Shaking the Nickel Bush (4 page)

There was a whole tent village clustered up on the edge of a mesa, and as we pulled up to it we passed a remuda of about a hundred of the sorriest-looking old cowhorses I ever saw. The outfit must have had to scour the whole West to find them, and I don't think they'd have brought ten dollars apiece at an auction.

It was nearly sunset when we drove into the tent village, the picture shooting for the day was over, and the common help was queuing up in the grub lines. There must have been fifty or sixty cowhands, nearly as many Indians, and a whole raft of others who might have been almost anything. Strutting around the place and shouting orders were half a dozen men that I knew must be bosses or directors. Every one of them was dressed up like a drug-store cowboy, with fancy Spanish boots, brand-new ten-gallon Stetson, and a big red bandanna tied around his neck. Then I saw four or five that I knew must be cameramen, because they had their caps on backwards.

While I held on with both hands the driver skidded the flivver in a half circle and stopped in front of a tent that had a big sign above the entrance: PERSONNEL. The driver jerked his thumb toward it and said something in Spanish that I couldn't understand, but I knew what he meant, so I picked up my bedroll and went in.

A fat little man was sitting behind a big table, peering down at what looked to be a long list of names through thick-lensed, pince-nez glasses. He was all rigged up in a fancy cowboy outfit, and looked about as much at home in it as a working cowhand would have looked in a Little Lord Fauntleroy suit. The man didn't look up when I came into the tent, so I dropped my bedroll and said, “Good evening. I came to see about a job riding horse falls.”

He still didn't look up, but penciled an X in front of a blank line at the bottom of a long printed form, pushed it toward me, and said, “Sign there, and print your name and address.” He said it like a parrot that's been taught to talk but doesn't know what he's saying.

I'd thought the print in Father's Bible was small, but it was three times the size of the printing on that form, and there was enough of it to fill ten pages in a book. I read as far as “WHEREAS, the party of the second part, being of legal age and sound mind. . . .” Then I stopped. In the first place I wasn't of legal age, and the more I saw of the outfit the more I doubted that I'd been in my right mind when I came there. “I'm not going to read all this stuff,” I told the little fat man, “and I'm not going to sign it till I know what it says.”

There must have been a lot of other fellows who had said the same thing I did, because the little man had his answer all ready, and he said it without looking up—like a boy reciting his lesson at school. What it amounted to was that I would do whatever the bosses of the outfit told me to do, in any way they told me to do it, for anything they wanted to pay me, and that nobody could ever sue the company for any money that hadn't been paid to me when I left, or for anything that happened to me while I was there. I'd get my keep free on any day that I rode, and I'd be charged five dollars for it on any day when I didn't ride.

If I hadn't been dead broke I wouldn't have signed up, but I was hungry enough that my knees were getting a little wobbly. Then too, no matter whether I signed or not, they couldn't make me ride unless I wanted to—and unless I rode they wouldn't have much more luck in collecting a board bill from me than I'd have of collecting damages from them.

After I'd signed, the little man wrote my name down on three or four lists, then gave me a badge with a big “23” on it, and three tickets that said “GOOD FOR ONE MEAL.” As he pushed them across the desk toward me he said, “You are assigned to tent fourteen, group three. Your group captain will supply meal tickets as you perform.”

I didn't bother about looking for tent fourteen or group captain three, but left my bedroll right where it was and headed for the grub line. And when I got up to the serving counter I didn't bother about my diet. It seemed to me that I'd be risking a lot more in trying to ride horse falls on an empty stomach than on one that was full of beef and beans. There weren't any leafy green vegetables, and I didn't take bread or potatoes or dessert, but I filled my plate high with everything else on the counter.

