Tamera Alexander - [Timber Ridge Reflections 01] (2 page)

Focusing again, Elizabeth placed her right foot on the tree. Arms outstretched like a tightrope walker’s, she compensated for the heavier-than-usual shoulder pack and took a carefully plotted first step.

Then a second step. And a third . . .

Approximately twelve feet below, a rock ledge protruded from the mountainside. It would break her fall should the rope fail for any reason, but the ledge only extended out halfway beneath the natural bridge. From there, it was a sheer drop down to the canyon floor. Not easily intimidated by heights, she kept her focus on her footing and occasionally glanced to the other side.

Inch by inch, the ledge disappeared from view. She resisted the temptation to look down at the river winding like a snake in the valley below. A gust of wind came from behind and pitched her forward. Loose curls blew into her eyes. She flailed for footing . . . and found it. But the rope around her waist suddenly went taut and pulled her back.

“No, Josiah!”

Every muscle in her body tensed. Her back spasmed. She struggled to stay upright. The weight strapped to her shoulders tempted her to lean forward, but leaning too far could prove disastrous. Then she did what she knew not to do—

The snaking river below blurred in her sight.

She quickly pulled her gaze back to the ledge and, as taught from the age of six, imagined a ramrod extending from heaven’s gate straight down through her spine and into the tree trunk beneath her. Slowly she felt her chin lift. As did her shoulders. Her legs trembled, but she regained her equilibrium and continued on across, one foot in front of the other.

With a rush of exhilaration she stepped from the tree onto solid rock again.
Terra firma.
She brushed back her hair and, masking her relief, looked at Josiah standing on the opposite ridge. “There, you see? I told you not to worry.”

His dark eyes were wide, his knuckles a noticeably lighter shade as he gripped the rope. “You done scared ten years off’a me, ma’am. And they’s years I coulda used.” As if an invisible weight had been removed, his broad shoulders lifted.

Elizabeth set down her pack and opened it, excitement still coursing through her. A bit more excitement than she’d bargained for, but having made it across only sweetened the success. “I’m sorry, Josiah. That wasn’t my intent. But I’ve been doing this since I was a little girl. I used to outrun and outclimb every boy I knew.” She eyed the eagle’s nest a good twenty feet away. “I could outride them too.”

“Bet them boys liked playin’ with you, all right.”

“Actually . . . no. They didn’t like it because I never let them win. Not when I could help it anyway.” She unpacked her equipment, mindful of the rope still tied about her waist, and a particular memory came to mind. A memory of an afternoon at the riding stables, years ago. She’d felt similar exhilaration then as she did now—until her father discovered what had transpired. A bully of a boy had challenged her to a horse race. And she’d beaten him squarely. At the time she hadn’t known that he was the son of her father’s superior officer, and had not considered the possibility that her father and his fellow officers would catch her riding straddle-legged and wearing breeches beneath her skirt.

She’d long ago given up trying to forget the embarrassment that had darkened his face. And little had she known then what a defining moment that would be in her life.

Made of sticks and larger twigs, the aerie appeared to be at least seven feet wide and nearly that deep, and was built onto a ledge in the side of the mountain. Masterful. Even at this distance, she could distinguish feathers and tufts of grayish white down protruding from the sides. The nest was empty, for now. If only its occupant were nearby so she could capture a photograph of it too. Not that an eagle would remain stationary long enough for her to take its picture. That’s what made taking pictures of animals—and fidgety people—such a challenge. If the subject moved, even the slightest bit, the image appeared ghosted once she developed it.

Since seeing the photographs of a place called Yosemite two years earlier, she’d dreamed of coming to the western territories, of taking photographs of the frontier—a place so far removed from the nation’s capital and Maryland, her birthplace.

While landscapes such as the one before her were breathtaking, pictures of wildlife were what Wendell Goldberg, her employer at the
Chronicle,
truly wanted
. Spectacular photographs of wildlife
he’d written in a telegram days earlier—as if she needed the reminder. Along with those photographs, he wanted real-life adventures from people who lived in the West. Stories that championed the human spirit and that would entice would-be travelers and game hunters to venture west to the Colorado Territory—patronizing a travel company that was conveniently owned by the
Chronicle
’s largest shareholder, Adam Chilton.

