The Twilight Zone: Complete Stories (61 page)

He turned toward the cameraman and giggled. Then he just sat down and began to cry.

And so it went through the day. They shot Rance grappling with Jesse until Jesse hauled back to let the marshal have it on his sneer. Rance’s stand-in took his place to receive the blow, and then fell backward to land on top of a collapsing table.

There was some exceptional footage of Rance throwing Jesse over the bar to smash against a shelf full of bottles; then the action called for Jesse to climb up on top of the bar and dive over it into the on-coming Rance. Rance’s stand-in again took the brunt of this assault, stepping in in time to receive the full weight of Jesse James hurtling through the air at him.

By late afternoon Rance began to show the effect of four hours of mortal combat. Sweat showed through his powder. His stand-in had half his shirt ripped off, a large mouse under his left eye, and three dislocated knuckles.

Rance patted him on the shoulder as he passed by. “Good show,” he said bravely, like a Bengal Lancer talking to a doomed drummer boy.

“Yes sir, Mr. McGrew,” his stand-in said through bruised lips.

Sy Blattsburg checked his watch, then walked to the center of the room. “All right, boys,” he announced. “This is the death scene—Rance stands at the bar, Jesse lies over there. Rance thinks he’s unconscious. Jesse picks a gun off the floor and fires at Rance’s back.”

The actor playing Jesse James looked up startled. ‘‘At his back?” he said.

“That’s right,” Blattsburg responded.

“I don’t want to fight you, Sy,” the actor said, “but that’s not the way Jesse James used to operate. I mean…everything I’ve read about the guy, he fought pretty fair. Why can’t I yell something?”

Rance McGrew’s upper lip curled. “That’s thinking,” he said with devastating sarcasm. “Oh, that’s thinking. Yell something. Warn the fastest gun in the West that he’s about to be shot at.”

Rance took a step over and poked a finger against the actor’s chest. “You happen to be up against Rance McGrew,” he snarled. “And when you’re up against Rance McGrew you’ve got to play it dirty or you’re gonna play it dead. Now quit arguing and let’s get to it!”

The actor looked over at Sy Blattsburg, who made a gesture of a finger to his mouth.

As the actor walked past him, Sy said, “Jesse James might not fight that way—but,” he continued in a whisper, “Rance McGrew would!”

Once again the extras took their places at the tables. Jesse James lay down in a chalked-off spot on the floor and Rance McGrew stood by the bar, his back to his adversary. The property man put a bottle in front of him and Rance sniffed at it. Once again his upper lip curled.

“I told you ginger ale!” he screeched. “This Goddamn stuff is Coke!”

The property man looked worriedly at the director. “It’s supposed to look like whisky though, Mr. McGrew, and—”

Rance’s shriek cut him off. “Sy! Will you fire this oaf—or straighten him out—one or the other?”

Sy Blattsburg stepped in front of the camera. His voice was gentle. “Mr. McGrew would prefer ginger ale.”

The property man heaved a deep sigh. “Yes sir, Mr. McGrew.”

Jesse James, lying on the floor, whispered to the director: “I don’t care what he says—Jesse James wouldn’t shoot anybody in the back.”

Sy gritted his teeth. “Yeah, I know, but Rance McGrew would. Rance McGrew would also fire anybody and his brother. So do me a favor—play it Rance McGrew’s way or we’ll never get this picture finished.”

“All right. You’re the boss, but I can just see Jesse James turning over in his grave now. I don’t mean just once. I mean about four hundred revolutions per minute.”

Sy Blattsburg nodded and shrugged. “All right,” he called out. “Let’s get with it. Scene ninety-three, take one.”

The camera began to hum and Blattsburg called out “Action!”

Rance McGrew reached for the bottle, smashed it open, held it out, and looked in the mirror. He could see the reflection of the crew, the cameramen, the director, and, naturally, Rance McGrew. He put the shattered bottle to his mouth and took a long, deep swig. Then the bottle fell from his hands. His eyes bulged. He choked, gasped, and clutched at his throat.

“Why, you stupid bastard—that’s whisky!
That’s real whisky
!”

Again he looked up toward the mirror, and this time what made him gasp was not the burning liquid pouring down his throat. It was what he saw in the mirror. Just himself. Himself and two strangers—two dirty-looking cowboys standing a few feet away from him.

One of the hostesses sat with customers at the table, but it wasn’t the long-legged blonde who was there before. It was a fat, dumpy, frowsy-looking babe on the corseted side of fifty-five.

Rance kept opening and shutting his eyes, then started to say something to the bartender when he realized that this gentleman, too, had changed. He was no longer the fat, waddling, bald-headed man cast in the role. He was a thin, chicken-chested little guy with his hair parted in the middle. He stared back at Rance questioningly.

Rance stumbled back from the bar and stared upward. There had been no real ceiling—just a series of catwalks where some of the lighting men had been positioned. Now there was no catwalk—just a plain old ceiling.

Marshal McGrew continued to walk backward until he felt the swinging doors behind him. He kept on going and wound up on the street just as an old man ran breathlessly toward him. An old man he’d never seen before.

“Marshal,” the grizzled octogenarian wheezed at him, “Jesse’s gunnin’ for you. He’s comin’ right now!”

“Cement head!” Rance shrieked back at him. “He already came in—scene seventy-three. Goddamn it—will my agent hear about this! Will the head of the studio hear about this!” He pounded on his small chest. “Try to get
me
for another benefit! Boy, am I gonna tell you something!”

