The question is, Allen Garfield, the Syrian foot soldier, thought, why do you always get killed? Why does this one now in his centurion’s armor and sunglasses have a Rolls and a girl in tight pants while you still wear a rotten sport coat with wide lapels and rotten flannels that have never been cleaned since you’ve been in Spain? Why does he have forty-dollar Italian loafers and you have to knot your toes to keep the rotten toes of your rotten shoes from curling up? You are as smart as he is. Smarter. God, yes, smarter. You have more basic, honest talent. Your speaking voice is every bit as good. Better. But he has the Rolls and the girl and the suite at the Hilton. Why? Those are simple questions, Allen Garfield decided. So there must be simple answers.
THE ANNOUNCEMENT CAME THROUGH a hand amplifier in Spanish first: “That is all for today. Return weapons and costumes to the properties building. Buses leave in forty minutes for Madrid.”
The dead and wounded rose, collecting swords, spears, and shields as the announcement was repeated in English.
It takes them an hour, Allen Garfield thought. An hour to decide to quit. He moved off with the others slowly, his eyes on the group by the camera boom. Let’s have a truck shot now of director and actor wondering what to do tonight. Do we get drunk at my villa or yours? But maybe Keating won’t make it with all the beer.
He saw the casting assistant watching the Syrians file past. He saw the casting assistant’s gaze hold on him. Then move away. Then move back again, past him, out to the field.
“You want somebody for close-ups?”
The casting assistant squinted at him. “You’re?”
“Garfield. You’ve used me—”
“Yeah, I remember.” The casting assistant nodded. “Come on.”
“Give me a cigarette and I will.”
The idea was to act relaxed. The pro. You can take it or leave it, Allen Garfield told himself. He accepted the cigarette from the casting assistant and said, “I need a light.” But the casting assistant was already moving toward the group by the camera boom. Allen Garfield followed.
“I got one, Ray,” the casting assistant said.
The director, Ray Heidke, and the centurion, Howard Keating, looked at Allen Garfield. They did not nod or speak or acknowledge his presence. They looked at him.
“You worked for me before,” the director said.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Heidke. This is the fourth time.”
“You were in Gods.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I never forget a face.”
“He has great expression when he gets it,” the casting assistant said. “That’s why I thought in this one—”
“He’s too short,” Howard Keating said.
“With the helmet and all . . .” the casting assistant began.
“He’s too short,” Howard Keating said.
The casting assistant shrugged. “We got plenty where he came from.”
“Howard,” the director said. “Let me do it, all right?”
“Certainly, you do it. Only you build up the centurion, then you show somebody like this guy giving him a hard time.”
“Howard,” the director said patiently, “he doesn’t give you a hard time. He surprised you, right? You’re holding your shoulder where you just got nicked. Your sword’s on the ground. You feel or sense this mother coming at you from behind. Over your shoulder, Christ here he comes. You hesitate. Think. He rushes, sword raised. You let him come, one, two, three counts. You stoop, pick up your sword. The guy coming chops down to take your head off. You sidestep, lunge. Unngh! You stick him right in the navel.
“Now, Billy,” the director said to the cameraman, but looking at the sky, “let’s move. We get the guy up in the rocks first and I think we put a Brute on him the way the light’s going. Where’s the guy? Get up there. You don’t need the shield. Billy, I want you to tilt up from Howard to the guy. Then back off and we get it all. Look, just put the goddamn shield down anywhere, all right?”
Allen Garfield made his way up the gulley that rose between the rocks to an opening eight feet above the ground. He turned and stood poised. It seemed higher up here.
“All right,” the director called. “I want to see you jump.”
Allen Garfield looked down, adjusted his footing and waited.
“You going to jump?”
“I thought you’d give me a signal.”
“Just jump, all right?”
He jumped; he felt the shock on the bottom of his feet and fell forward in the sand, losing his sword.
“Somebody,” Howard Keating called out, “get me my goblet.”
The director lifted the funneled brim of his hat and pulled it down loosely, his eyes on Allen Garfield. “One more time. Understand me?”
Allen Garfield jumped again, jumping out farther this time with his feet wider apart; he felt the shock but was moving toward Howard Keating as he landed and this time stayed on his feet.
“Let’s do it,” the director said.
They shot the empty defile. Then they shot the defile with Allen Garfield standing in it, crouched, as if he had just appeared. “Come on,” the director said. “You’re a shifty Syrian. You see this wounded Roman. You think: I got me one. Ten points for a centurion and he doesn’t even know you’re there.”
Allen Garfield jumped. As he hit the ground the director called, “Cut! . . . Howard, let’s keep the beer out of the shot, all right?”
“He came too soon.”
“Let’s all be ready this time.”
Allen Garfield jumped again and ran toward Howard Keating.
“Cut! . . . Howard you have to come around to stick him, right?”
“I got too many moves. Look around, stoop, wait, pick up the sword.”
“All right then,” the director said. ‘It’s in your hand. But you’re down on one knee. You still don’t know the guy’s coming at you . . .”
Allen Garfield jumped, ran for Keating, held back, giving the centurion time to come around.
