Nathaniel Heath Lunch turned out to be a quiet affair. By the time Lauren reemerged from the barn, Imagene and her helper, Miss Beedie, had delivered the food and then left in a hurry to finish serving pie to the workers. They asked where Lauren was, and I said I didn't know exactly. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that she was avoiding someone or something having to do with lunch. When I was new in LA, I dated a game show model with an off-and-on eating disorder, so the vanishing mealtime companion wasn't completely unfamiliar. For a minute, I thought the farm dogs and I would be divvying up Lauren's plate.

When she came out of the barn, she was hungry, though, and we ate in a hurry before The Shay and crew returned to proceed with the horsemanship lessons. I was curious about our disappearing horse trainer, but I didn't ask. Sometimes it's more productive to study things, gather information until you can draw your own conclusions, or at least know the right questions to ask. If Lauren were a character onscreen, she would have been the gorgeous yet wounded and vulnerable small-town prodigal hiding some deep, dark secret beneath a pragmatic exterior. This place, these people, the family gatherings and funny childhood anecdotes seemed to fit her like a comfortable old pair of shoes. Yet I got a sense that she was limping, carefully feeling her way through every step, afraid that sooner or later she'd come down on something sharp.

The more time I spent around her, the more interested I was. One of the drawbacks of a screenwriter's mind is that such characters fascinate you. You feel compelled to figure them out, understand their motivation.

Beyond that, the whole cowgirl thing was hot. My interest wasn't completely academic.

I caught myself losing track of everything else and just watching her as the afternoon wore on with little discernible progress in the horse whispering department, as far as The Shay was concerned.

I had to give Lauren credit for tenacity. She was trying, but Justin's patience was minimal and his relationship-building skills were so thin even the horse could see right through them.

Our crowd of onlookers at the fence dwindled as the day grew hot and muggy. Amber had to leave for an interview with a radio station in Austin. Mimi got a headache from the heat and the dust, and Frederico secretly confided that he was allergic to both horses and hay. He and Mimi caught a ride back to town with Donetta. Even the barnyard dogs got bored with the activity and wandered off to lie in the shade, while Willie Wardlaw, Lauren's father, and I watched Lucky Strike pace the same twenty feet of ground, looking for a way out of the corral.

By the end of the day, gains were limited, but Justin had learned that every time he lost his temper and threw his hat in the dirt, it took a half hour to settle the horse down to a walk again. Animals don't react as understandingly to anger management issues as do grips, studio interns, and paid personal a.s.sistants.

Before calling the day a wrap, Lauren caught the horse and forced it to stand still while Justin petted it. By then, Justin was tired, frustrated, dust encrusted, and uncharacteristically defeated. He didn't like the horse very much and he was afraid of it. As Lauren led it away to the barn, Willie tried to console The Shay with the fatherly a.s.surance that no ordinary man ever became a horseman in one day, and anything worth doing was worth working at. He gave Justin credit for grit. Willie had worked a lot of movie sets over the years, he said, and he was glad to see Justin was a man's man, not a little "snot-nosed, cotton-tailed wimp like most of 'em."

Justin was pleased. Bracing his hands on the undoubtedly sore abs Frederico had been helping him tone for months, he stretched his back and nodded, saying that he took commitment seriously, and he wouldn't let Willie down.

"I know you won't, son. When a cowboy takes on a job, he'll either git'r done or die tryin'." Willie slapped an arm over The Shay's shoulders, and they stood around engaging in horse chat and other cowboy talk with Frank and one of the barnyard dogs.

Frank eventually suggested they go back to his ranch, relax, have a gla.s.s of tea, and catch up with Mimi before heading over to Donetta's for supper.

Justin checked his pocket and said he'd probably better drop by the hotel a minute to shower and put on some clean clothes. I knew what he was looking for in the pocket. The little packet of Vicodin he normally kept with him was in the duffle bag back at the hotel. Before we left in the morning, he'd tucked it into his jeans, pulled it back out, put it in again, then finally tossed it in the suitcase with a look of disgust and walked out the door. By now, he was probably cramping up and had a raging headache, and he wanted the Baggie.

"You comin', Nate?" Justin glanced back at me, as if the pills and I were somehow connected in his mind. Maybe he wanted me to be there to tell him it was a prescription, after all. It's not like he was actually using something illegal. Or maybe he wanted me to be there to flush his little Baggie down the toilet and tell him no-the way Stephanie used to back when they were together. Stephanie had spent most of her time searching for hidden stashes, flushing Baggies, and pouring flasks of vodka down the drain. She was always afraid the kids would get into the pills and eat them. When the older boy, just a preschooler then, finally did, that was that. Stephanie was gone. She didn't even come back to the house for her things-just went straight from the hospital to a new life. The family court judge had no problem terminating Justin's parental rights when he learned Justin was stopped for driving under the influence shortly thereafter. Justin didn't fight the ruling, really. Even through the haze, he realized that life with him was a sort of poison, and he couldn't control where the drops would fall, or who they'd hurt.

