Shooting the Moving-Picture Play, Chicago, 1913
Nicolai was wrong. They couldn’t start filming after Thanksgiving. On a screen, Lake Michigan would do fine as the Atlantic Ocean off the Georgia Sea Islands, but not with thin ice crusting the surface, bald trees in the background, and snow spitting from a heavy white sky. They had to wait out winter and a cold spring to shoot The Pirate and the Schoolteacher in summer. The long holdup should’ve driven Redwood wild, what with money disappearing, respectable folk breaking promises or outright cheating the production, and then missing Aidan every blessed day, even when he was standing right next to her. But who could blame the man for getting out from under George? Indeed, Redwood would’ve left with Aidan, ’cept he was running from her as much as from George. And who could blame him for that either?
Redwood was a whirlwind, going too fast to feel sorry or stew in heartache.
Colored folk, escaping Jim Crow nightmares in the south, were hitting the rail and busting into Chicago’s Black Belt. More and more families were stacked on top of each other in rickety tenements fixing to fall over when the El rattled by. Redwood was mending broken bones, broken hearts, and hiring hard-luck cases to build costumes and properties. These ex-Southerners knocked themselves out day and night to turn their world right side up. They flooded the schools, factories, shops, and docks with hope. Of course, these hardworking dreamers were looking for good times too, for a colored pirate picture show on a Saturday night. Redwood was goin’ do ’em proud.
Aidan, costumed as a respectable Irish businessman, bargained with stingy merchants for cloth, paint, wood. The lilt on his tongue was charming and threatening. He got the price they needed and carpentered what they couldn’t buy or borrow. The man fussed over every joint and nail, till each platform, stick of furniture, set piece was sturdy and looked good too.
At first, out-of-work Eddie refused to act the villain in a scenario written by fourteen-year-old Iris. He didn’t see why Saeed should play the lead. Aidan wanted to throttle Eddie, but Iris promised Eddie swordplay and acrobatics on land, sea, and horseback in his final scene, and Eddie relented. Milton was happy to play a minister, just to be performing again, ’stead of working in the Dry Cleaning. George Jr., Ellie, Belle, and even Frank were thrilled to be cast with Iris as Redwood’s pupils. Clarissa clicked her tongue over the propriety of a pirate romancing a teacher, yet agreed to play a good Christian woman if the scenario ended in a wedding. Walter Jumping Bear wanted a love story with Rose of the Hutalgalgi, Wind clan. Rose had acted in Shakespeare at boarding school in Pennsylvania where they Americanized Indians. She never liked the boarding school; still, she loved acting.
Iris worked all these wishes and demands into the scenario without a fuss. After Aidan moved out, ’stead of pitching a fit, Baby Sister was a moving picture wonder—organizing much mess, smoothing ruffled feathers, keeping peace and calm. She was never too tired for one more task. Iris conjured a convincing character at school too. Teachers couldn’t tell her from the model students. She spoke any grammar they wanted and didn’t pout, fight, or slink out in the night, chasing behind haints. Even so, Redwood was like to have lost her mind.
Iris wanted a lion to chase the villains and eat them for the climax.
“Even bad men shouldn’t have to pay with their flesh,” Aidan said to her, laughing. “Where we goin’ find a lion to playact for the camera?”
“I can’t wrassle with no big cat.” Redwood might as well have been wearing a corset, her breath was so shallow. “I’m at the end of my tether with the likes of Eddie, fancy-pants Nicolai, and all these unskilled folk who don’t know diddly ’bout theatre magic.” Aidan laughed on, and Iris wagged her head and said mm-hmm. Redwood could tell she wasn’t giving up on the lion idea. “We should get us a big cat to eat the landlords charging more for rent than folk can earn,” Redwood muttered.
Iris put her hands on her hips and jutted her jaw out. “You mean Brother?”
Redwood didn’t have nothing to say to that. At least Aidan stopped laughing.
“I’ll talk to him,” Iris said, rocking her head back and forth.
When the weather finally warmed up, Nicolai’s crew ran off with arc lights, mercury vapor lamps, reels of film stock, and new cameras. The police didn’t bother to investigate. Redwood put on silk and satin, painted her face like a brilliant sunset, and hoodooed Mr. Payne out of a terrible cough. In return she got replacement equipment for cheap before he moved his picture factory to California. Yet, what good were the cameras or building the sets or rehearsing if they didn’t have folks to take the pictures and develop and process the film? After chasing hinkty white professionals for weeks with no luck, Nicolai balked at hiring two colored cameramen and an Indian apprentice to replace the thieves, supposedly ’cause he hadn’t worked with them.
“They’ve done vaudeville, Wild West shows. They’re good,” Redwood said. Nicolai wouldn’t budge. When she threatened an all-women crew, suddenly he was persuaded.
On a sunny day, Lake Michigan was vast and bright blue, magnificent with white-capped waves kissing golden beaches. Picture perfect. Mr. Powell, George’s lawyer, had brokered an affordable lease on a grand filming spot. Crooked, windswept trees presided over shifting dunes and reminded Redwood of Sapelo, where her mama’s people come from and some of Aidan’s people too.