The travel company was only a small portion of Chilton Enterprises. The bulk of the company’s fortune lay in hotel properties, specifically resort spas. Word had spread back east about the therapeutic hot springs in this region. Their curative powers were the topic of conversation at extravagant cotillions and women’s teas, and their attributes were lauded in the plush leather surroundings of gentlemen’s clubs and smoking rooms. Chilton Enterprises requested that she take photographs of property in the area that they were considering for their next endeavor. And in exchange, their company would advertise exclusively in the
Chronicle.

Wendell Goldberg was forever capitalizing on business opportunities such as these, and she considered it an honor to be personally mentored by the man—even if she didn’t always agree with his tactics or his opinions.

“You best back away a mite, Miz Westbrook.” Josiah’s voice held gentle entreat. “Gonna be hard to help you from all the way over here. You liable to go slammin’ into the mountain ’fore I can get you up.”

She took a small conciliatory step back from the edge. “Satisfied?”

His cheeks puffed. “Ain’t ’bout me bein’ satisfied, ma’am. ’Bout you hirin’ me to see you safe up these mountains and on back down again. I ain’t been knowin’ you but for a week, but you hangin’ off the side of some mountain . . .” He scoffed. “I don’t mean no disrespect, but that don’t bode well for your soundness of mind.”

Elizabeth laughed. “I appreciate your concern, but I assure you, my state of mind is quite sound. From now on, understanding that we’ll be traveling together”—she attempted a somber tone—“I’d prefer it if you wouldn’t sugarcoat your opinions, Mr. Birch. Speak your mind plainly, if you would. Without fear of offending me.”

He mumbled something she couldn’t make out, but could well imagine, and then took a cross-armed stance that reminded her of a famous Negro orator she’d once heard. “I just tryin’ to do my job, ma’am. Like you hired me to do. That and keep the truth as plainspoken as I can.”

Plain-spoken truth
. . . How refreshing that was. And she preferred that too, however abrasive or uncompromising, to the sting of having one thing spoken to her face and another behind her back—an occurrence she hoped she’d left behind her back east. “I think you and I will make a good pair, Josiah.” However an unlikely one.

“I’m inclined to think that way too, Miz Westbrook. Long as you don’t go do somethin’ foolish and end up at the bottom of some mountain.”

Choosing to ignore that last comment, she lifted the nine-pound camera from the bottom of the burlap bag and situated it as close to the edge as she dared so that it encompassed both the view of the eagle’s nest and that of the valley below with the mountain range in the distance. She looked around for small rocks and placed them beneath the camera to balance it on the uneven ground.

Since she couldn’t carry over all of her supplies, she had prepared the camera’s wet glass plate beforehand and already had it inserted into its light-protective holder. Which meant only a short time remained for her to take the photograph, return to the other side, and develop the glass plate before the light-sensitive chemicals dried on the surface. It was a tedious process when she was in a darkroom, but was even more so in the field. If the glass plate dried out, or got the slightest crack, it became useless.

She lay flat on the cliff, arranging her skirt over her legs, and worked to get the image focused in the glass viewer.

When Josiah had met her with the horses outside the boardinghouse this morning, darkness had ruled the predawn skies. They’d tethered the mounts at the base of the mountain an hour ago, and with the aid of lanterns, they’d started their trek. Then the eastern horizon had begun to stir, showing its intent, until finally dawn rose to reveal the before-hidden crevices and canyons, and the mountain peaks rising so high they disappeared into the pinkish-purple clouds.

“I’m bettin’ you done real good in your schoolin’, ma’am.”

She smiled at his phrasing. “I did well enough, I guess.” She lined up the viewer, making sure the North Maroon Bell showed clearly off to the right. The varying distances of objects would give the frame its needed depth.
Splendid.
“But one of my teachers, a Mr. Ainsworth . . . he shared the same opinion as the boys I was telling you about. He didn’t encourage my athletic prowess.”

