A Change of Scenery, page 2
Rescuing her hand, she buried it in her skirt pocket. “Are you expecting to meet someone, Mr. Hutton?”
“Cale.”
People here were quite casual with strangers, she’d learned, and Mr. Hutton was no exception, though she was hardly a stranger. Her half-nod revealed nothing of her determination to not be so familiar—a response she’d used countless times in the family parlor with any number of her father’s hand-picked suitors.
Mr. Hutton spread his stance and crossed his arms, apparently accustomed to controlling every situation he encountered.
She held back a sniff.
“Do you work for the studio?”
Rather inquisitive for a first meeting. Well, second meeting. “I am in charge of costuming.” A nervous tremor shifted through her at the lofty title, but it was none of his business what she did. Ruing such a boastful answer rather than evading his query with a pithy reply, she smoothed an obvious wrinkle in the piped yoke of Jed’s shirt.
He dipped his head. “That getup for Mr. Barr?”
“It is.” Drat. Had she no resistance to a penetrating, sky-blue gaze?
His cotton shirt and woolen vest quietly contested the fancy attire on her arm, and his wide shoulders carried a collar band a bit longer than Jed’s, by her estimation. She doubted the shirt she held would fasten across Mr. Hutton’s chest.
Surprised by the thought, she sidestepped him to get to the door.
He moved with her.
“I’ve come to see Robert Thorson about leasing my stock. He and Jed Barr were out to the Rafter-H the other day, and I told him we'd think about his offer.”
“I see.” She recalled their long absence and her relief that she hadn’t been required to accompany them. Working behind the scenes had its advantages. “Well, did you see him?”
“The door’s locked.”
At this hour? She dug the key from her skirt pocket, and when he held his place, she challenged him. “Excuse me, please.”
He watched her for an extra beat before stepping aside.
Brash. It might do him well to wait outside. But she had spent her allotment of rudeness on this man, if such a thing were possible. “Mr. Barr will not be in, but Mr. Thorson should be here soon if you care to wait.”
He followed her indoors and removed his hat from hair as dark as her thoughts. Turning on the lights, she gestured toward a chair. “Have a seat if you’d like.”
He folded himself into a curved-back captain’s chair, where he braced arms on legs and twirled his dusty hat between his knees. If Thorson used him in a scene, the man would dwarf Jed, though with his fair eyes, he’d likely be nothing more than a background character.
The camera’s blue-sensitive film would give him a ghostlike appearance if his eyes met the lens.
But her pocket Kodak was another matter altogether. For a moment, she considered what lighting would best aid her in capturing the cowboy’s rugged features.
Caught by his glance, she abandoned her musing. With slow and deliberate steps, she crossed to the clothing rack and hung Jed’s shirt with the other costumes. Once her cotton twill jacket was on a coat hanger, she smoothed her matching rose-colored skirt.
For the second time that day, she burned with an unsettling awareness of uninvited eyes on her back.
~
Ella Canaday was as puzzling a female as Cale had ever met. Unlike any rancher’s daughter, that was for sure. Not like his housekeeper, Helen, or his brother’s deceased wife, Jane. Not even like their little sister, Grace, who was a breed to herself where women were concerned. No, this gal wasn’t like one single woman he could think of, with her flimsy shoes and opinionated little chin.
And to think he’d held her in his arms. Make that arm. He snorted.
She jerked her head his way, hair swaying like fringe on a surrey.
He drove his gaze off in another direction. She hadn’t capped her name with a Miss, but her ringless finger said enough. No surprise there.
He leaned back, crossed one boot over his knee, and took in the room. Or saloon or hotel lobby, depending on where he looked. Movable canvas walls bore painted-on windows and doors and staircases, and all the furniture looked like it’d been rode hard and put away wet.
He’d seen a couple of flickers, but everything had looked better on the screen than all this did. Even Jed Barr had looked a little less than himself up close, compared to his nickelodeon posters.
A door closed at the back of the building, and heavy footsteps brought Thorson around the end of a saloon wall and into the clutter of scattered furniture.