The lake, however, could also be a temperamental prima donna. Along the end of May, golden sand turned glassy as a demon storm dumped snow on their location, weighing down green branches and freezing buds and blossoms. The Baptist church set got ruined. They didn’t have much time for repairs or any money to hire extra crew. So, the second frosty night, Redwood laid out a crossroads spell, a devotion to the spirits of this watery place. She should’ve done this first thing. As she blew incense in the four directions, Aidan hung glass bottles in the trees. The sound startled her, still she wasn’t surprised. The church set looked brand-new. He’d been working both nights. Redwood waved. He nodded. She’d let him go, but he hadn’t gone far. The bottles tinkled against icy leaves and the dark spit snow in her face. Watching Aidan, hope warmed her cold fingers. She tried to forgive every mean, ornery body and sweep away old pain. She stepped close to him. Fogging the air white with deep breaths, he lit a new fire, and they took a moment to celebrate first fruits. She silently promised the lake to do no harm and asked the crossroads spirits to open the way.
“Why you grinning?” he said finally.
“Forgiveness is the sweetest revenge.”
“Hmm.” He closed his eyes.
In the morning, the snow melted and the lake returned to early summer glory. Frostbitten buds perked up in sunshine, looking ready to pop. Everybody was rehearsed and raring to go—no magic-miracle, just hard labor.
One day scrambled into the next, and even George was impressed with their enterprise. Mr. McGregor drove him out to their remote location as they were finishing up the first week of shooting. Eddie’s villain stabbed Redwood’s schoolteacher and she collapsed in Pirate Saeed’s arms.
“Mr. Minsky said you were shooting the end,” George said. “You can’t end your picture like that!” He looked to Aidan as if for help. Redwood snorted at this and marched away. Before she could take off her schoolteacher dress or untie the scarf on her head, George offered her a handsome sum, which she didn’t have to repay if they lost everything. She was so stunned, she tripped over sand. Aidan waved at Mr. McGregor and vanished, leaving the negotiations up to her.
“Hold your money, George,” Redwood said. “We’re fine now.”
Mr. McGregor pretended not to listen in, but she saw his ears perk up.
“What’s wrong with my money?” Her rich brother cut a fine city figure in his white suit and summer straw hat. The withering look on his country face still called a fire-breathing dragon to mind. “I know I’m an ass sometimes, but you can’t hold that against me when I’m trying to help you, damn it.”
“Is that supposed to be an apology?” Redwood rolled her eyes. “I shouldn’t put up with you, I really shouldn’t. For Mama’s sake I have, but you ain’t my only family.”
“I didn’t throw Coop out. I…” The fire on his breath went to his eyes. “Reginald Jones was good people. I knew him back home. I put up the money for his grocery shop.”
“God rest his soul, but you staked Mr. Jones and not your own sister?”
“Reginald had a family, a legitimate business. And they burned him and his dream.” George sighed. “Maybe they were hitting at me going after him.”
“So why get mad at me? At Aidan? Like we hitting at you too. Maybe they were going after Mr. Jones! You ain’t the only colored success rubbing white folks wrong.”
“How come you didn’t go with Coop when he left?”
She sputtered. “Why’d you leave me back in Georgia when you first come north?”
“I don’t know.” The wind picked up. He blinked away dust. “Let me help you now.” They stared at one another till McGregor sneezed. “We’re too stubborn, you and me.” George clenched a fist. “Why end your picture so sad? Why you want to get run through with a sword?”
“I don’t know.” Killing goes both ways. Dying is your own business. “You don’t know how low I feel sometimes. Nobody do.”
“You don’t tell anybody!” He gripped her shoulders like when they were young. “I’m not trying to make you do what I want. Just seem like you want to hurt yourself and … I don’t understand.”
“Don’t always know what spell we’re casting till after it’s done.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
“When the picture’s finished, you could maybe see to it that people line up, pay their dime to watch what we’ve done.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” George grinned. “We’ll do it same as a road show.” He was suddenly more excited than she’d seen him in months. “I looked into it.”
“Uh-huh.” When it came to money, George had to know everything. “Well, ain’t you goin’ tell me?” Her stomach growled. She couldn’t remember when she ate last.
“Motion pictures are putting traveling stage shows out of business.” George pulled her into the automobile, out of the lake breeze.
“Theatre folk can’t hardly find good work no more.” Redwood sighed. “Pekin Theatre’s been closed almost two years. Magic Lantern Theatre ’bout to go dark too.”
George set a picnic basket on the fine leather seat. “The Magic’s showing moving pictures, no more vaudeville shows.”
“That makes you grin?”
“Vaudeville going down is good news for us. They’ll be desperate for pictures. We can do special engagements of Pirate in colored theatres, or matinee and midnight shows in white theatres if we have to.” He unwrapped a spicy-smelling something. “We’ll make more money that way.” He offered her bread and juicy sausages.
“How?” She filled her mouth with one bite, swallowing before she got a good taste.
“’Stead of selling a print outright, we get the box office.” George always had a good scheme. “Charge two bits, so they know it’s worth something.”
“Two bits? For a picture show?” She filled her mouth again. “Who can afford that?”
“For a dark hero and a brown-skin sweetheart, for the best seats—high-toned coloreds will, and working folk too.” He handed her a cloth for her greasy face. “Saeed looks colored, all right? Besides that’s how they do. Some producers charge a dollar.”
“Just ’cause that’s what they do, we gotta do it too?”
