I Don't Know How the Story Ends

by J. B. Cheaney

  “The great D. W.,” muttered Sam. “That’s who.”

  Ranger flared. “You wouldn’t mind if he saw your work.”

  “No, but you haven’t told me how you’re going to get his attention.”

  “I thought your father and Mr. Griffith were friends,” I said.

  No answer, and after a brief silence, Ranger awkwardly changed the subject. “We’ll figure out the villain problem later. In the meantime, when can we go to Santa Monica?”

  Not any time soon, as it turned out. The first two mornings we set, Sam was “busy.” That probably meant that the camera was busy.

  The delay gave me an opportunity to write two letters to Father and meet the local librarian and wile away the lazy afternoons with Ivanhoe and The Scottish Chiefs, while Sylvie became very tight with Bone the sheepdog. Ranger went out “on business,” which I gathered had much to do with the war bond rally he hoped to shoot the following week. Or he worked on his scenario, wadding up page after page of notepaper—attempts, he told me, to either get by without a villain or suggest one without showing him. By the looks of things, it wasn’t going well.

  But he seemed downright cheerful the morning we finally made it to Santa Monica. The beach was a lively place, with a long arcade at the water’s edge and a calliope jauntily wheezing out tunes. We found Sam on a bench near the boardwalk, the tripod behind him and the carpetbag, as always, firmly clasped between his feet.

  “I’ve only got an hour,” he told us without preamble. “Already took some shots of the ocean in case we need ’em. There’s a fishing pier up north a little ways. Tide’s going out—we’d better move quick, while there’s enough water for a little girl to drown in.”

  We were all breathless by the time we hiked down to the fishing pier, burdened with equipment and extra clothes. A grandfatherly gentleman with a pole took one look at us and decided to quit the premises.

  Sam set the tripod and mounted the camera while the rest of us made each other up. For Sylvie and me, this was a matter of lip color and eye paints, which Ranger had purchased from the local five and dime. Here on the beach, we could forego the flour and lard, but Ranger plastered himself with a free hand, after which he outlined the scene: “We have to get a few shots of the girls walking along the beach while Sylvie’s clothes are still dry. So you two go up that way and wait for my signal. Act happy. Matchless got a few pennies from somewhere, and you’ve decided to take Little Sis to the arcade. Maybe we can get some arcade shots—”

  “No arcade shots.” Sam’s voice held a warning tone, again making me wonder why he was so shy about crowds.

  “Okay, never mind. Sylvie—you see the fishing pier and run out on it. Isobel yells for you to come back and you don’t, because you’re feeling naughty. So she starts for you, and you do a little dance right on the edge of the pier.” Ranger raised his hands and pirouetted to show what he meant. I hoped nobody was watching. “Then you slip and fall in. Remember all that?”

  Sylvie not only remembered all that, but threw in some business of her own. When we started our walk with the camera cranking, she plopped down in the sand, to my consternation, and started peeling off her shoes and stockings.

  “Good!” Ranger yelled through his cupped hands. “Iz, unbend a little. Remember you’re on a holiday—take your shoes off too!”

  So I did, unbending enough that Ranger shouted, “Bully! Don’t forget to pick up the shoes. Sylvie, look this way: Oh joy! Let’s run away from Big Sister!” He acted this out with pattering baby steps. “Isobel, yell at her to come back.”

  Sylvie ran exuberantly toward the pier, and Sam managed to follow her onto it, turning both the film and the panning crank. When Ranger shouted, “Cut!” he closed the shutter and cranked one full turn to create space between takes.

  For the next shot, Sam positioned the tripod right on the pier for a direct view of Sylvie dancing like a little maniac on the edge. At Ranger’s signal, she slipped off—and landed on her bottom in a mere six inches of water. The tide was going out faster than we expected.

  “Criminy,” Ranger fumed. “Sam, move the camera down the pier. Sylvie! Go out a little farther and start flailing around.”

  “She can’t swim!” I protested.

  “Doesn’t have to. She only has to move out far enough her knees don’t show. Besides, I have a scout badge in lifesaving.”

