Margaret Brownley
Authors: A Vision of Lucy
A
Vision
OF LUCY
OTHER NOVELS BY
MARGARET BROWNLEY INCLUDE
A Lady Like Sarah
A Suitor for Jenny
A
Vision
OF LUCY
A ROCKY CREEK ROMANCE
M
ARGARET
B
ROWNLEY
© 2011 by Margaret Brownley
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].
This novel is a work of fiction. Any reference to real events, businesses, organizations, and locales are intended to give the fiction a sense of reality and autheticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brownley, Margaret.
A vision of Lucy : a Rocky Creek romance / Margaret Brownley.
p. cm. —(Rocky creek romance ; 3)
ISBN 978-1-59554-811-5 (trade paper)
1. Women photographers—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3602.R745V57 2011
813'.6—dc22
2011010643
Printed in the United States of America
11 12 13 14 15 RRD 5 4 3 2 1
For Robyn
Beautiful, gifted, loving, and kind
God gave me everything I wanted in a daughter—
and so much more.
Only the stoutest of hearts and bravest of souls should take camera
in hand. In case of client dissatisfaction, do not waste your breath
explaining that the camera only reveals what’s there. In such cases, a
quickness of foot may be your best defense.
–T
HE
T
RIALS AND
T
RAVAILS
OF A
W
OMAN
P
HOTOGRAPHER
BY
M
ISS
G
ERTRUDE
H
ASSLEBRINK, 1878
Contents
Never climb higher to take a photograph than you can afford to fall.
– M
ISS
G
ERTRUDE
H
ASSLEBRINK, 1878
Rocky Creek, Texas
1882
D
rat!” Another skirt ruined. Lucy Fairbanks straddled a branch of the sprawling sycamore tree and arranged her torn skirt as modestly as possible. Everything she owned, except for her Sunday-go-to-meeting best, was either patched or hopelessly tattered. At least she hadn’t ruined her stockings, having left them at the base of the tree along with her high-button shoes.
“Pa’s gonna have a fit,” her brother called from the ground below. Thumbs tucked into his red suspenders, sixteen-year-old Caleb Fairbanks stared from beneath a straw hat.
“Pa’s not going to have a fit,” she called back.
“Will too!”
“He can’t have a fit unless he knows what I’m doing.” She shot him a warning glance. They shared chestnut hair and clear blue eyes, a gift inherited from their mother. Their stubborn chins came from their father’s side.
“And you, young man, are not going to tell him,” she said sternly. Four years his senior, she still felt protective of him, though lately he’d protected her more than the other way around. “Quit wasting my time and pull on the rope.”
To her relief Caleb did what he was told without argument. His feet firmly planted, he took hold of the rope with both hands and leaned back. Lucy’s prized camera rose slowly from the ground until it dangled precariously in midair.
“Don’t let it drop,” she called anxiously.
She grabbed hold of the bulky black leather box and sighed with relief. “I have it!” Working quickly, she pulled the extra rope from around her waist and secured the camera. “There. That should do it.”
Caleb wrinkled his nose. “I still don’t understand why you have to take photographs from a tree.”
“I told you,” she said patiently. “Mr. Barnes promised me a job at the newspaper if I capture a picture of the wild white mustang.”
She’d badgered the bullheaded editor of the
Rocky Creek Gazette
for months before he’d reluctantly agreed to print her photographs in the newspaper. At last he’d given in, though he showed no enthusiasm. Obviously, he hoped she’d fail and go away.
“Pa says there’s no such thing as the white mustang,” Caleb said.
Pa was probably right, but the myth of a white horse once ran rampant among the Indians. They claimed it was the reincarnation of a beautiful woman massacred years earlier in an Indian raid. The Indians had since been moved out of Texas to Indian Territory but the legend remained.
For the sake of her job, she prayed the animal really
did
exist. Some people claimed to have spotted it in the nearby meadow, which is why she chose this particular spot. “No wild horse is going to make an appearance with you around. Now scat.”
“When should I come back and get you?”
“Just after the sun goes down. And Caleb—not a word to Pa.”
Caleb hesitated. “Don’t forget, you promised you’d talk to Doc Myers.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” she said, dreading the thought of, yet again, going against her father’s wishes, this time on her brother’s behalf. All she seemed to do lately was defy her father’s wishes.
Since her brother made no motion to leave, she made an impatient gesture. “Go on, be gone with you. If you don’t hurry, you’ll be late for work, and you know how Papa feels about tardiness.”
Caleb’s face grew somber as it tended to do whenever anyone mentioned his job at his father’s store. A surge of sympathy rushed through her. Caleb wanted to be a doctor in the worst possible way, but Papa was dead-set against it.
“I’ll talk to Doc Myers, Caleb. I told you I would. Now scat!”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Caleb sauntered back to the wagon a short distance away and, out of habit, checked the mule’s leg. Moses had originally been owned by the pastor, who couldn’t bear to see him put down when he became lame. Instead he gave the mule to Caleb, who nursed it back to health. The animal had served the family faithfully ever since.
“That a boy,” Caleb said, patting the mule’s rump.
He scrambled up the side of the wagon and hopped into the seat.
Fairbanks General Merchandise
was written on the wooden sides. Whooping at the top of his lungs, he grabbed the reins and drove off, making enough noise to raise the dead, and probably scaring away every living creature within miles.
Lucy watched her brother with a fond smile, then immediately went to work setting up her camera. That annoying Mr. Barnes and his wild mustang. Next he’d have her chasing after ghosts. Of course, she wouldn’t mind chasing after the rumored “Rocky Creek wild man,” who was as elusive as a ghost, if he really existed. Anything would be better than spending long hours trying to get a photograph of a stallion that might be nothing more than a fanciful legend.
Sighing, she released the brass lock of her camera and carefully pulled out the folding lens. The maroon-colored bellows stretched out a full fifteen inches, and she secured the extended part to the branch as well. Once she was satisfied that her precious camera was safe, she reached into the satchel attached to another branch for a dry gelatin plate. Though such plates were expensive, they saved her from having to worry about them drying out before they were developed. They also saved her the hassle of having to cart along her darkroom tent and chemicals.
She inserted the dry plate into the camera, then pulled a black cloth from her pocket and draped it over the back of the camera to prevent light from reaching the focusing screen. Squinting through the viewfinder, she made a few adjustments with a turn of a knob.
From her perch, she could clearly see the meadow, a favorite grazing spot for wild horses, deer, and elk. Behind her, the Rocky Creek River wound its way through the valley, its fast-moving waters tumbling over a series of small waterfalls as it elbowed its way to the river below.
What if her father was right and no such white stallion existed? If she didn’t find the mustang, her career as a newspaper photographer was doomed before it began. Unless, of course, she found something even more impressive to photograph—like the so-called Rocky Creek wild man.
“Just you wait, Mr. Jacoby Barnes,” she muttered. “My photographs are going to make your newspaper the most popular one in all of Texas.”
Contemplating success, she surveyed the far horizon. May was her favorite time of year. The meadow looked like an artist’s palette, and red, yellow, and blue wildflowers filled the air with sweet perfume. Sweeter still was the high, thin sound of a warbler’s song.
