I Don't Know How the Story Ends (5 page)

“Oh, Mattie,” Aunt Buzzy said. “There's plenty of time to shop. Let them go exploring. Remember our golden summers in the mountains when we were young?”

I would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, but Mother grew a little misty and gave up her shopping plans for the sake of our golden childhood. I could have kicked Ranger.

“If you think this is going to change my mind…”

“I'm not looking to change your mind,” he replied sweetly, adding with his face half turned, “just your heart.”

• • •

I was still wondering what he meant when we boarded a northbound streetcar. “Where are we going?” Sylvie asked, to which Ranger replied, “If I told you, it wouldn't be an adventure, would it?”

Aunt Buzzy had supplied transit passes for Sylvie and me so we could explore to our hearts' content, but I pretended to pay no heed while Ranger pointed out local points of interest. “This is the street in
Tillie's Punctured Romance
, where Tillie and the City Slicker nearly get run over by the trolley… There's the road to Echo Park, where Mr. Griffith shot the battle scenes in
Birth of a Nation
…”

Finally, he pulled the bell cord, and we stepped off at the next stop. We were on a street lined with sun-blasted, blocky buildings and spindly palm trees.
Vitagraph
read the sign over the main gate. Ranger led us down an almost-deserted street, turned at an alley, and paused to exchange a few words with the little man who was sweeping trash into a pile. The man pointed to a door, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ranger slip something into the man's pocket. It looked like a cigar.

Stenciled on the door was
Projection Room 2
. Ranger's knock was answered by Samuel Patrick Service.

“Are we set?” Ranger asked him in a not-quite-whisper.

“Almost.” Sam stood aside to let us into a small, windowless room that reminded me of a nickelodeon. There was a screen on one wall and two short rows of chairs facing it, and at the opposite end was a gray, blocky machine I took to be a projector. Sam went straight to it after letting us in, and I watched him mount a round reel, like a bobbin, on the front of the machine.

“How does it look?” Ranger asked him.

“Not bad. Some of the cuts are jumpy.” Sam pulled a strand of film from the front reel. Holding Sylvie by the hand, I drew nearer while he threaded the film through the projector as deftly as Mother threaded her sewing machine. The loose end went onto an empty reel, which he spun until it snapped taut. “Ready.”

Meanwhile, Ranger had been winding up an old gramophone and searching through a stack of records. Finding the one he wanted, he set it on the turntable and pulled a chair close. “Ladies? Please take your seats.”

Sylvie whooped with glee. “Are we seeing a picture? Is it
Babylon
?”

Ranger held up a finger, signaling for silence. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the pleasure of your company at this exclusive, private showing of
The Mother and the Law
, directed by D. W. Griffith.” His voice deepened on the great man's name.

Right away, I suspected I was being set up somehow. “Where did you get the film?”

“From a friend,” Ranger explained (unsatisfactorily), then hurried on: “We only have the last reel, so I'll tell you what happens in the first part. There's a girl, called Dear One, and a young man called the Boy, and both their fathers work in a mill. But there's a strike, and when the strikebreakers come in, there's some shooting and the boy's father gets killed. The mill closes, so they all have to move to the city to find work. Dear One's father dies, and the Boy falls in with a bad crowd, but they meet and fall in love and he goes straight. Roll it, Sam.”

Ranger pulled the overhead light cord, and Sam threw a lever, causing the projection machine to lurch into a loud whir. Light blazed from the screen as Dear One and the Boy appeared, poor but happy in their little home. Ranger placed the needle on the record, and strains of a “To a Wild Rose” helped mask the noise of the projector. After a while though, I stopped noticing the noise so much. The figures on the screen seemed almost real—not like the antic Cops of Keystone.

Trouble soon heaves over the horizon. The Boy's old partner in crime, known as the Musketeer of the Slums, tries to lure him back to shady ways. When he's refused, the Musketeer plants evidence on the Boy's person to make it appear he's been gambling illegally. The Boy is arrested and goes to jail, leaving his wife with their baby, her only joy—until some upright society ladies take the baby to an orphanage, because a woman with a jailbird husband is no fit mother.

The Boy gets out of jail. But that very day, the Musketeer comes to their apartment and tries to take advantage of Dear One! The Boy appears just in time, and there's a fight. A shot rings out, and the Musketeer falls dead!

(Ranger had a wooden block ready and slammed it on the table when the shot was fired—
bang!
Sylvie and I jumped a foot.)

The shot was not fired by the Boy but by the Friendless One, a woman who's jealous of Mrs. Boy. She (Friendless) was crouching on the fire escape during the fracas. But when the police arrive, they assume the Boy is guilty, and back he goes to court. In spite of his wife's pleas for a pardon, he's sentenced to hang!