Cale stood.
“Mr. Thorson, Cale Hutton is here to see you about some livestock.” Miss Canaday flicked her dark eyes his way.
“Hutton,” Thorson bellowed as if Cale was hard of hearing. “Good to see you this morning. You considered my offer?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, good.” The director swatted the air with each word and strode to a desk pushed against the wall. “I have a contract right here that I hope you will find adequate, and we can complete the transaction immediately.”
Thorson signed with a flourish and dusted his signature with fine sand from a small pot, then handed the paper and pen to Cale and stabbed a finger at a blank line toward the bottom.
A careful read of the small print satisfied Cale that no ambush awaited, and he added his name. Two hard winters, rustlers, and renegades—whether man or beast—had cut the herd in half. The Rafter-H wasn’t the only spread on Eight Mile and the high parks that needed outside cash to cover losses. This could be just the ticket.
Thorson gave him a second paper identical to the first, and Cale signed it as well. After the signatures dried, he folded his copy and stuffed it inside his vest. From the corner of his eye, he caught Miss Canaday watching the proceedings with interest. Or watching him. Something akin to dread darted through him like a startled quail.
Thorson corked the ink pot. “When can you have the cattle corralled for filming?”
“I’ve got twenty head bunched at the lower pens and horses at the ready. My brother will ride along as well, but your men need to be able to horseback, or those ponies’ll turn out from under ’em.”
Thorson guffawed.
Cale flinched, grateful the man didn’t trail cows with him.
“I assure you, Mr. Hutton, Jed Barr can handle whatever you throw at him. So can the other three men who will be driving out to your place tomorrow.”
“Only four coming?”
“Several more than that, I assure you. At least two touring cars, maybe three. Actors, cameraman, seamstress, technicians, myself. There will be quite a group.”
Cale picked up his hat and frowned at visions of city folk trampling the pastures and riling the animals. Doubt tripped up the dollar signs prancing through his head. Was it worth the risk?
“Don’t worry, son.” Thorson laughed again and slapped Cale’s shoulder. “We won’t be tearing anything up or down on your ranch. Just show us where to leave the automobiles when we get there. We all know how to stay out of the way.”
He cut a look at Miss Canaday, someone who didn’t know how to stay out of the way. Sure enough, she’d drown in the rain with her nose in the air like that. But five dollars a day for himself, another five for Hugh, and more for their cattle and horses would help stop the bleeding.
“Tomorrow, then.” He shoved his hat on and tugged the brim. “Miss Canaday.”
She gave a bare nod. From the way she rode herd on that rack of costumes, he’d wager she was the seamstress. He’d also wager she had no business around livestock.
He walked outside and gathered Doc’s reins. If Ella Canaday didn’t watch where she was going at the ranch, this whole affair might end up more risk than he’d bargained for.
CHAPTER THREE
“Get out of my way, you cripple.”
Ella clenched her jaw and stumbled aside into the clothes rack rather than be trampled by the flouncing actress. Unbalanced, she reached for a side table and dislodged a coffee cup. It hit the wooden floor and shattered.
Mabel Steinway glanced over her retreating shoulder with a snicker. “Come on, Jed. All this racket grates on my nerves.”
The studio door banged shut behind the couple and Ella inhaled, dragging air through her teeth. Pain splintered through her leg, as sharp as the jagged edges of the broken cup. Coffee dregs puddled on the hardwood while impatience pooled in her heart.
Would she never regain her former strength?
Falling into the nearest chair, she fingered the narrow depression in her right thigh, kneading the misshapen muscle with little resistance from her cotton skirt and thin petticoat. The unseen vise eased its grip, and she straightened her leg, flexed her ankle, and drew a deep breath through her nose.
Mabel had the manners of a cow.
Ella leaned over and picked up the broken stoneware, noting that the costume rack leaned dangerously askew, threatening to tilt its contents onto the floor. If Mabel’s clothing acquired a coffee stain, Ella would never hear the end of it.
Pushing to her feet, she reminded herself of the importance of keeping her job. Her father had threatened to withdraw his support if she took a position with a moving-picture company.
