"It's just you," I said, and won a reluctant smile. For a moment, I had an odd kind of tunnel vision. I sort of ... forgot there was anything else in the room but her.

My mind went adrift, as the writing mind is often p.r.o.ne to do. I was thinking there was something ... different about her, and I couldn't quite figure out what it was. The question piqued my curiosity.

Then again, maybe she just had pretty eyes and a great smile and I'd been living in a cabin in the woods for too long. ...

"Hey, y'all," Frank called as he pushed a chair under the end of the table.

I was suddenly aware that everyone had moved toward the door and I was still standing there with Lauren. We were just ... looking at each other.

I blinked, pretended to be busy fishing out a tip and tossing it on the table for Imagene. My hair fell in my face, and I combed it back. I needed a haircut. Lauren probably thought I looked like a beach b.u.m. "Uhhh ... see ya back at the ranch." That was smooth.

We went in separate directions as Lauren's father, Willie, and Mimi started out the front door with Fred trailing uncertainly behind, like the Incredible Hulk awakening in a John Wayne flick.

Pa.s.sing the cash register, I entertained the random thought that Justin hadn't done anything about paying for the meal. "I'll get the bill."

Imagene waved me off. "Oh, hon, don't worry about it. Bob'll just put it on Justin's tab. Won't ya, Bob?"

Bob grimaced and cleared his throat. "Uhhh ... sure." The meaning was pretty clear. Justin probably already had a huge tab here, and most likely at other places around town, as well. No doubt it hadn't occurred to him that if he was going to sneak off without his personal a.s.sistant and live like regular folk, he'd have to pay his own bills. "I'll remind him about it," I said, then headed out the back door to catch up.

Leaving town, I pointed out to The Shay that, normally, business owners expect to receive money before the customer walks out the door.

"Yeah, that's what Marla's for," he said, his attention largely devoted to keeping the monster truck in one lane as we turned onto a gravel road near the Buy-n-Bye convenience store. On the rough surface, the balloon tires bounced and ricocheted, so that we moved along like a giant Super Ball. Any traffic going the other way would be in mortal danger-if there were any traffic, which there wasn't. Lucky thing.

"Marla's not here. You left her at home, remember?"

Justin ground it into third gear. "I brought you."

"I'm not your PA, dude." Sometimes he could be incredibly annoying. "I listened to you snore all night, and that's as far as I go. You can pay your own bills."

He shrugged. "It's okay. They love me here." Strangely enough, he was right. The people in this little town did seem to have a genuine affection for The Shay.

"Wake up, Justin. People need you to pay your bills."

He lowered his eyelids, giving me the look that sent a.s.sistants, sycophants, makeup artists, and grips sniveling from his presence. I really didn't care. If he wanted to get mad and tell me to blast off his planet, then fine. "Don't chap me. I'm having a good morning."

"People need the money," I said.

"If you need money, Nate, all you gotta do is tell me." The engine revved as he hit the gas and we rocketed down a hill and toward a creek, where a culvert covered by a lumpy strip of pavement provided a one-lane low-water crossing barely wide enough for Justin's new ride. We went airborne as the truck b.u.mped onto the makeshift bridge, bouncing both of us toward the roof, then back down. "This thing is so cool." Justin ground the gears, throwing gravel as we hit the end of the crossing.

"I don't need money, Justin." Talking to him was like trying to carry on a conversation in a foreign language. The words never meant what you thought they would mean.

"Well, dadgum, then what are you on my rear about?"

I was stunned. Dadgum and rear? What was with all the G-rated language? Normally, Justin specialized in the hard stuff. "You know what, I'm just trying to help you out. People need you to pay for things when you get them. Not everybody's got a pool of cash sitting around. They need the money for stuff so they can buy more stuff to sell to other people." So turn the wheels of commerce, big fella.