He pointed toward the old man and then stopped breathing before his words came out, for down the street a horse ambled slowly toward him. And on the horse was a tall lean man in a black costume—his hawk face shadowed by the black broad-brimmed hat.

Any real student of the West would at this moment have died of a coronary, because the face was that of Jesse James. Not the actor—but Jesse James.

The horse stopped a few feet from where Rance stood and the rider dismounted, looked up and down the street, and then slowly came over toward the marshal.

The marshal, meanwhile, found himself sitting on the steps of the saloon unable to move.

The tall dark man stood over him and surveyed him intently.

“They call me Jesse James,” the deep voice said. “I mean the real Jesse James—not that side of pork that’s been play-actin’ me!”

Silence—except for the plop-plop sound of Rance McGrew’s sweat, which kept running down the bridge of his nose and landing in the dust. Finally Rance looked up, his eyes glazed.

“Cut?” he inquired. “Shouldn’t we cut?” His voice was tearful. “Please somebody—cut already!”

But nothing happened. The apparition under the black hat remained. No makeup man came to dab off the marshal’s perspiration. No stunt man stood on the periphery ready to save him from the least damage. Marshal McGrew was all alone.

“I’m lookin’ fer the marshal in town,” Jesse James said. “Fella named McGrew. Rance McGrew.”

Rance very slowly tipped his hat down over his face and stuck out his left hand, pointing down the street. ‘‘That-away,’’ he announced.

“You wouldn’t be him, huh?” Jesse asked.

Rance shook his head and continued to point down the street, but suddenly Jesse lashed out with both hands, grabbed Rance by the front of his vest, and yanked him to his feet. Holding him with one hand, he tapped the shiny badge adorning Rance’s costume and looked accusingly into the pale, perspiring face of the lawman.

Rance gulped, swallowed, and started to take off the vest—looking wildly around. “Where’s the fellow who lent me this?” he inquired weakly.

Jesse stopped him in the middle of his activities and pulled him closer.

“I think you and me better have a talk, marshal. Mebbe a long talk, mebbe a short talk—but a talk”

He slowly released Rance and continued to stare at him.

“You’re supposed to be tough,” he said thoughtfully. “Ya don’t look very tough. Wanna know what ya look like?”

“I haven’t been well,” Rance answered in a thin little voice.

Jesse nodded. “You look like a marshmallow.” Then he paused and stepped back. “Don’t that rile ya none?” he asked.

Marshal McGrew smiled at him with a wispy “when-are-ya-gonna-let-me-commit-suicide?” kind of smile.

Jesse shrugged. “C’mon,” he ordered. “First we’ll have a drink, and then we’ll have a talk.” There was a meaningful pause. “Then we’ll have a showdown.”

He herded Rance up the steps and into the saloon. Once inside, he shoved him up against the bar.

“Two whiskies,” Jesse said, “and leave the bottles.”

The bartender slid one bottle down the bar and Jesse backhanded it like Roy McMillan. The other bottle Rance laboriously stopped with both hands. Habit made him instinctively smash it against the bar—not once but five times, with no tangible results. This bottle was made of sterner stuff than the marshal was accustomed to. On the sixth smash, however, he finally managed to crack it, and on the seventh he wound up holding a small piece of glass and a cork. The rest of the bottle, and its contents, were in a puddle at his feet.

Rance looked up guiltily toward Jesse James, who stared at him like a scientist checking a bug under a microscope.

“Marshmallow!”Jesse spat in disgust.

He tilted his own bottle to his lips and took a long draught. He threw the bottle over his shoulder and reached inside his vest for a sack of tobacco and a pack of cigarette papers. He opened the sack and expertly poured an exact amount on the paper, rolled it between thumb and two fingers into a neat cylinder, licked the edge, rolled it again, caught the string of the tobacco sack in his teeth and pulled it closed, twisted one end of the cigarette shut, pasted the other to his lower lip, scratched a big wooden match with his thumbnail, and lit up. He then threw the makings—sack, paper, and another match—over to Rance McGrew, who immediately started to open the sack with his teeth, got the string caught between two of his molars, sneezed, and after much laborious finagling managed to spill a small thumbnailful of tobacco onto the paper. He then kneaded, pressed, tamped, and licked, put the cigarette to his mouth, and discovered that the tobacco had run out of the open end.

Rance shamefacedly pried the string out of his teeth, then stopped to think about what to do with the empty piece of paper stuck to the side of his mouth.

Jesse decided it for him. He backhanded the paper into the air, then looked a little dolefully at McGrew, shook his head, and said, “You don’t do nothin’ well, do ya, McGrew?”

He took a deep luxurious drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke into Rance’s left eye. After waiting a moment for some reaction—and there was none except a small tear—he shook his head again.

“Don’t that rile ya?” he asked.

Rance smiled at him and coughed out a piece of tobacco.

“Nothin’ riles ya, does it?”Jesse James said. “You’re the most even-tempered dude I ever did meet. However,” he continued, blowing smoke out again, “I ain’t got no more time to be social, Marshal. I believe it’s time to come to a meetin’ of the minds.”

He took a step away from the bar and immediately the people at the table made a collective dash to neutral comers.

It was, Rance thought to himself, like every movie he’d ever seen—and he reflected further that this couldn’t be happening. Eventually he’d wake up. But he couldn’t wake up, because the thing went right on happening.