"I'm catching a ride with Lauren," I said, and Justin gave me a confused look that said the name didn't register. Names were on Justin's why bother list. Normally, he had Marla or Randall to handle such details. "The horse trainer," I added.

The Shay gave me an irritated look because I wasn't at his heel, like I was supposed to be. Aside from that, the horse trainer was more of an irritant to him than anything else. She had the nerve to tell him he wasn't doing things right. "Yeah, fine," he said, as if he'd decided to be magnanimous and let me do my own thing.

"Whatever." Turning away, he sagged and rubbed his temples, his silver-toed boots dragging in the gravel as he headed toward the Horsemanmobile.

Despite my determination to stop being The Shay's handler, mommy, and part-time enabler, I felt guilty. Now he would probably overmedicate and make an idiot of himself at Donetta's house.

A real friend would stop that from happening.

Wouldn't he?

Wouldn't he?

I vacillated between babysitting Justin and going through with my plans to hang out with Lauren and the goat, which would probably be fun, and undoubtedly interesting.

Willie slapped Justin on the back again, and Justin's head rattled. "Aw, don't worry about the hotel. Cowboys don't mind a little soil. A man ought never be ashamed of the dirt from a good day's work. Besides, I want you to see them deer come out on Frank's place. On a clear afternoon like this, they wander right up in the backyard, and you can feed 'em out of yer hand." As Justin fished for his truck keys, Willie went on talking about showing Justin the deer and seeing how Mimi was doing with her headache. Justin seemed effectively distracted. I wondered if Willie knew about the stash at the hotel or if he was just in a hurry to make sure there wasn't something brewing between his girlfriend and Frederico, which was entirely possible. Fred was known for being good with the ladies.

I resolved to let Justin go. He was a big boy, after all. You promised yourself, Nate. You promised yourself you wouldn't get involved the next time he started into one of his random bursts of insanity. But here you are again. You know this horseman thing is going to crash and burn. Let it. It might as well be tonight as later on. ...

Lauren walked out of the barn, and a comic-book-sized superhero hovering by my ear said, She's worked really hard today. You wouldn't want her to be disappointed, would you? You wouldn't want her family to be embarra.s.sed. You should go with The Shay, make sure he doesn't have anything stashed in the truck.

The villain hovering by my other ear looked at Lauren and said, Go with the girl. She's cute.

By that time, the Horsemanmobile had already roared off down the driveway, followed by Frank's pickup. I settled for calling Justin's cell phone while Lauren was busy cleaning fast food containers, junk mail, and file folders out of her SUV pa.s.senger seat.

Surprisingly enough, The Shay answered his phone. "Nate?" his voice was cutting in and out. "That you?"

"Yeah, of course it's me. Who'd you think it was?"

"I was afraid it was Marla," he said, like the walls had ears.

"This thing must have been ringing like crazy in the truck all day.

There's, like, eighty-seven calls on it from Marla and Randall ... "

His voice faded, then returned. " ... need me to come back and get you?" He wanted me to say yes. Justin never traveled anywhere solo.

"No, but listen. Stay off the stuff tonight, okay?"

" ... can't hear you, dude. You're ... aking up."

Yeah, I'll bet. "You heard me, Shay. Have you got anything stashed in the truck?" He didn't answer. I wanted to reach through the phone and grab him by his new bandanna. The connection fuzzed and came back. "Justin." The word was more of a threat than anything. "You screw this up, and I'm catching the first flight back to LA. You show up stoned tonight, you're on your own."

"Dude, I'm clean. Didn't you hear Amber? I'm, like, getting religion and stuff."

"Yeah, that's why you were sticking a bag in your pocket this morning."

More fuzz, and then, " ... at's prescription."

Somebody please tell me, do I have STUPID tattooed on my forehead? I could have responded with quotes from the family visitation sessions of several rehab stints, but what would have been the point, really? He probably didn't remember the sessions. He was stoned at the time. "I'm not kidding, dude."

He waited so long to answer that I figured he'd hung up, which was what he usually did when he didn't like what he was hearing. "Geez, Nate, when did you go and turn all holy? You sound like somebody's mama."

"Just don't go by the hotel, all right?"