The Shay seemed to have a moment of dawning awareness. Other people in the world have needs, too. Focusing on the truck temporarily, he reached into the console and pulled out an envelope with an auto dealer's logo on it. "Remind me to call the guy about the truck." He handed the envelope to me, then added, "Okay?"

"All right." Apparently, the Horsemanmobile wasn't paid for, either.

We drove along in silence as Justin contemplated the idea that They love me here was a two-way street. "Nate?" he said finally.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for doing this project with me."

"I'm not committing to doing this project. I'm just here." The one thing I'd never done was lie to Justin. I'd kept my mouth shut a lot of times when I should have said something, but I'd never flat-out lied to him. "I think the project is a mistake. You'll never get the studio to go for it." And when this thing falls through, all these people who love you now won't love you anymore, and you'll hit bottom so hard I'm afraid you won't get up.

"I'll get the studio to go for it." If he was the least bit shaken by my lack of confidence, it didn't show. "I've got M. Harrison Dane coming here a week from Monday. Once he sees the project, and the place, and me with the horse, he'll agree to take it on. With him attached as director, the money men will be in the bag."

My mouth went dry. M. Harrison Dane? The M. Harrison Dane? Four-time Oscar winner, who hadn't done a project in five years because nothing was worthy of his time, M. Harrison Dane? "You've got Dane coming here? How'd you manage that?"

"I called in a few favors."

"Those must have been some seriously huge favors."

He shrugged as in, No problem for me, I'm The Shay. "You just gotta speak people's language, Nater. That's how it's done."

Speak people's language? Since when did Justin bother to speak anyone's language?

He slowed the truck as we neared an old-fashioned white clapboard church that was tucked into a gra.s.sy valley beside a creek. "I need a detailed treatment to put in front of Dane-key scenes, synopsis, character cast, you know the drill. Not all of it. Just the proposal and maybe some of the scenes with the whisperer and the horse. Maybe the big love scene with the chick, and the one where the autistic kid gets lost before they go to the big race." He stared at the church, thinking heaven knows what. Maybe he was praying for a miracle, since that's what was needed here.

A fine sweat broke over my body. M. Harrison Dane. M. Harrison Dane. The name repeated over and over in my mind, growing louder and louder. I was going to write horsey scenes that would be placed in front of M. Harrison Dane. If they weren't right. If the dialogue didn't ring. If the action was flat, the characters plastic, the motivations contrived in any way, he would spot it immediately.

If I didn't believe in what I was writing, how could I make someone like Dane believe it?

"I know you can do it, Nate." Justin's voice came from somewhere beyond the storm of self-doubt. I was vaguely aware that the truck had stopped in front of the church. The engine rumbled at idle as he looked at me. "You're a lot better writer than you give yourself credit for. This time, the whole world's gonna see it."

Call me a wimp, but I didn't share his faith-in the project, or in what I could do with it. Maybe somewhere in the world of literary genius there was a writer who could make magic from The Horseman, breathe life into it, perform script CPR, but I wasn't the guy. I couldn't even create a magnum opus while sitting in a cabin in one of the most beautiful spots on earth, with all the time in the world, no restrictions and no pressure. How could I possibly put together something that was good enough for M. Harrison Dane ... in a little over a week?

Deep down, I knew it was futile even to try. When you took away the royalty checks and the glitzy premiers, the nice cars and the A-list parties, I was just a guy who got lucky because I knew the guy who hit it big. That kind of loot trickles down. It gets you into restaurants without standing in line. It makes you look like somebody when you're not. Underneath it all, I was exactly what Daddy Doug always told me I'd be-a pain in the b.u.t.t my mama didn't really want, a kid who'd never amount to anything. A loser.

You hear it enough times, it's in your brain, no matter how much you try to block it out. It's part of your DNA. I had about as much chance of writing an Academy Awardwinning screenplay as Justin had of getting nominated.

"Big ideas get you busted down"-direct quote from Doug. "Sooner you learn that, better off you'll be."

" ... get out there and put my tools back where they go."

