Chapter 9

  Five minutes after lunch hour starts on Friday, we’re all sitting at a table in the library. I set The Atlas of Cursed Places in the middle of the table.

  “Thought this might help us out.”

  Destiny grabs it. “Whoa. Awesome! Have you read it yet?”

  “Nope. Just grabbed it off the shelf a minute ago.”

  “Find Arizona,” says Gabby.

  Destiny gives her a duh look. She flips open the atlas and skims through the pages.

  “There’s got to be an index at the back,” Gabby says impatiently.

  Destiny sighs. Turns to the back of the book. Runs her finger down the index listings. Flips through the book. “All right. Arizona. Annnnd . . . bingo.” She rests her finger on a tiny skull icon right in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, about twenty miles from Tucson. A split-second later, she’s flipping pages again.

  “Aha. Look, there’s an entire entry on Sanford’s Folly.” She starts reading out loud.

  The curse of Sanford’s Folly dates to 1961. That year, Hollywood director Martin Feeney filmed Man with the Silver Star at this well-known Arizona movie set. The film starred African American actor John Willis as US Marshal Cheswell. The character was based on real-life African American lawman Bass Reeves.

  “Whoa,” Gabby cuts in. “That must’ve been super controversial back in 1961. I mean, there are racist idiots freaking out right now about the black main character in Spy Masters. I’m going to look up this Willis guy.” She starts swiping at her phone screen.

  Willis. The name sounds familiar for some reason. I have no idea why.

  “Anyway,” says Destiny. “Where was I?”

  . . . Acclaimed actor Earl Morrison was cast in the supporting role of Sheriff Corley. Morrison was reportedly outraged to be given a secondary role. He demanded that Feeney change the script to make Sheriff Corley the movie’s hero. Feeney refused. He reportedly said, “May I be forever cursed if I let your vanity destroy this story. May we all be cursed if I allow that! May this whole place be cursed!”

  On the last day of filming, Morrison shot Feeney in the shoulder on set.

  “Whaaaaat?” Ahmed jumps in.

  “Oh, yeah,” I say. “Morrison went full-throttle Wild West. And Feeney didn’t even press charges. Crazy, right?”

  “Celebrities have gotten away with worse than that,” says Gabby, looking up from her phone. “I’m sure the heads of the movie studio told Feeney to drop the whole thing. They wouldn’t have wanted their biggest star going to jail.”

  “Soon to be their biggest failed star,” notes Destiny. “Thanks to this curse.” She keeps reading.

  Due to pressure from his studio bosses and his own fear of Morrison, Feeney reworked the film. Most of Willis’s scenes were cut. Footage of Morrison from previous films was added. (Morrison refused to work with Feeney again, even on a reshoot.) The original version of the film was never shown or distributed. The recut film was a critical and box-office failure. It also marked the beginning of professional and personal troubles for Feeney, Morrison, and many others involved with the film.

  Destiny pauses and gives Gabby a pointed look.

  “Gloat later,” Gabby says grimly.

  “On that note, what happened to Willis?” I ask her.

  She glances back at her phone. “Never got another acting job after that movie. Died young. Nothing ultra-dramatic or unusual.”

  “Sad, though,” I say. “I mean, it’s hard to feel too sorry for someone like Morrison, since he was a complete jerk. But you have to feel for guys like Willis, who didn’t do anything wrong except show up for work.”

  “And Feeney,” says Ahmed. “He was just trying to be true to his artistic vision.”

  Gabby shoots him an impressed look. Maybe they have more in common than I thought.

  “Is there more to the atlas entry?” I ask Destiny.

  “Tons more. It goes through a whole long list of other things that went wrong at Sanford’s Folly after 1961. Up to and including the fire, when almost every building except the mission burned down. Oh, hey. Listen to this!”

  In Feeney’s later years, he was often asked about the curse. He told one reporter, “The key to breaking the curse is in the film itself.”

  Gabby chews thoughtfully on her thumbnail. “An Easter egg. A hint that you’d only notice if you were looking for it.”

  “Have you seen Man with the Silver Star?” I ask Gabby.

