Black Stallion's Shadow by Steven Farley

read, “
Drover Days
, episode 17, scene 7, take 2.”
    â€œAction!” bellowed the director. The actors delivered their lines and the scene was completed successfully. But the director didn’t want to take any chances. He reshot it three more times.
    Alec yawned. He’d read about the tedious, time-consuming nature of film work. Now he believed it. Watching this scene being shot was like watching grass grow. He hoped the others would be a bit more exciting.
    â€œWhat makes you choose one horse over another for a scene like this?” Alec asked Wes between takes.
    â€œFor dialogue? Sore legs.”
    â€œHow’s that?”
    â€œA horse with sore legs will stand nice and still. All it takes to spoil a closeup is for a horse to shift his weight a little, like you just saw. A movement of half an inch can throw an actor’s face into sidelight and ruin the shot.” Wes turned his head and spat tobacco juice. “A horse that’ll stay put for dialogue is a very valuable horse. And a horse with sore legs will stay put.”
    The dialogue scene took longer than Frank hadexpected. Alec overheard the cameraman tell Frank that they were starting to lose daylight. Frank asked Wes when the herd would be ready for the next shot. Wes said he’d drive out to see for himself. Alec mounted the Black to ride after him.
    A cloud of brown dust swirled over a small gully at the far end of the box canyon. As Alec came closer, he saw the wranglers running the herd in a dried streambed at the gully bottom. The effort spent jogging through the deep sand bore heavily on the horses. They were slathered with sweat and steaming from the heat of their own bodies. Their breath came hard and fast. Even the wranglers’ saddle horses patrolling next to them looked worn out.
    Wes was leaning against the hood of his Jeep, parked beside the gully. Next to him stood a man with a long hound-dog face. He wore a short-sleeve shirt and a necktie. The man didn’t look very happy. He kept pointing at the horses and then to his watch.
    As Alec dismounted, the man walked down into the gully. Wes motioned for Alec to come closer. “Frank wants the herd to run to water. I’ll have ’em so thirsty they’ll be able to smell a bucketful a mile away.”
    â€œI guess that’s one way to do it,” Alec admitted. Wes must have heard the concern in Alec’s voice.
    â€œListen, son, with six weeks’ advance notice, maybe I could have done things differently. But I didn’t learn about this shot until yesterday morning. We’re just lucky the wind is in the right direction to carry the scent.”
    Down in the gully, the herd labored clumsily through the sand. The man in the necktie stood watching them, alook of harsh disapproval stamped on his long face.
    â€œWho’s that guy?” asked Alec.
    â€œMarty Fisher. He’s a watchdog for the Humane Council. His job is to make sure the horses aren’t mistreated. Some of their rules are a lot of nonsense. If a trainer knows what he’s doing, like me, he won’t have any trouble with them. But there’s a lot of pressure to do things fast in this business. Truth is, every now and then a trainer will try to cut corners. One bum like that can give the whole profession a bad name.”
    The minutes passed slowly. Mike and the other two wranglers refused to let the herd slacken its pace. It made Alec uncomfortable just to watch them. Marty checked the time again and turned to face Wes. The look in the humane man’s eyes said he would tolerate no more.
    â€œOkay, Mike,” Wes called out. “I think we’re ready.” Mike radioed the message to Frank on his walkie-talkie. “And tell him he better make it good,” Wes added. “We’re not going to get another shot at this today.”
    Frank radioed Wes that they needed five more minutes to get everything set up. In the meantime, Alec rode