oney shoved Chantal's best sundress through the partially opened door of the Shell station's rest room. "Hurry up, Chantal. It's almost eleven o'clock. The auditions started three hours ago."

Honey's old Myrtle Beach Fun in the Sun T-shirt was stuck to her chest with nervous sweat. She rubbed her damp palms on her shorts and nervously watched the traffic go by.

"Chantal, hurry up!" Her stomach was pumping bile. What if the auditions were already over? The truck had broken down on the San Bernardino Freeway, and then Chantal and Gordon had had a lover's quarrel right there on the shoulder of the road. Honey had begun to feel as if she were stuck in one of those nightmares where she was trying to get someplace but couldn't make it. "If you don't hurry up, Chantal, we're going to miss the audition."

"I feel like I'm getting ready to start my period," Chantal whined from the other side of the door.

"I'm sure they've got rest rooms where we're going."

"What if they don't have one of those Tampax machines? Then what am I going to do?"

"I'll go out and buy you some damned Tampax! Chantal, if you don't come out here right this minute..."

The door opened and Chantal came through, looking as fresh and pretty in her white sundress as if she'd just stepped out of a magazine ad for Tide laundry detergent. "You don't have to shout."

"I'm sorry. I'm just edgy." Honey grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the truck.

Gordon had followed Honey's orders and kept the pickup running. Honey pushed him out of the way and climbed behind the wheel herself. She peeled out of the parking lot and turned into the traffic, ignoring a light that was more red than yellow. She had never been in a city larger than Charleston, and the noise and bustle of Los Angeles was terrifying, but she didn't have time to give in to her fears. Another thirty minutes passed before she found the studio off one of Burbank's cross streets. She had expected something glamorous, but the high concrete walls made the place look like a prison. More time passed before the guard finally cleared them and they were permitted to drive inside.

Following the guard's instructions, Honey drove down a narrow street, then turned left toward another building with concrete walls and a few small windows near the entrance. As she climbed out of the truck, she was sweating so bad she looked like she'd just gotten out of the shower. She had hoped to get rid of Gordon back at the Shell station, but he wouldn't leave Chantal. He wasn't exactly an appetizing sight with his stubbly jaw and dirty clothes, and she told him he had to wait in the truck. Like her cousin, he was starting to get into the habit of following her orders, and he agreed.

The woman stationed inside the entrance told them that auditions were still going on, but that the last girl had already been called. For several terrifying moments, Honey was afraid the woman would tell them they were too late, but instead she directed them to a shabby waiting room with gray walls, mismatched furniture, and a litter of discarded magazines and diet-soda cans left behind by its former occupants.

As they walked into the empty room, Chantal began to make a whimpery noise at Honey's side. "I'm scared, Honey. Let's go. I don't want to do this."

In desperation Honey turned Chantal toward a smudged mirror hanging on the wall. "Look at yourself, Chantal Booker. Half the movie stars in Hollywood don't look as good as you. Now put your shoulders back and your chin up. Who knows? Burt Reynolds might walk through that door at any minute."

"But I can't do this, Honey. I'm too scared. Besides, since I met Gordon Delaweese, I don't think about Burt Reynolds so much anymore."

"You haven't even known Gordon for twenty-four hours, and you've been in love with Burt for two years. I don't think you should give up on him so fast. Now I don't want to hear another word, Chantal. Our whole damn future is resting on what happens here today."

The door opened behind her and a man's voice intruded on their privacy. "Tell her that I need to see Ross, will you?"

Honey automatically girded herself to do battle with whatever new enemy might have appeared to contest their right to be here. Setting her teeth, she spun around.

And her heart dropped through a gaping hole in the bottom of her stomach.

As he walked into the room, she felt as if she'd been hit by an eighteen-wheeler that had lost its brakes on a downhill curve. He was the handsomest young man she had ever seen: in his early twenties, tall and slender, dark brown hair falling in disarray over his forehead. His nose and jaw were strong and sunbrowned, just as a man's should be. Beneath thickly slashed eyebrows, his eyes were the same bright turquoise as the painted saddles on the park's carousel horses, and they speared right into her deepest female parts. In that moment, as she gazed into the depths of those turquoise eyes that seemed to bum right through her skin, womanhood paid her an unwelcome visit.