"Yeah, all ... " The call faded and didn't come back, which was probably just as well. This way I could leave for the goat wrestling with only a modic.u.m of guilt. The Shay had it all under control.

I made a conscious effort to switch focus as I joined Lauren. Some things in life are beyond your control, and there's no point obsessing over those. I learned that on an episode of Dr. Phil when I should have been writing.

Lauren tossed a few more fast food containers and a stack of notebooks into the back seat as I opened the pa.s.senger door of her Durango. "Sorry," she said, embarra.s.sed by the mess in the car. "It's usually just me in here."

I cataloged that bit of information. Hmm ... "Hey, you should see mine," I offered, and found myself feeling an unexpected comfort level. It was nice to be with a woman who wasn't afraid to live in her s.p.a.ce. My former fiance, Nicole, was a neat freak, and my car made her so nervous, she couldn't stand to ride in it without cleaning it up. Every time we went somewhere, she fed her compulsive need for order by picking up loose bits of paper or soda straw wrappers and tucking them into empty cups, or dabbing discarded napkins with bottled water and wiping the dash or the console. "You're such a slob, Nate," she'd say. "How in the world can you think in this place?"

What she didn't realize was that bits and pieces of thought were attached to the junk in the car-little sc.r.a.ps of memory I'd jotted on napkins, newspaper margins, the backs of sugar packets.

Ideas I wanted to remember for later, and little human dramas I'd come across on the sidewalk or standing in line at Starbucks-the way a little boy looked when he tugged his mother's hand and asked for a doughnut and his mom said yes, two college kids sitting under a tree on the lawn at Berkeley, a pair of lovers strolling on the beach, a boy throwing the football with his dad in the park-things I thought I might write about someday, if I had the time. If I jotted those things down, the observations that seemed valuable at the moment, I wouldn't lose them. They would be waiting when I had time to dredge them up again and examine the meanings.

When Nicole tossed them out, it seemed like she was probably right. It was all just junk, and letting it rattle around in the car was a bad habit I'd picked up during my mother's pre-Doug transient years. Back then, the notes in the car were a way of trying to hang on to people and places I'd probably never see again.

I had the fleeting thought that Lauren would understand that, if I told her. Then I decided it was stupid. I'd sound like one of those morons on Jerry Springer, whining about my childhood as a way of making excuses for where I'd ended up. Lauren had lived her whole life surrounded by family, safely entrenched in this quiet little town where everybody knew everybody. She wouldn't be able to relate to living on the road, not knowing where you'd stop next or how long you'd stay.

A couple mystery objects rolled from under the seat and hit the backs of my feet as we tooled past the last of the construction workers, who were packing it in and heading toward a group of camping trailers on the other side of the house. I leaned over to grab the rolling thing and something metallic that was wedged between my heel and my shoe. I came up with what looked like a thigh bone and a small hand saw. "Something I should know?" I asked. Now, this was an interesting girl. I'd never gone goat wrestling with a girl who carried bones and a saw in her car before.

Lauren glanced at the bone, flushed red, then took it from my hand and tossed it in the back seat, where it bounced off a cardboard box and landed in an open tote bag. "I teach anatomy."

"Oh ... good," I said, using my fingertip to test the sharpness of the saw. "For a minute there, I was thinking serial killer."

Lauren laughed. "You're safe, I promise."

"I wasn't worried. At least not until the bone saw. That's not your standard everyday under-the-pa.s.senger-seat item."

She quirked a brow, seeming surprised that I knew what the tool was for. She glanced at my hand on the wooden grip. "Well, now you have me worried. You look like you've seen one of those before."

"My grandparents had a farm." I tucked the saw behind the seat, next to a box piled high with file folders and textbooks.

She blinked as if she were seeing me for the first time. "Really? I hadn't pegged you for the farmboy type."

"It's been a lot of years. They had to sell the place and move to a nursing home when I was thirteen." Taking in the horizon, I thought of my grandfather's dairy, of the little white house and native stone barn tucked among the soft green hills of northern Arkansas. It was like a picture postcard in my mind, a place that always seemed comfortable and safe. Every time my mother and I drove up the lane, I felt like I'd been holding my breath since we left, and now I could finally let it out. During the transient years, I knew that after the obligatory arguing, Mom would settle into the front bedroom and I would curl up on the Murphy bed on the back porch, where my grandmother kept the nurse bottles for motherless calves and the cream separators. In the morning, my grandfather would wake me early, and we'd head out to bring in the cows as if I'd never left. He wouldn't ask where we'd been or how we'd been living. He would just lay a hand on my head and say it was good to have me home. After my mother and I moved in with Doug, I lied and tried to make Joplin sound better than it was. By then, my grandparents were old and frail, and I was afraid Doug might do something to them if I started trouble.

