Cowboy For Hire (8 page)

Charlie said, “I’m sorry to have to tell you
this, Miss Wilkes, but my boss, the evil Mr. McAllister, is going
to buy up the loan on your daddy’s ranch. I’m afraid you’re going
to be tossed out into the cold.”

Since the temperature had been hovering in
the upper nineties ever since Amy had arrived in El Monte, this
seemed singularly inapt phrasing. She did not point it out to
Charlie, being way too shaky to say anything at all. Instead, she
pressed the back of her left hand to her forehead, tilted her head
back, closed her eyes, as she’d seen an actress do in a nickelodeon
once, and tried to convey the impression of a young woman who was
both horrified and delicate.

“Say something, Miss Wilkes. You have to move
your mouth.”

Pickles. Amy didn’t want to say anything,
partly because her mouth was dry and her tongue was stuck to the
roof of it, but mostly because she was undergoing a moment of
exquisite embarrassment and had no idea what to say. Struggling to
maintain her composure, she managed to blurt out, “Oh, dear.”

From the sidelines, Huxtable snorted. “’Oh,
dear,’” he repeated in a mocking tone. “Good God, Tafft. You have
to give the girl something to say. She’s obviously been stricken
dumb by the thrill of starring in a picture with me.”

Amy dropped her hand from her forehead and
straightened. “I have not! That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve
ever heard!”

“Better,” Martin said with pleasure. “Much
better! Only you should probably look a little scared, too. It’s
good to be angry, but you need to show that you’re worried, as
well.” He tilted his head and frowned, his benign expression not
wavering. “Er, perhaps you should forego the dramatic gesture with
your hand to your forehead.”

Amy gazed at him, bewildered.

“And, Charlie, try to look sly. You’re a bit
of a villain, you know, trying to get the girl away from Huxtable
by devious tricks.”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t need any devious tricks
to do
that
,” Amy grumbled under her breath. She’d been
thinking mainly of Huxtable, but blushed when Charlie gave her a
wicked grin.

“No?” he said softly. “Is that so, Miss
Wilkes? I had no idea.”

She huffed, beginning to wonder if all men
were beasts and not just Horace Huxtable. “It’s because of him,”
she said sharply. “Not you.”

He sighed dramatically. “I was afraid of
that.”

“Okay,” Martin called. “Let’s try again.”
He’d forgotten Huxtable’s condition and spoken too loudly. He
realized his error when Huxtable spat out an expletive. Amy gave
him a good scowl to let him know she didn’t approve of profanity.
He sneered at her.

“Miss Wilkes,” Charlie said, starting over,
this time with a sly twinkle in his eyes. “I’m trying to win you
away from Horace Huxtable by devious stratagems. Think I have a
chance?”

Fighting a sudden urge to giggle, Amy took a
step back and tried her best to appear totally aghast. She was
assisted in the endeavor by recollections of how she’d had to deal
with Huxtable at her uncle’s health spa. The further recollection
that she’d soon have to be playing scenes with the actor himself
erased any desire to giggle. “I sincerely doubt that either one of
you stands a chance,” she said with a snap in her voice. She opened
her eyes wide and made a stab at looking scared.

“Good!” Martin called. “Why don’t you squeeze
your hands together, too, like you did before? Give the scene a
touch of sentiment. We want the public to be worried for you.”

Sentiment? Worry? Good heavens, it was a
moving picture, not an episode from life. Nevertheless, Amy did as
he’d suggested, clasping her hands to her bosom and attempting with
all her might to appear pathetic.

“Better,” she heard Huxtable mumble. “Not
much better, but better.”

She stopped emoting instantly and turned on
him. “
Will
you be quiet? You’re distracting me, and this is
hard enough to begin with.” When she heard herself, she was fairly
stunned. Good glory, she was turning into a shrew. Her mother, who
had taught her ladylike behavior before she could walk, would have
been horrified. Vernon would be horrified. Amy was a little
horrified herself.

Huxtable snorted and growled. “Temperamental
bitch, ain’t she?”

Charlie scratched his chin and looked as if
he were trying not to laugh.

Martin cried, “That’s it! That’s perfect! Use
that exact expression, Miss Wilkes!”

“Gracious,” murmured Amy, and decided on the
spot that acting in the moving pictures was a lot more complicated
than one might expect if one only saw the end result. Then her
brain registered what Huxtable had called her, and she whipped
around, slamming her fists on her hips. “How
dare
you! You
drunken sot! Don’t you dare call me that word again!”