As soon as I'd finished my supper I went back to the personnel office, picked up my bedroll, and went to hunt for my tent and group captain. I was lucky. I found my captain before I was halfway across the lot. He turned out to be Ted Hawkins, an old Colorado cowhand. He was a bit too old for rough riding, but he knew his business from A to Z—and he knew me, too. As soon as I'd told him that I used to do trick riding at the Littleton roundups when I was a kid he said he'd ridden there himself and had seen me ride. And he proved it by telling me which years it was. Ted was my friend right from that minute, and if it hadn't been for him I don't think I'd have made it. As soon as we'd taken my bedroll to tent fourteen we took a walk around the whole layout, and he told me most of the things I needed to know.

3

Movie Location

I
'D
been worried ever since I saw those city slickers shooting off orders and strutting around in their fancy cowboy outfits. I was even more worried after I'd signed the form saying I'd do whatever the bosses told me to. Riding in horse falls was bound to be dangerous at best, but if the men who were bossing the show didn't know anything about horses and riding, it could be murder—so the first question I asked Ted Hawkins was, “Who'll be my boss if I do any riding here, and how'll I know I'm going to get paid? That paper I signed said. . . .”

Ted glanced both ways and dropped his voice. “It don't make no never-mind what that contract says,” he told me. “They're so far over the barrel for boys that'll tackle rough spills that they're hurtin' bad. There's talk goin' 'round that they're runnin' shy on cash. You'll be your own boss man if you can stick it out and don't get busted up too quick—and I reckon that trick-ridin' you done when you was a kid will save you a lot of grief.

“Make your dicker before every ride, and collect for it before you make another one. They'll squeal like hogs with their tails caught in the barn door, but you'll be the boy that's got ahold of the door handle. The overhead on this layout is five thousand a day, whether they shoot a foot o' film or not. It takes a lot of high-action footage to get that kind of seed back, and they can't cut the chunk unless they hold onto boys that'll take the rough tumbles. Of course, every dude with a red hanky 'round his neck will be yellin' orders at you, but don't pay 'em no heed; I'll be giving the orders at the take-off.”

“They sure must have to take a slew of pictures if they're over the barrel for riders,” I told him. “I saw at least sixty cowhands and thirty or forty Indians in the grub line.”

“Them ain't fall riders; them's yella bellies!” Ted told me, and he spit it out as if he'd bitten into something rotten. “Leastways, the white ones is. Most o' them Injuns has guts enough, but you can't hire Injuns to ride horse falls; Gov'ment agent won't let you. Most of them white ones is extras; half-baked actors the outfit fetched along from Hollywood. Didn't you take note of their fancy chaps, and pearl-handled six-guns, and Spanish boots? All they do is ride along to make scenery. The Injuns was fetched along too. Don't dare use the local ones. They're like as not to forget it ain't a real war, and somebody'd catch an arrow in the butt.”

I didn't know much about California, but I did know they had mountains and deserts out there, and that would give them about the same kind of background scenery. If most of the help was from there I couldn't see any sense in the outfit's coming way over into Arizona to take their pictures, so I asked, “Why in the world did they bring the whole works over here? Wouldn't it have been cheaper to take their pictures closer to home?”

Ted spit at a clump of cactus and growled, “Use your head, kid! Arizona's a new state and ain't got too many laws yet. California's an old one, and they've got cruelty-to-animals laws over there. The way they throw these old crowbaits there ain't one in ten don't get a busted neck or a busted leg, poor devils. But one thing I will say for the outfit; they keep a sharpshooter right handy—put 'em out of their misery in a hurry.”

“A boy in Phoenix told me they threw them with wires,” I said, “but he didn't know just how it worked.”

“Come on out to one of the strips, and I'll show you,” Ted told me. “It ain't a bad idee for you to know how it works before you take your first spill.”