"What kind of farm?" Lauren's voice came from somewhere outside the swirl of memory.

"Dairy," I answered, and the next thing I knew, I was telling her all about the place-about the land that had been in my grandfather's family since before the Civil War, about the little dairy barn, where my grandfather did the morning milking before heading off to work at the post office. "The place was pretty much heaven on earth for a little boy." I finished, leaving out the smarmy details about my mother, because there seemed to be little place for them in the picture.

"Sounds beautiful," Lauren mused. Her green eyes were soft and filled with thoughts, making me wonder what was on her mind.

"I'd like to go back and see it someday," I admitted. "See if everything's still there."

"Why haven't you?" She watched me closely as we drifted along a winding gravel road with the windows open.

For a fraction of a second, I wanted to tell the whole story. I hadn't had that urge in years-not even with Nicole. The farm, Doug, Mama Louise were ancient history. Buried and forgotten. "Long story," I said, because oddly enough, I didn't want to whip up a convenient lie that wouldn't ring true later. I realized vaguely that I was thinking ahead to future conversations, more days spent with Lauren, goat wrestling or whatever came up.

"We've got time. It's a little trip out to Uncle Top's house," she offered in a way that made me want to divulge things.

"Nah. Tell me about life around here." I waved vaguely out the window. "Some background might come in handy with the script."

Lauren proceeded to give me the tour as we drove onward to Uncle Top's place, winding up steep hills and through canyons where live oaks and sycamores stretched lazily in the evening light. The branches fanned cool shade over streams of clear water that flowed through smoothly polished floors of buff-colored gravel. Outside the window, the air held the quiet scents of midsummer, of moist soil and gra.s.ses basking in long hours of sunshine while slowly dropping seeds into the wind.

Lauren talked about her family. The Eldridges were pioneers whose origins could be traced back to a pair of brothers traveling to Texas to find adventure. Instead, they landed among the sparks of revolution as Texas sought independence from the armies of Santa Anna. In the end, the brothers fought in the battle of San Jacinto and were given the adjoining land grants on which Lauren's father still lived today. "Which is one of the reasons I'm so concerned about this business with The Horseman movie," she finished, bringing the conversation back around, as always, to the practical. As far as I could tell, Lauren wasn't much of a romantic. "Apparently, my father co-signed on some loans for Willie. He used the ranch and the building downtown to secure the loans."

The larger-than-life story of the two brothers and the battle of San Jacinto popped like a soap bubble. "Why would he do that?"

Lauren sighed. "I think he felt he owed it to Willie. Their friendship goes back a long way. Willie helped my father out when he needed it in the past. My father lives by the cowboy code. He won't leave a debt unpaid."

"Ughhh," I groaned, not because of the cowboy code but because, in this case, it was seriously inconvenient. There was more at stake here than just potential hurt feelings and the ma.s.s letdown of a town full of very nice, well-meaning folk who believed in Justin Shay.

Lauren combed dark curls away from her face, bound them in the back with her fingers and rested her elbow on the door frame. "If I'd been here, I don't think he would have done this. I think he figured if he got involved in this movie, I'd have to ... come home and ... " Something darted out of the bushes in front of us, and Lauren hit the brakes. The truck vibrated to a stop as a doe and two fawns skidded to a halt in the road. They remained frozen temporarily, then moved on.

Whatever Lauren had been about to say had been lost by the time we started up again. She seemed to shake off the melancholy mood. "There's Uncle Top's place." She pointed ahead, and then we turned into a hodgepodge entranceway made of dented chain link and shipping pallets strung together with wire, bungee cords, and what looked like a faded dog leash. Just past the gate, a handlettered sign read, No trespa.s.sing If you can read this U R in range I rolled a questioning look at Lauren.

"It's a joke," she said. "Uncle Top is harmless ... mostly." Her lips quirked to one side, forming an adorable little dimple that made me wonder what mostly meant.

A collection of dogs barked lazily from the porch as we pa.s.sed a ramshackle farmhouse then continued to a barnyard, where groups of goats wandered among corrals constructed of everything from more shipping pallets to what looked like highway guardrail metal.

After surveying the barnyard, Lauren backed the truck up to a converted U-Haul flatbed that had a cage welded on top. When the truck was in place, Lauren hopped out, so I did, too. In an enclosure nearby, goats began milling around, excited by the new activity in Uncle Top's barnyard. A fairly large goat with woolly white dreadlocks put its front paws on the fence and made goat noises at me. I reached over and scratched its head, remembering the pet at my grandfather's farm. This goat was larger and hairier, but it brought back memories.

