Miner's Daughter (29 page)

Right. A single glance at the actor’s soft,
elegant hands put the lie to that assertion. Mari reminded herself
she was acting, and said, “Right. And I run to the stove to pour
you a cup of coffee.” She did so, rising from the table, smiling at
the man who was supposed to be her father, and going to the
potbellied stove sitting in a triangle of wooden walls representing
the cabin. This particular cabin had only two sides, so the camera
could capture all the action going on indoors.

Speaking of the camera, it sure did make a
racket. Even if speech could be recorded, nobody in an audience
would be able to make out the words due to the ratcheting noise the
camera made. And the sprockets made big chunking sounds when they
flew out onto the ground. Mari thought how silly this all was and
almost smiled.

She caught herself in time. As her father,
Harrowgate was supposed to be recounting the miserable luck the day
had brought him. She turned at the stove, as Martin had told her to
do, put on a doleful expression, and thought to herself,
I’m
sorry, Pa
. She didn’t say it aloud, because she’d have felt too
darned stupid speaking the words to the actor.

“Wonderful! You’re doing a great job,
Mari!”

Mari had to remind herself not to smile at
Martin’s encouraging words. But it was very nice of him to treat
her so well.

“All right, Miss Pottersby, bring the coffee
to me,” Harrowgate prompted. No one would be able to see his lips
move, because he’d sunk his head into his hands in a pose eloquent
of despair. Mari was impressed.

She’d have been glad to bring him a cup of
coffee too, but the pot was filled with water. She brought him a
cup of water instead, and decided it was going to be fun to see the
end product of all this pretense. Already she expected it would
look authentic, even though everything going. into its creation was
as phony as a three dollar bill. “Here’s the coffee, Pa,” she said,
and then had to stop herself from grimacing. She hadn’t meant to
speak aloud.

“Thank you, Gloria.” Gloria was the name of
Mari’s character in the picture. “You’re a good daughter.”

How sweet. And he sounded so natural, as if
he didn’t really hate her at all. Mari decided it was a darned good
thing she didn’t intend to make a career of acting, or she’d be
confused all the time instead of just most of it. She found life
difficult enough already, living among people who meant what they
said.

“So, tell me what happened in the mine
today.” She almost tacked on, another “Pa,” but caught herself in
time. The very word, Pa, reminded her of her own deceased father
and made her sad. Her father had been ever so much jollier than
this bag of puff.

“It’s bad, Gloria. We’re almost played
out.”

Mari knew the feeling well. “Oh, dear, I’m so
sorry.”

Harrowgate shot her a scowl from between the
fingers of his cupped hands. “You can do better than that. Wring
your hands or something.”

“Okay.” She began to wring her hands and look
distressed. “That better?”

“Don’t move your lips so much They’ll be able
to tell what you’re saying.”

Mari scarcely restrained herself from rolling
her eyes. He was probably right. He knew a whole lot more about
this business than she did.

“Great, you two. Mari, press a hand to your
heart. Your emotions have been wrung by the picture of your father
in so dire a circumstance.”

“Right.” She stopped wringing her hands and
pressed them both to her heart. What the heck. If one was good, two
were undoubtedly better.

Martin confirmed her assumption by shouting,
“Wonderful! You’re doing great!”

Harrowgate stood up suddenly. Mari was
expecting it, because she’d studied the story line carefully, but
she still jumped back a pace. She hoped that was all right, because
she couldn’t help it.

“Great!” hollered Martin through his
megaphone. “Wonderful! This is going to be a truly powerful
scene!”

Powerful, eh? Well, Mari guessed it might be.
She reached out and clutched Harrowgate’s arm, as she was supposed
to do. He shook her off, as he was supposed to do, and headed for
the door set into the wall.

“No!” she cried. “Don’t go!” Then she thanked
her stars for makeup, because she knew she was blushing.

“Fantastic!” shouted Martin. “Perfect! You
two are wonderful. Run after him, Mari! Try to stop him.”

She did so. Again Harrowgate shook her off.
Then he flung the door open, turned around and, with one hand on
the latch and the other splayed over his heart, said, “I’m going,
child! I’m not going to let that foul fiend steal my mine from
me!”