“We can’t get stuck in the past. This is the future we’re talking.” He glanced out the automobile at the Sea Island cabins sitting near Lake Michigan. “We’re practically in Wisconsin, ain’t we? Lake so wide, can’t see to the end.” He turned back to Redwood, a somber look on his face. “I dropped the rent, okay? I was spending half my profits evicting folks anyhow. Then you go setting my wife against me and Baby Sister too.”
“Clarissa and Iris got minds of their own.”
“Me charging less don’t change nothing. You can feel better taking my money is all.”
“George, George. What we do really does matter.” She hugged her ornery brother. “Even if it don’t change everything. Like you say, we be making the future, now.” She stepped out of the automobile and swallowed a burp. Eating too fast gave her indigestion. Mr. McGregor beamed at her. “Thanks for the dinner,” she said.
“You never take care of yourself, Red.” George nodded at Mr. McGregor, who started up the engine. Brother loved having a white man drive him. “We can talk over the ticket price later. I don’t see white folks making big money and us not. Tomorrow’s s’posed to be a better day.” Before she could answer, Mr. McGregor sped off, doing twenty miles per hour for sure.
“What better day?” Redwood was ’fraid to look in the future. Something bad was coming, down in Chicago. It lurked ’round the corner, under burnt-out street lanterns, in sagging doorways and cracked cobblestone streets. She closed her eyes and the El shot off the track, wheels spinning sparks in the dark and setting the air on fire. Angry faces shone in the flame light, dirt-poor folk, supping on somebody else’s misfortune. Redwood didn’t speak her fear to George. He’d laugh. Clarissa would quote the Bible ’bout poor folk and tell her not to be so dramatic. Baby Sister was too young for such a burden. Aidan would’ve understood, yet she just couldn’t bring herself to tell him.
With days of fine weather, The Pirate and the Schoolteacher got ahead of schedule. Redwood avoided thinking on afterward. Rising every morning and doing good work filled her up, pushed away sadness. She drove folks crazy though, doing a scene over and over, till each step, gesture, and expression looked grand, till broke-down cameras were jury-rigged and running again, till the sun up in the sky cooperated. They all grumped at her ’cept Aidan. She’d turn from a sour spat over doing the scene again and catch him grinning. At the breaks, she spied him in a canoe on the lake, playing his banjo, jotting secrets in his journal, and chuckling.
“I’m writing down the movie,” he said to her curious eyes one afternoon. “Words last longer than film. Play a picture enough, it wears out. Read something again and again, it just get better.”
“You sound happy,” she said.
“Look who’s talking.” He gave her a devilish swamp grin.
Did her good to see him this way, and whenever Clarissa or Iris asked how was she really, she’d reply, “I’m having the time of my life.” It was only half a lie.
When they had just a few big scenes left to shoot, Redwood got nervous. Afterward was getting too close. So when blue-black clouds rolled in from the northwest on her twenty-sixth birthday, she didn’t start cussing with Nicolai. She smiled as the sun got swallowed, the lake turned gray, and a wildcat wind chopped up the waves. A rained-out day meant another sunny one to look forward to, more time to figure out the ending, more time before afterward.
“Happy birthday.” Milton caught her staring a hole in nothing. A bushy gray beard matched the frosty hair on his head. The minister suit made him stand up and stride. “The older you get, the more honey you need to taste sweet, the duller the colors of sunset, and the shorter each minute of your life. Memory starts looking better than right now. You’re too young for all that.” He still read her like a favorite poem. “Life’s ahead of you, not behind.” He slipped a book into the pocket of her costume. “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man—an anonymous tome, but it’s good. Thanks for this show.”
“Thank you.” She hugged him close, smelling coffee on his lips, tobacco too, and the oil she gave him to ease his joints. “Thanks for all the shows, for seeing me through.”
Milton strutted away, glowing at the edges. Redwood undid her boots and thrust aching feet in the lake. Cold-water waves lapped her toes and churned sand to froth.
“Somebody in a lion suit and mask?” Iris surprised Redwood from behind. Despite her schoolgirl costume, she was such a grown-up young lady now. “Like The Wizard of Oz. Mr. Saeed would make a grand lion, or even Mr. O’Reilly. Nobody would have to get hurt, and we wouldn’t torment a real lion.”
“Why you so set on a lion eating the villain?” Redwood said. “Explain me that and maybe we can do something.”
“Why you get stabbed to death? And then they all get off with their lives! That ain’t right.”
“You’re as bad as Brother. This world ain’t right.”
Iris did a heavy stage sigh and stomped away. Redwood envied Baby Sister’s innocence, her free hold on life. It was spooky how, almost grown-up, Iris didn’t lose her wild self. Raindrops hit Redwood’s eyelashes, and she blinked off hard thoughts.
“If it’s storming over there, Nicolai, it’ll be storming here soon. We have to stop.”
“See why all big companies leaving Chicago.” Nicolai stood over her and then shouted a string of Russian, probably more cussing. “In California, warm sunny days all year. No Mr. Edison beating sets, clobbering cameramen. Nobody pinching lights.”
“No one clobbers you here.” Redwood sighed. “Not yet. No one cares what we do.”