  She shakes her head. “Never bothered. It’s on every list of worst films ever made.”

  “Well then.” I stand up. “Who’s up for a Friday movie night?”

  Chapter 10

  Man with the Silver Star is terrible. It makes no sense. It jumps from scene to scene with no transition. It randomly inserts clips from Morrison’s other movies—bits of dialogue, action shots. The goal is to string together a sequence of events that revolves around Morrison’s character, the sheriff. But you end up getting distracted by all the inconsistencies. In one shot Morrison’s wearing a hat. In the next he’s not. In the next, he’s ten years younger. Then suddenly he’s wearing a bandana. The dialogue is choppy. The action sequences have no rhythm. And I completely lose track of what’s supposed to be happening. Feeney seems to have deleted all the scenes that relate to the movie’s specific plot. Probably because John Willis, the Marshal, was in those scenes and Morrison wasn’t.

  I guess it’s kind of cool to see Sanford’s Folly in its glory days. On-screen, it looks like a real town. All the buildings on Main Street are in good shape. There’s a jail, a hotel, a saloon. And of course the mission. Though each time Morrison throws away a cigarette, I expect everything to go up in smoke. And that’s pretty much the most interesting part of this viewing experience.

  “Are you picking up on any clues?” I ask halfway through. “Because I’m completely lost.”

  Gabby shakes her head. “I feel like we’re trying to find the stolen money from Fargo.”

  Ahmed presses the spacebar on his laptop to pause the movie. “Well, should we just stop watching, then? It’s a really lame movie.”

  “And the soundtrack is awful,” adds Destiny.

  “It’s not really a movie at all,” I point out. “It’s like a mashup of Morrison clips. I think the Willis guy has said five lines so far.”

  Willis. Why does that name sound so familiar? I’ve been trying to figure it out all night.

  “If we stop now, we’ll still have no idea how to break the curse,” Gabby reminds us.

  “Well, maybe we’ll be fine,” says Ahmed. “Even if we can’t break the curse. I mean, aside from the close call with the coyotes, nothing really awful has happened.”

  “Yet,” says Destiny.

  That word sinks to my stomach like a rock. My mom’s deployment is coming up. What if the curse transfers from me to her? What if my bad luck becomes her bad luck?

  And there are smaller fears too. Gabby’s application might be gone. She might miss out on her chance at that summer program. Ahmed’s about to spend another year or more with a guy who punches people just for kicks. Destiny’s arm might not heal right. Those aren’t life-and-death stakes, but they’re not nothing. They’re life stakes, at least.

  “Okay,” I say. “I vote for us to keep watching. We have to at least give this our best shot.”

  Ahmed sighs and un-pauses the movie.

  Forty-five minutes later, Earl Morrison lights one last cigarette. Then there’s a shot of a guy on horseback riding away from the camera. I can’t tell if this is Morrison, or a stunt rider, or . . .

  A voiceover drowns out the music. “Some men are American originals. Some stories will not die. An original will remain, long after the glossy lies and tidy myths fade. An original, if seen by the world, will redeem this land and set us free.”

  The terrible soundtrack swells, and the credits roll. Ahmed hits pause again.

  “What. Was. That?” I demand.

  Gabby scowls at the screen. “I think that was Feeney’s message. That part about redeeming the land and setting us free . . .”

  “But how?”

  “The original,” I say. “That’s what the voice-over keeps saying!” Electricity shoots through me. “As in the original movie. The original version, before it got recut into a Morrison-fest. Maybe we just need to find that original. . . print?”

  I look at Gabby to confirm that’s the right word. She nods slowly. So does Ahmed.

  “Find it,” he says, “and share it. Like it says in the last line of the voiceover.” He rewinds and plays that part again: An original, if seen by the world, will redeem this land and set us free. “If seen by the world,” Ahmed repeats. “So I bet we’d have to make the movie available to the public.”

  “Maybe your mom could help with that, Gabby?” I suggest. “Since she’s a film-studies professor?”

  “Aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves?” says Gabby. I can hear the silent you idiots at the end of that sentence. “How exactly are we supposed to find an original version? How do we know it even exists?”