“I take that to mean he didn’t like your ridin’ and climbin’?”

She chuckled. “No, he didn’t like it one bit. He said I was . . . boyish and that my assertiveness was unsuitable and unattractive. Not qualities becoming of a young lady.” Funny how she remembered Ainsworth’s exact wording and could still hear his irritating nasally tone. The audacity of that pompous, overconfident—

“Don’t sound like somethin’ wise for a teacher to be sayin’ to a young girl. ’Specially to one who prob’ly coulda whupped his hide.” Josiah gave a high-pitched hoot, and his laughter echoed against the canyon walls.

Laughing with him, Elizabeth slid the protective holder into the camera slot and removed the exposure panel. She then uncapped the brass cover from the lens and let science work its wonder.

Her stockinged foot kept rhythm on the cliff as she silently recited the oft-remembered words from a speech given at an event her father had insisted she attend years prior. “
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that . . .”

It was a speech considered a disappointment by most in attendance that day, but not by her. Twenty years old at the time, standing hushed beside Tillie, her Negro nanny—whose full name of Aunt Matilda had been cast aside somewhere during childhood—she remembered every detail of that solemn gathering on the battlefield at Gettysburg, and would as long as she lived.

“The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here . . .”

The wind caught the feathers in the nest, and she wished she could capture this moment in a truer sense of time, so people would actually see those feathers moving and could hear the wind as it whistled low over the mountain and dove deep into the canyon below. An idea came for an article to accompany this photograph when she mailed it to Wendell Goldberg at the end of the week, and she tucked the thought away, hoping to remember.

When enough time had lapsed, she carefully replaced the lens cap and hurriedly repacked her camera. Now to get the exposed plate into the dark tent Josiah had set up across the ridge. She arranged the pack on her shoulders, checked the rope again, and shot him a quick glance before taking the first step.

The deep furrows lining his forehead stayed foremost in her mind as she made her way back across. The stocking on her right foot caught on a piece of bark, but a quick backward tug freed it. She stepped onto the opposite ridge and felt another sense of triumph. So much for Mr. Ainsworth and his assessment of her
boyish
skills!

She worked quickly in the tent—her makeshift darkroom—pouring a developing solution of iron sulfate and acetic acid over the photographic plate. The procedure turned the light-sensitive grains into a metallic silver that glistened in the half glow of the stubby, wax-skirted candle.

Witnessing this part of the process never lost its allure, and the image was stunning. She gave the glass plate a final water rinsing, which rendered it safe to the light again, and she reemerged from the tent.

As Josiah set to packing the equipment and loading it on the mule, she pulled out her notebook and recorded the date, hour, minute, location, and lighting of the picture she’d taken, along with a description. Keeping this information aided her understanding of how the various conditions influenced the success of her photographs.

She put her notebook away and bent to help Josiah pack, when her breath caught in her throat. Not much of a catch—just enough to gain her attention. She straightened and slowly inhaled, testing her lungs.

The doctors had made no claim there was a cure for her ailment, but they had encouraged that this territory’s dry climate and mountain air should lessen the stress to her lungs. Their foremost recommendation—soaking in the region’s hot springs—was a practice she looked forward to experiencing. In the past, she’d sought deliverance through physician-prescribed arsenic and chloroform remedies, and pungent mustard poultices. All hideous regimens that had brought no healing. On the contrary, they only seemed to have weakened her constitution and worsened her condition.

She breathed in and out again, beginning to think she’d overreacted. How she hated this weakness. Her health was excellent but for her lung ailment. She wanted to push on but didn’t want that desire to blind her to her body’s limits. Perhaps she should try and take the photographs she needed from the current vantage point.

“Are you certain, Josiah, that the view ahead holds more promise than this?”

He tied the last bundle onto the mule and pulled the strap taut. “This here’s pretty, ma’am, but it ain’t nothing compared to what’s up ahead.”

She nodded and, when he resumed the climb, fell in step behind him, trusting her own body’s stubborn resolve as well as Josiah’s judgment. So far he’d been right about everything—not that she would remind him of that.