“Mr. Edison is not joke, Sequoia.” Nicolai always used her stage name. “Edison want to squeeze everything in his fist, strong-hand us all. But I hear this Cecil B. DeMille fellow making The Squaw Man in California.” He squinted at the clouds coming faster now, covering the sky. “I could be working his picture, making dollars and dollars every day.” Fat drops broke on their faces.
“The Squaw Man?” Redwood shook her head. “From the play?”
“A real Indian—Princess Red Wing—playing the squaw.”
“Killing herself for a white man.” Redwood snorted. “Everybody has real Indians and real colored people too.”
“Is dime-novel foolishness, I know, but no snow, no rain, and—”
“Then you couldn’t complain and you wouldn’t be happy.”
Redwood pressed Nicolai’s arm and turned to go as Aidan paddled to shore in a canoe. He wore a white shirt with loose sleeves and full dark pants. His hair was pulled back, and a turban of purple and orange cloth was set at a jaunty angle. His hair puffed at the open center. Hanging from his waist were his daddy’s alligator pouch and Maskókî hunting knife. Redwood felt an ache between her thighs; she ran her tongue over dry lips. Aidan wouldn’t be nearly so handsome and colorful onscreen.
“I’ve got to run,” Redwood said to Nicolai. “See you tomorrow.”
The clouds burst open right on them.
“My destiny … dark storms.” Nicolai covered his camera and motioned to the crew. “They say you are a witch with a bright dream, and I am blind cameraman.”
“You know what you’ve seen, Nicolai,” Redwood said. “You faced the lioness, looked her in the eyes, didn’t flinch at her fangs.”
“Nyet, my dear Sequoia, that was you, a brave actress with bright destiny.”
Where’d he get that from? Destiny didn’t seem bright, but dull and cold. Brave? She was a coward, ’fraid of her own self. Needles of rain stabbed her. High brown waves pounded the beach. Nicolai’s crew cradled bulky cameras like babies and ran to vehicles borrowed from Clarissa’s crowd.
Aidan heaved the canoe beyond a breakwater. “Still want to touch the fury?”
“Ha!” she replied.
Brave and powerful was an act she’d been playing since Jerome Williams broke her apart on a dirt road in Georgia. Back then and now too, she acted as if she could just get up from anything and go on. Yet every time she turned ’round—staring out filthy windows on the El, pulling weeds from the herb garden and smelling fresh dirt on the roots, looking at the moon sailing along the starway or hanging in a morning sky—she missed Aidan so bad she wanted to scream. Yesterday, helping a new life tumble into this world, buying a book from Mr. Kaufman’s shop, listening to Nicolai explain a new gadget, she wondered, what would Aidan think? Didn’t she have umpteen articles saved for him? She pulled them from her bag and tossed them in the rain.
JAPANESE IN SEATTLE ARRANGE TUSKEGEE SCHOLARSHIP
WANAMAKER EXPEDITION RETURNS AFTER OBTAINING THE ALLEGIANCE OF ALL INDIAN TRIBES
WILLIAM FOSTER’S ALL-COLORED RAILROAD PORTER A SENSATION, BUT DISTRIBUTION A PROBLEM
LADY LIBERTY TO BE JOINED BY INDIAN CHIEF IN NEW YORK HARBOR
Aidan collected the soggy newsprint, poking his fingers through a few articles. He stuffed the paper inside his shirt. She threw more at him.
AIDA OVERTON WALKER, BROWNSKIN SONGSTRESS TAKEN ILL
ANTI-MISCEGENATION BILL PASSES HOUSE
ILLINOIS WOMEN CAN VOTE FOR THE PRESIDENT BUT NOT THE GOVERNOR
Redwood had nobody to talk to like Aidan, nobody to fight with over Martians, poetry, over what Dr. Dubois or Mr. Eastman meant. Aidan helped her make sense. Maybe he felt something bad coming too. Maybe he didn’t need her to be brave and powerful no matter what.
“What’s on your mind, ’fore the rain washes us away?” Aidan grabbed the last paper floating in the rain.
ARE THOSE REALLY CANALS ON MARS?
“Pauline Hopkins made her plays come true for colored people, and this year Zitkala-Sa did the Sun Dance Opera in Utah with real Indians. Who ever heard of a Sioux woman writing a grand opera? She did it though, for her people. I’m not the only woman trying for … a bright destiny.”
“You’re the one I know.” Aidan moved close.
“I’m jealous of Iris. Brother think I slipped the noose. She’s the one.”
“Yes, Iris goin’ live in the future we hoped for, worked for.” Aidan looked through the rain into the coming days. “Can you see her? Meeting a delegation from Mars, making sure we don’t make the mistakes of yesteryears?”
Redwood nodded and drank tears down the back of her throat. The trouble between her and Aidan was her fault, and she could fix it. She could go on and be intimate with him. Even if she didn’t feel nothing or her skin started crawling, she could act as if it was the time of her life. Everybody said Sequoia Phipps was a great performer, said that Sequoia could act anything. If it was torment for Aidan to be close and not close, she’d perform like Elaine at the Cherokee Bordello, only she’d do it for love, not for money.
“I’m goin’ fly,” she said. “I’m warning you.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. But watch out.” She skipped off.
“Wait!”
