Tamera Alexander - [Timber Ridge Reflections 01] (23 page)

“You mind if I start takin’ them on up, ma’am?”

“Not at all, Josiah. I’ll be right there to open the door.” She read the one-page missive.

Dear Elizabeth,

Here are the supplies I referenced in my previous letter. As fate would have it, the morning after I sent the letter and books, I was in committee with Senator Rochester, the current overseer of the Department of Education. He recently acquired new furniture for the sixth district, where his daughter instructs. You will remember her, his eldest daughter who failed to find a suitor to her particular liking.

Elizabeth heard a slight
tone
in that last sentence. He’d often told her she was too particular in her choice of men, and he’d given up trying to pair her years ago, or to force the issue of marriage. She was too much like him to ever be forced into a situation she didn’t desire, and he knew it.

Rochester was pleased when I told him your pupils in the Colorado Territory could benefit from his generous donation of the secondhand equipment.

Elizabeth shook her head, smiling. What else had her dear father done . . . ?

To that end, these crates contain slates, chalk, maps, and a globe (the old one from my office that you used to sit and study). Desks, chairs, bookshelves, and other sundry items are shipping this week by train and should soon arrive to your attention. I’ve instructed the freighter to deliver the furniture to the schoolhouse in Timber Ridge, so consider yourself forewarned, my dear.

I ponder the wisdom of writing these next words for fear they will be misinterpreted on paper, but know that as I write them I am feeling only the deepest love and appreciation for you.

Elizabeth felt an unease deep inside her.

When first you voiced your plans to move west, I thought them foolhardy designs, dreams of a woman living too long in a make-believe world. But your acceptance of this position—this grand challenge—to be a teacher on the frontier has made me exceptionally proud, Lizzie. Admittedly, through the years, your aspirations inspired many sleepless nights for this father. Your sojourn at the newspaper offered excitement, I’m sure, and I would have done my best to accept your decision should you have chosen an even more unconventional role for your life. But you have stayed the course, my daughter. You have listened to God’s design and to His calling, and I could not be more proud to be your father.

With eternal endearment,
Colonel Garrett Eisenhower Westbrook

Her hands shook as a sick feeling curdled in the pit of her stomach. She closed her eyes and tears pushed out at the edges. Slipping the letter into her reticule, she took the stairs leading to her room at a fast pace, groping for her room key.

She dried her face as she went, determined not to let Josiah see her upset. Her father wouldn’t approve of what she was doing now—that was no surprise. Tears threatened again. But to know, to
read
in his own handwriting, that he would have struggled to be proud of her if she’d chosen
an unconventional role
for her life. Which is exactly what she’d done. . . .

Josiah stood waiting at the third-floor landing. “I go get the other crate, ma’am.”

Out of breath from the climb, she forced a smile. “Thank you . . .”

“And don’t you go tryin’ to lift this one yourself. It be too heavy for a woman. You’d tip right over, for sure. Even if you do have a mind to carry that big old camera of yours”—his voice grew fainter as he walked down the stairs—“strapped to your back, all by yourself, and with me standin’ right there next to you, strong as a horse and doin’ nothin’ but watchin’ you carry that for miles. . . .”

Normally his ramblings would have made her smile. She retrieved her key and tried to fit it into the lock, but her hands shook too badly. She paused, thankful she was alone, and took a calming breath.

This wasn’t the end of the world. Despite their differences, she and her father had a loving relationship. He’d never pretended to understand her reluctance to marry at a young age, and had finally given up on trying to persuade her, as had everyone else. He’d abided her working at the
Chronicle,
but only because he knew, somewhere deep down, that he was partly responsible for her ambition. She sighed. She was her father’s daughter. She saw the similarities between them—their independence and drive to achieve—and felt pride. He saw them and obviously felt regret. She tried the key again.

Why wouldn’t the confounded thing fit! She smacked the door.

Finally, on the third try, the key slipped into the lock. She turned it. Or tried to. It stuck fast.

She leaned her forehead against the door, already hearing the heavy thud of Josiah’s footsteps as he climbed back up the stairs. What was it she’d told herself just that afternoon? That she was making a difference in Timber Ridge. She was leaving her mark. She had friends in this town. People who liked her for who she was—a woman photographer. That had to count for something, even if not toward a father’s pride.

She made another attempt with the key, this time holding it at an angle while also lifting up on the knob. The latch finally gave.

