So this is the famous Four Corners.”
Muriel couldn’t blame Benny for his disappointment. The landscape stretched for miles in every direction, barren desert dotted with cacti and scrub brush, far more desolate than Mesa Verde. Never had the artificial nature of manmade boundaries been more evident.
“Not even as dramatic as when two country lanes intersect, is it? Well, do what you can with it.” Rex walked around the marker. “Hey, I just walked through four states.”
Sarah stood to one side, not saying much. Her faint smile seemed to say These white men and their artificial lines in the earth.
“It is a crossroads of sorts.” Muriel closed her eyes to orient herself.
She pointed back the way they had traveled. “Colorado. Mining towns. Boom or bust.” She swung to the west. “Utah. And I confess I know next to nothing about these so-called Latter-day Saints. But imagine. A salt lake in the middle of the continent!” She thought back to their discussion about “oysters.” What kind of fish lived in that Great Salt Lake?
She spread her arms to encompass all the land south of them. “New Mexico and Arizona. Even the names remind us of their ties to Mexico. And how can we forget that before the Europeans came, this all belonged to Sar—Nascha’s people?” And hadn’t she heard of other Indian tribes? Wasn’t Geronimo from somewhere around here? She shook her head. She knew less about the native peoples of America than Nascha did about Europe.
“And before that, people lived in the cliff dwellings where we’re filming.” Benny tightened his eyes as if envisioning the procession of history.
“We could put that in a storyboard. ‘At this spot, where four territories and states meet, paths of people have crossed since before time began.’ That kind of thing, and tie it back to Ruined Hopes.” He nodded his head. “That’s good. Be sure you get the countryside here. It’s forbidding.” His cocky grin was infectious. “We’ll discourage anyone from ever visiting, and keep it to ourselves.”
Muriel laughed. Sarah’s smile was strained, and Muriel reminded herself that this was her home. For her, there probably was no place on earth where she would rather live.
Benny and Rex roamed the area, using up a roll of film, while Nascha and Muriel set up camp. The camp where the film was located was just as removed from town, but with all the adaptations they had made while staying there, it felt like New York City compared to this spot. “Out here, I can almost imagine I’m Abraham, wandering the desert.”
“Abraham, the man who was married to Sarah?” Nascha smiled. “Me?”
“That Abraham, yes. Whenever I’m tempted to doubt God, I think of Abraham. Wandering around without a permanent home. Waiting twenty-five years for God to give him the son He promised. Sarah was ninety when she had Isaac. Can you imagine?”
“Ninety winters?” Nascha shook her head. “Do white women still bear children at that age?” She sounded incredulous.
“Certainly not. Not that many people live to be ninety anymore, although it was more common in Bible times than now. It was a miracle. When it was impossible for man, God made it happen.”
Her gaze shifted to Rex. “A God who can make an old woman give birth can change that one’s heart, I think.”
“That’s what I’m praying for.” Out here, it seemed more possible.
The men spread out their bedrolls under the stars while the ladies retired to the tent they had brought with them. Muriel appreciated their consideration of her modesty, but she almost wished she could spend the night in the open air. In spite of the filling supper and several days’ strenuous riding, she found herself unable to sleep. She blamed it on the excellent coffee they had consumed by the potfuls throughout the evening hours. Slipping on a dressing gown and her walking shoes—no soft slippers for this rugged terrain—she left the tent, determined to walk no farther than she could see by the dying embers of the fire.
Sitting down on a smooth rock face, she looked up into the sky, and began praising the God of creation. “‘When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained.’” No wonder a poetic soul like King David was drawn to write of Creation and the Creator after spending so many nights watching over his sheep. She listened to the sounds of the night, the hoot of an owl—Nascha. She sent up a prayer for her friend.
“Mind if I join you?” Rex’s quiet voice startled Muriel.
“Please, take a seat.”
In pajamas, Rex looked the most informal of all the times she had ever seen him—almost ordinary. She suppressed a grin. Rex Pride was many things, but ordinary wasn’t one of them.
“A penny for your thoughts.”
Your pajamas. Muriel shushed the thought. God. Rex wouldn’t want to hear that either, and she didn’t want to push him away by sounding religious.
“Is it a difficult question?” He sounded amused.
“Oh, it’s only that I was thinking about how the skies remind me of God. And I didn’t think you joined me to hear another sermon.” She tilted her head back. “So let’s talk about the constellations. I like the Big Dipper—mostly because I can always identify it. That and Orion’s Belt.”