Aidan ran to keep up with Redwood. She was a streak of color in gray fog, an aeroplane ’bout to take off in a day made night by a storm. It was a good ways to the road where the borrowed vehicles were parked, which Aidan didn’t usually mind. He and Redwood were always the last to go. He relished a few moments, walking alone with her at the end of the day. They didn’t talk much, too worn out, too skittish. Still he treasured the words they traded. Storms usually didn’t make him no nevermind either. Today he wanted to cuss the muddy road, the sharp wind, and the greasy rain off the lake—half water, half factory spew. Chilly rivulets were running down his back, splashing his behind, making his muscles clench. Redwood was prickly too, static popping off her skin, out her hair. He knew her like the back of his breath. She was holding something back. Or maybe that was his energy crackling between them—so much he wasn’t saying, and he should’ve been able to tell her anything.
“Wait!” He gestured at the news articles dissolving in his wet shirt.
“All right.” She stopped.
As they used their bodies to shelter his hands from the driving rain, he smoothed out the newsprint pages inside the covers of his journal.
Are Those Really Canals on Mars? dissolved in his hands.
“It’s all ruined,” she said.
“Not yet.” Hurrying the journal into his shoulder bag, Aidan thought he heard thunder clapping, but no lightning flashed in miles and miles of blue-black sky. A bear came crashing through the thorny bushes, moaning and rearing up on its haunches. Aidan grabbed Redwood and thrust her behind him. The bear half-heartedly slashed at them with stubby claws. Aidan fended off the clumsy attack with a slap on the nose. The bear danced this way and that, desperate for a tree to climb—nothing ’cept scrub bush and spindly grass back toward the lake. Trees were a good run away and hardly taller than the bear. Aidan sang a few burra-burras and heya bobs.
“Bears don’t scare me, like those guns.” Redwood pointed down the dim road.
Aidan could just make out three men and three rifles zigzagging through dunes. “Damn it!”
The bear sneezed, scratched its nose, and sat down, hidden from the trackers by the bushes. A mournful expression had Aidan wondering if bears could weep. Redwood, after not touching Aidan for weeks, leaned her thighs, belly, and tiddies against him. She just let go into his back, lying down on him. Whistling breath through her teeth, she laced chilly fingers ’round his chest and pressed her face into his wet hair. Something was brewing with her. Aidan was cold, soaked, and too tired for any stuff. Woman picked the worst moments to let him know she wanted to try lovemaking again. Something or somebody was always in the way. The bear blasted them with sour breath and chewed out a sound, asking for help, no doubt on that.
“I can’t,” he muttered to the bear at his feet and the woman at his back.
“You feel so good,” Redwood whispered.
All Aidan wanted was to get back to Walter’s place. He’d turned a storage hall into a cozy bedchamber. Walter was off romancing Rose most of the time, and Walter’s daddy didn’t mind Aidan banging on the banjo in the middle of the night. Sometimes the old fellow told stories that Aidan didn’t quite understand, even when he begrudgingly offered up a little English. Listening to Lakota tales, Aidan would fall into a good sleep and dream deep till morning, without hankering for a drink or worrying on anything.
“I’m not right yet. I want to be strong for you. I want to be a whole man, not a broke-down drunk.” Aidan wasn’t sure Redwood could hear him mumbling in the loud rain.
An engine backfired, and Nicolai drove off in one of the borrowed trucks. Wheels growled in the muddy gravel. The frightened bear made fearful noises and curled up in a mound. A paw was mangled and bloody.
“Damn it!” Aidan said again, and then cut off a string of cussing.
Redwood took a step ’round him toward the bear. Gurgling almost like a cub drinking from its mama, Redwood waved her storm hand toward a second transport truck. The animal cocked a big head to the side and, favoring three paws, bounded through dense foliage right for the motor vehicle.
“He’s wearing a chain on his neck,” Aidan said.
“A she-bear—ain’t wild, just real sad,” Redwood said.
Iris threw back the flap of the storage truck like she’d been expecting company. She stepped aside and the bear gamboled in. Gazing from Iris to Redwood, Aidan laughed.
“Baby Sister and I can speak heart-to-heart sometimes.” Redwood smirked, as if getting caught in a scheme. “Iris is just showing spirit. You’re all for that.”
“What’ll we say to these fellows?” Aidan squinted at the trio toting guns and scurrying in circles, a regular comedy act, and getting closer.
“You’ll think of something.” Redwood pressed her wet body against his soggy shirt. “A she-bear at the beginning of the picture would work as well as a cougar.”
Aidan sighed. “I don’t have the heart to turn her over, either.”
Redwood brushed his cheek with her fingers, then left him to deal with the hunting party. He crashed through the bushes away from the truck, making enough noise to wake the dead. When he was sure the three hunters were rushing his way, he shouted and hollered and carried on. “My god it’s a bear. Bear! Bear!”
Luckily, under dark clouds and buckets of rain, wasn’t much clear vision. The downpour made a mess of the tracks, and a bear on all fours would have been hidden in the bushes. Aidan pointed the men back toward the lake, claiming the fearsome creature had raced past him. Bears were fast, and who’d believe the truth anyhow? “Claws just missed me!” They swore this was a dancing bear and not all that dangerous. Aidan eyed their rifles and backed away. They slogged on in the mud.