Ted led me out to a fairly level, gravelly place at the far end of the mesa, where there were more different kinds of cactus than I'd ever heard of, and as we went along he told me the names of all the different ones. I've forgotten the names of a good many, but I remember there being giant saguaros that stood twenty or more feet tall. In the twilight they looked like sentinels, some of them with a pair of side branches that looked like arms lifted up toward heaven in prayer. Scattered between the stunted palo verde trees, yucca plants taller than my head, mesquite, and creosote bushes, there were clumps of ocotillo cactus that looked like writhing snakes balanced on their tails. Here and there staghorn chollas—some of them grown to trees ten feet high—stretched out naked branches that looked in the twilight as if their ends were festooned with silvery lichen. When we came closer I could see that the lichen was a mass of hanging twigs, each covered with a million needle-sharp spines. Strewn in clumps and patches across the gravel there were hedgehog cholla, prickly pear, fishhook, and beavertail cactus.

As we rounded a clump of wind-gnarled palo verde trees I saw half a dozen heavy blocks of concrete lined up in a row. Bolted to the top of each block there was what looked to be a giant fishing reel, wound tightly with fine steel wire. “Them's the trippers,” Ted told me as he picked up a wire with a stout little hook twisted onto the end of it. “Your horse will be wearing a shoe on his near forefoot with a ring welded to the heel. This here hook gets pinched tight into the ring, so's it can't get shook loose, and the spool's left to spin free while the cowboys chase the Injuns past the cameras. Take note o' the saw teeth on the rims of the spool, and that pair of iron hooks that's hinged atop the spool. Well, when the director spots you right where he wants you in front of a camera he'll give a high sign, and the trigger man will drop the hooks. With a forefoot yanked out from under him, your cayuse will somerset in the air, and like as not he'll land on his back. How and where you land will depend on what kind of a horseman you are, and how many bad spills you've lived through before you come here.”

“I've lived through some pretty bad ones,” I told him, “but never where there was any such a mess of cactus as there is around here.”

“That's why I fetched you out here,” he told me. “Did you take note of which shoe the wire gets hitched to?”

“Near fore,” I said.

“So?”

“So the pony'll somersault quartering to the left,” I told him.

Ted slapped me on the shoulder and said, “Now you're usin' your noggin, but there's other things you'll need to know. The cameras will be on that side, so's to make the most out of the fall, and they'll follow you as you fly, so's to leave out the pony if he happens to get his neck broke. There ain't no director that's fool enough to dump you where the cameraman will have to make his shot through a mess o' mesquite or ocotillo, or a staghorn cholla. But there is them that's dirty enough to dump you into a mess of low cactus—specially if they figure you're making your last ride anyways.”

“Will the wire be loose enough that I can rein out around that kind of spots?” I asked.

“You ain't goin' to rein out around nothin' no place,” he told me. “If you're a cowboy you'll have a six-gun in each hand, or an old musket in the both of 'em, shooting black-powder blanks at the Injuns. And don't forget, kid; drop them guns quick when your pony falls away! Freeze onto one and land with it in your hands, you'll be a goner. If you're an Injun you'll need both hands for bow and arrow, but that don't make no never-minds, 'cause you can't see where you're goin' noways. You'll be turned half around, shooting arrows with rubber tips back over the cowboys' heads. That's why the outfit will pay double for them falls. But what I set out to tell you was this: You got to use your knees and your weight to put your cayuse where you want him. And if you don't keep him where there's clear ground on your left, specially when you're in range of a camera, you'll get messed up somethin' awful. The devil of it is that you never know what kind of a nag you'll get, or how he'll guide with knee pressure. Worst first is the way they pick the fall horses.”

“Well,” I said, “I haven't got much weight to swing a horse with. At double the pay, it sounds to me as if I'd be smarter to take Indian falls. I wouldn't have any saddle to get hung up in, and. . . .”

“Don't get no foolish notions in your head!” Ted told me. “Goin' into a fall backwards, and not being able to see where you're at or where you're going to land, is dangerous as dynamite. That's why you see danged few Injuns' ponies hit the ground in the movies. Mostly the riders just heave their arms up like they was hit and take a dive along the off side of the pony's neck. Then they slide on down and roll clear as the nag hightails out of camera range. There ain't an Injun on the lot that can't do that real good, and they don't get no extra pay for it.”