Her physical shortcomings gaped in her mind like festering wounds—her freckled little-boy's face, her mutilated hair and sucker-fish mouth. Her shorts were smeared with carburetor grease, she had spilled Orange Crush on her T-shirt, and her old blue rubber flip-flops had a piece missing from the heel. She agonized over her lack of height, her lack of breasts, her lack of any single redeeming feminine attribute.

He regarded Honey and Chantal steadily, not seeming to find it at all strange to be confronted with two speechless females. She tried and failed to manage the simple syllables of "hello." She waited for Chantal to step in—Chantal who was always so forward with boys—but her cousin had slipped behind her. When Chantal finally did speak, she addressed her remark to Honey and not to the gorgeous stranger.

"It's Jared Fairhaven," she whispered, sliding even farther behind Honey.

How did Chantal know who he was? "H—Hi, Mr. Fairhaven," Honey finally managed, her voice not much more than a little girl's quiver, certainly nothing at all like the profane bray she used to keep the employees at the park in line.

His eyes took in all the parts of Chantal that weren't hidden behind Honey's smaller body. He didn't smile— somehow his thin, hard mouth didn't seem to be made for that—but Honey's insides still twisted like a piece of hand laundry.

"My name is Eric Dillon. Jared Fairhaven is the part I used to play on Destiny."

Honey vaguely recalled that Destiny was one of Sophie's soap operas. She felt a pang as she saw the way he was gazing at her cousin. But then what did she expect? Did she really think he would notice her when Chantal was around?

Men were about the only thing that Chantal was good at, and Honey couldn't understand why she kept hovering behind her instead of stepping forward and taking over the conversation like she usually did. Unable to endure the indignity of appearing not only ugly but stupid, she swallowed hard.

"I'm Honey Jane Moon. This here's my cousin, Chantal Booker. We're from Paxawatchie County, South Carolina, and we're here to get Chantal a part on The Dash Coogan Show."

"Is that so?" His voice was deep-pitched and rich. He walked forward, ignoring Honey as he took in every inch of Chantal. "Hi there, Chantal Booker." He spoke in a soft, silky way that sent a shiver up Honey's spine.

To Honey's absolute and utter amazement, Chantal began pulling her toward the doorway. "Come on, Honey. We're gettin' out of here right now."

Honey tried to resist, but Chantal was determined. Sweet, lazy Chantal who didn't have the gumption of a gnat was dragging her across the carpet!

Honey grabbed on to the soft-drink machine. "What's wrong with you? We're not going anywhere."

"Yes, we are. I'm not doing this. We're leavin' right now."

The waiting room door opened, and a frazzled-looking young woman with a clipboard appeared. When she saw Eric Dillon, she looked momentarily disconcerted, and then she turned to Chantal. "We're ready to see you now, Miss Booker."

This new arrival was one obstacle too many for Chantal to cope with and her momentary rebellion collapsed. She released Honey's arm and her bottom lip began to quiver. "Please, don't make me do this."

Honey was pricked with guilt, but she steeled herself against Chantal's distress. "You have to. We don't have anything else left."

"But..."

Eric Dillon stepped forward and took Chantal's arm. "Come on, I'll go in with you."

Honey thought she saw Chantal recoil from his touch, but she decided it was her imagination because Chantal had never recoiled from a man in her life. Chantal's shoulders slumped in resignation as she permitted Eric Dillon to lead her from the waiting room.

The door closed. She pressed the fiat of her hand over her heart to keep it from jumping right out of her chest. Their entire future was riding on what happened now, but she was completely disoriented from her meeting with Eric Dillon. If only she were beautiful he might have noticed her. But who could blame him for ignoring an ugly little redneck girl who looked like a boy anyway.

She walked restlessly over to the room's single window to look out on the parking lot. She heard the sound of an ambulance in the distance. Her palms were damp. She counted her breaths for a few minutes to calm herself, then looked out. There wasn't much to see; some shrubbery, a few delivery trucks passing by.

The door opened and Chantal reappeared, this time alone. "They said I wasn't the right type."

Honey blinked.

Not even five minutes had passed.

They had driven all the way across the United States of America and these people hadn't even spent five minutes with Chantal.

All of her dreams crumbled like old yellow paper. She thought of the carefully hoarded money she had spent to get here. She thought of her hopes, her plans. The world spun around her, dangerous and out of her control. She was losing her home; she had no way to keep their family together. And they hadn't even given Chantal five minutes.