“Cut! . . . Howard, what are you doing?”
“He’s coming too fast. I hear him land. I don’t have time to turn around he’s on top of me.”
“Hesitate after you land,” the director said.
Allen Garfield jumped, almost went down, hesitated, raised his sword and went for Keating.
“Look at him! How can I turn when he’s right on top of me? Tell him to slow the hell up!”
“You land,” the director said, “give it a three count. One, two, three.”
Allen Garfield jumped, landed, hesitated. One, two, three, he counted, waited another moment to be sure, then ran at Howard Keating, holding back somewhat, raising his sword, raising it higher and seeing the exposed curve of Keating’s neck.
“Cut!”
“Ray, get this idiot out of here!”
The director lit a cigarette going over. He placed it between Howard Keating’s lips. “Howard, we’re close to it, aren’t we?”
Howard Keating didn’t answer.
“Howard, aren’t we close to it? We’ve got the moves down. It’s only the timing. Howard, one more take, what do you say?”
He drew on the cigarette and didn’t answer.
“Just one, that’s all.”
The centurion took his time. He flicked the cigarette away and watched it arch to the ground before looking at the director. “You tell me it makes sense. I have to wait around while you teach a five-dollar-a-day idiot his timing?”
“Howard, one more take?”
“It won’t do any good.”
“Howard . . .”
“All right, one. But one means one.”
For the eighth time Allen Garfield pulled himself up the defile. He turned, adjusting his footing and stood looking down, tightening and untightening his grip on the sword. He felt the heat still on his face and was aware of his heart beating.
He watched the assistant with the slate that bore the scene number move quickly from in front of the camera. He watched the camera h
old on Howard Keating, then begin to pan and tilt up toward him. He kept his eyes on Howard Keating and when the director said “Now!” he jumped.
He landed on the balls of his feet, hesitated, counted one . . . two, and ran at Howard Keating, ran at him raising the sword higher, judging the distance to Keating’s neck, aiming and at the point of hacking down with all his strength when Howard Keating suddenly turned, stumbled, lunged forward trying to recover his balance and drove his sword into Allen Garfield’s stomach.
Someone screamed. Someone said, “Oh, my God!” Someone was kneeling close to him, lifting his hands from his stomach. The face moved away and a blanket was spread over him and tucked gently under his chin.
The director’s voice said, “Son, we’re fixing up a bed in the panel. You’ll be all right . . . just fifteen twenty minutes you’ll be at the hospital and everything’ll be fine.”
But he knew, holding his stomach and lying very still, he would never reach Madrid.
God, the breaks, he thought. The rotten, cheap breaks.
The Line Rider
1954
LISTEN,” ACE SAID. “I want to tell you something.”
“Now what?”
“If you can’t handle the women then don’t fool with them.”
Chick said, “What do you mean handle them?”
Ace shook his head. “It ain’t somethin’ you learn by gettin’ it explained to you.
Chick’s eyes went to the lean man riding next to him. Ace had about the pointiest Adam’s apple he’d ever seen. In fact he seemed all points: his chin, his hawk nose, even his hat brim the way it was curled and funneled in front, everything pointing forward and nodding gently with the easy walking motion of his horse.
“I can take care of myself,” Chick said.
“Then I won’t worry about you.”
“Hell, no.”
“Just remember what I said about the women.”
“You’d think I was just a kid.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty.”
Ace grinned. “If you’re a day over seventeen I’ll buy all the mescal you can drink.”
“Well, get your money out.”
“I’m not even sure you’re that old.”
Chick did not say anything and they rode on in silence, coming out of scattered pine, then down a gravelly slope that dipped into an aspen stand and over the tops of the slender trees, another hundred yards or so beyond, they could see the village of La Noria.
“See it?” said Ace.
“Course I do.”
“That gray thing in the middle’s the bandstand.”
“I got eyes.”
“I didn’t know you’d ever seen one.”
“’Course I have,” Chick said. “You see one pueblo you seen ’em all.”
Ace smiled to himself and he did not speak, not until they were through the aspen and approaching the square, passing down a street between the first adobes. “The cantina’s over there on the right,” he said then.
Chick did not reply and he was thinking: listen to him you’d think I’d been livin’ in a cave all my life. He was pretty sure he did not like Ace. Last night he’d been glad to see him, when Ace rode up to the line shack after being away for four days. But the good feeling of seeing him didn’t last.
Ace talked too much. He talked and talked tryin’ to make you think he was a big shot, reminding you he’d put in a lot more years than you and had seen some sights in his time. Hell, he wasn’t any more than twenty-nine or thirty and if he was such a big shot know-it-all why didn’t he have a better job than a forty-a-month line rider?
You don’t have to take no ten-cent advice off him, Chick thought. You got the same job he has and you’re old enough to figure out a few things for yourself.
They dismounted, half-hitching their reins to the rail that ran almost the full width of the cantina. “Looks like we got it all to ourselves,” Ace said.
Chick frowned. “It don’t look like such a swell place to me.”
“I imagine you seen a lot of places in your twenty years.”
