There was an elaborate breakfast table laid out by the caterers, and he helped himself to a pastry and a cup of coffee, then sat down on the front porch of the general store and watched and listened. He read the script carefully and picked the scene he needed, then he filed into the saloon with the others and took up a place at the bar, which was crowded with actors and extras. A woman with a clipboard approached him.

“You must be Baxter,” she said. “You didn’t sign in.” She handed Billy the clipboard and a pen. “Right there,” she said, pointing to an empty space in her list. “You want to get paid, don’t you?”

“Sure,” Billy said, and scrawled an indecipherable signature on the sheet.

The director came in and placed the actors for the scene, while the cameraman placed the lights. While they were working, Billy saw Boris Tirov enter the saloon and sit down in a folding chair with his name on it, one of a dozen that had been set out for members of the cast and production people.

Billy stood at the bar, bored, while they shot a scene from three angles and then did close-ups. The whole business took four and a half hours for, maybe, three minutes of usable footage, and Billy thought that was fast, if dull. They broke for lunch, which the caterers set up in the saloon, and he ate a sandwich at the bar. Nobody questioned his presence; this was a new shoot, and there would be people there that everybody didn’t know yet.

After lunch, the cast were called outside, where the camera had been set up in the street. Tirov was now sitting on the porch of the sheriff’s office, across the street, out of camera range.

“Okay,” an assistant director said through a bullhorn, “this is the wide shot. Nobody fires until Brad takes the first shot.” He moved among the dozen and a half cast members, placing each one. Billy was moved next to an empty hitching rail. “Other side of the rail,” the young man said. “When the shooting starts, you can rest your rifle on it.” Billy nodded, bent over and ducked under the rail. He was just outside the general-store set.

“Okay,” the assistant director yelled, “this is a rehearsal—nobody fires.”

They rehearsed the scene twice, and Billy moved down the rail for a better view of Tirov, across the street.

“This is a take,” the AD shouted.

The director stood behind and to one side of the camera, watching a video monitor. He looked up and nodded to the AD, and the AD yelled, “Lights!” The lights came on. “Camera!”

“Speed,” the cameraman replied.

“Action!”