"No!"

She raced out through the door Chantal had just entered and ran into the hallway. Nobody was going to push her around like this! Not after all she'd been through. Somebody was going to pay!

Chantal called out her name, but Honey had spotted a set of metal doors with a glowing red light bulb above them at the end of the hallway, and her cousin's voice sounded a thousand miles away. Her heart pumping, Honey raced toward the doors. She shoved against them with all her strength and burst through into the studio.

"You sons of bitches!"

A half dozen heads turned in her direction. They were gathered in the rear of the studio behind pieces of equipment, a blur of male and female faces. A few of them were standing, others sat on folding chairs around a table littered with coffee cups and fast-food containers. Eric Dillon leaned against the wall and smoked a cigarette, but not even his magnetism was a powerful enough force to make her forget the horrible injustice that had been done her.

A women, tall and stern, shot up from her chair. "Now just a minute, young lady," she said, advancing on Honey. "You have no business in here."

"My cousin and me traveled all the way from South Carolina, you rotten sons of bitches," Honey shouted, pushing a folding chair out of the way to get to them. "We blew out three tires, used up most of our money, and you didn't even spend five minutes with her!"

"Call security." The woman tossed the command over her shoulder.

Honey turned her rage on the woman. "Chantal's pretty and she's sweet, and you treated her like she was a stinking pile of dog shit..."

The woman snapped her fingers. "Richard, get her out of here!"

"You think just because you're some big Hollywood hotshot, you can treat her like dirt. Well you're the one who's dirt, you hear me? You and all those peckerheads sitting over there."

Several more people had risen to their feet. She turned on them, her eyes hot and burning, her throat clogged.

"You're all going to burn in hell. You're going to burn in the fires of everlasting hell, and—"

"Richard!" The woman's voice barked with command.

An overweight red-haired man with glasses had come forward, and now he grabbed Honey's arm. "You're leaving."

"Like hell." Drawing back her foot, she kicked him hard in the shin, then sucked in her breath as pain shot from her unprotected toes through her foot.

The man took advantage of her distraction to push her toward the door. "This is a private meeting. You can't come barging in here like this."

She struggled against him, trying futiley to escape from the bite of his fingers. "Let me go, you ignorant peckerhead! I killed a man! I killed three of them!"

"Did you call security?" This was a new voice, and it belonged to a man in a shirt and tie with silver hair and an air of authority.

"I called them, Ross," someone else replied. "They're on their way."

She was dragged past Eric Dillon. He looked at her with blank eyes. The man named Richard almost had her to the door. He was soft and flabby and wouldn't have presented much of a challenge to anyone with reasonable strength. But she was so little. If only she were bigger, stronger, more of a man! Then she'd show him. She'd show them all!

She punched him with her fists, blasting all of them with every curse she knew. They were so smug and self-righteous, these rich people with families waiting for them at home, beds to sleep in at night.

"Let her go."

The voice came from behind her. It was rough and tired, with a drawl that stretched from here to forever.

The stern-faced woman sucked in her breath indignantly. "Not until she's out of here."

Again the tired voice spoke. "I said to let her go."

The silver-haired man named Ross intervened. "I don't think that's wise."

"I don't care whether it's wise or not. Richard, get your hands off her."

Miraculously, Honey found herself free.

"Come here, honey," that rough, tired voice said.

How did he know her name? She turned toward her rescuer.

Creases like gullies bracketed his mouth, and a tan line from a hatband divided his forehead—pale skin above the line, sun-weathered skin below. He was lean and spare, and she didn't have to see him walk to know that he'd be bowlegged. Her first thought was that he should be on a billboard somewhere with a Stetson on his head and a Marlboro stuck in his mouth, except his face was a little too beat-up for billboards. His short, wiry hair was a combination of dusty blond, brown, and auburn. He looked like he was in his early forties, but his hazei eyes were a million years old.

"How'd you know my name?" she asked.

"I don't."

"You called me Honey."

"Is that your name?"

His eyes were kind, and so she nodded. "Honey Jane Moon."

"How about that."

She waited for him to make a crack about her name, he stood quietly, not asking anything of her, just letting her take him in. She liked his clothes: an old denim work shirt, nondescript pants, boots, everything comfortable and well-worn.

"Do you feel like coming over here and talking to me a little bit?" he said after a while. "It'll give you a chance to catch your breath."