" ... I say you could touch my stuff?"

" ... touch my stuff again, I'll break your arm, you little brat."

" ... What? You think you're somebody special? You gonna cry to your mama now? Come on, stand up and act like a man. Take a swing. I'm right here, you little snot-nosed son of a ... "

Doug faded as we moved on to the next place past the church, where an aging house trailer sat in the shadow of a new home being built. The trailer looked like someplace my mother would have lived. Last time I saw her, she was shacked up in the back of an RV park and working at a convenience store next door, while Doug collected workman's comp-something to do with a leg injury. I asked her if she needed anything. Doug told me to buzz off, more or less, and she just stood there. I hadn't been back since.

Amber came trotting out of the trailer with a half-grown boy following her. They slipped out the yard gate, shooing away chickens, a couple of lambs, and a few dozen cats. Except for the underconstruction new house in the background, she seemed about as far from American Megastar as she could possibly be.

The little boy, Amber's brother, judging by the family resemblance, dashed past her and climbed up to the driver's side door as Justin rolled down the window. He wanted to see the truck. Justin was quick to oblige. He popped the hood and hopped out to show off the engine.

I exited the truck and helped Amber climb in. "Thanks, Nate," she said cheerfully. "How're you this mornin'?" We exchanged a few niceties during a search for the middle seatbelt.

While we waited for Justin, she talked about the recent American Megastar tour and the difficulties of adjusting to life on the road. She wasn't complaining, really, just stating facts. It was hard making the transition from small-town girl to up-and-coming singing sensation. She missed her family, her youngest brother in particular, Avery, the one now making engine talk with The Shay.

"Justin's been a real good friend." Amber leaned down to peek through the gap between the truck and the hood. "I can call him from wherever I am and get advi-ice, and sometimes he'll just hop in the plane and fly there. One time, he went by Daily and picked up my family and brought them all the way to New York so they could see the American Megastar concert in Times Square."

"That sounds like The Shay." Justin was known for lavish, though often impractical, gift giving. "In Morocco, he bought me a water buffalo."

"He's been just like a big brother to me." Amber smiled fondly in the direction of the engine.

"Justin's not really the big brother type." It sounded harsh, but I felt the need to warn Amber that this good-behavior period with Justin wouldn't last. "When he spends time with someone, Amber, it's because he wants something. I'm not knocking him, but that's the way he is."

Amber turned pointedly to me. "People can change."

For the s.p.a.ce of an instant, gazing into her wide blue eyes, I almost believed it. I could see why Justin was enamored with her. She had the mesmerizing glow of a true believer.

"That's why I asked him to think about makin' The Horseman instead'a that Davis VanHarbison movie his manager wants him to be in. Justin showed me the script for that movie when we met up in New York City. It's all about the worst things people can do to each other-shootin' and killin', and all the reasons people hate other people. If you watch enough of that stuff, you start thinkin' that's the way the world is supposed to be. You lose faith in people."

"The world's a cynical place."

"It doesn't have to be." The dewy look was gone from her eyes, replaced by a purposeful regard. "Justin needs ye-ew to believe in this movie, too, Nate. He knows you're the only person he can count on to really tell him the truth. All the rest of them people- Marla, and that manager of his, and the so-called friends he hangs around, they just want him to make money so they can get some of it. They don't care if he gets drunk all ni-ight, pops pills to sleep, and pops more pills to wake up. They buy it for him and wave it ri-ight in his face."

I suddenly felt trapped in a place too small. I'd been down the rehab road with Justin before-so many times I couldn't count. Each ended in a painful crash landing. He always found someone- his personal a.s.sistant, the janitor at the rehab center, the limo driver-to get him what he needed. "It's been that way a long time."

"That doesn't make it ri-ight." Amber's words had the lofty idealism of youth.

"True," I agreed. "But it is reality."

