“They will if you tell them to.”
“Why should I tell them to? A nuts idea.”
“You tell them to because you’re back on the job. Here’s some salary.” He passed the bottle to Ottar, who smiled broadly and raised it to his lips. Barney finished convincing him while he drank.
It wasn’t easy to get them back aboard, even for Ottar. He finally lost his temper, something he did readily, stretched one man on the sand with a blow to the chest and kicked two of the women in the right direction. After this, though there was much grumbling and shouting complaints, they pulled themselves aboard and unshipped the oars. The effort of dragging the
Onshore, as soon as the camera was unloaded, Barney sent the jeep racing back to the camp. It had returned, before the ship had reversed in the bay and raised its sail again, with the rear seat filled with cases of beer, boxes of cheese, and canned hams.
“Dump it out,” Barney ordered, “about ten yards beyond the camera, and build it up high so they can see it. Break out the hams so they will know what they are. Bring me a ham and a can of beer.”
“Here they come,” Gino said. “Tremendous, absolutely fantastic.”
At full tilt the
They got the message. After almost three weeks on a cold ration of hard bread and dried fish they roared with enthusiasm. The reaction this time was as good—or better—than the first arrival. They fought to get ashore, trampling each other into the shallows, and raced by the camera to get at the food and drink.
“Cut.” Barney said, “but don’t go away. As soon as they stoke up I want to get them unloading the wildstock.” Ottar came up, a half-consumed ham in one fist and the bottle in the other, “Do you think this will do for your camp?” Barney asked.
Ottar looked around and nodded happily. “Good grass, good water. Plenty of wood on the shore for burning. Plenty of trees with hard wood over there for cutting. Fish, hunt, this is a good place. Where’s Gudrid? Where’s everybody?”
“Taking a day off,” Barney told him, “back on Old Catalina. A day off with pay, big party, barbecue, the works.”
“Why party?”
“Because I’m generous and like to see people happy and we couldn’t do anything until you arrived, and because it saves money. I’ve been waiting here for you with a skeleton staff for three weeks. Everyone else at the party will be gone only one day.”
“Want to see Gudrid.”
“Slithey you mean. And I imagine she wants to see you too.”
“Been a long time.”
“You’re a man of simple pleasures, Ottar. At least finish your ham first and remember that this is a historical moment. You have just arrived in the New World.”
“You nuts, Barney. Same old world, just a place name of Vinland. Looks like good trees here.”
“I’ll remember those historical words,” Barney said.
14
“I don’t feel so good this morning,” Slithey said, loosening the large gilt buckle on her belt. “It must be the air here or the climate or something.”
“Something like that,” Barney said with complete lack of sympathy. “The air. Of course it couldn’t be that Viking barbecue on the beach last night with roasted clams and blue mussels over a driftwood fire and six cases of beer gone through.”
She didn’t answer him, but there was a deepening of the green tinge to her peaches and cream skin. He shook another two pills into the rattling handful he already had and held them out to her.
“Here, take these, and I’ll get you a glass of water.”
“So many,” she said weakly. “I don’t think I can get them down.”
“You better, we have a day’s shooting ahead of us. This is Dr. Hendrickson’s guaranteed morning-after and hangover cure. Aspirin for the headache, Dramamine for the nausea, bicarbonate for the heartburn, Benzedrine for the depression and two glasses of water for the dehydration. It never fails.”
While Slithey was choking over the pills Barney’s secretary knocked on the trailer door and he shouted for her to come in.
“You look very bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this mom-ing,” he said.
“I’m allergic to mussels so I went to bed early.” She held up the day’s call sheet. “I’ve got a query for you.” She ran her finger down the list. “Artists, okay… stand-ins, okay… camera department, okay… props. They want to know if you want blood with the collapsible dagger?”
“Of course I do—we’re not shooting this film for the kiddy matinee.” He stood and pulled his jacket on. “Let’s go, Slithey.”
“I’ll be with you in a moment,” she said in a faint voice.
“Ten minutes, no more, you’re in the first scene.”
It was a clear day and the sun had already cleared the ridge behind them and was casting long shadows from the sod huts and birch-bark-roofed lean-tos in the meadow below. The Norse settlers were already busy and a thread of blue smoke rose straight up from the hole in the ridge of the largest building.
“I hope Ottar is in better shape than his leading lady,” Barney said, squinting across the water of the bay. “Are those rocks there, just to the left of the island, Betty—or is it a boat?”
“I don’t have my glasses with me.”
“It could be the motorboat—see it’s closer. And it’s about time they decided to come back.”
Betty had to run to keep up with his long strides down the slope toward the shore, skirting a huddle of cud- chewing cows. The boat was clearly visible now and they could hear the faint pop-pop of its motor across the water. Most of the company was waiting on the shore near the
“Looks like the explorers are coming home,” he called out to Barney, and pointed at the boat.
“I can see them and I can take care of it myself, so everyone else can stay on camera. We’re going to shoot this scene as soon as I’ve talked to them.”
Barney waited, almost at the water’s edge as the boat came in. Tex was in the stem steering the outboard and Jens Lyn sat in front of him. Both men had good growths of beard and a decidedly scruffy look.
“Well?” Barney asked, even before the boat touched shore. “What news?”
Lyn shook his head with unconcealed Scandinavian gloom. “Nothing,” he said, “anywhere along the coast. We went as far as we could with the gasoline we had, but found no one.”
“Impossible. I saw those Indians with my own eyes—and Ottar killed a couple more. They have to be around somewhere.”
Jens climbed ashore and stretched. “I would like to find them as much as you would. This is a unique opportunity for research. The construction of their boats and the carving of the spear leads me to suspect that they are members of the almost unknown Cape Dorset culture. We know comparatively little about these people, just some facts gleaned from digging on archeological sites, and a few hints from the sagas. As far as we can ascertain the last of them seem to have vanished about the end of this century, the eleventh century…”
“I’m not interested in your unique opportunity for research but in my unique opportunity to finish this picture. We need Indians in it—where are they? You must have seen some signs of them?”
“We did discover some camps on the shore, but they were deserted. The Cape Dorset are a migratory people, following the seal herds for the most part, and the schools of cod. I feel that, at this time of year, they may have moved farther north.”