  Sylvie was already bobbing out to deeper water, so I yelled, “Be careful!” and kept my eyes on her while she thrashed and shrieked. I looked away only long enough to do my own shrieking while the camera was on me. Then Sam turned his lens toward the beach, where Ranger heard our cries and determined in his resolute heart to come to our aid.

  Meanwhile the pitch of Sylvie’s yelling had shifted, and when I looked back to the water, she was farther out than before. “The tide’s caught her!” I screamed. “She’s going out to sea!”

  At least Ranger wasted no more time striking poses. Already divested of his shoes and jacket, he charged the surf like a locomotive and flung himself into the waves. I ran into the water up to my knees and stood there wringing my hands. Even with the sound of the camera grinding in my ears, I was hardly acting.

  Sam just kept on cranking, and soon he got something unexpected: another body in the water, emerging from the left of the lens and paddling toward Sylvie with as much resolution as any lifeguard. It was a golden retriever, long silky ears streaming behind him. The dog reached her first, grabbed her collar with his teeth, and began paddling back toward land. Ranger was thus cheated of the actual rescue, but he lent a hand when the dog’s strength waned and looked just as heroic when he staggered onto the beach with a coughing and sputtering Sylvie in his arms.

  I ran to her while Ranger whooped like a savage. “Did you see that? We’ll leave the dog in. Cut, Sam—you’re wasting film. We’ll shoot Sylvie throwing her arms around him while Matchless and the Youth make eyes at each other, and then—”

  At that moment we were joined by the owners of the dog—two boys, one about Ranger’s age and the other a few years younger. The younger one was shouting, “Good boy, Champ! We didn’t even know where you was until Danny heard all the hollerin’ down here. We’re gonna tell the mayor and get you a medal…”

  While he prattled on, the rest of us became aware that Ranger and the older boy recognized each other—first with surprise, then growing hostility. “I shoulda known,” the boy finally growled. “Half-breed Bell, grinding out his big picture. Now I know why you like the flickers. They give you a chance to look white.”

  “He saved my life!” Sylvie piped up loyally from the nest of towels I had wrapped her in.

  “Get lost, Prewitt,” Ranger said, scrubbing the flour from his face with a wet shirttail.

  “I’ve got as much right to be here as you. Anyways, since you’re already half stripped-down for a fight, remember I owe you one for pasting that shiner on Tom Pigeon last spring.”

  “He had it coming,” Ranger muttered.

  “For what? For callin’ a spade a spade?”

  “It was three against one! I just got in a lucky punch!”

  “You feel lucky now?” Danny raised his fists and made a practice jab while his little brother shouted encouragement from the side of the noble Champ. Ranger darted forward and made an ill-considered swing that left him open to a hard punch to the ribs. The sound of air bursting from his lungs was so sharp I felt it.

  Sylvie would have charged in, but Sam moved faster. He dropped from the pier and grabbed Danny by the collar band, twisting until the boy gasped for air. “Pretty day, ain’t it? Why don’t you go throw some sticks for your dog—who’s got better manners than you.”

  He punctuated you with a shove, and Danny stumbled on the sand. The boy picked up his cap and crammed it on his head, shifting his glare from Sam to Ranger. “You still owe us one, Mud-face!” Then he hauled up his little bro
ther and marched back toward the arcade, Champ frisking after them with never a backward glance.

  Even Sylvie knew enough to keep her mouth shut. In the silence, busy fingers of ocean foam drummed away from the wooden piles of the dock, leaving them naked in the oozy sand.

  “Don’t let those twits get to ya,” Sam said softly.

  “I’m not.” Ranger suddenly kicked up a geyser of sand. “What gets to me is a whole day’s work wasted because of that damn dog!”

  “Oh.” Sam stepped back on the pier and began dismounting the camera. “We might be able to use some of it—you never know. In the meantime, watch your language around the ladies.”

  “I’m no lady!” Sylvie sputtered indignantly. As for me, I was glad he noticed.

