The Brave (22 page)

"Oh, I don't know."

"She changes her plans all the time," Karen said. "Last week it was Provence. This week it's Tuscany."

"Ah, Tuscany." Gunter sighed into his glass.

"What's wrong with France?" the heart surgeon said. "I mean, apart from the French."

"I adore the French," Lois said.

"They sure don't like us."

"Nobody likes us. Tom, if you don't mind my asking, I mean, I know you've lived here most of your life, but are you still a Brit or...?"

"Lois, I don't have the faintest idea what I am."

Everyone laughed.

"I still have the passport, if that's what you mean."

"But what do you feel?"

"You sound like my therapist." He thought for a moment. "To be honest, I've never really felt I belonged anywhere or to any country or tribe. Which isn't to say I haven't wanted to belong. Anyhow, nobody likes the Brits either anymore, so we're all in the same sinking boat."

"Nonsense. I love the Brits," Lois said decisively. "Whenever I get the chance."

"Mother," Karen groaned.

Lois raised her glass.

"Here's to the good old sangfroid."

They all dutifully joined in the toast.

"What does sangfroid mean?" the professor's hunky boyfriend whispered.

"It's French for cold-blooded," Tom said. "Like reptiles."

"Nonsense," Lois said. "It's much stronger and more dignified than that. It means... composure."

As Tom left, while Karen stood behind her mother, grinning and shaking her head, Lois held on to his hand and gazed into his eyes and said how much she'd enjoyed meeting him.

"We didn't get to talk about your wonderful Indian book and that fabulous film. There was so much I wanted to ask you about. I'm only over the hill—"

"You can say that again," Karen quipped.

"Ignore my insolent daughter, Tom. Promise me you'll come again when all this noisy rabble isn't here."

He promised and she put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him on both cheeks.

Danny and Kelly drove over from Great Falls two days later for lunch. He looked less pale and drawn and had put on a few pounds in the month or so since Tom had last seen him. They gave each other a long hug and then Danny introduced Kelly. She was small and pretty and when Tom shook her hand she gave him a shy smile with a look in her eye that showed she knew a lot more about him than he did about her.

The conversation over lunch was a little strained. The court hearing hung unmentioned but defiant in the air around them. Tom asked Kelly about her family and her work. She was the daughter of a Marine Corps sergeant and had some sort of civilian administrative job at Malmstrom Air Force Base and seemed very smart. The two of them clearly adored each other. Every so often, without looking, Kelly would reach out and hold Danny's hand.

Over coffee in the living room Danny cleared his throat and announced that the two of them were engaged to be married. They weren't going to make a big deal of it, he said, just do it quietly, after Christmas. Kelly blushed and Tom said what wonderful news it was and went off to rummage through the kitchen cupboards for a bottle of champagne he knew to be buried there. He found it and put it in the freezer and while it was chilling Karen arrived. Tom had invited her to join them for lunch but she said it might be better if she just dropped by afterward.

She'd brought along a stack of documents about the Holy Family Mission and some tapes for him to watch. This was intended to signal the nature of her relationship with Tom, that it was strictly work, though Tom could see in Danny's eyes that the boy wasn't entirely convinced. The three of them sat chatting while Tom dusted the champagne glasses then they all drank a tepid toast—Tom with soda—to the forthcoming marriage, whose date had yet to be fixed.

As if working to a script, Danny asked Karen what kind of films she made and she told him about one or two of them, playing down the radical element, and finally, ever so casually, mentioned Walking Wounded. Tom watched his son carefully—and a little guiltily—to see if he suspected some sort of setup but he didn't appear to. And Kelly, bless her heart, even suggested that Karen should interview Danny for the film.

"Look what they're doing to us all," she said, taking his hand. "You risk your life for your country and this is how they treat you."

Danny patted her knee as if to say that was enough. But when Karen was leaving he asked for her phone number and gave her his.

Defying all protest, Kelly said she'd clear up and wash the dishes. It was obvious she wanted to give father and son some time together so they put on their coats and took Makwi for a walk. They went up into the forest and halfway along the trail Danny asked if Karen was his girlfriend. Tom laughed, a little too loudly, and said absolutely not, they were just working on the mission film together. Danny looked relieved.

"I thought she seemed, well, you know, a bit... young."

"Absolutely."

"I don't mean..."

"It's okay. I agree. Hell, I could be her dad."