“Enough,” Chick said.
“Usually there’s boys here from other spreads . . . from both sides of the line.” Ace motioned toward the far end of the square. “The border ain’t a quarter mile off that way.”
“It don’t matter to me,” Chick said. He followed Ace into the cantina.
Behind the bar, a Mexican, middle-aged and wearing a full mustache, straightened slightly, taking his elbow from the edge of the bar, and said, “Good afternoon,” nodding his head and smiling.
Ace nodded. “Where is everybody?”
“It’s early,” the man behind the bar said.
“Give us some mescal.”
“Clear or colored?”
“Clear,” Ace told him. “I don’t want no damn chicken scraps in mine.” He placed a dollar piece on the bar and motioned to Chick to do the same. “You tell us when we’ve drunk that up. We got to leave early.”
“Sure,” the man behind the bar said, and placed a label-less half-filled bottle and two glasses on the bar. He was filling the glasses when the two Mexican girls came in.
Ace rolled sideways against the bar to look at them. “There’s everybody,” he said, grinning. He raised his glass and sipped the mescal then held it belt high as he continued to stare at the girls.
“Alicia and Luz,” the man behind the bar said.
“Alice and me are old friends,” Ace said. He remained leaning against the bar and did not move as Alicia, the first girl, came up to him. Ace gulped down his mescal then straightened, putting his arm around her waist, and pulled her against him. The girl laughed and said something to him in Spanish.
They’re old friends all right, Chick thought. My gosh.
He was behind Ace at the bar, his hand on his drink, but he had not tasted it and now he felt self-conscious even though no one was looking at him. He saw the girl who was with Alicia move over to a table and suddenly he had a funny feeling in his stomach as she glanced at him. She smiled momentarily and looked away.
Chick raised the glass of mescal. He put it to his lips, not fully conscious of what he was doing, and the unexpected sweet taste of it almost made him spit it out. My gosh! He could feel the heat of it in his stomach almost immediately.
The girl at the table was looking at him again: a soft, almost shy smile; it was in her eyes and touching the corners of her mouth. Boy, Chick thought. He looked at Ace still holding Alicia, then back to the girl at the table. He picked up his drink and walked over to her.
“Are you waitin’ for somebody?”
The girl looked up at him. “Not now.”
“Can I sit down?”
“Of course.”
He pulled his chair closer to her as he sat down. “What’d that man say your name was?”
“Luz.”
“That’s right. Mine’s Chick.”
She said, “Chick?” sounding like Cheek the way she said it. She smiled. “Chico.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means boy,” she said. “Chiquito, little boy.”
“You sure got a crazy language.”
She nodded her head, still smiling at him.
He did not know what to say and he tasted his drink, making a face, not believing anything could be so sweet.
“Don’t you like that?” the girl asked.
“It’s all right.”
Her eyes went to Ace, then came back, smiling, to Chick. “I’ve seen your friend here before, but not you.”
“This is the first time for me.”
“You work together?”
Chick nodded. “For the biggest spread in the valley. Me and Ace are ridin’ the south line seein’ everything’s under control. See, I just come down to work with him a few weeks ago. He told me about comin’ here and said, ‘Why don’t we both ride over sometime?’ . . . and here we are.”
She said, almost shyly, “I’m glad you d
id.”
Chick grinned. “You’re funny.”
She was looking at his glass. “Why don’t you have another drink?”
“I believe I will.”
“It’s good for a man to have a drink after he’s been working hard.”
“Say, do you work here?”
She looked at him quickly. “Are you angry?”
“Why should I be angry?”
“Some people don’t believe a girl should do this work.”
“What kind of work is it?”
“What I’m doing. I sit with you as I drink.”
“Oh.” There was a silence and he said, “I don’t see anything wrong.”
“Some do.” She rose from her chair. “Give me the money and I’ll get you another drink.”
“It’s already paid for.”
“Oh.” She took his glass to the bar and came back with mescal in it and placed it in front of him.
“I don’t see why you can’t do whatever you want,” he said.
“Well, all people aren’t as kind as you.”
He had no reply to this and he drank some of the mescal. It seemed to taste better. Not as sweet. He raised the glass again, finishing. “That’s pretty good.”
“I’ve never tasted it,” the girl said. She rose and he watched her go to the bar again. My gosh, she’s pretty! Such a little thing . . . big eyes, and that smile. Bet she couldn’t be more’n fifteen.
As she sat down again, he said, ‘What’re you, about fifteen?”
She nodded. “I think so.”
He leaned back, raising the glass, and looked at the clear liquor against the light, then drank it down. “I’m seventeen.”
“Oh.”
“I’ve only been workin’ for this outfit a year. I was a caverango—you know, mindin’ the horses—until I was sent on this line ridin’ job.”
She nodded. “I see.”
“It’s a lonely job and that Ace ain’t fit company, but it’s one of the steps you got to take if you’re goin’ to stay in the cattle business. I want my own place someday.”
“That will be nice,” the girl said.
“It can be done, too.”
“I believe it.”
He said then, frowning, “What’re you workin’ here for?”
“I have to work somewhere.”