“Let me point out some of the others to you.” Rex leaned in and put his arm over her shoulder, pointing with his hand. “There is Cassiopeia—the seven sisters.”
Muriel counted under her breath. “…five, six…where’s seven? Oh, there she is.” She settled against Rex’s chest. It felt so good, so right.
“And there is Aquarius and Lyra and Pegasus.” He continued pointing out various groups, and somehow, through his keen eye, she could see the shapes that had eluded her before.
Their conversation died down, and they sat in a comfortable silence. “There’s one you missed.”
“Not possible. Where is it?”
She pointed to the east, to the bright white globe hanging in the sky. “The moon.” Her voice came out in a hoarse whisper. “It’s beautiful.”
“Yes, it is.” But Rex wasn’t looking at the sky. He was staring at her face. He leaned forward. Muriel knew she should jump up, leave, at least pull away. But instead she leaned in, accepting his caress.
And it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
I never should have kissed her. Rex repeated it to himself for the hundredth time since they had returned from their expedition to see the Four Corners marker. Ever since that night, Muriel had distanced herself, pulling back when he wanted to push forward.
But oh, that kiss…a man could do a lot of dreaming on that kiss. For those brief moments, they were one man, one woman, as it was meant to be. As God, if He cared about such things at all, intended.
He knew the kiss had awakened something in Muriel as well. Now in her love scenes with Fred, she brought a depth he hadn’t seen before. This film might represent the best work of an actress already renowned for her extraordinary abilities. From time to time, when she thought Rex wasn’t looking, he caught her licking her lips, as if reliving the feel of his lips against hers.
During their trip back to Mesa Verde, he put down her silence to the difficulties of the trail. Back at the camp, he attributed it to a return to the hectic pace of filming. Nearly every minute of her day was accounted for, and he was even busier, skimming his sleep to a maximum of six hours a night.
But as the days dragged on, she didn’t speak more than two sentences to him on any given day, aside from pleasantries at meals and necessary dialogue regarding the movie. Something precious had slipped through his grasp, and he didn’t know how to get it back.
To distract his mind from disappointment, Rex threw himself into finishing. Scene by scene they built the film. As he had seen happen in previous productions, filming took on a life of its own as the actors became their characters and needed less and less direction.
“You should be pleased with today’s rushes.” Benny set up the projector in Rex’s tent after the nightly chapel service. “Muriel and Fred lit up the screen.”
The camera loved Muriel, or maybe it was the man behind the camera, but he wasn’t alone in that feeling.
Fred ducked into the tent. “Mind if I join you?”
The film’s leading man was another man enamored of Muriel. The deeper he sank into Killdeer’s character, the more solicitous the Brit became of Muriel. Rex reminded himself that no whiff of scandal had ever attached itself to Fred, who was a devoted family man. He channeled his emotions into good acting, nothing more.
Images flickered on the screen, accompanied only by the whir of the film feeding between reels. Rex kept a notebook and pen ready to take notes, as did Benny, but his hand didn’t move. The story carried him away, something that rarely happened in an art form created by camera angles and lighting and gestures that could be controlled.
Sometime midreel, the tent flap rustled and Muriel entered. When the film ran out of the reel, she brought her hands together in a single clap. “That was good.”
Rex turned to greet her, unsure if his mouth had twisted into a frown or a smile. “The film is going well.”
“Coming from you, that’s high praise indeed.” Muriel had tucked her hair into a loose bun at the back of her neck, which managed to look both cool and elegant. Fred vacated his chair and took a seat on Rex’s bed. Muriel accepted the seat. “Are we still on schedule to finish filming next week?”
“We have a few scenes to do over.”
A smile hovered on Muriel’s lips.
“But yes, I expect us to finish.”
“The biggest scene ahead of us is that paint scene. Don has come up with white-limestone paint that looks quite realistic. He’s also fashioned your paint brushes.”
“Do you expect us to actually paint? I can’t even draw a straight line.” Fred looked from Rex to Muriel. “What about you?”
“Artistic talent passed me by.”
“You’re acting like I’m asking you to do your own stunts.” Rex picked up the pen and tapped it against his notebook. “You don’t have to do much except dip the brush in the paint bowl and dab some on the rock face.” He explained his plans for the scene.
