Chapter Ten. Five Came to Yuma

The entire crew marched in Johnny's wake into the hospital lobby, where the woman at the desk asked who’d given them permission to film there.




Shorty would shake his head and say, in a tone of deep regret, “Mr. Howe would never do it that way.”




Hugh, as the futuristic Nug-6, was sitting under the Macy Street overpass, next to an open culvert.




Suddenly a cascade of water shot out of the culvert, drenching both stars.




Ed and Johnny feared that trying to redo the shot would inspire Shorty to spend hours adjusting the lighting for the glare of water on concrete.





Tor really did look like a futuristic robot in the spectacular costume Chinaski had crafted from tin foil.




They got all the way to the point when Tor catches Ann, right before Hugh trips him up so the intrepid pair can make their escape.





Unfortunately, they learned just a moment too late that Chinaski’s contraption had caused Tor to overheat.





Ed and Johnny had dragged Tor to the pond left by the mysterious run-off and dumped him in, reviving him in moments, no worse for wear.





“I’m not going home with a black eye and nothing to show for it,” Ann said. “Let’s just make a fucking movie. But fast.”





Lacking the budget to rent more up-to-date cars, they were required to put the hero and heroine in their own Nash and the pursuing robot in the Pierce-Arrow they had borrowed from Pop.





The shot started out fine until Johnny, driving Hugh’s Studebaker, saw the light turning yellow in front of him. Instinctively he stepped on the gas.




As a veteran of many Poverty Row quickies, Hugh knew the cost of re-shooting scenes, and decided to gamble.





But just as he entered the intersection he spotted a Buick coming from his right.





The accident report read only, "Minor bumps and contusions."





Seeing the Nash and the Buick colliding to his left, he swerved sharply to the right.





When he awoke, the last thing he could remember was jumping the curb.

He didn’t remember anything at all about the lamppost.

They’d hoped Pop was taking them to the Brown Derby or the Trocadero.




“Nice pretty girl, nu?” Pop said.
“Nu indeed,” Ed said.




"Then, instead of a shootout in the nightclub, they have a shoving match!"
“That would save some rubles, all right!”

The robot, having been utterly charmed by the company of his hosts, decides that he won’t kill them after all. Dusty looks at him and says, “Perhaps we could all remain friends.”




Then the robot sobs and chokes out, “I never had a real friend before!”

The boys sat silent in the back, passing a pint of rye back and forth, watching the landscape grow increasingly barren and the sky incrementally darker with storm clouds and the swift descent of night.




They crossed the Colorado River at five fifteen, just as the trio in the front seat inexplicably broke into the strains of Shine on Harvest Moon.





"Some burg," Johnny said.




“There are four theaters!” Pop said with a smile. “They said we should recognize ours because it’s the little one.”




One showed a Mexican comedian being menaced by a lion.





There on the screen was the Exterminator himself, filling in the audience on how Nug-6 had spared his life.

There was a frozen silence, and then another voice yelled, "¡Caramba! ¿Todo es hablaro?"

And with those ominous words ringing in their ears they started the long drive home.