Tamera Alexander - [Timber Ridge Reflections 01] (10 page)

His assignment complete, Daniel sheathed the Whitworth and began his downward climb just as an eerie screech rose from the densely wooded hillside beneath him. One voice lifted at first, followed by another and another, until the unearthly, primal chorus flooded the forest floor and rose in a fearsome swell over the pike. His spine tingled with the chill of it, familiar though it was, and he wondered how any enemy could hear the rebel yell and not shudder.

Below him, his regiment pushed through thick stands of pine and prickly bramble until they crested the ridge. Eager to join them, Daniel had started to climb down when he heard a faint high-pitched whistle. It cut through the cacophony. He sensed it more than heard it and might not have done that much had he not had such experience with it on the opposite end. He placed the sound an instant before the bullet slammed into his back.

The force knocked him belly first over a limb, and he dangled there, suspended, momentarily blinded by the fire scorching his back and right shoulder. Distant gunfire registered and impulses collided inside him.

Strangely weightless, he hung there, able to make out the faint outline of someone climbing up to him. He heard his name being yelled.

Another distant whistle, similar to the first, and Daniel pictured his mother’s face, regretting that he hadn’t gotten back home in the past two years. The bullet hit somewhere to his right. The branch on which he hung cracked and gave way. He lunged at lower limbs in hopes of slowing his descent but couldn’t get a hold. The bark stripped the flesh from his palms, and somewhere on the way down, he had blacked out.

Pushing the memory from his mind, Daniel climbed from bed and strode to the cabin door. He stepped outside into the crisp, cloudless April night and took a lungful. The moon cast a pewter spell over the mountains, and the chill felt good against his bare chest.

He breathed deep, trying to cleanse himself of the nightmare. Judging from the moon’s position, it was somewhere between two and three o’clock. Ice crystals blanketed the blue spruce and lodge pole pines, and in the distance the low roar of the waterfall girded the night’s busy silence.

His face was cold, and reaching up, he realized his cheeks were wet. He wiped them and stepped farther out into the small clearing. A trillion stars blinked down at him, and he couldn’t help but wonder if they were portals to heaven, as his mother had told him when he was a boy. And if Benjamin was watching.

On nights like this it gave him comfort to think his youngest brother and his mother were together. That comfort swiftly fled when he considered that
all
of his family was now there, together, and he’d been left on this earth alone. For what reason? To what purpose? None that he could figure. God had simply forgotten to take the last Ranslett, and Daniel sorely wished He hadn’t.

In that moment, he would have given all he owned to have been back in Franklin, walking the familiar hills of home, of his childhood, before the war had pillaged the land and taken his family.

Beau’s whining from the doorway encouraged him back inside. Daniel shut the door and knelt down. He scruffed Beau behind the ears, grateful for the desire to please his master that shone in the dog’s big brown eyes. Odd, but Daniel found himself a bit envious of Beau. For so long he and
his
Master had been at odds with each other, something that hadn’t been true earlier in his life. He didn’t know about God’s feelings on the subject, but he was growing weary of the feud. Part of him wanted to try and mend things, but how could he when the only One who could have intervened that night, who could have saved Benjamin . . . hadn’t?

He crossed the room and stoked the fire. Sparks flew up the rock chimney he’d laid by hand. Pencil-drawn pictures hung above the mantel took him back to better days. Mitchell Boyd had drawn the first—a picture of Daniel hunting. Daniel’s body was as big as the mountain and his rifle just as tall, and on his face was a wide grin. Daniel found Kurt’s picture more sobering. Again, it showed a child’s rendering of him, but this time he stood over a bear sprawled flat on the ground. The bear wore a sad countenance. Which Kurt had explained, “That’s because he’s dead. You just killed him because you’re the best hunter in the territory.”

He remembered the night the boys had given him the pictures, two weeks before their father, Thomas, was killed. He hadn’t seen them or their mother since then—except from afar, at the funeral—and he hadn’t seen their uncle in a while either.