"We have a volunteer," I said, but Lauren didn't seem properly impressed with my choice.

"I had something smaller in mind." She proceeded to attach the trailer to the truck.

"He's friendly." Not that I really cared, but this goat did have personality, and unique hair. The rest of the herd had moved to the opposite side of the corral and didn't seem interested in the prospect of a future movie career.

Lauren was unconvinced-stubborn girl. After hooking up the trailer, she backed it to the corral and opened the gates so as to create a loading corridor. "We'll sort off one of the young ones and run it into the trailer," she said as I climbed over the fence, thinking that real shoes would be a good idea right now. "That's a she, not a he, by the way."

As Lauren headed off across the corral, my she-goat followed me. I walked to the trailer. She came along. I walked in. She walked in. It may have been my charming personality, but the capture couldn't have been easier. "I got one," I called, and Lauren turned around, then lifted her hands palm-up, seeming shocked and impressed.

I exited the trailer and triumphantly closed the door. "Just call me the goat whisperer," I said, and Lauren chuckled.

With goat procurement easily accomplished, we closed the corral gate, started the truck, and rattled back down Uncle Top's driveway with the newest member of The Horseman crew now safely in tow. I couldn't help patting myself on the back and thinking that some days, things just work out even if you don't have on the right clothes.

Chapter 15.

Lauren Eldridge Everything about Nate Heath intrigued me. He wasn't at all the hapless, s.h.a.ggy-haired celebrity hanger-on he appeared to be. He was actually a thinker, a contemplative type who noticed the little nuances of the people and interactions around him. Goats liked him. People liked him. Uncle Top's Angora nanny seemed inclined to follow him anywhere. As we headed back to the ranch, we talked again about the farm Nate remembered from his childhood and how much he missed it when he and his mother moved away.

"You know, for years I wished I could remember it better," he said, the words filtered through thought. "If I'd known it was the last time I'd ever see it, I would have really looked, made sure I knew exactly how everything was."

"Isn't that one of those life paradoxes-if you knew it might be the last time, you'd fully live the moment? Carpe diem?"

He turned an appraising look my way. I waved off whatever he was about to say as we turned into the Anderson-Shay ranch and rolled up the driveway. "Sorry. I sound like a sappy internet chain letter." The construction site was quiet as we pa.s.sed, and I could hear Lucky Strike in the barn, whinnying frantically and kicking his stall. He had probably paced around in circles all evening.

"So, why didn't you ever go back to your grandparents' farm?"

I asked as we rolled to a stop near the barn. Maybe I shouldn't have pressed, since he'd dodged the question the first time, but the look on his face when he talked about the place made me curious. I had the feeling there was a lot going on in Nate's head that he didn't share.

He reached for the door handle. "My mother's boyfriend didn't like my grandparents, my grandparents didn't like Doug, Doug didn't like kids. I didn't like Doug. Doug and my mother only liked each other some of the time. After a while, my grandparents started asking too many questions. My mother knew they'd eventually figure out what was going on and they'd call Social Services. Then my grandfather's health declined, and they moved to a nursing home, and the farm was gone. The school called Social Services eventually anyway." He stopped talking when he realized I wasn't getting out of the car, but just sitting there watching him, taking in the story. He shrugged as if it didn't matter. "You know how family stuff goes sometimes," he said, then got out and shut the door.

The truth was I couldn't imagine a family situation like that. My family had always been solid and consistent. We gathered for holidays, birthdays, Sunday dinners, weddings, and funerals. The only one missing was my mother, and there was nothing anyone could do about that. After she was gone, Aunt Donetta stepped into the gap and did everything she could to help raise us.

It occurred to me that it had been a long time since I'd been grateful, or maybe I never really had been properly grateful for my family. Ever since the accident, my thoughts had been on me, on rebuilding my own life, on nursing my own pain, on leaving the past behind. But in trying to move on, I'd moved away from the people who loved me most. Perhaps I'd felt free to do it because I knew that when I wanted them back, they would be there. It never occurred to me that family isn't something you put away in your pocket and just pull out when you're feeling needy. Family, a good family, is a gift not everyone receives. G.o.d gave me everything I needed to recover from the accident, to be whole again, but instead of trusting it, instead of letting other people hold me up as I found my feet again, I'd stumbled along on my own, disconnected, unhappy, ungrateful, unwilling to admit to anyone that I wasn't recovering.