  • • •

  Ranger was rather taciturn on the bus. I might have said “sulky,” except for being unsure if it was the insult from Danny or the loss of a good day’s footage that galled him more. When Sylvie finally leaned her damp head against my shoulder and drifted off to sleep, he burst out: “All right, I know you’re wondering. My mother was Indian. As in ‘You’re a better man than I, Gunga Din.’ That’s why the ‘half-breed.’”

  I was about to tell him I already knew that, but he had taken out his wallet and was thumbing through it. “Here’s a picture.”

  Not just a picture. What he thrust at me was none other than Mr. and Mrs. Titus Bell—the first Mrs. Bell that is, a dark petite woman with a shy smile and velvety eyes. Mr. Bell towered over her. With his long face and wide mouth, he reminded me of Tom Mix the cowboy actor.

  “I can’t decide who you look like more,” I remarked after a moment.

  “That’s easy—Pa, from the scalp up. Her from the skin out.”

  It was more complicated than that. Ranger was an odd combination. He had his father’s mouth and crinkly hair, but his mother’s small build and melting eyes.

  “She was very beautiful,” I said, handing back the photograph.

  “Uh-huh.” He tucked it in his wallet. “One of Pa’s exotic imports, like the African drums and Jap prints.”

  “What a thing to say about your own mother!” I was truly shocked.

  Ranger rubbed his cheek hard, as though trying to lighten the color. “Sorry. It’s just that I don’t remember her at all. Everybody else seems to—and they’ll never let me forget. But I was doing all right until Pa made me go to St. Michael’s Preparatory Academy.”

  “Does he know you get picked on?”

  “Sure. I’ve told him, and Buzzy’s told him.”

  “What does he say?”

  “He always throws some Kipling at me: ‘You’ll be a man, my son,’ all that.” Ranger stood up, steadying himself with one hand on the overhead grip and the other hand clutching his jacket lapel. “And then something like, ‘Your mother was a lady of elegance and breeding, and it’s to my sorrow you don’t remember her. But you must learn that those petty slings and arrows can’t make a dent in the inner man.’”

  He stuck his chin out, much to the amusement of the little boy who sat across from us with his mother. Ranger’s imitation was quirky enough to recognize a real person in it, though I’d never met the person. “They’ve made plenty of dents in the outer man,” he added, “but Pa doesn’t talk about that.”

  “Under the circumstances, it’s probably good advice,” I told him.

  “Maybe.” Ranger glanced out the window. “Here’s our stop. And say, Isobel…” Our eyes met, like shy forest creatures blundering together before jumping apart. “You don’t have to feel sorry for me. Savvy?”

  I assured him I didn’t feel sorry in the least. But that might not have been quite true, or else I would never have agreed to his next harebrained scheme.

  Chapter 8

  Buy Bonds!

  Ranger’s next scheme involved the war bond rally, which had become his beautiful blue-eyed baby after he was inspired to work it into his picture. He spent three whole days setting it up: figuring out the locations and when to get there and where he would change into his uniform. Also what lies, fibs, or prevarications he would have to tell to pull it off.

  His latest great idea was to slip into the actual ranks of the Lasky Home Guard. With luck he could even march with them for a block or two before anyone noticed. That’s one reason why the camera positions were so particular. Sam, who got permission to take off work for the rally, was to shoot the Home Guard, with Ranger among them and a forest of waving flags in the background. The grand scene would be followed by a touching farewell once the three of us had rendezvoused in a nearby alley. Ranger informed me of these details on Wednesday morning while I was curled up on the window seat with my favorite book.

  “What if Sam’s father refuses to let him use the camera that day?” I asked, keeping a finger in Jane Eyre to hold my place.

  “He won’t. Wait ’til you hear what I—” He broke off.

  “What you what?” I asked, suspicion rising like fog over the moors. But he changed the subject to the terrific spot they’d found in an empty building, where Sam might be able to get an overhead shot, if they could just arrange to get inside…

  With all these “arrangements,” he was late for supper on Wednesday, sliding into his seat just after we all bowed our heads for grace. “You are pushing your luck, young man,” Aunt Buzzy remarked as Esperanza served the tomato soup. “This is the second night in a row you’ve been late for supper. Next time you’ll do without.”