She was starting to feel dizzy from yelling so much. Her stomach was upset, and her toes were hurting.

"I guess that'd be okay."

As he led her toward a couple of chairs set up in front of some sort of light blue paper, she ignored the low conversation in the background.

"How about you sit right here, Honey," he said. "If you don't mind, I'm gonna ask these fellas to turn the cameras on while you and me talk."

The man named Ross stepped forward. "I don't see any need for this."

Honey's rescuer just looked at him with a cold, dead stare. "We've been doing it your way for weeks, Ross," he said in a hard voice. "I just ran out of patience."

Honey looked at the cameras suspiciously. "Why do you want to turn those cameras on? Are you trying to get me in trouble with the police?"

He chuckled. "The police would be more likely to come after me than you, little girl."

"Is that so? Why?"

"How about I ask the questions for a while?" He inclined his head toward the chair, not making her sit, but giving her a choice about it. She looked deeply into his eyes, but she couldn't see anything there that made her afraid, and so she sat.

It was a wise decision, because her legs wouldn't have held her up much longer.

"You mind telling me how old you are?"

He'd hit her with a stumper right off the top. She studied him, trying to position herself by reading his intent, but his face was closed up tighter than a Ziploc bag. "Sixteen," she finally volunteered, somewhat to her surprise.

"You look like you're about twelve or thirteen."

"I look like a boy, too, but I'm not."

"I don't think you look like a boy."

"You don't?"

"Nope. In fact, I think you're kind of a cute little thing."

Before she could ask him if he was being a male chauvinist pig patronizer, he hit her with another question.

"Where're you from?"

"Paxawatchie County, South Carolina. The Silver Lake Amusement Park. It's the home of the Black Thunder Roller Coaster. You might have heard of it. It's the most famous roller coaster in the South. Some say the whole country."

"I don't believe I knew that."

"Technically speaking, I guess maybe I'm not from the park any longer. The sheriff closed us down last week."

"I'm sorry to hear it."

His sympathy seemed so genuine that she began to tell him a little bit about what had happened. Because he was so undemanding and he always seemed to give her the choice not to answer his gentle questions, she found herself forgetting about the other people in the room, forgetting about the lights and cameras. Crossing her legs in her lap, she rubbed her sore toes and told him everything. She spoke of Uncle Earl's death, the Bobby Lee, and Mr. Disney's betrayal. The only thing she didn't tell him about was Sophie's mental condition, because she didn't want him to know she had a crazy person in her family.

After a while her toes stopped aching so bad, but when she began describing their trip across the country, her insides twisted up again. "Did you see my cousin?" she asked him.

He nodded.

"How could y'all only spend five minutes with her? How could anybody treat her like that? Don't you think she's beautiful?"

"Yeah, she's real pretty, all right. I can see why you're so proud of her."

"You bet I'm proud of her. She's pretty and sweet, and she came in here even though she was half scared to death."

"She looked like she was more than half scared, Honey. She wouldn't even sit in front of the camera. Not everybody is cut out for a career in television."

"She could do it," Honey said stubbornly. "People can do anything they set their minds to."

"You've been going through life with your fists swinging for a long time, haven't you?"

"I do what I have to."

"Doesn't sound like you've had anybody looking after you."

"I look after myself. And I look after my family. I'm going to find us a house somewhere. A place where we can all be together. And we won't be on welfare, either."

"That's good. Nobody likes taking handouts."

"I think keeping your family together's the most important thing in the world."

Quiet fell between them. In the shadows beyond the lights, she saw an occasional movement. It was creepy having them watch her like this, not saying anything, just sitting there like a bunch of vultures.

"You ever cry, Honey?"

"Me? Hell, no."

"Why is that?"

"What good does crying do?"

"I'll bet you cried when you were a little kid."

"Only right after my mother died. From then on, whenever things got tough, I rode Black Thunder. I guess that's one of the best things about a roller coaster."

"How's that?"

She wasn't going to say that she felt close to God on the coaster, so she simply said, "A coaster gives you hope. You can pretty much ride a good one through the worst tragedy life throws at you. You can even ride it through somebody dying, I guess."

A noise distracted her. Beyond the cameras, she saw Eric Dillon slap the metal doors with the flat of one hand and stalk out.