Twilight had turned to night while we were talking there by the trip reels, but the stars had come out so bright that it hadn't grown much darker. After we'd started back toward the tent village I asked, “Is that strip you showed me the toughest one they've got?”

“Lord, no!” Ted told me. “That's the easiest one, but the one they've had to use the most. Didn't you take note how the ground was all tromped up? Have to keep the cameras up off'n it, or movin' fast enough the tracks won't show in the pictures. Let's mosey 'round the rim over here. I'll show you a set they've spent ten thousand on, and ain't shot a foot o' film on it yet. Can't find nobody 'round here that'll risk taking a fall on it. Don't know what's happened to the young bucks nowadays, less'n all the good ones is off to the war. The outfit might have to bring stunt men out here from Hollywood to take the falls on this new set, and they won't get them boys for no ten or fifteen dollars a ride.”

We'd walked a hundred yards or so along the edge of the mesa when Ted stopped and said, “There she is! Ain't that a beauty! But I've took spills down a lot worse places than that when I was a cowhand, workin' for thirty a month.”

I'd taken a couple myself on hillsides nearly as steep, and when I was only a youngster. But I hadn't done it on purpose, or when a horse had a foreleg jerked out from under him so he'd somersault on top of me, or where there were boulders half the size of a chicken house. Even in the starlight I could see that the place Ted was showing me was steeper than a church roof. The ground was littered with loose stones, and all the way to the bottom the side of the mesa was studded with cactus, brush, mesquite, and boulders, with three or four saguaros that looked as solid as granite pillars. “I guess I'm yellow,” I told Ted. “That looks to me like the best place on earth for a man to commit suicide.”

“That's what it's meant to look like,” he said, “but I'd as leave take a tumble on it as on that one we just left. Them boulders is all made out of canvas and paint; was you to fall onto one of 'em, it would crumble like a cream puff. Every jagged rock, and them bigger'n your fist, has been picked off the ground, and the worst of the stickers skun off'n the cactus. You see them staghorn trees and yuccas down yonder? Ain't a one of 'em but's been dug up and set back in loose. Bump one and it would topple over like a tenpin. Here your pony don't get throwed in a tight somerset; he'll be quick-tripped by a cross-wire and turned loose to make a longer fall.”

Even at that the place looked pretty dangerous, particularly with the kind of horses I'd seen in the remuda. If ridden over the edge at the dead run, a horse with bad knees would be almost sure to fall and somersault when he landed. Or, if there were any others behind, one of them could easily stumble and come down on top of a man. After I'd thought about it for a couple of minutes I asked, “Could a man pick his horse for taking a shot at this layout?”

“I'd make you that promise,” Ted answered.

“Could I be sure of being last to go over the edge?”

“I'd be bossing the job, and I ain't plumb stupid, kid! I'd be watchin' out for you. And you wouldn't have to take off on the dead run neither.”

I waited another minute and asked, “What'll they pay for taking a spill down this one?”

Ted squinted an eye and looked up at the stars for a couple of seconds. “They'd go twenty-five without too much squawkin',” he told me. “Might go as high as thirty, was you to make a real showy fall.”

“Think they'd go to fifty?” I asked.

Ted thought for a minute and then shook his head. “Uh-uh,” he told me. “Might stretch it another five if they figured they could get a few more good falls out of you, but they wouldn't go the half-century. They'd get stunt men out from the Coast 'fore they'd crack through with fifty. Word spreads too easy; the other boys might hang out for big money on the flat strips.”

“What are they getting now?” I asked.

“Ten. Mebbe fifteen where the ground's roughest. Anywheres up to twenty for an Injun fall; they don't run them on bad ground.”

“Is morning soon enough to make up my mind?”

“Soon enough any time . . . if you don't mind payin' board,” he said. “But was I you, I'd think a lot about tacklin' this layout. It ain't no worse than the others if a man keeps his head about him. And if he could hang on for half a dozen falls he'd make a pretty good stake.”