And so he had.
She dropped the broken cup in the waste basket, and with a rag from the makeup box, toweled the spilled coffee with her foot to avoid kneeling. Avoid curious eyes that always watched when she pulled herself up on the furniture. Avoid pitying whispers.
Pity nettled her more than Mabel’s open scorn. It insinuated doubt in her abilities—the exact impetus that set her at odds with her father. She kicked the wet rag beneath the rack and sorted costumes for mending.
In contrast to her father’s warning, Nana’s comforting voice wove through her memory on a silken thread.
You will recover, Ella. And someday you will love again if you choose.
Now, that thread snagged. Ella had already chosen, and she’d believed that the match was of the Lord’s making. Charles—with his laughing gray eyes and fun-loving manner—had also chosen, and he’d chosen her over the flamboyant Mabel Steinway.
The soiree at the riverside home of her father’s business partner two years ago had been held in the wake of Chicago’s explosive enjoyment of what the newspapers called moving pictures. Even film studio owners, George K. Spoor and “Bronco” Billy Anderson had attended, as did an up and coming actress, Mabel Steinway.
And the beauty wasted no time in flaunting her talents under the noses of every eligible bachelor in attendance, particularly Charles. For some reason, he piqued the actress’s interest more than the others. And for some reason, he failed to return that interest.
Instead, he chose the only daughter of Patrick Canaday III, of all people. In spite of her advanced twenty and five years.
Ella shoved women’s blouses to one side of the rack, the cowboys’ shirts to the other, leaving Jed’s wrinkled gabardine between them. Gilmore’s Laundry across the street opened in twenty minutes. They’d make light work of the wrinkles from this morning’s escapade.
Like an arrow from a drawn bow, pain shot from her heart to her leg. She doubled over, gripping the chair as she crumpled into it. Minutes passed until her breath came evenly and the sting subsided.
With a clear view of the front door, she sagged against the chair’s wooden arms and unwrapped her breakfast, clearly aware of what her father would think of Clara’s handiwork, flat or not.
Though crushed, the soft bread melted in Ella’s mouth, its goodness unharmed by the morning’s ordeal. Misshapen, yes, but it survived. She tore off another bite and popped it in her mouth.
Fate had been cheated a second time today, if one cared to view it that way.
In her youth, she would have declared Cale Hutton a heaven-sent salvation, whisking her from death’s dismembering hooves.
Now, she saw his appearance as mere chance.
What more could it be? For if she’d truly had a choice, she would not have been in the street this morning. She would have redone that long-ago stormy night’s drive with Charles the same way Robert Thorson re-filmed a chase scene or a bar-room brawl. Charles would be alive, and she would be his wife, at home in the security of his arms—not mending costumes or freezing in front of runaway horses in a dirt-street town.
She tore the remaining biscuit in two, relishing its buttery flavor that contrasted sharply with her emotions. One did not walk well after a life-altering injury and fifteen months of idleness. Nor did one drag death—real death—off life’s set in a scene change.
Hence, the only choice she truly had was where and how she would deal with her loss. And even that was infringed upon by another. How could she have possibly known that Mabel Steinway would leave her former production studio and go West with the Selig Polyscope Company?
At nine o’clock she took Jed’s shirt from the rack. Thorson was in a full-blown argument with the cameraman about the day’s set arrangement, and she hurried out the door to the laundry, praying that Jed Barr did not show up early for once.
“Morning, Miss Canaday.” Mr. Gilmore’s thick neck bulged over his tight collar and his puffy eyes left Ella guessing at his previous night’s pastime.
She laid the shirt across his counter.
“Would you have time to press out this crease in the next thirty minutes?”
“I’d be happy to.” Mr. Gilmore ran a hand across the creamy fabric and traced the piping-edged yoke with a thick finger. “Nice work. Did you make this?”
“Oh, no. This shirt came special order from Chicago. I simply mend and tailor the clothing to fit, though I do make a few things.”