The man sitting next to her shifted his weight. "I'm going to ask you to do something for me, Honey, and I don't think it'll be too hard. The way I look at it, these people here owe you a favor. You came all this way to see them, the least they can do is put you and your cousin up at a fine hotel for a few nights. You'll have plenty to eat and people to wait on you, and they'll pay for everything."

She eyed him suspiciously. "These people here don't think I'm any better than a maggot on spoiled meat. Why would they pay for me and Chantal to stay in some fancy hotel?"

"Because I'm gonna tell them they have to."

His absolute certainty filled her with a combination of envy and adoration. Someday she wanted to be powerful like him, to have people do exactly what she said. She thought over his offer and couldn't see any obvious hitch. Besides, she didn't think she could manage the drive back to South Carolina without some decent food and a night's sleep. Not to mention the fact that she'd just about run out of money.

"All right. I'll stay. But only until I decide I'm ready to go."

He nodded and everybody began to move at once. There was a whispered conference in the back of the studio, and then the frazzled-looking assistant who had originally taken Chantal to her audition came forward. After introducing herself as Maria, she told Honey she would help her get settled in a hotel. Maria pointed out some of the other people in the studio. The stern-faced woman was the casting director and Maria's boss. The man in the suit and tie with the silver hair was Ross Bachardy, one of the producers.

Maria led her to the studio doors. At the last minute, Honey turned back to address the man who had rescued her.

"I'm not ignorant, you know. I recognized you the moment I set eyes on you. I know exactly who you are."

Dash Coogan nodded. "I figured you did."

As the doors swung closed on Maria and Honey, Ross Bachardy slapped down his clipboard and shot up from the chair. "We need to talk, Dash. Let's go to my office."

Dash tapped his pockets until he came up with an unopened pack of peppermint LifeSavers. He pulled on the red strip and then peeled away the coin of silver foil as he followed Ross out of the studio through a side door. They crossed a parking lot and entered a low stucco building that contained the production offices and editing rooms. Positioned at the end of a narrow hallway, Ross Bachardy's cluttered office was decorated with framed citations as well as autographed photos of the actors he had worked with over his twenty years as a television producer. A Lucite ice bucket half full of jelly beans sat on his desk.

"You were way out of line, Dash."

Dash slipped a LifeSaver in his mouth. "Seems to me that since this show is going right down the toilet, you shouldn't worry so much about the formalities."

"It isn't going down the toilet."

"I may not be a mental giant, Ross, but I can read, and that pilot script you told me was going to be so wonderful is the sorriest piece of horse crap I've ever seen. The relationship between my character and Eleanor is just plain silly. Why would the two of them ever get married? And that's not the only problem. Wet toilet paper is more interesting than that daughter, Celeste. It's amazing that people who call themselves writers could actually produce something like that."

"We're working with a preliminary draft," Ross said defensively. "Things are always a little rough at the beginning. The new version will be a big improvement."

Ross's reassurances sounded hollow even to his own ears. He walked over to a small bar and pulled out a bottle of Canadian Club. He wasn't much of a drinker, and certainly not this early in the day, but the strain of getting his troubled television series on the air had stretched his nerves to the breaking point. He had already splashed some into a glass before he remembered who he was with, and he hurriedly set down the tumbler.

"Oh, Christ. I'm sorry, Dash. I wasn't thinking."

Dash studied the bottle of whiskey for a few seconds, then tucked the LifeSavers into his shirt pocket. "You can drink around me. I've been sober for almost six years; I won't grab it away from you."

Ross took a sip, but he was clearly uncomfortable. Dash Coogan's old struggles with the bottle were as well known as his three marriages and his more recent battle with the Internal Revenue Service.

One of the technicians stuck his head in the office. "What do you want me to do with this videotape?

The one of Mr. Coogan and the kid."

Dash was nearest the door, and he took the cassette. "You can give it to me."

The technician disappeared. Dash looked down at the cassette. "This is where your story lies," he said quietly. "Right here. Her and me."

"That's ridiculous. It would be an entirely different show if we used that kid."

"That's for sure. It might not be the piece of crap it is right now." He tossed the cassette on Ross's desk. "This little girl is what we've been looking for, the element that's been missing from the beginning. She's the catalyst that'll make this show work."

"Celeste is eighteen, for chrissake, and she's supposed to be beautiful. I don't care how old your girl says she is, she doesn't look more than twelve, and she sure as hell isn't beautiful."