"Don't you think that way deep down he wants somethin' more?" The question burrowed in, unearthing the lost remnants of a dreamer I thought I'd buried years ago. "Don't you want somethin' more for him?"

"He doesn't want anything more for himself." I felt slightly unsteady, as if I were being dragged out to sea inch by inch and I lacked the strength to fight it. I didn't have the reserves to mount another campaign to save The Shay from himself. I was busy trying to get my own life straight.

"He doesn't drink when he's in Daily," Amber said. "Not a drop."

The hood slammed shut, Amber's little brother trotted back to the yard gate, Justin rejoined us in the truck, and my conversation with Amber ended abruptly. Both of us cast embarra.s.sed looks in Justin's direction, but he didn't seem to suspect that we'd been talking about him. As Amber waved good-bye, Justin began cheerfully briefing her on the plan for the day.

"Guess what," she said when he was finished. Her eyes were bright with antic.i.p.ation. She looked like a little girl waiting to announce that the tooth fairy had just left a dollar under her pillow.

"Hmmm?" Justin was preoccupied with trying to get the truck into reverse.

Amber paused to show him how it was done. "This way." She pushed the stick over and down. "We had one like this at the feed store once. Anyhow, guess what."

"What?" I said, when Justin didn't answer right away. Something about Amber pulled you in, whether you wanted it to or not.

She shifted so that she could swivel back and forth, delivering news in both directions at once. "I just talked to my friend J. Carter Woods down in Austin, and he's willin' to write some songs for the movie. Isn't that great? With him writin' the songs-oh my gosh-the sound track'll be so big. Country songwriters don't get any hotter than him. He's headed off to Acapulco to get married next week, but he said send him a script and he'll get busy as soon as him and Manda come back. Isn't that awesome? If I'd called an hour later, he woulda already been on the plane, headed for Acapulco, but I caught him at just the right time, and he said yes. I truly believe G.o.d's been pavin' the path for this movie every step of the way."

Fortunately, Justin answered before I had to. "Cool," he said, then put the truck in forward gear, and we rattled off in the Horsemanmobile, three peas in a pod, headed for a movie miracle, or an inevitable disaster, depending on who you asked.

Chapter 9.

Lauren Eldridge I opted to drive myself to the ranch rather than cramming into the back seat of my father's crew-cab pickup with Willie's girlfriend and Justin Shay's Italian exercise guru. Mimi and the personal trainer had struck up a conversation on the way to the car, and I didn't want to be the third wheel while they discussed abs, buns, and body ma.s.s index. Mimi was proud of hers. Frederico invited her to come along next time he did an on-air exercise segment for LA Morning. Mimi was thrilled.

My father didn't want me to make the trip to the ranch by myself. The look on his face told me why. He was silently worried that I'd get to the low-water crossing and have a breakdown-the emotional variety, not the automotive kind. He wouldn't say it, of course. The low-water crossing and everything tied to it were taboo subjects. Rather than mention what was really bothering him, he tried to talk me into the back of the truck by saying there was no sense in wasting gas, there was plenty of room for me, and Mimi would probably like some female company. Mimi was already in the back seat, holding her hand over her nose to filter out the auto-shop aromas of must, dust, and fifty years of axle grease. Frederico was patiently holding open the pickup door, waiting to help me in, as my father and I engaged in debate.

"You can ride up front with us," Willie offered and started moving a pile of beef jerky wrappers, work gloves, smashed soda cans, tools, and greasy shop towels.

"No, really, I'm fine," I insisted. The last thing I wanted to do was revisit the low-water crossing trundling along between my father and Willie, or Mimi and Frederico. "My Durango is right in back of the shop. I'll see you all at the ranch." I started mentally calculating the time it would take me to go around the long way, so as to avoid Caney Creek altogether. I didn't want to be reminded that, on a calm day, it was a harmless-looking little trickle of water, both serene and beautiful. I didn't want to pa.s.s the tree line of the Hash-3 or see my father's house in the distance, and across the field, the tiny stone cottage Danny and I had lived in when we weren't on the road trying to make it big. I couldn't predict how I'd feel, pa.s.sing those places again. In one way, that life seemed like it was never real, and in another way, it seemed like yesterday.

