimpressed. “Well … I’ll have to discuss the matter with my aunt and uncle.” And Vernon. She didn’t mention him to Mr. Tafft. “They were kind enough to take me in and give me a position here at the Orange Rest when my parents passed on.”

  “I see.” Martin paused to think for a minute. “There’s another point right there,” he said. “If you—a young woman alone in the world—have to make your own living, the movies are a good place to do it. As I’ve said over and over again, there’s good money in the pictures.”

  “From all I’ve heard, there’s a lot more than money in them,” she said acidly. She read the newspapers and the magazines. She knew what shenanigans and scrapes some picture people got themselves into. Although, she had to admit, it would be pleasant to know she had money of her own tucked away in case of an emergency.

  Martin evidently deduced what she was thinking because he repeated, “Believe me, Miss Wilkes, it’s only a very small proportion of the motion picture community that misbehaves. Most of them are fine, upstanding people.”

  Amy’s glance slid over to Huxtable and back to Martin, who shrugged helplessly. “He’s really not so bad. Honestly. He overindulges sometimes, is all.

  “Hmmm.”

  Nevertheless, Amy talked to Vernon Catesby about the opportunity when he paid a call upon her later in the afternoon. Vernon frowned. The expression was not unfamiliar to Amy, who heaved a silent internal sigh. She was fond of Vernon, in a way, and she fully expected to marry him one day. He was dependable, sensible, and could offer her more security than anyone else in her present orbit. She could not, however, repress a tiny twinge of boredom every time she was in his company.

  “I don’t like it,” he said flatly. “Motion pictures may be a way to make fast money, but you know very well that the morals of those people are suspect. Why, actors have been on the lowest echelon of society for hundreds of years.”

  “Mr. Tafft seemed quite pleasant and not at all immoral.” Amy said, feeling suddenly stifled by Vernon’s attitude.

  Vernon shook his head. “I fear I must forbid you to do this thing, Amy. It’s ludicrous and completely inappropriate.”

  Amy squinted at him. She would never go so far as to announce to Vernon that he had no right to forbid her to do anything, but she didn’t care for his tone. Or his words. “We’ll see,” she said in a voice that sounded more chilly than usual. “I shall speak to Aunt Julia and Uncle Frank about it.”

  Vernon’s bloodless lips compressed and his thin, patrician features registered censure. Amy offered him orange juice and lemon bars to sweeten him up, and he was smiling again by the time he left.

  When she spoke to her aunt and uncle later in the day, both of them were more eager for her to have this chance than she was.

  “Just think, dear, your face will be up there on the screen in a picture palace! My niece!” Her aunt Julia clasped her hands to her bosom and beamed at her. “Oh, it’s so exciting!”

  “Sounds all right to me,” her uncle Frank said with less enthusiasm, but no apparent misgivings. “You have to admit the money’s swell.”

  Swell. Good heavens, Amy hadn’t even started her career as an actress yet, and already her family’s vocabulary was being corrupted. “Mr. Tafft says they’ll want to change my name.”

  Her aunt look puzzled. “Whatever for?”

  She shrugged. “He says Amy might not be sophisticated enough for the movies.”

  “But,” her aunt said, “they don’t have the names of the players printed anywhere on the screen, do they?”

  Amy was prepared for this question, and was pleased she’d asked Martin about it. “No, but interested members of the public sometimes write to the studios or to Motion Pictures Story magazine, and they give out the names.”

  Both her aunt and uncle pondered this information for a moment or two. Finally her uncle said, “That actually might not be a bad idea. After all, you don’t want everybody in the world to know your
real name, do you?”

  Gracious sakes. If even her easygoing uncle was ashamed of her possible association with the moving pictures, Amy didn’t want anything to do with them herself.

  Her aunt spoke next. “That’s nonsense, Frank. I think it’s a wonderful opportunity for Amy. It’s the best way I can think of for her to gain some experience of the world—” She stopped speaking suddenly and looked worriedly at her niece. “There will be some kind of protection for you, won’t there? I mean, the ladies and gentlemen in the picture won’t mix socially, will they?”

  With a touch of irony, Amy said, “Mr. Tafft said there are matrons and guards and so forth on all picture sets. I guess they need them to keep curiosity seekers away. And to protect the cast”

  “Well, then,” her aunt said with renewed enthusiasm. “I think you should do it.”

  After several more moments of deep thought, and after considering Vernon’s objections and her aunt’s excitement, Amy gave up her arguments. As Mr. Tafft had said, if she didn’t like it, she never had to do it again—and the money was awfully good. “Very well. I’ll give it a try.”

  Her aunt was ecstatic.

  Her uncle was pleased.

  Vernon was disgusted.

  Martin was elated.

  Huxtable immediately began plotting her seduction.

  Two

  The train chugged to a stop in a small station that looked as if it had been dropped there, in the middle of nowhere, by some maniacal devil trying to hide it from the world. As far as his eyes could see, Charlie Fox detected no other sign of life but that one small, dusty building. Did folks actually live there?

  A native of Arizona Territory, Charlie wasn’t unfamiliar with deserts, but this one looked a lot different from the deserts he was used to near the beautiful rock formations around Sedona. This California desert was ugly.

  That was neither here nor there, however. He clutched his one piece of luggage, a battered denim carpetbag his older brother had used in ’98 when he went off to Cuba to fight in the Spanish-American War, and headed toward the exit.