“Oh no!” I gasped, immediately embarrassed that I'd said the words out loud. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Ranger's smug smile.

Finally, tormented by her conscience, Friendless confesses to Dear One that she pulled the trigger. The two of them, with the help of a kind policeman, set off in pursuit of the Governor, who's bound somewhere on a train. Meanwhile, the Boy receives last rites from a priest and leaves his cell for the gallows.

“But he's not going to hang, is he?” Sylvie whispered.

“Hush!” I whispered back as the scene switched to Dear One chasing the Governor's train in a borrowed automobile.

“Faster!” Sylvie shouted.

Back to the gallows, where the Boy is slowly climbing the steps—

Back to the auto, which is catching up to the train. I vaguely noticed that Ranger had moved the needle to the overture from
William
Tell
—

“Huuuuurry!” Sylvie was almost in my lap by now.

Back to the gallows (sad violins) where three hangmen pause, each with a knife, ready to cut the drop.

“No,” I whispered. “No, wait—”

Back to the Governor's train, which has stopped. Everyone piles out of the auto and crowds into the Governor's car, where Friendless makes her confession.

But how will they stop the execution? Back at the gallows, the Boy has a black scarf tied around his eyes and the noose settles around his neck.

“Arrrgh,” Sylvie groaned. I noticed my fingernails were in quite a sorry state.

Then a loud bell jingled next to my elbow, startling a cry from my agitated throat. On the screen, the prison warden stopped the hangmen so he could answer the telephone, and I realized that Ranger had rung a bicycle bell.

I also realized that he had arranged this whole performance to soften me up.

What's more, he succeeded.

A Start in the Pictures

Such is the power of art—I was swept up. What I had just seen was so large and real (while it lasted) that it blocked out sensible questions, like where did the boys get their camera and film, and what did their parents think of this, if they even knew?

“When can we start?” Sylvie asked.

“Well.” Ranger knitted his brow while sliding the gramophone record into its sleeve. “Your sister hasn't said she'd do it yet.”

“But she has to!” Sylvie cried, as though someone had to make me.

You're the responsible one
, I kept telling myself. “How do we know you can even do this?” I asked. “Motion-picture-making takes a lot of costly equipment and experience—”

Ranger just said, “Roll it, Sam.”

The projector whirred again and the screen flickered. I threw myself back into my chair with a flustered sigh. Were we ever going to get an answer by just
talking
? The screen flashed with countless little flags of gray and white, or perhaps ripples on a pond.

“This is our first attempt,” Ranger said. “The light's all wrong—too much contrast. All that shows up at first are leaves in the trees—it was a windy day—but keep watching…”

Even as he spoke, I saw a spot of black take shape in the center of the screen and quickly grow larger. And something else: something that sprouted arms and legs and resolved itself into human form. A running human form. And as soon as I recognized that much, the setting resolved to a bridge and the thing he was running from became a locomotive, bursting with steam and rushing right at us!

Sylvie screamed, and I clapped a hand to my mouth. The runner's face blazed with terror, just before he reached the end of the bridge and dived off to one side. The picture jumped violently and the screen went gray.

“Ranger…was that you?” The scene had passed so quickly that I wasn't even sure.

“Yep. Durn train was coming on faster'n I thought.”

“Nearly lost the camera right out of the gate,” Sam said from the darkness.

“Stop crabbing—you had plenty of time to get out of the way. Now
this
,” Ranger remarked, pointing at the screen, “could have been a real disaster.”

The light was much better; we could comprehend the scene, a creek flowing between the steep sides of a canyon. Nothing seemed to be happening at first, but as we watched, a small figure swung across the creek on a rope or vine. After reaching the other side, he disappeared into the brush. A few seconds later he swung back again, and with a sharp intake of breath, I realized he was wearing nothing but a loincloth.

“Ranger!” Sylvie cried out delightedly.

“Here's the best part,” he said. The view changed; instead of downstream we were at the edge of a cliff, with the water barely visible below. A movement on the opposite bank caught our eye, coming directly toward us. It was, of course, Ranger on the vine, still practically naked, with a look of exhilaration that quickly changed to dismay as he appeared to be swinging right into our laps.
Look out!
he silently cried, just before the screen went blank.

“Told ya to wear your glasses,” Sam said.

“Does Tarzan wear glasses? But here's the best one yet.” On screen, a figure on horseback galloped along the edge of a pasture. Next, in closer view, he reined in his mount and peered over the horizon like a frontier scout.