Aidan climbed over the tailgate and into the back of the truck. “A fugitive from a traveling sideshow.” He didn’t know whether the bear stench filling his nose was fear or funky relief. The animal sat in the corner atop worn-out costumes, watching the three humans warily. Aidan couldn’t fault her for a low opinion of them. They were acting crazy. He turned to Iris. “Where were you all morning? Did you turn that bear loose?”
Iris’s eyes got big, but she didn’t answer.
“Those men will come back when they don’t find her or any tracks,” Redwood said.
“What’s got into you?” he asked Redwood, not talking ’bout the bear. She knew he wasn’t and clamped her mouth tight.
“Don’t worry on that now,” Iris said. “Hurry and drive us away. Please. They’re mean to bears, you can see.”
They all stared at the frightened creature. Redwood sat down by the bear, not too close. She kept her head low and her hands folded. After only a moment, the bear scooted close enough to put her wounded paw right in Redwood’s lap.
Iris tugged at Aidan’s arm. “Don’t she remind you of Star?”
“Who?” Aidan said.
“That bear from back home,” Redwood said.
“All right, all right,” Aidan said. “When the picture’s done though, we find a place to set this bear free.” He leapt out the back, hurried to the front cabin, and started the engine. Despite expert lessons from Mr. McGregor, he didn’t like driving, especially in a storm. The road was a stream of slime, but they couldn’t just wait for those fellows to come back and find them with the bear.
Zigzagging through mud and stones, he made a fast getaway.
THE PIRATE AND THE SCHOOLTEACHER
Nicolai Minsky and his valiant camera crew, Oscar Jones, Henry Wilson, and Freddie Fastfoot, braved the wilds of Wisconsin and tempestuous Lake Michigan to capture many wonderful scenes for The Pirate and the Schoolteacher. And although they shot the beginning after the end and all the other scenes out of order too, this was how the moving picture play came together onscreen for audiences far and wide.
The camera eye opened up to Hog Hollow, a Sea Island town off the coast of Georgia. A sailing boat bounced on stormy seas and lovely Schoolteacher Redwood set down her chalk on a mound of books. She stared mournfully at the open water through her classroom window. Her pupils—Clarissa and George’s kids and Iris—exploded through the door to gather seashells.
Rose, playing a Seminole woman, tended a garden behind the school and smiled at the children running by. Wildfire, a Seminole farmer and Rose’s brother, strode into his cabin with a deer over one shoulder and a bow over another. Following him, Walter Jumping Bear, also a Seminole farmer, dipped a carved wooden spoon into a bowl of sofkee, a dish made with corn hominy and meat. In a gesture of welcome and goodwill, Walter drained the deep spoon.
Outside, Milton, the Baptist minister, dragged himself through the sand with a Bible against his chest and a heavy weight on his shoulders.
TITLE: Without money for taxes, everyone in Hog Hollow might lose their land.
Clarissa, a good Christian woman, watched Milton from the church. Coming upon flowers strewn on the church steps, Milton broke into a weak smile.
TITLE: Hope is always a guest at our table.
A wave crashed against the now shipwrecked boat. Sailing men struggled between rocks, waves, and broken boards. On shore, a black bear chased Pirate Saeed, a salty rogue in tight breeches and puffy white shirt. A sword dangled from his hip. Desperate for escape, the Pirate dashed into frothy water, slipping and sliding, while the sure-footed bear gained on him. Animal and man ran across the path of Farmer Wildfire, now dressed in a voluminous beaded coat. Wildfire drew his mighty bow, aimed, and felled the bear (who could always be coaxed to roll on her back for honey from Iris’s hands). But alas, Pirate Saeed was dragged down by a fierce, low-riding current. Wildfire threw off his coat and jumped in the water after him.
On the beach with her young charges, Teacher Redwood rescued a red leather journal floating in on a wave. She traced watery words with her finger as they washed away in the salty ocean brew. The back pages of the journal were dry and the words safe. Reading the sayings and poetry, Redwood sighed and dabbed her eyes.
TITLE: The afternoon knows what the morning never expected.
Struggling over slippery rocks, Wildfire managed to haul Pirate Saeed to the beach. Heaving deep breaths, the Pirate hugged his rescuer, grateful to be alive. Teacher Redwood waved at them from down the shore.
Meanwhile Walter and Rose sat in a canoe, eating smoked fish. An orchid rode the waves toward them. Walter plucked the flower from the water and offered it to Rose. She set the flower in her lap as wreckage from the sailing ship floated by. Startled, they searched the sea with wide eyes. Drowning men flailed against choppy water. Rose gasped and pointed.
TITLE: “You must save them!”
Walter wedged the canoe between rocks and, joined by his daddy, also a Seminole farmer, he dashed into the water. Rose scrambled to the beach. Walter and his daddy battled fierce waves to drag waterlogged sailors, Eddie and a seedy-looking Gang, to safety. Rose and Teacher Redwood ministered to the gasping men on the beach. The red leather journal rode in Redwood’s pocket. Overjoyed at the sight of it, Pirate Saeed staggered toward her and almost passed out at her feet. As she bound his bleeding forehead, he touched the journal in her pocket. She smiled.
TITLE: “Yours?”
Pirate Saeed stood up slowly, finding his land legs. He took the journal from her hands and bowed. When the lovely Teacher cast her eyes on this handsome, poetry-loving Pirate, romance sparked between them. He pressed the red leather to his heart and kissed her hand.