“Well, from what I’ve seen so far, you are quite good at what you do.” He picked up the shirt and held it at arm’s length, scrutinizing it with an expert eye. “If you ever need something to keep yourself busy, I’d be happy to give you some of my tailoring overload.”
Ella rubbed her temple at the suggestion, forcing a gracious smile and tilting her weight to her left leg. “I shall keep that in mind, Mr. Gilmore. And I will be back in a half hour. Thank you.”
He raised a hand as he headed for the back. “My pleasure.”
She looked both ways before crossing the now busy street, giving steady regard to the west, the direction Cale Hutton had taken out of town. The state penitentiary walls rose cold and impenetrable at the end of the street where travelers jogged to the left and down a small hill. Quarried locally, the pale stone blocks were not meant to keep people out, but to keep criminals in.
Laying a hand at her throat, she paused before the studio, her heartbeat pushing against her own self-imposed barrier. For what purpose had she raised such an impenetrable wall? To keep others out or herself imprisoned?
More than three hours later, Mabel and Jed laughed through the studio’s front door, faces aglow with private levity. The femme fatale for all Selig Polyscope’s moving pictures, Miss Steinway could bat her kohl-rimmed eyes into nearly any man’s good senses, especially Jed Barr’s. But he was a fool if he thought she cared a whit for him.
Ella’s stomach and the biscuits tumbled at the smell of fried chicken clinging to the couple’s clothes as they hurried through to the back. Mr. Thorson, who did not care to be left waiting for anything or anyone, had called a meeting for eleven-thirty. She checked her lapel watch. Mabel and Jed were an hour late.
“Miss Canaday!”
The director’s megaphone voice boomed over the flimsy saloon partitions and bar dividing the temporary store-front studio.
She limped to the makeshift doorway, praying he’d not insist she shuffle closer with the entire troupe watching.
“Are costumes ready for this afternoon?”
Of course they were. “Yes, sir.”
Mabel snickered and elbowed Jed with a stage-whispered, “She’s a real hobble-skirter.”
Flush with visions of stitching the woman’s lips closed, Ella cocked one hand on her hip and raised her chin. Mabel wasn’t the only one who could act.
“Good, good.” Thorson dismissed her with a wave. “We leave in a half hour.”
Ella spun on her left foot, a move she’d practiced countless times in the last six months. Gritting her teeth, she ordered her right leg to not give way and made it out of sight just before it folded like a paper fan. The loud slap of her hand on the bar shuddered up her arm and into her shoulder, reminding anyone with ears of her less-than-sound constitution. At least she’d caught herself.
The afternoon promised a tenuous trek across the river-spanning foot bridge at the Hot Springs Hotel, and rough terrain at Grape Creek. Ella hoped for a stolen moment of relaxed massage before it all began, but scraping chairs and raised voices announced the meeting’s end much sooner than Mr. Thorson’s estimated thirty minutes. Time to film Jed and Mabel’s signature ride into the make-believe sunset after a save-the-lady scuffle for Jed.
If only Ella’s ride in an automobile were not required.
She gathered chaps and shirts, her satchel and her resolve, and hurried outside to the touring car parked nearest the door. By securing a seat in the back, she dodged yet another painful situation. It seemed as if avoidance filled her days, consuming much more of her concentration than she had anticipated when she took the seamstress job.
But sitting in the front robbed her breath and wrecked her fingers. Even the short drive to the Hot Springs foot bridge was long enough to cramp her hands from gripping the leather seat’s edge.
~
Cale left the ranch road and loped Doc across the open field toward the lower corrals. Hugh’s hammer rang like he was driving steel through a railroad tie.
Reining in, Cale thumbed his hat up and leaned on his saddle horn. “The deal’s done and they’ll be here tomorrow. A whole crew.”
His mirror image pulled off a sweat-ringed hat and dragged his sleeve across his forehead. “And they’re driving out in those rackety tin cans, aren’t they?”
Cale nodded.
Hugh spit. “Blasted invention.” He threw his weight against the new cedar pole. “They’ll spook the cattle and rile the horses.”