My father, as always, read my mind. "Well, listen, sis, you might want to go around the back way, all right? There's pretty good potholes in the ol' crick road." Old creek road-my father's attempt at a harmless euphemism. Normally, he would have just called it by its name, Caney Creek Road. He was afraid even that would upset me. "And don't hurry, neither. We're gonna do a little sightseein' ourselves on the way." He pulled out his pocket watch and checked it. "It'll take us probably ... ohhh ... thirty minutes to get out there."

From inside the truck, Willie gave Dad a confused look but didn't question him. No doubt he knew that the Barlinger place was only fifteen minutes away.

"All right, Dad," I said, and hugged him. He held me tightly, as if I were setting off on a long journey rather than driving a few miles out of town. A lump rose in my throat as he kissed me on the top of the head. In the hospital, he always did that before he left for the night.

"I'm glad you're here, Pug," he whispered, then let me go, cleared his throat and rubbed his mustache, and climbed into the truck.

I headed out to the car, wiping my eyes and swallowing a spiny c.o.c.klebur of mixed feelings. It burned and p.r.i.c.kled on the way down, a partly warm, partly painful sensation. On the one hand, it was good to be here, to make my dad happy. It was probably the best time to have come. With everyone so preoccupied with the movie, my return had barely even caused a ripple in the Daily radar.

On the other hand, I felt like I was walking on thin ice, just waiting for the moment the fragile surface would crack and I'd fall through into the raging current beneath. Sooner or later, no matter how far I drove to circ.u.mvent it, the low-water crossing on Caney Creek would rise up and find me. I would cross paths with Brother Harve, Miss Beedie, Otis Charles, Miss Lulu, or someone else from the congregation of the little African-American church just beyond the crossing, and we wouldn't know what to say to each other. In the s.p.a.ce of an instant, we would all relive the day when one lapse in judgment, one five-minute delay for brisket sandwiches, one warning not heeded, one in a string of immature marital arguments, one time I shut up and gave in when I shouldn't have, led to the loss of not only the man who drove into the water, but the man who tried to pull us out-a beloved son, good father, treasured nephew, faithful church member, public servant. A good man who was just doing his job, on patrol on a bad night, bringing out the road cones to block off the crossing so no one would drive through it. Only someone already had.

It wasn't like we didn't know better; that was the worst of it. We knew that creek, that crossing. Old Mr. Fuller warned me about it again, frowning from behind the counter at the Buy-n-Bye, as my husband hunkered in the rain outside, putting enough gas in the truck to get us home. In the trailer, the horses kicked and squealed impatiently, restless in the storm, tired from the long trip.

"Better go around the long way around, Puggy," Mr. Fuller said, moving lazily to the deli case. I'd ordered a couple of sandwiches, because after all evening on the road, Danny and I were starving. "Gully washer like this, the water'll be over the low-water crossin'."

"Might be," I agreed, squinting toward the window, watching the rain slash splinters of water on the gla.s.s. I waited, leaning drowsily against the Icee machine while old man Fuller pulled a hunk of brisket from the deli case and made our sandwiches. He always takes forever, I thought. I shouldn't have ordered anything. But it was late, and Danny was mad because he'd missed his calf and hadn't won anything, but I'd placed in the barrel racing. I was hoping the brisket sandwiches would cheer him up. He honked impatiently as Mr. Fuller took out a butcher knife. The metal caught a flash of lightning, then sliced through the beef, juice oozing out over the cutting board, dripping onto the floor. ...

My body rushed into the memory and my mind turned hazy. I felt water all around me. The brisket juice turned to blood. I tasted it dripping into my mouth, blocking out the air, choking me.