By now we knew who it was. Sylvie squealed, “Ranger! Is that your horse?”

For once the camera was taking its time, and we got a good look at him (Ranger, that is, not the horse). Without his glasses he looked a little older but not much. I recognized the khaki outfit, disguised though it was with a pair of epaulettes, as the proud apparel of the American Boy Scouts. I could not describe the surpassing strangeness of having Ranger in two places at once—on the screen, and living and breathing not five feet away.

On screen, Ranger bolted upright in the saddle as though he'd spied something worthy of note. Then he kicked his horse's sides and set off galloping heck-for-leather. The camera swung, a bit jerkily, as he rode by.

“Watch this,” Ranger said. The camera had changed position; we appeared to be on the other side of a ditch, and he was galloping straight toward it and us. Like the locomotive, at almost the same speed. Next—as my breath caught—we seemed to be
in
the ditch, and the horse sailed right over our heads! Then we were upright again, just in time to see all four hooves strike the ground on the other side. It was a rousing finish, until the horse shied and Ranger fell off.

The horse then lost interest in acting and moseyed to one side of the screen, while Ranger got painfully to his feet, clutching his shoulder, and addressed the camera. I don't read lips, but it looked like he was yelling “
Stop
!
”—along with other words that probably were best left unyelled.

“Sam!” he complained now. “You were supposed to cut all that.”

“Might be useful sometime,” Sam remarked, palming the end of the film as it went
flap-flap-flap
on the take-up reel. He must have been lying in the ditch to get that view under the horse, but I couldn't understand how he'd leaped up quickly enough to capture the landing.

“It was wonderful!” Sylvie exclaimed, jumping up and down. “Is that how you broke your collarbone? Will it be in our picture? Can I fall off a horse too?”

“Ask your sister if you can even be in it.” Ranger was packing the reel with
The Mother and the Law
in its round metal case.

Sylvie turned to me with eyes wide as a puppy's. I was tempted, like the time I let Millie talk me into that afternoon matinee in lieu of French class. Ranger himself was part of the temptation. His spirit was infectious, fizzing up in his snappy eyes. He would take any risk for his art, but that spice of danger, I had to admit, only added to the appeal. As long as he didn't get us killed.

“Do you expect us to swing from trees or be chased by trains?”

“No, no, no,” he assured me. “No adventure, just a quiet little family drama. We can't risk the camera anymore.” No word about risking
us
.

“Where do you get the camera? And how do you develop the film, and who lets you use this projection room, and—”

“Don't worry about all that. Everything's jake. All we need is you. What do you say?”

“Well…” No doubt about it, my earlier resolutions were unraveling. What would it hurt to spend a few hours posing for a camera and then seeing oneself on a screen? “I suppose if Mother says it's all right—”

“No!” the boys cried out as one. My suspicions spiked up again like porcupine quills.

“That is,” Ranger went on, “the picture is supposed to be a surprise for Buzzy and my father and…some other people too. They don't know about it. Yet.”

“A
surprise
!” Sylvie was even more delighted, if that was possible. “Please let's, Isobel! Say yes!”

Good sense said no. But against a pesky little sister and a very determined boy, good sense never rose above a whisper. “Perhaps we could try it,” I said gingerly. “But we reserve the right to back out at any time.”

• • •

That is why, on Saturday morning, we found ourselves on the red streetcar going over Cahuenga Pass. We were fully fared after Ranger begged the money from Aunt Buzzy to take us sightseeing. “I'll give it to you this once,” she said, “but you know your father wants you to manage your own funds for things like this. Where does it all go?”

Actually, we were bound for a “shooting.” And who was to get shot? Me. With Sylvie, of course. Much to her disappointment, we had seen little of Ranger over the last few days. He was either “scouting locations” on streetcar or bicycle, or shut up in his room writing “scenarios” for the picture.

What he had come up with involved two sisters whose mother had passed on and whose father was neglectful of them. One day, the girls are wandering in the woods—maybe lost, maybe abandoned—when some danger (as yet undecided) threatens. Ranger would rescue us from it, and after confronted with near-tragedy, the guilt-stricken father would reform on the spot.

“Is that all?” I asked after a pause.

“Well…that's just the simple outline. We'll add details later.”

I was far from impressed. “If so much of the story isn't decided yet, how can we act it or shoot it, or whatever we're doing?”

“All we're doing today is two babes in the woods being distressed.”

“But…” I began once again.

“She thinks it's supposed to be like a stage play,” Sam remarked from across the aisle, where he sat with arms folded and feet firmly clamped around a bulky carpetbag. “Where you start at the beginning and go straight through.”

