Guy Vanderhaeghe - The Englishman’s Boy

“Miles and me and Shorty we were working for Mr. Coster in the Valley. It’s how it happened. The Running W done it. He was bad, Mr. Coster.”

“Whoa,” I say, feigning ignorance. “Who’s Coster?” Any more information I can collect may prove useful.

“The director, the director!” he exclaims excitedly. “All day long he wants this shot. ‘Spectacular!’ he keeps hollering. ‘I want spectacular! Give me some goddamn spectacular!’ But it ain’t the stunt men’s fault. They tried, didn’t they? It’s the horses, that’s what Shorty said. It’s the horses. Because they all been throwed lots of times. And they know what’s coming soon as them pianer wires get put on their legs. They know. Shorty says they won’t run flat out because them horses know they going to get took down hard at the end. So they don’t gallop terrible hard. They’re smart horses. They been hurt before, them horses. They don’t want to get hurt again, do they?”

“Makes sense to me.”

“So Mr. Coster keeps trying. One horse and then he tries another horse and another horse and another horse. But Mr. Coster ain’t satisfied. He wants spectacular! And the stunt fellers keep going down with the horses and rattling off the hard pan like peas on the bottom of the bucket.

“So Mr. Coster gets the horse wrangler to bring out this big old black gelding – they call him Locomotive – and Locomotive he’s never been throwed with pianer wires before so he don’t know it and he’s a terrible big old horse, a croppy Shorty called him. Know what’s a croppy?”

I don’t.

“Because somebody cut his ears to warn everybody he’s a mean horse, a bad horse, fellers do that, Shorty says, crop their ears. And the stunt fellers they don’t want to ride no horse never been throwed – on top of he’s mean. And Mr. Coster takes to cursing them all for cowards, gutless wonders he calls them, and all that he calls them, and so they all quit on Mr. Coster.

“So he says to the rest of us fellers, extras and all, he says, ‘Who’s going to show he’s a man? Who’s going to ride old Locomotive double the wages?’ and I was going to, but Shorty says to me, ‘Don’t you ride that crop-eared cunt, he’s a killer. Stay off him, Wylie.’ And I done it, I stayed off that Locomotive but my brother didn’t. He rode him.”

“Why did he ride him, Wylie?”

“Because Mr. Coster says if he does, next picture he’ll give him a part, Miles. And Shorty, he warned Miles, too. But Miles ain’t too smart, Miles ain’t, and he believed Mr. Coster and disbelieved Shorty. But Shorty knows how Miles is so he helped him anyways, see? Shorty, he thought her all out. He paced off just as far as the pianer wire was going to run out on Locomotive and he marked the spot with a hankerchief, pegged it on the ground and he says to Miles, he says to Miles, he says, ‘Miles, when you see that there white hankerchief coming up on you, you kick your feet out of them stirrups because when that fucking widow-maker runs out of wire he’ll go ass over tea-kettle and when he does you ain’t going to want to get hung up in them stirrups – you going to want to get throwed clear. Throwed clear, understand? Otherwise, you going to smash up bad, like an apple crate. You understand me, Miles? You get your boots out of them stirrups the minute you see that white hankerchief.’ ”

“Let me guess,” I say. “Miles didn’t.”

Wylie drops his voice to a whisper. “No, he didn’t. Miles was a-spurring Locomotive flat out, they was both going full chisel, and Miles was a-watching for that hankerchief and a-watching for that hankerchief and a-watching for that hankerchief, and then Locomotive wrecked, done a somersault and Miles was planted in them stirrups and Locomotive landed on him flush. He hurt him deep down inside, and Miles he been shitting bloody stool ever since and he don’t walk too good.”

“So why did he miss the handkerchief?”

“Mr. Coster sent the cameraman to go pick up that hankerchief when nobody was looking. So’s he’d get spectacular. Wasn’t no hankerchief to see. That’s how it was done. I was going to go at him right then and there. I wanted to, but Shorty said no. Shorty said, ‘Don’t get mad, get even.’ That’s what Shorty said.”

“And I hear Shorty did get even. With a shoeing hammer.”

“Croppy,” says Wylie, twisting nervously in his seat. “ ‘Mark a bad horse,’ says Shorty. ‘So’s everybody knows him.’ ” Suddenly, Wylie hits the brakes. I grab the dash and brace myself. The scenery jolts, the sky slants as the car slithers and shimmies on locked wheels through the soft dirt, slides to a stop. A breath of dust sighs into the car, chalks my teeth. A few yards behind and to the right of us a lane runs off the road past a dilapidated mailbox on a drunken post, crosses a skimpy brown pasture scribbled with sage and greasewood, edges up a low knoll and disappears out of sight behind it.

“Almost missed Shorty’s turn-off,” he announces.

I hold Wylie by the arm, follow the lane with my eyes. At the end of it there must be a house.

“Wylie,” I say, “I’ve got something to confess to you.”

I begin by telling him how proud I am of him, how proud Shorty is of him. I say that I hadn’t been able to believe anybody in his circumstances would be so incorruptible. I tell him I had argued with Shorty that he would never see his saddle again, that Wylie would sell or pawn it before you could say Mother Mabel. But Shorty had believed in him. Shorty had said that Wylie was a true-blue man to ride the river with. And Wylie had proved it was true. He had kept good care of Shorty’s property, hadn’t hesitated for a second when asked to return it, no matter how badly he needed it for his work.

“Let me shake your hand.” I shake it. Then I take twenty dollars out of the expense-money envelope. “For your time, Wylie. I was going to prove a point to Shorty, but the point got proved to me. I got to eat humble pie.”

“Shorty don’t want his saddle?”

“No,” I say, “not just at present.” I pause. “Your luck seems to be changing, Wylie. You keep rubbing luck off of McAdoo’s rig, you may end up the next William S. Hart. Now let me drive. Let me chauffeur one fine man wherever he wants to go.”

“We ain’t going to see Shorty?”

“Not today. He’s busy.”

“Shorty don’t borrow his saddle to just anybody!” Wylie crows triumphantly, as I turn the car around in the middle of the road. “Not everybody gets to ride Shorty’s saddle!”

I offer to take him home but he prefers to be dropped off outside of Universal. It doesn’t make any sense because most of the day’s shooting will be well under way and none starting. But perhaps he believes me, believes his luck has turned. I drop him off outside the pen, deserted at this hour, a wind scrubbing dust into the air off the beaten earth, scurrying bits of candy wrapper along and sticking them to the wire fence. I watch as he stumps toward it, Shorty’s magic humped clumsily on his shoulder, stirrup leathers flapping, stirrups bouncing, his stupid faith that the old man’s luck has the power to work a miracle in his own life intact.

All thirteen assembled in Front Street, sitting their horses in the early morning grey and quiet, mist curling off the coffee-and-cream Missouri, rising into the still air to hang a muslin curtain between the men and the wind-sculptured bluffs across the river.

It was a force mounted and armed and accoutred without consistency, piebald and paint buffalo runners, blooded bays and chestnuts, Henrys and Sharps and Winchesters and Colts and double-barrelled scatterguns, a Derringer in a coat pocket, skinning knives and Bowie knives, hatchets, a Confederate cavalry sabre hung scabbarded on a saddlehorn, smoke-stained buckskins and bar-stained broadcloth, broken plug hats and glossy fur caps, loud checked shirts and patched linen, canvas dusters and wool capotes, parfleche-soled moccasins and high-heeled riding boots. Every face bearing a different mark of vice or virtue, motive or resolve.