They reached the raven rocks and sat there awhile staring out across the valley. There were ribs of snow along the distant ridge, the blue winter light fading fast. Tom asked about the final preparations for the hearing and Danny said he and McKnight had gone through everything over and over again. They were as well prepared as they could be. He said McKnight was bullish about their chances but that was probably how he always was.

"Well, he doesn't often lose."

"Dad, the case against me is pretty heavy. When Delgado gets up there on that stand... The guy hates my guts."

They were silent for a moment. Tom put his arm around the boy's shoulders.

"Just tell the truth, son. It'll be okay."

Danny nodded.

"There's something else Kelly and I wanted to tell you. I couldn't really say it in front of Karen."

"Oh?"

"Kelly's going to have a baby."

Tom didn't know what to say. Danny was watching him carefully.

"Wow. Is this, you know... I mean, was it planned?"

"Yes, of course it was."

"How many, I mean when is the baby—"

"She's twelve weeks. It'll be early June."

"Well, that's terrific news, son. Congratulations."

"Thanks."

"The timing's kind of interesting."

"Dad, the timing's what it's all about. If the case goes to court-martial and they find me guilty, then... Well, you know what the sentence could be. Kelly just wants to make sure we—she has some kind of, you know, someone to..."

Tom pulled his son toward him and hugged him. Damn it, he was going to cry and he so wanted to be strong for the boy. He swallowed and managed to hold back the tears. And then he laughed and gave Danny a slap on the back.

"Hell," he said. "I'm going to be a grandpa."

It was three weeks later that the Marine Corps delivered their early Christmas present. Brian McKnight got a phone call informing him that the murder charges against the other defendant, Eldon Harker, were being dropped. There had been some kind of deal. Harker would be testifying against Danny. It changed everything. The hearing was rescheduled for the beginning of May.

THINGS GOT better before they got worse. Though looking back on it later, after everything exploded, Tommy would realize that things had never been right and would blame himself for being stupid ever to have thought otherwise. He was probably just blinded by some lingering infatuation with Red McGraw, the cowboy hero who didn't exist, who couldn't do his own stunts, couldn't even ride a horse properly and was as fake and fatuous as his costume and the six-gun he twiddled on his finger. If only Diane could have met Cal before she met Ray, then everything would have worked out and they could all have been happy.

Tommy wasn't so blind that he hadn't noticed the tension during the first couple of weeks of the shoot. He was aware—the entire crew was aware and talked about it the whole time—that Ray and Mr. Redfield weren't seeing eye to eye. And he could sense the tension between Ray and Diane, saw how he looked at her when she was having fun on set with John Grayling and how rude he'd been to Cal that evening when they came back late from their trip to see the rock paintings. The walls of the little house they were staying in were thin and almost every night Tommy could hear Ray and Diane shouting at each other.

But then everything seemed to calm down and for the next few weeks everybody was happier. Mr. Redfield didn't make Ray do so many takes anymore and there weren't those long waits while the two of them walked off on their own and everyone had to stand around while they argued. Though once or twice since then Tommy had seen Mr. Redfield sigh or give Mr. Kanter a secret look that showed he wasn't as pleased as he wanted Ray to think.

Tommy meanwhile was having the time of his life. Every day he learned something new from Cal, whether it was about riding or wrangling or wildlife. Best of all, he liked to get him talking about the Blackfeet and the history of his family, the things they did and believed in, their hunting rituals and their ceremonies, the pipes and medicine bundles, all that kind of stuff. Cal even taught him to speak a few words of the Blackfeet language and sometimes in the evening when they rode out into the desert, just the two of them, to exercise the horses, Tommy would ask Cal to test him.

"Okay, what's the word for mountain lion?"

"Omachk-atayo."

"And what does it mean?"

"Big howler."

"Good. Wolf?"

"That's easy. Makwi."

"Moose?"

"Darn it, I always forget that one."

"Sounds like a sneeze."

"Siks-tsisoo!"

"Very good! And what does it mean?"

"Something coming through. Black! Black coming through."

"Hey, Tom, you're doing real good. What's the word for friend?"

"Nitakau."

They were riding side by side and Cal reached out and put his hand on Tommy's shoulder and said the word again.

"Nitakau."

It was after one of these rides, just two weeks before the Arizona shoot was due to end, that Tommy found out about Ray.

