1. Learning the Geography #2
Ah. There he was.
“Hello to you too.” Jay glanced back toward the vehicle. “A small child launched herself in front of it. I made the controversial decision not to run her over.”
Harris’s gaze shifted briefly toward Willa, who had already lost interest in the near-death experience and was crouched beside the porch examining a beetle.
“Move it when you unload.”
“Happy to.”
“No cameras in the private house,” Harris continued. “No kids unless Evan and Elise approve it each time. Nothing in the treatment stalls. Doorways and center aisles stay clear.”
Each rule arrived with the air of something Jay was expected to challenge. He could challenge it, certainly. He could also be thirty-six years old and recognize when an argument had already been conducted in someone else’s imagination.
“We understand the boundaries. We don’t film people or animals in distress simply because they’re available. You won’t need to wrestle a camera out of my hands in a crisis.”
The suspicion in Harris’s face eased by perhaps half a degree, a temporary acknowledgment that Jay possessed the judgment of an average adult.
“Good.”
He turned toward the shed.
Jay let him take two steps. “You requested our interview questions in advance.”
Harris looked back.
Of course Jay could let things go. Frequently. Just not this particular thing.
“I can give you subject areas,” Jay said. “I’m not sending scripted questions, and nobody approves what we ask beforehand.”
“Didn’t ask to approve ’em.”
“You asked Evan for a list.”
“Wanted to know what you’re here to make.”
“You read the treatment.”
“Yup.”
“And?”
“Could mean anything.”
There it was: not fear of being filmed exactly, but fear of being interpreted. Of someone taking the visible pieces and arranging them into a story Harris had not authorized. Much more interesting.
“We’re not here to turn your family into noble symbols of a disappearing West.”
“Seems like something people say before they do just that.”
Jay folded his arms. “Then answer honestly and make it difficult for me.”
Harris went still, the silence lasting a second too long to be empty.
“Four thirty tomorrow.”
“Fine.”
Harris walked away, and Jay watched him for approximately two steps too many.
“Harrison.”
A woman came down the lodge steps carrying a pitcher of lemonade and enough glasses for everyone in the yard. She had Evan’s open expression and Harris’s blue eyes, though the resemblance to Harris was clearest in the directness of her gaze.
Harris stopped and looked back.
“You meet everyone?” she asked.
“Yup.”
Her attention shifted to the crew. “Then I suppose introductions have been handled with his usual efficiency.”
Harris’s mouth moved at one corner. Barely, but Jay caught it.
“Della Shaw,” she said, continuing down the steps. “You must be Jay, Priya, and Eli.”
She identified each of them correctly, which meant she had either studied the production information or Evan had supplied physical descriptions over breakfast. Jay would have placed money on both.
“Drink something before you unload another case.” She distributed the glasses, then looked at Eli. “When did you last eat?”
“We had lunch.”
“What time?”
His hesitation apparently supplied a complete nutritional history.
“I thought so. Dinner’s at six in the lodge. Come hungry.”
While Della occupied herself with Eli, Harris resumed his path toward the shed.
Priya came to stand beside Jay. “That went well.”
“Your standards are deteriorating.”
Evan rubbed the back of his neck. “He stopped working long enough to introduce himself. That’s practically hospitality.”
Jay watched Harris disappear into the shed.
Interesting definition of hospitality.
They spent the next hour unloading and scouting.
Evan showed them which buildings were private: his parents’ house among the cottonwoods, the house beyond the lower corrals where he and Elise lived with the twins, and Harris’s cabin farther south through the trees.
Priya established the equipment room, Eli inspected every camera body after the drive, and Della reappeared with sandwiches she insisted did not count as either lunch or dinner.
At the main barn, Harris was adjusting a saddle on a dark bay gelding.
His attention went first to the cases entering the doorway, then to the horse, then back to the people carrying them—a complete threat assessment in under three seconds.
“No strapping any of that to a horse until I see exactly what you’re doing.”
“We don’t mount cameras on animals without a specialist,” Jay said.
Harris ran one hand along the gelding’s back, checking the saddle. “You’ve got one.”
“Good to know.”
“Means you ask first.”
“Understood.”
Harris gave him a level look before returning to the saddle. Approval, apparently, or the nearest local equivalent.
The guest side of the ranch was more polished than Jay had expected, built to accommodate weddings and people who wanted horses in their photographs without having to actually know anything about them.
Beyond it, the ranch stopped performing.
Machinery sat beneath open sheds, fences followed the land, and dust settled wherever it pleased.
Better. Jay trusted things that had not been arranged for him.
Inside, the lodge was all heavy timber, worn leather, and broad windows facing the mountains. The furniture looked chosen to survive muddy boots rather than impress anyone, and the air carried faint traces of coffee, woodsmoke, and horse.
Upstairs, Jay’s room overlooked the driveway and a set of corrals. The floor complained under every step, making privacy mostly theoretical. He opened the window.
Metal struck metal near the sheds. A horse called from one of the corrals, followed by the distant laugh of a child. Between the sounds lay more empty space than Jay was accustomed to having around him.