Guy Vanderhaeghe - The Englishman’s Boy

“He wants fifteen hundred dollars.”

Chance taps his desk blotter with his pencil. “I don’t see that as a problem.”

“Who’s buying them might be. To keep your name out of it, I told him I was working for a publisher. McAdoo doesn’t have much love for the movies.”

“Many people disapprove of the movies. Three-quarters of the authors who sell us rights to their novels claim to despise the pictures. But they swallow their disgust and take the money happily enough. I don’t expect McAdoo will be any different. I don’t intend to have this picture blocked because it costs me a few thousand dollars more. Do you understand?”

“I understand, Mr. Chance. But will McAdoo? He may point-blank refuse to have anything to do with a film.”

“Then,” says Chance, “the contract will need to be framed delicately. My lawyers can draw up the proper phrasing. Something like, ‘for the sum of X number of dollars, all rights to portray Mr. Shorty McAdoo’s life story in any and all forms of artistic expression shall reside in the sole possession of -’ ” He stops in mid-sentence.

“That’s right,” I say. “If you name Best Chance Pictures, or yourself, the cat is out of the bag.”

Chance barely skips a beat. “ ‘Shall reside in the sole possession of Harry Vincent, his heirs, assignees and or partners as the aforementioned party so assigns and determines.’ Mr. McAdoo is not a legal sophisticate, I think something such as that should satisfy him.” Chance composes his hands on his desk. “And once the contract is signed, you will sell me the rights for the sum of a dollar. Agreed, Harry?”

I cross my legs, take my glasses off, pinch the bridge of my nose.

“Reluctance, Harry?”

“Not so much reluctance,” I say. “I know it’s not a question of your cheating him…”

“What then, Harry?”

“But shouldn’t it be his decision – whether or not his life is made into a movie?”

“And if he says no?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Harry,” says Chance, “artists don’t compromise. They pay whatever price is required for their work. Tolstoy exploited the most intimate details of daily life with his wife. Do you think that matters when weighed against Anna Karenina? I’ll have McAdoo now – or later. The interviews are my property, I paid for them. If necessary I’ll wait until McAdoo dies and then make my movie. But what good would that do him?” He waits, offering me the opportunity to refute him. “You know how these cowboys end. They live one day at a time and then finally when they’re crippled or sick, the day of reckoning arrives. When it comes, they cannot pay the bill. You know he is certain to spin his last days out in abject penury.”

“I know,” I say. “But…”

“What would you do if you were appointed Shorty McAdoo’s guardian angel? See him handsomely paid for his story, or get nothing? Those are the two choices.” Chance sits there, question hanging. The question not only of Shorty’s future, but his, too. He clears his throat. “I am willing to have you fill in a figure on the contract. You can write the number in, Harry. I trust your fairness.”

“I sold him on the truth,” I say. “He expects the truth to be told.”

“Harry, you and I are going to work together very closely on this picture. Who knows the truth better than you?”

“I want four thousand for him.”

Chance falls back in his chair, makes a steeple with his fingers and smiles ironically at me over it. “It’s a rare privilege to play philanthropist with somebody else’s money. But since I offered you the opportunity, I can’t complain. My lawyer will deliver the cash, along with documents for signing, to your apartment by eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. Get a receipt from McAdoo when the money is paid.”

Suddenly I need to explain. “I feel an obligation to him. He needs the money. He’s taken this pathetic creature Wylie under his wing -”

Chance holds his hand up, stops me. “Harry, I can live with it.”

I am still apologizing. “I know there were moments recently when you had doubts about me, Mr. Chance, but I hope that -”

“My confidence in you has been amply rewarded. Never a second’s doubt.”

“That isn’t what Mr. Fitzsimmons suggested.”

Chance raises his eyebrows. “I think you must have misread Fitz. Being a man of action he is naturally impatient of delays. Impatience is the key to his character. What you must remember is that feelings often run high in our business. It is a business which attracts people of temperament. All three of us are people of temperament. That is why it is so important that we learn to forgive and forget.” He gets to his feet. “And get on with the next picture.”

There is no real difficulty getting McAdoo to sign the contract. Chance is right, he is not a legal sophisticate. What makes him suspicious is all the money.

“Bounty on Indians gone up?” he says.

“I bargained hard for you” is all I tell him. I believe it.

He walks me to my car, we shake hands, I urge him to keep well. He promises he will. He tells me that now he’s flush he intends to put in a supply of good whisky. Whenever I feel inclined I should drop by and take a dram. I am welcome. I tell him not to forget Canada when he’s drinking his whisky, to make sure to get there before the money’s gone.

I leave him then, a gaunt old man whose hollow eyes look every bit as corroded and blackened as the suicide’s farmhouse. I expect this will be the last I’ll ever see of him. He looks no lighter despite his confession.

The twelve horsemen kept the Battle Creek between them and the Assiniboine camp as they approached Farwell’s trading post. The Englishman’s boy was numbering the teepees; he tallied forty-nine and then lost count. At two hundred yards the lodge-skins resembled fine parchment, parchment written upon with yellow suns, red and blue horses, black bear tracks. Indian magic. Behind the camp, a stand of dark-green timber hung like a stage curtain.

Three young boys of eleven or twelve herding ponies down to the creek for water were close enough for the Englishman’s boy to see plainly – the narrow brown chests, the shoulder-length blue-black hair. One of the youngsters who sat a brown-and-white paint pony drinking from the stream started to mark off the wolfers with his quirt as they passed. The action struck the Englishman’s boy as mighty sassy, vaguely threatening.

Women were bending over black iron cooking kettles in a haze of blue smoke, stooping to prod and encourage flames with a stick. A number of girls ran out of camp to watch the wolfers pass. The camp dogs followed after them, howling and yapping and barking at the white men as if they had sniffed Old Nick himself. The girls hung by the creek edge laughing, their buckskin dresses soft and inviting as yellow cream in the morning sun. Several were a mite unsteady and a trifle loud; the Englishman’s boy thought they looked like they’d had a cup or two of bug juice for breakfast.

To the northeast, on the wolfers’ side of the Battle Creek, stood Farwell’s post, and directly across the stream the establishment of his competitor, the weathered peeled logs of Solomon’s fort looking like they’d been rolled out of clay. The Englishman’s boy could see a man in a red shirt chopping wood there; the blade of his axe winked semaphore flashes in the sun. The man paused in his work as the wolfers reached the walls of Farwell’s trading emporium and dismounted. It was eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning. He mopped his brow and returned to splitting wood.