  “Wouldn’t your mom have some ideas about where to look?” I say.

  She throws up her hands. “Even if it does exist, do you know how many old film reels are lying around? Like, thousands. People collect them at garage sales. And those people may not even watch the films. They may have no idea what they’ve got. My mom won’t be able to find something if it’s in a hoarder’s storage locker. Or a landfill. Or Martin Feeney’s grandchildren’s basement.”

  I can feel something deflate inside me. She’s right. We’re dealing with a needle in a haystack.

  My eyes drift back to Ahmed’s laptop screen. The film is paused on the first frame of the credits. Morrison gets top billing, of course. Willis is fifth or sixth on the list.

  And out of nowhere, it hits me. Willis screen test. The label on one of the old film reels. In the shed at Sanford’s Folly. Which reminds me of another labeled reel I saw there.

  “I know where it is!”

  I can see the label in my head. MWTSS.

  Man with the Silver Star.

  “The shed. The film reels in the shed. It’s one of those.”

  I look up at the others. Blank stares.

  “It’s there,” I insist. “I saw it. I just didn’t know what it was.”

  Ahmed’s eyes widen. Gabby slowly sits up straight. Destiny’s hands fly to her mouth.

  “You’re sure?” Gabby demands.

  “Absolutely. The original print is at Sanford’s Folly.” Then I say what we’re all thinking: “We have to go back.”

  Chapter 11

  Saturday morning, Gabby picks us up in her family’s car. We get a flat tire halfway there, but there’s a spare in the trunk. We reach our destination without any other problems.

  Destiny has a pair of bolt cutters in her backpack. I use them to cut a slit in the fence. It’d be too risky to scale it again. Plus Destiny can’t manage the climb with her cast.

  I pull apart the metal mesh. We slip through the gap and start running.

  We reach the town. Head up Main Street. No coyotes so far. But we don’t slow down. The plan is simple. Get in, get the print, get out, beat the curse. At least I hope it’s that simple.

  Because once again, this is my idea. If it goes wrong, that’s on me. Like so many other plans I’ve made, with so many other friends I’ve let down.

  We’re out of breath by the time we reach the shed. Inside, I head straight for the stacks of old reels. I can’t remember where exactly I saw the one with the MWTSS label. So we start sorting through the collection as fast as we can.

  I’m halfway through a pile when I find it. “Got it!”

  “Bravo, Ventura.”

  That’s not a voice I was expecting to hear.

  We all spin around.

  Tanner Crook stands in the open doorway, casually lighting a cigarette.

  “What are you doing here?” I demand.

  He grins. Pops the cigarette in his mouth. “Making sure that movie never sees the light of day,” he says, taking a puff from his cigarette.

  “Are you serious?” says Ahmed. “How do you even know about the movie? Were you eavesdropping at the library?”

  “I wasn’t talking to you, Osama. You think you’re better than me? You think you deserve this?”

  “Deserve this?” I ask. “What are you talking about?”

  He doesn’t bother to answer my question. “Hand it over, Ventura.”

  My hands tighten around the film reel. “You clearly need to get a life, man.”

  Tanner flicks the ashes off his cigarette, takes a step toward me.

  For a split second I wonder whether it matters. If I hand over the reel, I mean. As long as the print’s found, does it matter who finds it? Maybe he’ll sell it on eBay. Would that count as showing it to the world?

  Tanner’s close now. Close enough to smell his cigarette breath. Close enough to see the glow behind his eyes. There’s a matching glow slowly eating the tip of his cigarette.

  Suddenly I’m slammed with an image from the official version of Man with a Silver Star. Earl Morrison, casually giving himself lung cancer. Casually destroying the hard work of the people around him.

  And that’s when I know. Handing this print over to Tanner Crook would be like putting the curse on steroids. Because the curse is inside him, controlling him. It’s turned him into an echo of Earl Morrison. Everything he’s doing right now has to be the work of the curse.

  “I’m not asking again,” he says. “Give it to me. Now.”

  I glance at the others. Gabby and Destiny look furious. Ahmed just locks eyes with me and slowly shakes his head.

  Good. We’re all on the same page.