Charlie lost the battle he’d been waging with
his funny bone and burst out laughing. Martin blinked, surprised.
Amy stamped her foot and didn’t know if she was more angry with
Horace Huxtable, with herself for allowing him to get under her
skin, or with Charlie Fox for laughing at her.

With bitterness in her heart, Amy returned
her whole attention to the rehearsal. She tried hard to perform as
Mr. Tafft desired her to and to ignore Huxtable’s many snide
asides. She told herself she didn’t care what anyone else thought
of her acting. She had to act in truth when the time came for her
to perform with Horace Huxtable.

He lumbered onto the set, still looking green
and bloodshot, and smirking up a storm. Amy frowned at him.
Charlie, she noticed, was watching curiously from the sidelines, a
grin on his face. She’d like to wipe that grin away but didn’t know
how to accomplish it.

“All right,” said Huxtable. “Let’s get this
over with.”

Martin’s voice had evidently become strained,
because he’d picked up a megaphone to help himself project. He
looked slightly nervous about this latest pairing, although he
sounded buoyant when he called out, “Take your places, Horace and
Miss Wilkes. Miss Wilkes, I think you should be at the fence
staring off into the distance, worrying about how you’re going to
hold on to your father’s legacy.”

“Certainly.” Moving to the fence, Amy thought
that, had her own father been so careless as to stake the family
homestead as equity with so obviously undesirable a person as
Horace Huxtable, he would have deserved to lose it. With her
handkerchief she wiped dust off the top rail and folded her arms on
it. Huxtable huffed in the background, but she didn’t turn around
to see what he was huffing about.

“Prude,” he said. “Afraid of a little
dust.”

She heard that one, but opted not to respond.
If it was prudish to care about keeping her shirtwaist clean, then
she was a prude.

“All right,” Martin said hurriedly. “Let’s
get on with it. Miss Wilkes, you don’t know Huxtable has entered
the yard. You’re over there mooning into space, and when he speaks,
you’re startled and whirl around. Got it?”

“Got it.” She was pleased she sounded so
sporty.

“Action!” called Martin.

Amy stared off into the unlovely distance,
missing the orange groves and poppy fields of her Pasadena home.
She tried to feel bad about losing a ranch in the desert outside of
El Monte, but couldn’t make herself do it because the scenery was
so ugly. She figured the orange trees and poppies would do quite
nicely as substitutes, so she mourned losing them instead.

Huxtable wasn’t exactly light on his feet. He
stomped onto the marked-off set border, and Amy turned, trying to
look startled.

“No, no, Miss Wilkes,” Martin set his
megaphone down and walked over to her. “You turned too soon. You
don’t turn until he speaks. Until then, you don’t hear him.”

“But I did hear him. He walks like an
elephant.”

Huxtable cast a long-suffering glance into
the heavens. Amy resented it like thunder.

“But, you see,” Martin told her gently,
“nobody but you can hear him. The audience watching the picture in
the theatre won’t. The picture’s silent.”

Fiddle. That’s right
. “I beg your
pardon. May we try it again?”

“Of course.”

She felt better about her error when Martin
smiled and patted her shoulder. Charlie was smiling, too, with what
looked like sympathy. She tried not to begrudge his expression as
she’d begrudged Huxtable’s, since she didn’t think Charlie’s smile
should be cast into the same mold as Huxtable’s long-suffering,
insulting glance. She smiled back at Martin. “Very well. I’ll get
set again.”

Huxtable sighed long and loud, and Martin
whispered, “Pay no attention to him, Miss Wilkes. He doesn’t feel
well today.”

“Small wonder,” she said darkly, and resumed
her pose at the fence.

Again she heard Huxtable shuffle onto the
set. The big boor. But she didn’t turn, awaiting his words. They
weren’t long in coming.

“Well, bless my soul, if it ain’t Miss Prissy
Wilkes. Do you suppose I can wrangle a kiss from her? Most women
can’t resist me once I turn on the old charm.”

She turned at that, horrified. “You beastly
man! How dare you say things like that to me?”

“No, no, no,” said Martin, sounding faintly
exasperated this time. “Miss Wilkes, you’re not supposed to be
angry, only surprised.”

She turned to Martin, furious. “Did you hear
what he said to me?”