It was getting dark and Cal was over at the far side of the corral seeing to one of the horses who'd taken a knock to the leg earlier in the day. Except for the hopeless old security guy a couple of hundred yards away at the ranch gate, there was nobody else around. Or that's how it seemed. Tommy had just put their saddles in the barn and was coming out the door when he heard a woman's laugh then someone hushing her. The sound had come from the roped-off parking lot about twenty yards away where they kept the trucks and actors' trailers. There were no lights on in any of them and Tommy began to think he must have imagined it, that all he'd heard was one of the horses whinnying or an owl or a coyote or something. Then he saw the door of Ray's trailer open and a woman step down from it. He froze. She looked around but didn't see him. Then she hurried off. It was Leanne; there was no mistaking it.

"Okay, young man, let's get you home," Cal said. "Your mom'll be wondering what I've done with you."

Tommy didn't say anything. Cal obviously hadn't seen her. They got into the pickup and Cal started the engine and switched on the lights. As they drove past the trailer, Tommy looked sideways and saw, without any shadow of a doubt, Ray's face peeping out the window.

They caught Leanne in the headlights and she turned and smiled, shielding her eyes. Cal slowed and asked her if she needed a ride and she said thanks but no, she was just out for a walk.

When they reached the house, Diane came out to meet them.

"Don't you two ever get tired of each other?" she said.

Cal laughed and said goodnight and drove away.

Diane had Tommy's bath all run and ready for him and he lay in it worrying over what he'd just witnessed. The scene belonged to a world he wasn't old enough to assess. Maybe he was wrong and there was an innocent explanation. Since he spent most of his time with the wranglers, Leanne didn't have too much to do and had become a kind of assistant—mostly to Diane, but also to Ray. She'd go into town and get things from the store for them, take messages, that kind of thing. Maybe that was all she'd been doing at the trailer. Then he remembered other times he'd seen the two of them together, how Ray was always teasing her and making her giggle, how he'd seen him only yesterday on set, closely examining the palm of her hand, pretending to read her fortune. Sometimes you just knew things by the way people looked at each other. Maybe he should tell Diane. He should definitely tell her. But what if it wasn't true? Sometimes telling her things about Ray only got him into trouble. Like the other day when he'd repeated a joke that he'd overheard Ray telling Denny: What do you tell a woman who's got two black eyes?

I don't know.

Nothing. She's already been told twice.

Tommy didn't understand it but Denny had laughed loudly so he knew it had to be funny. But when he tried it out on Diane, she got angry and told him never to say it again.

He got out and dried himself and cleaned his teeth at the sink. Diane was sitting on his bed, going on about something funny John Grayling had told her. Tommy pretended he'd been listening. He put on his pajamas and climbed into bed.

"You're very quiet tonight," she said. "Are you okay?"

"Just tired, I guess."

She smiled down at him and stroked his hair.

"Look at you. You've gone completely blond."

"How much longer are we going to be here?"

"Two more weeks. Then all we have left to do are the interiors, back at the studio. Why? Aren't you having a good time?"

Tommy nodded.

"I'm sleepy now."

She kissed him on the cheek and told him she loved him and said goodnight.

Not long after she'd gone downstairs, he heard Ray come in and call to Diane that he was going up to take a shower. He peeped into Tommy's room but Tommy pretended to be asleep. Later he heard the two of them laughing in the living room and later still, when they had come upstairs, he heard them in their bedroom, heard the thumping of the bed against the wall, heard Diane cry out and Ray telling her to hush. Just as he'd told Leanne. Tommy blocked his ears and when at last silence fell upon the house, he lay for a long time, staring at the ceiling, hating Ray and feeling foolish for ever having liked him.

It had only lately occurred to Ray that the funny thing about power was that the ones who most flaunted it didn't always have it. These big-shot producers and directors wanted you to think you owed them everything, that you should be down on your knees kissing their goddamn boots for hiring you, that at a moment's notice they could fire you, just on a whim, and get some other sucker instead. But it was all bullshit, because they knew damn well that if they did fire you, they were basically admitting to the fat-assed suits back at the studio that they'd screwed up. And then the trades and the gossip vultures would get a whiff of it (nothing in Hollywood had such a pungent smell as failure) and they'd write it up and, lo and behold, the picture was dead on its feet and being flushed down the john before anybody even had a chance to see it.

The truth was that if you stood up to them, the bastards didn't have any power at all. And, thank God, Ray had understood this just in time. For the first two weeks, he'd allowed that little schmuck Redfield to trample all over him, let him humiliate him in front of everyone, sat across the table from him and Herb Kanter (who was just as bad, but came on like some kind of friendly fucking uncle, making out to be all warm and supportive) and listened to them ripping him apart, basically telling him he was no good, couldn't act to save his life and should have stuck to TV where he belonged. Of course, that wasn't how they'd phrased it. No, it had all been couched in the usual bullshit about the character's motivation, the writer's intention, the subtext. Well, fuck all that. Fuck the lot of them. The subtext was that they couldn't fucking fire him or they'd fuck the whole fucking picture.