That foul fiend? Mari had heard of
overacting, but she’d never seen it until this instant. Since it
seemed appropriate, she decided to do some emoting of her own. She
clasped her hands in a gesture of prayer and cried, “No, Pa! Please
don’t go to that dreadful place!” According to the script,
Harrowgate was now going to visit a saloon, where he was going to
get drunk and gamble away his mine—and his daughter.

Harrowgate didn’t speak again, but wrenched
the door shut with a slam that wobbled the scenery. Trying to
imagine what a girl in this circumstance might do, Mari clapped her
hands over her mouth, opened her eyes wide, and tried very hard to
appear both horrified and anguished.

“Perfect! You captured the emotion
brilliantly, Mari!”

As well she should, having lived it over and
over again in her few short years on earth. Still, she appreciated
Martin’s approval.

“Keep it up for another couple of seconds.
Walk dejectedly back to the table, Mari, and sink down as if your
legs won’t hold you any longer. That’ll be great!”

She did as Martin directed and, with dragging
feet, went back to the table. She looked up once, caught sight of
the terrible expression on Tony’s face, and had no trouble at all
dropping like a rock into the chair.

“Perfect! Splendid!” Martin shouted. “And . .
. cut!”

The cameras stopped grinding, the sprockets
stopped chunking, and Martin ran over to where Mari sat, blinking
against the sun and wondering what was wrong with Tony. Then she
remembered her dog. Because there was no way she’d ask Martin about
Tony, she said, “Where’s Tony? I mean Tiny?” Drat. She wished she’d
stop doing that.

You were wonderful, Mari ! Great! You—I beg
your pardon?”

She stood up and smiled. “Thanks, Martin. I
appreciate your words, although I’m not sure I should believe them.
I only asked where Tiny was. I don’t see him.”

Martin laughed heartily. “Oh, Tiny! He’s
okay. I’ve got one of the crew holding his leash. And you ought to
believe me, because I’m telling the truth. You were wonderful. Wait
until you see yourself. You were great! Perfect!”

Wonderful, great, perfect. Mari’d never been
any of those things before, at least not that she could remember.
Her teachers used to complain all the time about her daydreaming. A
couple of them had even whopped her knuckles with their rulers.
She’d never thought of herself as anything but a no-account whose
head drifted perpetually in the clouds. Except when her body was in
the mine.

“Thank you.”

“You’re more than welcome. I think we got
that in one take, too. Now comes the scene where your father comes
home after spending all night in the saloon. He’s even more
miserable than he was when he left, you’ll recall, because he’s not
merely drunk, but he’s gambled away everything he values, including
you.”

Mari shivered involuntarily. It wasn’t
because of the weather, which was searingly hot, but because of the
abysmal portrait Martin had just painted in words. Powerful things,
words. She thanked her stars her father hadn’t been a drinker. She
said, “Okay.”

“Super. I’m so glad you agreed to work with
us.” Martin strode off, tapping his bullhorn against his leg and
looking happy as a clam.

Mari thought he had a very pleasant nature,
and one that was easy to be around. She wished some of the other
people connected with this picture were more like him. She shot a
glance at Tony, but he still looked like he wanted to kill
something. Mari had a hunch it was her whom he wished to slay, but
she had no idea why. She’d not done anything wrong that she could
remember.

With a sigh, she settled in the chair ready
to assume the pose of the anxiously waiting daughter whenever
Martin gave her the signal.

Tony scowled at the cabin set and beat
himself up inwardly. For the love of God, why had he lost control
of himself this morning? If he did that again, Mari was sure to get
scared and back away from him. Unless she ran off screaming, which
was another possibility.

He glowered at the broiling-hot set and
called himself every vile name he could come up with. What had he
been thinking of when he’d grabbed her like that?

He hadn’t been thinking at all. He’d been so
damned glad to see her, all thought had fled, and he’d reached for
what he craved. That what he craved was Mari and that he had no
right to embrace her hadn’t entered into the equation.