“Yes.” Martin frowned at Huxtable, who was
snickering like a naughty schoolboy. “But you have to ignore his
words, Miss Wilkes. I know you’re not used to this.” His smile
appeared a wee bit tight. “And you’re doing remarkably well. You
only need to keep in mind that this is a silent picture, and that
the audience probably isn’t adept at lip-reading. Act you part, and
forget Huxtable.

“I wish I could!”

He rounded on Huxtable. “Will you at least
try to behave yourself, Horace? You’re not helping any, you
know.”

Huxtable chuffed irritably. “I feel like
shit, and she’s doing a very bad job.”

Amy gasped.

“You’re the one who told me to hire her,”
Martin said.

She gasped again, dismayed. Was that the
truth?

Huxtable shrugged. “She’s pretty. I figured I
could probably woo her into my bed before the end of the
picture—”

Amy shrieked. “What did you say?”

“– but I don’t think I even want her
anymore.”

Whirling, Amy shouted again, “What did he
say?”

Huxtable, ignoring her, shouts and all, went
on, “She’s pretty enough, and she has a luscious figure. But she’s
also got a ghastly personality, and she’s a terrible prig.”

Before Amy knew what was happening, Charlie
had come over to the little group. She was shaking with rage and
humiliation, felt like crying, refused to give in to the urge, but
didn’t know what to say or do instead. At least Martin appeared
chagrined, which was something. Huxtable, needless to say, sneered
at her.

Charlie had been chewing on a straw, but when
Huxtable’s vile comment smote his ears, he chucked the straw aside.
He didn’t approve of men talking about women that way, even when
the women weren’t around to hear it. Miss Wilkes was standing right
there, hearing every word. And Miss Amy Wilkes, while assuredly
priggish and a shade too sharp, was sure as the devil no match for
Horace Huxtable when it came to bandying words. Charlie disapproved
mightily of Huxtable’s taking advantage of her lack of
experience.

“I don’t think you want to be talkin’ like
that in front of a lady, Mr. Huxtable.” He kept his voice low and
soft, as if he were merely offering a suggestion.

Huxtable eyed him up and down as if he were
an unwelcome species of desert reptile. “What do you have to say
about it, pray tell?”

“Oh, I ain’t much of a one for words.”
Charlie smiled, giving the oaf a chance.

“You ain’t much of a one for grammar,
neither,” sneered Huxtable.

Charlie only smiled some more.

Huxtable flipped a hand at him. “Off with
you, bumpkin. I won’t be dictated to by the likes of you.”

Amy gasped.

Charlie’s expression didn’t alter a whit.

“Horace,” Martin muttered miserably. “Can it,
will you?”

“Pshaw,” murmured Huxtable, preening. “The
ignorance of folks from the sticks is insupportable.” Turning to
Amy, he leered and waggled his eyebrows. “Ready for another stab at
it, my little dove?”

As she sucked in a huge breath of desert air,
Charlie thought she didn’t look as if she’d ever be ready for this.
Before she could either say so or lie, Charlie spoke again.

“I think you ought to mind your manners, Mr.
Huxtable.” He kept his tone friendly. “And cut out the suggestive
comments to Miss Wilkes. She don’t like them.”

Huxtable sighed deeply. “Go to hell, Mr. Fox.
You’re an intolerable bore.”

“Probably,” Charlie agreed amiably. “But I
still don’t aim to listen to you talk dirty to Miss Wilkes.”

“Then plug your ears. The wench is a handful,
but if I have my way, I’ll know her inside and out before this
picture is—”

He didn’t get to finish the sentence, because
Charlie, with remarkably little effort, socked him in the jaw.
Horace toppled like a felled oak.

“Oh, my God,” Martin said, goggling at the
scene, slapping a hand to his head and beginning to tug on a lock
of hair.

“Oh, my goodness!” cried Amy.

Huxtable was out like a light. Charlie
reached down and hauled him up by the front of his fashionable sack
suit coat. The actor’s head lolled about like a pumpkin on a vine.
Presenting him to Martin, Charlie said, “Sorry about that, Martin,
but I can’t tolerate men abusing women in my hearing.”

Patently unhappy about this latest turn of
events, Martin said, “I know he’s difficult to take, Charlie, but
did you have to punch him?”

Charlie shrugged. “Reckon I did. He
wouldn’t’ve shut up otherwise.”