As soon as he began to stand up for himself, they didn't know how to handle it. If Redfield asked for another take when Ray thought the last one was fine, he didn't let it get to him, just ignored the notes and did it again exactly the same until the little shit gave up. It worked fine. Soon the guy didn't bother. Oh sure, Ray saw him sigh, saw the little looks of resignation, but so what?

He didn't bother to see the dailies anymore, which had no doubt come as a relief to Redfield, but he'd seen enough to know that what he was doing was okay on screen. Hell, it was more than okay. The fight scene with John Grayling was terrific. Ray had failed to pull his punch on the last take and the look of genuine shock on the little faggot's face was priceless. His jaw still showed the bruise. And the love scene in the hay with Diane had nearly set the goddamn barn on fire. He hadn't needed any lectures about motivation that day.

How things stood between them in real life was another matter. The one thing he'd never have guessed about Diane was that she'd turn out to be frigid. Things in that department had always been electric. For more than a year they'd hardly been able to keep their hands off each other. She'd always wanted it just as much as he did, if not more. Even better, she wanted it in ways women generally didn't.

The mistake, of course, was getting married. It was so damn predictable. Get hitched and in no time at all sex flew out the window. Oh sure, they still did it now and again. On those rare occasions when she wasn't too tired. But even then it wasn't how it used to be. All he could say was thank the Lord for that wicked little filly Leanne. There was a dark horse if ever there was one. Only eighteen and knew more tricks than a Vegas hooker.

They'd had to be pretty damn careful though. There had been more than a few close shaves. Diane had nearly caught them a couple of times back at the house when he thought she was still on set or gone to a meeting. And then the other evening when Ray didn't know that Tommy and Cal were out with the horses and they rode right in and nearly caught him and Leanne rocking the trailer off its springs. Ray had stuffed a lot of dollars into the pocket of the old drunk who guarded the gate and later gave him a good bawling out for failing to warn him.

As for Tommy's infatuation with Cal, Ray didn't know what to think. To begin with it had gotten on his nerves, even made him feel jealous. But then he only had himself to blame. He'd been so obsessed with his own problems with Redfield that he hadn't been able to pay the kid enough attention. But Cal was a decent enough guy, for a half-breed anyhow, and Tommy was enjoying himself and learning all kinds of new things. And of course the arrangement had the dividend of freeing up the lovely Leanne, so Ray wasn't going to make any kind of fuss about it. Anyhow, it was all soon going to be over. One more week and they'd be wrapping and heading home to LA to shoot the studio stuff.

It was Sunday night and Ray's call wasn't until the following afternoon. Diane's was first thing in the morning and she was already in bed preparing the last scene she had to do with Grayling. Leanne was going to be down at the Hungry Horse and Ray had promised to meet her there. With luck and a little shrewd footwork, maybe they'd be able to slip away down to the trailer. He felt a twitch in his pants at the thought of her. He'd just showered and put on a new white shirt and his black jeans and was giving himself a final scan in the bathroom mirror. Hell, was he one handsome sonofabitch or what?

He switched off the light and went to the bedroom door and stood watching Diane. She was in bed, propped up with pillows, wearing her little reading glasses and scribbling notes in the margins of her script. Like a fucking schoolmarm. She was so goddamn diligent, it was tiring. She looked up and saw him and smiled.

"You're going out?"

"Yeah, it's Denny's birthday. The boys are having a few beers down the double H. I said I'd drop by."

He kissed her on the forehead.

"I won't be late."

He parked the car at the end of the street and walked along the sidewalk. He liked to do this because sometimes there were kids who knew him from Sliprock and they'd mob him and ask for his autograph. They all knew the little Red McGraw trademark, making guns of their fingers and blowing off the smoke. Tonight they didn't seem to be about. But everyone he passed recognized him and some of them smiled or nodded and he smiled back regally and tipped the brim of his hat.

He was about halfway along the street when he saw the group of young Indian guys. They often hung around outside the double H and clearly thought they were the coolest dudes in town. And here they came, four of them, smoking and slouching along with their hangdog faces. Hell, didn't anyone ever teach these lazy punks how to smile?