Thinking of home and family, he was reminded of the debt he still owed James McPherson. Though things between him and McPherson had become strained and they hadn’t spoken in months, he stood by, ready to repay that debt whenever McPherson called it in. The man had saved his life, in so many ways.

He lay down on the bed again and pulled the blanket up over his chest. Beau hopped up beside him and snuggled close, contributing his warmth.

Nights like this made Daniel wish he could ask McPherson how he’d managed to start living again. How he’d gotten to the place where he didn’t wake every morning having relived a battle like Chickamauga, where Daniel had been wounded. Or the terror on the battlefield that night in Franklin, within miles of his childhood home. Daniel closed his eyes and could still see row after row, layer after layer, of mutilated bodies—nine thousand of them, piled on top of each other so that the dead were left standing with no room to fall. The earth drank in their blood until its thirst was slaked and it could hold no more, so the ground pooled the precious sacrifice in hastily dug holes the soldiers had clawed out, seeking refuge and finding none.

Realizing sleep was futile, he threw off the covers. He filled the coffeepot with water and hung it on the hook in the fireplace, then lit the oil lamp on his desk and set out his quill and paper. Congress had yet to respond to any of his letters, but they couldn’t ignore his requests forever. Surely he’d gain someone’s attention if he kept writing. Sometimes he felt like the lone voice in a wilderness, but someone needed to stand up for this land and for the Utes’ sacred cliff dwellings. Otherwise the heart of the Colorado Territory would be pillaged and lost forever, just as his beloved South had been.

To make matters worse, he couldn’t seem to convince land developers that he didn’t want to sell his land—any of it—to
any
company. Frankly, he didn’t much care how his decision would affect the “expanding economy” of Timber Ridge, as Zachary at the title office tried to persuade him. In his experience, most folks tended to think they needed a lot more to get by on than what it actually took.

He poured a cup of coffee and settled at his desk. Only a couple of hours remained before he needed to head back down the mountain. He was actually looking forward to visiting Mathias and Oleta Tucker and their family. And spending time in Elizabeth Westbrook’s company was higher on his list than he’d thought it’d be.

The woman was obstinate, opinionated, and he doubted whether the word
satisfied
was even in her vocabulary. But she would be a welcome distraction after the night he had just endured and would provide a nice buffer in case things at the Tuckers’ were strained. But the best thing—Elizabeth Westbrook didn’t have the slightest connection to him or his past in any way, which was what he needed. Someone who wouldn’t remind him of what he’d done during the war, of what he’d once been.

He picked up the quill, dipped it, and began to write.

9

T
his ’bout it, Miz Westbrook.” Josiah retrieved the last satchel of supplies from the corner, sweat glistening on his brow. “We ready to go soon as Mr. Ranslett shows.”

“Very good. Thank you, Josiah. I’ll be right down.”

The satchel Josiah carried wasn’t overly heavy, but he had already made five or six trips up and down the two flights of stairs. She really needed to find another place to stay. Either that or find a safe location where she could store her equipment and develop her photographs. Her room was coming to smell of chemicals, and Miss Ruby had kindly commented about that fact again this morning when delivering her tea.

Elizabeth took care in wrapping the camera lens in a soft cotton cloth before slipping it inside her pack. It was the single most expensive piece of equipment she owned and she hadn’t the means to buy another. She could replace about everything else, but if this lens were to break, her dreams of winning the job would be broken too.

“What you doin’ with all these books, ma’am?”

Josiah held up a McGuffey Reader, and she cringed, having intended to reseal that crate.

He’d carried three crates up to her room for her last evening, and at the time she’d been under the impression they’d all come from the same company and contained glass camera plates, chemicals, and other supplies she’d shipped from Washington. But as she opened them alone later, she realized her father had seen fit to send her a crate of supplies as a “welcome gift” of sorts.

Telling Josiah the truth about the books meant risking his being disappointed in her. And though it might have sounded silly to some, she didn’t want him thinking less of her. She waved off his question. “Those were shipped to me in error.” Which was partially true. What was also true was that she was responsible for that error.