“No!” Ranger vigorously waved both hands in negation. “That's the beauty of film. See, it's all on lots of little pictures strung together, and each one—”

“I
know
what film is.”

“But what I'm telling you is that the film can be cut at any point and spliced to another piece of film at any point. At the end of each day's shooting, you have long strips of film with bits and pieces of the story on them. When you have enough, you put them together in the order you want the story told.”

“Oh.” Honestly, it had not occurred to me that moving pictures were made in this piecemeal way. Once explained, it made perfect sense. “But still…if we don't know why we're wandering lost in the woods, how can we act distressed? What are we distressed
about
?”

He heaved an elaborate sigh. “Distressed is distressed. It doesn't matter why. The earlier scenes will explain that, or we'll put in a title card.” (I was about to ask what title cards were, but then realized that they must be the captions that appeared at the beginning or middle of a scene to explain the action.) “So all we need today,” Ranger went on, “is to get some shots of the two of you in the woods. You'll hear a noise and look frightened, and Sylvie can cry—you know how to do that, right, Sylvie?”

Rocking back and forth on the wooden bench, my little sister assured him she could weep with the best. “But you should get Isobel to make up a story for you,” she added. “She makes 'em up for me all the time.”

“Don't worry about the story,” Ranger said, a little miffed. “We'll see to that later. Just be glad we didn't go with my original idea: a tale of passion and murder in Belshazzar's Court. With monkeys, borrowed from a fellow my pa knows. I had it all written out, but Sam absolutely nixed it.”

Though he never turned his head, one side of Sam's mouth went up. “Monkeys are nothing but trouble.”

“See?” Ranger waved a hand. “You girls are perfectly safe. Sam's the level-headed side of this partnership. He keeps me from getting too carried away.”

“Huh,” came from across the aisle. “If
only
.”

• • •

We got off at the last stop and parceled out our equipment. Sam carried the camera, Ranger the tripod and film canister, I a satchel with makeup and costume items, and Sylvie a piece of heavy cardboard covered with tinfoil, which Ranger called a “reflector.” A block down from the streetcar stop, we turned onto a sandy path. Dwellings were few and far between; the last one we passed was a shabby, white cottage with a peeling picket fence.

“Dead empty, near as I can tell,” Ranger called over his shoulder. “I'm planning to use it for exterior shots.”

“Where are we going?” I asked after several more yards of the path growing steadily steeper.

“Place called Daisy Dell,” he answered.

The name certainly sounded flowerish, but what met our eyes, after we'd struggled up the path, was a huge slope-sided bowl of cactus and sage, with boulders big enough to hide any number of outlaws waiting their chance to pop up and fire away.

“We'll set up over here by the woods,” Ranger announced, marching toward a scruffy little stand of pine and juniper.

While he tramped into the “woods” with Sylvie, Sam leveled his tripod and opened his carpetbag. “What kind of camera is it?” I asked.

“A moving-picture camera.”

I folded my arms patiently. “What make? Eastman Kodak? Bell & Howell? Burke & James?”

“Kodak only makes still cameras,” he said, heaving a squarish wooden case to the tripod and lining up the anchor bolts. But he seemed to regard me with a little more respect for knowing those names. “This is a Prestwich, Model 14. British made.”

“Does it belong to you?”

“B'longs to my dad. Jimmy Service.” He paused and added with obvious pride, “Best cameraman in the business.”

“And he's letting you borrow it?”

“Um.” He seemed very intent on the lens, opening it to peer through and blowing off a speck of dust. “Yeah.”

“But how do you develop the film? Where do you get the chemicals and the hypo fixer?”

He was so surprised he almost opened his eyes all the way. “You know about that?”

“My father—who's serving his country right now as a field surgeon in France—is an amateur photographer. I help him in the darkroom.” Though in fact, I didn't help him much. I liked watching the picture emerge on the print paper but could barely tolerate the smell. “It takes a lot of chemicals to develop a roll of still pictures. How do you manage a whole reel of motion-picture film?”

Sam snapped the lens shut. “It ain't easy.”

Ranger called from across a clearing where he'd been pacing off distances and kicking away branches. “Ready, Sam?”

Unfortunately for me, the most interesting part of the day had already passed.

Imagine being dropped into a wilderness where the few people you see keep calling upon you to do things that make little sense, while carrying on conversations entirely over your head. Even Sylvie was getting enough of “No, move closer… Now back… Let's have that scream again—but not so loud! Put your arm around her, Isobel…
Comfort
. You know, ‘There, there' and all that. Now cry… C'mon, Sylvie, you did it before.”