“So the wrap party will be next Friday.” Muriel nodded with satisfaction. “We’ll hold our final chapel service on Thursday night, then. We’d love to see you all there.” Her invitation included everyone, but she directed her gaze at Rex. There he saw the longing, the passion, he had felt in their single kiss. She cared more for her God than for a mere mortal.
No flesh-and-blood man could hope to measure up. “I’ll add it to the schedule.” He uncapped his pen and made a big deal of writing it down. “I’ll be busy splicing the reel together for the wrap party.”
Her shoulders deflated. “Thank you for putting up the announcement.” With a quiet good night, she left the tent.
The paintbrush made out of spruce needles bound together by vines scratched against Muriel’s palm. How had the ancient inhabitants of this city managed to create art out of such primitive materials? But they had. They must have told stories around the campfire and perhaps acted out the adventures of the hunt. The descendants of Jubal and Tubalcain, the first musician and worker in bronze. Art, whether Beethoven’s symphonies, Rembrandt’s paintings, or Shakespeare’s plays, was part of what stamped God’s image on man. That ability to create.
She stared at the brush again, feeling the weight of it in her hand. She thought of the men Moses appointed to sound the trumpet for the movement of the Israelites. Once she asked herself how slaves who had spent their days making bricks had learned how to make music. But they had, on instruments made of animal horns instead of the intricate instruments of wood and string and brass enjoyed in the nineteenth century.
She was blessed to live in an age where her performances could be recorded to be played over and over again. But if she had lived in the times of ancient Greece, she would have donned a mask and taken part in one of the tragedies. She understood the drive that made people create art with whatever means they had at hand very well.
During the filming, she would pretend to mix the paint. But for this practice, she only wanted to conquer the movement of the brush and try her hand at creating a spiral.
“They’re uncomfortable things, aren’t they?” Beside her Fred grimaced at the brush in his hand.
Nodding, she straightened and touched the brush to the rock. Streaky lines of white paint appeared, but didn’t drip. “The paint’s a good consistency. No drip.”
He imitated her motions, a good swatch with his first swipe. “I wonder if they had colors. What might they use? People used plants and such to dye clothes, after all.”
“I don’t know. I’ve only seen the white.” She passed her brush over the patch several times to get a solid white color. After several tries, she had a thin line that wobbled as she tried to form a spiral. “The needles don’t hold the paint very well.” Next she tried an eagle, but it looked more like a flattened v than a bird.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Rex in his typical pose, perusing their efforts. That man knew exactly what he wanted and headed straight for it—brimming with confidence that appeared as cockiness. That kind of man could woo any woman he wanted, but he didn’t. He was, in so many respects, a very moral man, puritanical in his work habits.
Her lips tingled as she remembered their kiss. They hadn’t ever discussed what had happened that night at the Four Corners. In the days since, she spent hours on her knees, asking for forgiveness—and pleading for strength to withstand Rex’s magnetism. God answered her prayer by keeping Rex at a distance, which had the unfortunate result of making her miss him all the more. She decided she had practiced enough, and walked in Rex’s direction with her paintbrush in hand.
“What do you think?” She kept her voice as neutral as possible, only her acting skill holding back the warmth she felt. “Will we get the result you want?”
“I only need the suggestion of you painting. The focus will be on you and Fred, on the marriage the painting represents.” Rex gestured to their props director, who had come up with the paint and brushes. “Don said there was no way to get something that would match the ancient painting, and I believe him.” He gave a rueful laugh. “There goes my wonderful climax.”
“You mean you do have limits?” Muriel flicked her hand, and paint flew in Rex’s direction. Dropping the brush, she put her hand over her mouth. “I’m so sorry.”
“Better my shirt than that lovely frock you’re wearing.”
Muriel looked down at her dress, a pale green dress she wore often as her coolest outfit. So he noticed. She fought the pleasure the thought brought her. To hide her confusion, she bent over to pick up the brush and carried it to Don. Returning to Rex, she said, “I should at least wash it for you.”
His lips formed the shape to say no, but what came out was “I’d like that.”
“Do we have time now?” She reached out to trace the splash on his shirt. It started at his third button and trailed down nearly to his waist. “Before the paint dries.”
“You want me to give you the shirt off my back.” A smile played around his lips, and he started unbuttoning the shirt at the top button.
“That’s all right. Bring it to me when you’ve changed.”
His laughter followed her as she scurried away in the direction of the wash tent.