“Want me to tote ’em on back to the store for you?”

“No, no, that’s not necessary. We can take care of them later.”

“Suit yourself, ma’am. Too bad we don’t got us a schoolhouse here in town.”

Josiah’s steps retreated down the hallway and Elizabeth let out a sigh. Well, that answered one of her questions. She’d hoped the town had a school. It would’ve made her father’s request a little easier to fulfill.

She reached for the letter and ran a hand over the broken seal on the back of the envelope. Her father was such a stickler for the details. This particular seal bore the imprint of the United States Congress and gave insight as to his frame of mind when he’d penned the missive.

She skimmed the page, taking comfort in the familiar slant and formality of his handwriting. She noted the date of the letter’s authoring—three weeks ago. Hardly a week after she’d departed Washington. Sooner than she would have guessed he would write.

My Dearest Elizabeth,

First and foremost, I pray this letter finds you, and then I pray that it finds you well. I have had occasion to ponder the map on my office wall and cannot quite fathom the miles that separate us. I pray you are finding the rest you need and that the air in those Rocky Mountains is as medicinal as our physician said it would be.

While my desires voiced to you the night before your departure remain unchanged—I would have you happy and fulfilled, preferably here in Washington—I understand this desire within you to stretch your horizons, as you so stated, and to discover what difference you might make in the world. It is not unlike what has long driven my own pursuits.

To that end, I am having a crate of slates and readers sent to your attention. All newest editions, of course. Additional teaching supplies will arrive at a later date, as I can arrange for them. Senator Wilkes, Director of Education, is indebted to me, and I will lean upon his good favor for your benefit. If Timber Ridge, Colorado Territory, is to have its first teacher, then they will have one supplied with the finest curriculum available. Which will no doubt be of higher quality than such a wilderness has ever beheld.

I look forward to receiving a photograph of you with your pupils, as I have no doubt you are still making time for the hobby you have so long esteemed.

Your father, both near and far,
Colonel Garrett Eisenhower Westbrook

She ran a finger over the dried ink on the elegant stationery, lingering over her father’s signature, and closed her eyes. Guilt over her swiftly told falsehood retraced the miles she’d worked so hard to put between her and that particular evening.

She loved and respected her father and had fully intended to tell him the truth. She had entered his study the night before her departure, resolute to share everything—and had done just the opposite. She’d known in that moment what it must have been like for the hundreds of men who had once served beneath her father’s command. The pressure to please him was overwhelming, and that he inspired that desire not from fear of him or his disapproval but from simply wanting to reach the aspirations he held for you . . . Well, that made her want to succeed in her endeavor here even more.

She read a particular line for a second time.

If Timber Ridge, Colorado Territory, is to have its first teacher, then they will have one supplied with the finest curriculum available.

A teacher.

That’s what she’d told him she was coming out here to be. He’d questioned it only briefly, having already seen the advertisements in the
Chronicle
for teachers needed out west. She’d wanted to confess her true reason for heading west, but he’d never been supportive of her working at the
Chronicle,
much less her striving to be a photographer and journalist. Those were men’s jobs and therefore unsuitable. It wasn’t that he thought her incapable of doing them. That wasn’t the issue. There were simply roles for men and roles for women, and those lines were not to be blurred.

She’d known he wouldn’t approve of her
teaching
career, but he would object far less to that noble profession than he would the truth.

She slipped the letter back into the envelope, then into the desk drawer, and drank the last of her tea. At thirty-two years old, one would think she would’ve outgrown the need for her father’s approval. Was she not capable of deciding her own future? Of course she was. So why did part of her still feel like that little girl with mud-splattered curls standing outside the horse stables, cringing beneath his stern frown while longing for his affirmation?

She checked her pack to make certain she’d included a full bottle of medicine and locked the door behind her.

Thinking of the crate of books up in her room, she was able to see a glint of humor in it all. A shipment of teaching supplies was on its way from Washington to Timber Ridge, and the town didn’t even have a school.