  “Nah, I don’t think so,” I say.

  Tanner reaches behind him and slams the door shut. To symbolically block our exit, I guess. He takes the cigarette out of his mouth and tosses it away. “You got a prob—”

  That’s as far as he gets before the wall behind him bursts into flames.

  Chapter 12

  It doesn’t make sense, of course. A cigarette shouldn’t start such a big fire so quickly. But we’re in a cursed fake Western town. If coyotes can form hit squads here, anything’s probably possible.

  And right now, an entire wall of the shed is going up in flames.

  Nobody moves for a couple of seconds. Tanner looks as stunned as the rest of us. That eerie glow in his eyes is gone, snuffed out. Which seems to be the only good news. “Holy—” he starts.

  He doesn’t finish. Because a spark shoots down from a burning crossbeam, lands on his sleeve, and ignites.

  Before we even register it, he’s screaming. His whole shirt is burning. Destiny and Ahmed both grab him and throw him to the floor. “Roll!” Ahmed shouts at him while Destiny tries to smother the flames with her good hand. “Roll!”

  But the fire’s snaking across the floor now, getting closer to us. It’s spreading to the other walls too.

  I feel the heat creeping along the back of my neck. Getting stronger. Getting closer.

  The whole shed is on fire. We’re trapped.

  Almost.

  “The tunnel!” I shout to Gabby, who’s closest to the trapdoor.

  She leans down and flips the trapdoor open. Destiny and Ahmed drag Tanner over to it and shove his still-blazing body through the hole. As they jump in after him, flames lick at the floorboards under my feet.

  Gabby looks at me. I thrust the reel into her hands. “Go! I’m right behind you!”

  She hops in. I smell burning plastic. My sneakers.

  I’m on the tunnel stairs. I pull the trapdoor shut behind me. I run.

  I collide with Gabby, who’s having a coughing fit.

  A phone light flickers on in the darkness of the tunnel. I hear Tanner moan. But I don’t see any flames. So his shirt must be doused by now.

  “Everybody alive?” I say hoarsely.

  “Seems like it,” replies Destiny’s voice. “Come on, Crook, on your feet. We’re not dragging you the whole way out of here.”

  We shuffle through the tunnel at a shaky half-run. It seems way longer than it did the other day.

  Finally we reach the basement at the other end. I look up at the hole in the ceiling above us. More than ten feet up.

  “I’m guessing there’s not a ladder down here that none of us noticed before?” says Gabby.

  “Probably not,” Destiny says. “Fellas? Want to give me a boost?”

  Ahmed understands her faster than I do. He kneels down and cups his hands. Destiny rests her foot on top of them. Ahmed looks over at me. “Alex? You with us?”

  “Oh. Got it.” I get down on one knee, lace my fingers together, and hold them out to Destiny. She slides her other foot into my makeshift stirrup. Her good arm rests on my shoulder.

  “Wait a minute,” says Gabby. “Shouldn’t I go first? Since I have two working arms.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Destiny says. “Go ahead, guys.” She does love a challenge.

  “On three,” says Ahmed. “One. Two . . .”

  We slowly rise up, trying to move at the same speed, lifting Destiny. When we’re almost upright, Destiny takes her arm off my shoulder and reaches toward the ceiling. Now we’re standing up straight, and Destiny’s got her arm through the hole.

  “I’m gonna need the biggest boost you can manage,” she says. “I can’t grip very well with one arm. If you don’t put me over the edge I’ll just slide back down.”

  Gabby lets out an annoyed sigh.

  Ahmed nods at me. “On three again.”

  We heave upward. Her feet rise out of our cupped hands. For a split second her legs dangle above us, flailing. Then she drags herself forward. Three long pulls, and she’s clear of the hole.

  “Okay!” she shouts down. “Send Gabby next.” She scrabbles around to face the hole. She’s lying on her stomach, extending her good arm. “I’ll help pull her up from here.”

  Ahmed and I go through the same routine with Gabby. Gabby hands off the reel to Destiny, who sets it aside. Then Destiny grabs Gabby’s hand while Ahmed and I push off from below. Once she’s clear, I look over at Tanner.

 

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