TITLE: “Wildfire saved me from drowning. You rescued me from heartache and misery.”
Later, inside the church, the Teacher served the Pirate a warm mug. Clarissa, the Teacher’s good friend, wrapped him in a blanket. Minister Milton shook his head as he walked by Eddie and his dastardly Gang, who dripped dark water on the wooden pews. A sword and pistol tucked in Eddie’s belt flashed in a sunbeam. The Preacher halted behind the Teacher, touching a scarf that trailed from her waist like a stream of clear water. He loved her too, and Friend Clarissa saw this with a mournful sigh. A collection box sat below the altar, stuffed with Sunday’s offerings—all the hard-earned coins of the congregation.
TITLE: Still not enough to pay the taxes!
Eddie eyed the money. Pirate Saeed followed his greedy glance and scowled.
Outside the church, Wildfire paced as Rose and Walter talked. The Pirate emerged, wet, but warmed by a mug and the love of a good woman. Wildfire grabbed him by the shoulders. The startled Pirate clasped the hilt of his sword. Walter offered him dry Seminole clothing—much like his own. Relieved, the Pirate handed the Teacher his journal to hold as he slipped behind a bush. Wildfire and Walter laughed and dragged him to the cabin. As they entered, Wildfire offered a wooden spoon of sofkee. After a moment’s hesitation, the Pirate emptied the spoon down his throat. Wildfire and Walter grinned as the Pirate drank a second spoon.
Meanwhile Eddie and his dastardly Gang slipped into the empty church. A candle burned under the cross. The collection box sat behind the altar. The Gang laughed and danced as they emptied coins and bills into a leather bag. Eddie cinched the pouch tight and tied it to his waist.
Coming out the cabin behind Wildfire and Walter, the Pirate strode into the garden. Teacher Redwood smiled shyly at him in his dry Seminole clothes. Her pupils did a rhythmic tap dance welcoming him to Hog Hollow. Minister Milton joined in with a turkey buzzard jig. Balancing on one leg, his arms flapping like great wings, he bent over and picked a handkerchief from the ground with his teeth, so like Mr. Buzzard pecking flesh. The Pirate set down his sword and applauded. After only one false start, he did Mr. Buzzard’s dance with Milton. The children jumped up and down in glee. The Teacher’s melancholy was put to flight. When she beamed at him, Pirate Saeed boldly pulled her out to dance. She resisted only a second, and then they whirled and spun to everyone’s delight. At the end of the dance, the Pirate fell to his knee and clasped her hand to his heart. Despite his roguish nature, he loved her too.
In the church, Friend Clarissa held an empty collection box. Frantically, she searched near the altar for the money. Despairing, she ran outside and pulled the Minister and Teacher away to show them the empty box. Teacher Redwood covered her mouth.
TITLE: “We are lost. The taxes! Oh! Oh!”
Rose frowned and pointed to behind the church. Walter and his daddy also noticed Eddie and Gang crawling out a back window. They raced away. In anguish, the Pirate buckled on his sword and ran off in hot pursuit. The Teacher pressed the back of her hand against her forehead.
TITLE: “I am betrayed.”
Eddie and Gang ran through sand dunes, stumbling over one another. The moneybag banged against Eddie’s sword. Suddenly the Gang scattered like leaves in a breeze. Behind them raced an angry Pirate Saeed, followed by Walter and his daddy. They all darted through waving grass at a furious pace toward the shore.
On the beach, water lapped at sand, and crabs scurried every which way. Milton jumped from behind a rock and gripped Pirate Saeed, who looked daggers at Eddie and Gang escaping.
TITLE: “We saved you, offered hospitality, and this is thanks?”
Minister Milton waved the collection box in the Pirate’s face, and the two men struggled. The Bear, who wasn’t shot dead after all, loped toward scurrying crabs. An arrow was stuck in her shoulder and waved about with every move. Seeing the Bear approach, Minister Milton abandoned his fight with Saeed and turned to run. Twisting and turning in sea grass, he got tangled in his feet and fell—a splendid comic turn. The Bear sniffed Milton’s hind parts and, uninterested, plunged into the water. Pirate Saeed leapt over the Minister to chase Eddie, who lifted the moneybag in triumph. Hands on her hips, Teacher Redwood blocked the Pirate’s way. He somersaulted to avoid crashing into her. With a desperate look at Eddie racing away, he turned to face her. She flung the journal at him. Pirate Saeed caught it. He opened to a page and pressed this into her hand.
TITLE: Tell me whom you love and I will tell you who you are.
Teacher Redwood’s heart almost broke, but could she trust him?
Walter’s canoe tossed in the waves, looking like an escape plan. Eddie and Gang converged and ran for it. Wildfire popped up in the canoe. The Gang ran away except Eddie, who waved his gun, ordering Wildfire out the boat. As Eddie got in, the boat collided with a rock and splintered. Eddie leapt clear, but his gun went flying through the air. It landed near the bear. She pawed the weapon and lobbed it toward Wildfire. Eddie dashed through the water to the beach. Wildfire wrestled with the bear, who finally released him to chase fish. Wildfire scrambled after Eddie.