"She may not be beautiful, but you can't fault her for personality."

"Her romance with Eric Dillon's character fomis a major story line. She's hardly leading lady material for Dillon."

Coogan's lip curled at the mention of the young actor's name. He had made no secret of his antipathy toward Dillon, and Ross regretted introducing the subject.

"That's another point you and I happen to differ on," Dash said. "Instead of hiring somebody reliable,

you had to find yourself a pretty boy with a talent for throwing temper tantrums and causing trouble."

For the first time since they'd entered his office, Ross felt as if he were on solid ground. "That pretty boy is the best young actor this town has seen in years. Destiny was the network's lowest-rated soap opera until he joined the cast, and within six months, it went to number one."

"Yeah, I watched it a couple of times. All he did was walk around with his shirt off."

"And he's going to have his shirt off on this show, too. We'd be fools not to take advantage of his sex appeal. But don't get that mixed up with his talent. He's intense, he's driven, and he's barely tapped the edges of what he can do."

"If he's so talented, he should be able to handle a more challenging story line than a romance with one of those Texas lingerie models you're trying to hire to play my daughter."

"The concept of the show—"

"The concept doesn't work. That cornball plot about a second marriage isn't cutting it because the audience is never going to understand why the stuck-up city lady and the cowboy got married in the first place. And nobody in the world will believe any of those beauty queens you brought in to audition is really my daughter. You know as well as I do that I'm no Lawrence Olivier. I play myself on the screen. It's what people expect. Those girls and I don't fit together."

"Dash, we didn't even have the kid read any lines. Look, if you're serious about this, I'll have her come back tomorrow and the two of you can do that opening scene between Dash and Celeste. Than you'll see how ridiculous this whole idea is."

"You still don't get it, do you, Ross? We're not reading that opening scene together. It's a piece of crap. That little girl isn't going to be playing Celeste. She's going to play herself. She's going to play Honey."

"It upsets the whole concept of the show!"

"The concept stinks."

"She came out of nowhere, and we don't know a damned thing about her."

"We know that she's part kid and part field commander. We know that she's years younger than her real age and a few decades older, both at the same time."

"She's not an actress, for chrissake."

"She may not be, but you look me in the eye and tell me you didn't feel some kind of excitement when you watched her talk to me."

Ross held out a hand, palm open, in a gesture of appeasement. "All right, she's quite a character, I'll give you that. And I'll even go so far as to admit that the two of you together had some interesting moments. But that's not what The Dash Coogan Show is about. You and Liz are supposed to be newlyweds with nearly grown children. Look, Dash, we both know the pilot script isn't what we hoped it would be, but the writing will improve. And even without a great opening script, the show's going to work because people will tune in to see you. America loves you. You're the best, Dash. You always have been, and nothing's going to change that."

"Yeah. That's right. Nobody plays Dash Coogan like I do. Now how about you stop grin-fuckin' this ol' boy and let those high-priced writers of yours see that videotape? Judging by their track records, they aren't half as stupid as they seem. Give them forty-eight hours to come up with a new concept."

"We can't change the concept of the show at this late date!"

"Why not? We don't start filming for six more weeks. The sets and locations don't have to change. Just give it a try. And tell them to forget the laugh track while they're at it."

"The show's a comedy, for chrissake!"

"Then let's make it funny."

"It is funny," Ross said defensively. "A lot of people think it's pretty goddamn funny."

Dash spoke with a core of sadness in his voice. "It's not funny, and it's not honest. How about asking the writers to try to make it at least a little bit honest this time?"

Ross gazed after Dash as he walked out of his office. The actor had a reputation for doing his job but ignoring the details. He had never heard of Dash Coogan worrying about a script.

Ross picked up his drink and took a long, thoughtful sip.

Maybe it wasn't so strange that Dash was taking more of an interest in this project than in others. The ravages of a hard life had stamped themselves on the actor's face, camouflaging the fact that he was barely forty years old. He was also the last of a proud breed of movie cowboys that had been given life in the early 1900s with William S. Hart and Tom Mix. A breed that had blazed into glory with Coop and the Duke in the fifties and then grown cynical with the times in the Eastwood spaghetti westerns of the seventies. Now Dash Coogan was an anachronism. The last of America's movie cowboy heroes was trapped in the eighties trying to fit on a screen much too small to contain a legend. No wonder he was running scared.