1923

The baby is crying.  The whole crew is staring.

Cameras are rolling, so he’s safe for now.  Clay picks up the pace, skirting the circle of apes.  They wave their arms above their heads, threatening the fur-clad gal.  Mocking her.

She screams and the baby’s wails rise in pitch.

Clay steadies the make-shift backpack that holds his child and heads up a steep hill.  The woods are thick above.  If he can reach them before the director stops the action, he’s sure he can flee undisturbed.  He’s seen enough of this operation to know that these fellahs are working on the cheap.  They won’t interrupt a decent shot just to stop a stranger fleeing with a baby.

His legs pump and he wants to scream.

He crashes into the woods.

“And…cut!”

The Story So Far

1873

A vaquero crouches in the dry brush.  He carefully lays his hat on the ground and raises his head.  The camp is quiet.  A smoldering fire.  A saddle outside a simple lean-to.  A horse stirs with a sleepy snort and a nicker.

The cowboy reaches for the hat.  It’s gone.  A knife streaks across his neck.

Jeff Waring squats down and watches.  After a while, the thrashing and gurgling slows and then stops.  Waring reaches over dripping twigs, the puddling blood and grabs a handful of shirt.  He yanks the dead man upright.

He’s not one of Arango’s men.  He’s an independent operator.  Probably just a horse thief.

The earth devours the blood.  Relief flows over him.  Waring looks at the camp.  It’s a peaceful scene.  The baby starts to cry and he smiles.

“My baby.”

The Story So Far

1970

Our caravan finally reaches the river.  The psychedelic bus coughs out hippies and the rest of the clan gathers to welcome us.  It’s a blur of free expression.  Jesters prance and play.  Dirty cherubs tumble in the grass.

I park the van and Josey starts setting up.  A couple of clowns take a break from hanging banners in the trees to check out our wares.  I eyeball their finger-painting:  ‘Love is All!’  ‘Make Love!’  ‘All You Need is LOVE!’

“I love your beard,” says the groovy gal, offering a joint.  I don’t take it and I don’t love my beard.  She bats her lashes.

Groovy guy bristles, “You holding, dad?”  I shake my head.  He pushes up his tinted shades, his sclera red and grey.  “You should see things though my eyes, man.  It would blow your mind.”

Josey bows her head and cups her hands, saying a silent prayer.  I know she’s praying for restraint.

Sorry, baby.  I’m going to kill this guy.  Tonight.

The Story So Far

1970

It’s a one-lane road heading deep into the middle of nowhere and we’re stuck behind the school bus with the psychedelic paint-job.  The fucking peace symbol on the back door is bouncing in my face – it’s been doing that for hours.  It looks like a chicken-foot.  It looks like the foot on a cartoon chicken.  This is the symbol of my generation?

“Breathe.”

This way of life has run its course, its bedrock philosophy proven bankrupt, and the group of followers have grown smaller and smaller, scattered in the wilderness, ceaselessly chasing their lost summer.  And we trail along behind them.

“Breathe, daddy.”

These ideas of mine aren’t even fresh.  I’ve seen plenty of peace symbols, and had plenty of time to ruminate on them, over the last…what?  Three years?  Shit, since Josey was seven.  What a waste.

“C’mon, daddy.  Breathe.”  She strokes my arm.  My little girl, keeping me sane.

The Story So Far

1923

It’s still raining.  It rained all night.  In the morning, there had been a break, accompanied by a scurry of activity.  A man in an enormous yellow raincoat, looking like a big duck, stomped around in puddles, a line of ducklings scurrying after him with their clipboards and their viewfinders.  A door opened on a truck revealing a dozen ape-suits.  A handsome face appeared in the window of a trailer.  Then the rain pounded again and everyone disappeared.

He’s shaking.  The baby has his sweater and his coat.  And most of the sheets from the clean bin of the laundry truck.  But the rain is coming down so hard that he can wash some diapers by simply holding them out the window.  He counts that as a miracle.  The smell is almost too much.

It’s strange, all this luck.  He was crazy to take the baby, crazy to steal this truck.  He was thinking crazy when he drove into the woods – he just wanted to get away from the police.

But he was lucky to find this camp.  Lucky to have a place to hide.  All kinds of luck piling up.  Or are they miracles.

Either way, he’s not in control.

A crack on the glass.  “Some storm” quacks the baby duck, passing in a bag.  “I’ll be back at dinner time.” He opens the bag and unwraps the contents.  A sandwich.  An apple.

A bottle of milk.  Another miracle.

The Story So Far

1923

A laundry truck pitches madly through the forest.  Tires rock the rutted road, crashing into and laboring out of deep puddles.  Water flows in an undisturbed sheet down the windshield.

The driver squints.  A yellow slicker swims into view.  A horrid squeal of mud-coated brakes as the driver tears off his own coat.  He tosses it atop a bundle on the seat next to him.

But there is no need.  The man in the slicker waves him on.  Another gestures towards a space between two larger trucks.

He chokes out the engine.  Fog clouds the glass.  He unstraps the door and peels it back.  The truck on his left has something painted on the side – it’s a camera on a tripod.   Someone inside shouts over the rain.  “Betcha we’re not shooting until this lets up?”

“I betcha right.”

“Enjoy your day off.”

He straps up the canvas and the fog reappears.  He picks up the baby.  The plan had been to ditch the truck somewhere and find a dry rock to sleep under.  Not much of a plan.  Maybe this is better.

A burst of lightening reveals a clearing in the dark woods. He’s part of a camp of two dozen vehicles.  A movie crew.

He holds the tiny girl in his trembling arms.  “This is better.”

The Story So Far

1873

A sharp line dissects the landscape into two shades of black.  As the wind rustles the brush, a third color is injected into the scene, also black, the dark shape of a rider and a horse, cracking the horizon line down the middle.

Ahead is a squat adobe.   In the doorway, a cigarette dies.  Falling hooves grow closer.  A sentry presses his back against the door, light from within shimmers around the brim of his hat.  A sharp intake of breath as the horse appears from the dark night, stirrups bouncing below an empty saddle. He catches the reins with one hand, the other hand holds a gun.

He runs his fingers along the horse’s flank.  Wet with sweat.

Inside, a dozen men are frozen over a coffin, eyes on the door, hands hovering over their gun-belts.  A beautiful young woman in a Mexican dress lies there, her arms across her chest.

The sentry steps in.  “Just a horse,” he says, relighting his cigarette.  “The rider?” asks the largest of the large men.  The sentry blows smoke.  “No rider.”

The big man kicks the floor and a rifle is in his hands.  He throws aside a man and then a door.  In a small room, there is an empty cradle and an open window.  Curtains blow.  A horse whinnies.

The posse charges outside and fire blindly into the dark night.

The Story Unfolds…