She was damned good as the leading lady in
this picture. Tony didn’t know how he felt about that. He feared
she might be too successful for him. Hell, if she got to be famous
and sought after as an actress, what would she need him for?

Not, of course, that she needed him now At
least she didn’t think she did. But that was only because she
hadn’t stopped to consider how much better her life could be if
she’d allow him into it.

Blast, there he went again, thinking about
permanence. Permanence meant marriage for a woman like Mari. He
sincerely doubted that he’d ever be able to persuade her into a
more casual alliance, because such affairs weren’t considered
proper in her realm of society. They weren’t considered proper in
his, either, but that didn’t seem to stop a whole lot of people
from establishing illicit alliances. Mari was too obstinate to go
for anything like that.

It occurred to him that a Mari without her
strict values wouldn’t be the Mari he wanted, which was a
moderately discouraging thought. He wasn’t sure where that left
him, but he feared it might be without Mari.

Something on the set caught his eye, and his
gaze zeroed in on the left cabin wall. Was it swaying slightly?
Maybe it was rocking in the wind.

“Balderdash,” he growled. There wasn’t a hint
of a breeze today, much less a wind. He started walking closer to
the set.

Martin had given the command, Ben had begun
cranking the camera, and the god-awful noise of filming filled the
air. Harrowgate staggered through the door, slamming it behind him,
and Mari ran to meet him, then backed away as if his condition
horrified her. As well it might, Tony thought cynically. Harrowgate
was a pompous old bore and nearly always made Tony feel
horrible.

He did a pretty good job as Mari’s sodden
father, though. When he faked a slap that was supposed to send her
to the ground, it looked so real, Tony almost objected. He didn’t,
thank God. Then Harrowgate staggered back out the door and slammed
it behind him again.

“Good God!”

He wasn’t imagining things. That damned wall
was going to collapse—and it was aimed straight at Mari.

As he started running toward the set, Tony
called out, “Mari! Get out of there! The set’s falling!”

Tony was vaguely aware of other people, at
first startled, then appalled, and then in motion. Mari herself
looked up, surprised, blinked and glanced around, obviously
wondering what this interruption had to do with the scene being
filmed.

“Move! Get the hell out of there!” Tony
bellowed.

Damn, he wasn’t going to get to her in time.
He skidded to, a stop that churned up a mountain of dust when the
wall toppled, his heart in his throat. “
No
!” he
thundered.

That did no good at all, naturally. He heard
Mari scream when she finally understood what was happening. He
thought, but he wasn’t sure, that he saw her lift her arms to cover
her head. The wall went down with a crash like two locomotives
running into each other at full speed. The cloud of dust was so
huge it blocked out the sunshine.

George Peters, the set designer and builder,
raced past him, and Tony shuddered once then sprinted to catch up
with him. If George had built a faulty set, Tony would kill him
with his bare hands. Since meeting George, he’d been under the
impression that the young man was both a brilliant set designer and
a careful carpenter. But this . . . God, if Mari was hurt, Tony
didn’t know what he’d do.

“Mari!”

Nothing answered his shout.

Tiny bounded onto the scene from somewhere
and ran directly over to the crash site. He began snuffling around
the fallen wall as if he, too, were trying to reach Mari.

“Help me lift this thing,” George said. His
voice was so full of consternation that Tony decided to wait a
while before killing him

Martin joined them and reached out to grab
hold of the massive structure. “Good God, what happened?”

George’s voice trembled when he answered. “I
don’t know. If it’s something I did, I’ll . . .” He didn’t say what
he’d do, undoubtedly because he didn’t know. It didn’t matter;
Tony’d do it for him

“Everybody grab a side,” Tony commanded.
“I’ll give the signal. When I say ‘three,’ lift the damned
wall.”

A variety of grunts and noises signified
agreement to this proposal. Several other crew members had joined
Tony, Martin and George.

With his heart pounding out a death march,
Tony said, “One. Two. Three!”

Putting all their strength into it, the men
raised the fallen wall. Whining piteously, Tiny dashed underneath,
presumably to get to his mistress.

Straining because the wall was heavy, Tony
managed to call out, “Mari? Mari, are you there?”