The Gang raced down the beach on horseback now. As they overtook Eddie, a stout fellow leaned down and pulled him onto the saddle behind him. Wildfire barely missed getting run down by the thundering horses. They galloped on toward the Pirate and Teacher, who were still fussing with each other. Minister Milton sank to the sand in front of the empty collection box. Rose and Friend Clarissa shook their heads sadly. Teacher Redwood’s pupils shrieked and danced in circles. It seemed that all was lost.
Eddie and Gang, their horses’ hooves pounding the sand, were almost upon the Pirate and the Teacher. She faced the galloping beasts down and wasn’t about to budge. Pirate Saeed pushed her aside, leapt on the last horse, and knocked off the rider. Wildfire gripped the fellow and hogtied him. In this fashion Saeed leapt from horse to horse and unseated each member of the Gang. Wildfire and Walter subdued all the thrown riders and tied them up before they could catch a breath. Finally Saeed jumped on Eddie’s horse. They struggled and then flew through the air, leaving the riderless horse to gallop on down the beach.
Pirate Saeed and Eddie did a most acrobatic fight on the beach, tumbling and somersaulting around punches and kicks. Teacher Redwood, Minister Milton, Walter and his daddy, Wildfire, Rose, Friend Clarissa, and all the Pupils ran down sloping dunes to surround them. Eddie pulled his sword and slashed at Saeed, who rolled away quickly and pulled his own shiny weapon. Everybody gasped and fell back as the two swordsmen parried with deadly metal. Eddie’s Gang, tied up in the rising tide, struggled to no avail.
Ruthless Eddie threw sand in the Pirate’s eyes and threatened the crowd. He stabbed at Pupil Iris, slicing a bow from her dress. In a mad dash to save her, the Pirate slashed Eddie’s arm with his sword, but lost his balance. Pirate Saeed’s sword tumbled into the water. Wildfire pulled Iris out of range, as a gloating Eddie closed in on the unarmed Pirate. He was about to run him through when Teacher Redwood thrust herself between Eddie’s blade and the Pirate’s throat, saving him from certain death. Again the crowd gasped as Eddie’s sword pierced her body. Stunned, Eddie backed away from his weapon in the wounded Teacher. The blade had plunged through the red leather journal and under ribs. Pirate Saeed grabbed the sword and caught her as she fell. Eddie looked around wildly. The others mobbed him before he could flee. Pirate Saeed clutched his brave beloved and cried up to the heavens.
TITLE: “I fear she is not long for this world!”
Later, inside Wildfire’s house, Redwood lay in a bed, wrapped in white bandages. Dr. Harris stood over her, shaking his head. She clutched the journal of good words that had not saved her, but merely postponed the worst. Clarissa leaned into Minister Milton and covered her face. Dr. Harris picked up his bag and left solemnly. All stood around the bed. Pirate Saeed fell onto Redwood’s body, begging her to not leave him. She stroked his head and looked to the stars.
Rose threw open the door. Mambo Dupree dressed as Erzulie Dantor, the hot Loa of love, danced into the cabin. She traced two vèvés on the floor—a heart with a sword through it and two crossroads intersecting—and called to the spirits of love and of death to ride her. Mambo Dupree brandished a machete and cut the air over the bed. She sprinkled charms and blessings.
TITLE: “I have only a little bit, but together, you all have plenty magic!”
Mambo Dupree danced out the door toward the sea. Sitting up, Teacher Redwood held out her storm hand. Candles in the room burst into flames. Everyone gathered close to the bed. A fire spirit blazed around the room, and no one could say what or who she was. Later, Nicolai and crew would claim the haint as camera magic, but everybody saw her leap from the fireplace and burn brightly over the bed. The Bear loped by the open door, a big fish in her mouth. She stopped in the doorway and dropped her supper, as the fire-haint flew out over her head. Spent, Teacher Redwood sank back into the bedding. Her eyes fluttered shut.
Pupil Iris stomped her foot and pointed to the night sky.
TITLE: “The stars are dim. She can’t find the City of Light. She won’t die tonight.”
Somber faces told another story. Clarissa wept against the Minister. Despairing, Pirate Saeed stroked Redwood’s peaceful face.
TITLE: “I would give all the treasure in the world for the light in her eyes!”
Valiant Iris refused to cry or sing a funeral song. She danced for the spirit of the dead, for the spirits of love, for the light to come back to Teacher Redwood’s eyes. Who dared hope with her? The scene faded to black.
Some days later, inside the church, Rose, Walter, his daddy, Wildfire, and the pupils all in fancy dress, stood in the pews. They held flowers, and tears streaked a few faces. The Minister dabbed his eyes at the altar, reading from his Bible. He displayed a rich chest of treasure—gold coins, silver goblets, strings of pearls.
TITLE: “Our prayers have been answered. A gift from the sea! Hog Hollow is ours.”
Friend Clarissa offered a bouquet of orchids to a bride wearing a dress as delicate as prairie smoke and fog. This was no funeral after all. Accepting the flowers, the bride turned. She was none other than Teacher Redwood! She had not died! Her smile and eyes were light. Pirate Saeed stood beside her at the altar, wearing a patchwork Seminole coat and turban. They kissed.
TITLE: Tell me whom you love and I will tell you who you are.
Between them, they clasped a bedraggled journal of good words—a heart with a sword through it, a vèvé calling to spirit Erzulie, Loa of love.
The image irised to black.