The horses were screaming, thrashing desperately against the trailer. I felt the seatbelt tight against my throat, the water swirling over my legs, sucking the truck downward. The floorboard shifted, metal groaned, a tree limb pushed through the window, scratched my face. The seatbelt slid free. Danny hollered something over the rushing water. I grabbed the tree limb, tried to pull myself up.

The horses kicked and struggled, their voices a chilling, terrible sound. The truck lights blinked, then fizzled. Everything was impossibly dark. The seat jerked sideways, slamming my head against the side of the truck. I screamed for Danny, felt the force of the water separating me from the vehicle, dragging me through the window with the branches. Something in my arm snapped and I screamed again. I couldn't hear Danny or the horses. I couldn't hear anything but the water, terribly cold, impossibly fast, wicked and determined, filled with debris. I couldn't feel anything but wave after wave of pain.

I saw a flashlight beam just before I lost consciousness. ...

Blinking hard, I pushed the sensations away, brought myself back to the alley, to a sunny summer day without a drop of rain in sight. It's the past, I told myself. It's over. It happened. Let it be. But my eyes burned. I felt it as if it were yesterday. Danny was mad about the sandwiches. The last thing he'd said before driving the truck into the current on the low-water crossing was that if I hadn't waited around for stinking barbecue sandwiches, we would have gotten there before the water topped the pavement. If, if, if ...

Let it be. Let it rest. Let them rest. I tried to banish the memory as I left Main Street and circled the long way through the hills on roads that were familiar, a part of me like the lines on the palm of my hand. As the scenery pa.s.sed, I relived the memories of places I'd worked in the summers, cutting and hauling hay with my father, combining oats, working to help neighbors bring in cattle for vaccinations, worming, weaning, and sorting. They were good memories, those mornings we rose early and loaded horses or tractors in the cool predawn air. I slept on my father's shoulder while we drove to wherever we were going. When we got there, the sun would just be coming up, and we'd go to work. We'd ride horses, or drive tractors, or load hay wagons all day, then go home hot, and tired, and dust covered, but it was all right because we were with Dad. Anything Dad did, we wanted to do.

I could still see Kemp, too small and stringy to pick up a bale of hay, grabbing the wires and dragging the bales to the trailer, because he didn't want Dad to think he couldn't help. That was the year Mr. Hill, who owned the Hilltop auction barn, had his second heart attack. My father took over his hay crop and took on auctioneering three nights a week. Kemp and I survived on concession stand hamburgers and Wacky Wafers, but we didn't mind. We played on the top of the tall bleacher-like seats around the auction ring until we were dirty from head to toe, sweaty, smelly, and exhausted. Aunt Donetta wanted us to come stay with her after school started in the fall, but Dad wouldn't hear of it. He knew Kemp and I would do our homework up on the top bleacher, then eventually spread the saddle pads, or horse blankets, or an old slicker, curl up in a fine layer of dust, and drift off. The rattle of the auction call, the sharp cries of the bid spotters, the plaintive cries of weanling calves separated from their mothers, the occasional tap of the gavel would sing us off to sleep like a lullaby. We'd wake in the morning, having been driven home and put in bed without knowing it. Once in a while, if we were lucky, Dad would need us in the hayfield the next day, and we'd get to miss school. a.s.signments can be made up, after all, my father insisted, but a hay crop waits for no man. ...

The sheen of good memories settled over the road, and I rolled down the window, let the warm breath of summer flow over me, took in the scents of cedar and juniper, prairie gra.s.ses and caliche dust from the road. The thick, st.u.r.dy leaves of live oak trees rustled slightly in the breeze as I pa.s.sed under their yawning arms. I remembered their music. How many times had I lain down in their thick shade and drifted to sleep listening to them sing? The sound of them, the feel of them was home. It was shelter and comfort. Peace. Relaxing in my seat, I let the drive be what it was-a journey through a place I loved and memories I'd kept packed away, like a box of mementos forgotten in the back of a closet.