  “Sorry.” Ranger blew on his soup. “I was down at the armory watching them build the platform for the rally; forgot the time.”

  “Indeed. But on that subject: your scoutmaster telephoned this afternoon. The visiting troop from Santa Barbara has a shortage of boys in their color guard, and Mr. Monroe wants you to fill in during the parade tomorrow.”

  Ranger promptly gagged. “But, Buzzy—” he managed to croak, “I have plans.”

  “Oh? Like what?”

  “I, um, might have to stand by to march with my own troop.”

  “That’s unlikely, since Mr. Monroe informs me your troop is at this moment camping at Arrowhead Lake.”

  “Oh.”

  “He seemed surprised I didn’t know that, and I was surprised too, needless to say. But since you are obviously not camping, you’re available to serve in the color guard.”

  “Why can’t they get somebody else?”

  “Don’t argue with me, Ranger. I’m not in the mood. Mr. Monroe and I went on to have a very interesting chat during which I learned for the first time that you’re behind in your dues and you’ve attended no meetings since April.” Ranger was giving extraordinary attention to chasing a speck of pepper around his bowl. “Well? How do you explain that?”

  “Come on, Buzzy,” he pleaded. “I outgrew scouts about when I outgrew knickers.”

  “If you think you’re beyond scouting, you must take the subject up with your father—and I hardly need to remind you that you’re in enough hot water with him already. For now, Mr. Monroe is offering you a chance to redeem yourself, and you will take it.”

  Her unusual firmness led to a miserable evening, with Sylvie whining that Ranger wouldn’t play with her, and Ranger sulking, and me suggesting he could perhaps look just as heroic in the Boy Scout color guard, which he did not take very well. But at bedtime, after we had said our prayers for Father’s safety, and Mother had read a chapter of Kidnapped and kissed us good night, he made a clandestine visit to our bedroom.

  “I’ve got an idea,” he told us.

  • • •

  “For heaven’s sake, Isobel,” my mother remarked late the following afternoon as we joined the thronging crowd on its way to the rally. “Are you gaining weight?”

  Sylvie piped up, “No, she’s—ouch!” That was in response to a sharp kick delivered to the shinbone. By me.

  What made me ap
pear so voluminous was Ranger’s outgrown scout knickers under my dress. He suggested I put them on to save time when changing clothes. And where would we do that? “I’ve got it all figured out,” he’d told me. “Don’t worry.”

  Why was I starting to feel that when Ranger said, “Don’t worry,” worrying was the very thing I ought to do? Those were also his last words of the night before, and as a result I hadn’t slept much. How on earth, I asked myself for the thousandth time, had he talked me into this? What mysterious power did he wield over my better judgment?

  The sparkly day made Mother hook her arm in Aunt Buzzy’s and exclaim, “To think it’s still raining in Seattle!”

  “Ranger, hadn’t you better find the troop?” Aunt Buzzy asked.

  “In a minute.” Ranger took my elbow as the crowd condensed along Hollywood Boulevard. I could see the tall, bunting-draped speakers’ platform up ahead, where a band of studio musicians blared out the “Washington Post” march. He pointed. “See that flagpole? Wait two minutes after I leave, then work your way over to meet me there. And stop chewing on your lip—this’ll be fun.”

  His dark eyes glittered like a firecracker fuse. After saluting the ladies, he passed me with a half wink. He had made it sound like fun the night before, while flattering my acting ability and telling me I was his angel muse. He actually said that, and in the soft glow of moonlight with Sylvie eagerly seconding everything he said, I half believed it.

  Now, in the blinding light of day, my supposed angel wings dragged like lead. Once he was out of sight I heaved a sigh and started counting seconds. I had counted up to ninety-eight when we came to a reviewing stand not far from the stage.

  “Why don’t we find a seat here?” suggested Aunt Buzzy. “I see space near the top.”

  I took a deep breath. “Mother, I need to be excused.”

  She turned to me in surprise. “Whatever for?”

  I made the kind of eye signals we used for a necessary function, and she looked even more surprised. Usually it was Sylvie who “needed to be excused.”