She pushed the door but met with resistance after a few inches.

Stopping short, she peered down at the rug on the opposite side to see if it had bunched up again. Or perhaps the housekeeper had left some cleaning supplies. Nothing. She gave the door a good hard shove, and that’s when she saw—

Her stomach convulsed as if someone had delivered a blow to her midsection. Tears rose to her eyes. Bile rose in her throat.

“Oh, sweet Jesus . . .” Josiah’s voice sounded from close behind. “What done happen in here?”

21

A
pungent chemical smell hung heavy in the room, and Elizabeth could scarcely draw a breath. She grabbed hold of the bedpost for support, battling the familiar spasm at the base of her throat.

“You better sits down, ma’am. But not here, Miz Westbrook! Not here.”

Elizabeth looked behind her on the bed and saw shards of glass. Glass on the bedcover, on the rugs. One of her dresses was balled up on the floor. She lifted the corner of it and crushed glass spilled out. They’d used the quilt on the bed, the rugs, her own clothes, to muffle the sound of the breakage, then had strewn the shards around the room. Her camera plates—all of them, from what she could tell—were destroyed. And whoever had done this hadn’t just broken them but had done it methodically, with care, as though having taken pleasure in it.

Hearing the wheeze in her lungs, she allowed Josiah to lead her to a straight-back chair in the corner.

“Who would . . . do this? And why . . . ?” She couldn’t help the high pitch to her voice.

“I ain’t got no idea.” He quickly searched the room. “But I gonna go get Miz Ruby from downstairs. She know what to do. You stay put right here, ma’am.”

Elizabeth was grateful to Josiah for leaving the door open to the hallway. Strange, but whatever kinship she’d felt to this room before had been ripped from her, and she didn’t want to be alone in these quarters. Not anymore.

She spotted something in the corner, and a soft cry threaded through her lips.

With effort, she stood and picked her way across the room, bits of glass crunching beneath her boots. She knew what she was looking at, yet at the same time wasn’t fully able to grasp it. The well-oiled mahogany wood was familiar, but the box was smashed beyond recognition, the glass viewer crushed, the protective plate holders bent back, splintered, cast off to one side.

She knelt and gently fingered the pieces of wood. Dried silver residue from the collodion and other chemicals marked the larger pieces. Her hands trembled. Her gaze went to the nearest corner, where a piece of clothing—one of her shirtwaists—was stained dark brown. She carefully unfolded it and found jagged brown glass from her bottles of chemicals inside.

Never could she have imagined this happening, much less what it would have felt like. The sense of loss and violation. She put a hand to her mouth, thinking she might be sick. Then swallowed the bitter reaction and searched through the debris, looking for the camera lens, praying that perhaps it—

Inhaling sharply, she winced and turned over her hand—a fragment of glass was embedded in her right palm.

A bright trail of blood trickled down the pale underside of her wrist and beneath the hem of her sleeve.

“Oh, mercy, ma’am, you’s bleedin’. ”

Josiah’s hand came beneath her arm and Elizabeth heard a gasp behind her.

Miss Ruby stood frozen in the doorway, her expression mirroring the shock Elizabeth felt.

“What happened?” Miss Ruby’s gaze swept the room. “Are you badly injured, Miss Westbrook?”

Elizabeth shook her head, unable to find her voice.

“We come back just now and found it this way, Miz Ruby. Some dark evil done worked its way in here.” He took hold of Elizabeth’s injured hand, but she instinctively jerked it away, fearing the pain. “I ain’t gonna hurt you, ma’am.” Josiah’s voice was tender. “But I need to get that out of your hand. You just turn your head away for a second.”

Elizabeth did as he said, her head spinning, her throat closing.

A sharp prick was followed by a warm gush. . . .

She felt pressure on her palm and turned back to see Josiah pressing his own shirt against the wound. Her body broke out in a cold sweat.

“You best see the doctor, miz. This gonna need stitches fo’ sure.” He turned to Miss Ruby, who stood in the crushed glass. “I get her on over there, and then I come back here and clean this up.”

Elizabeth groped at her high-buttoned collar. “I can’t . . . bre—”

“Where’s your medicine, Miz Westbrook? Where’d you put it?”

She tore at the buttons.

“It in your bag, ma’am? Where’s your bag?”

She fought to pull air in only to have her body refuse the simple command. The more she tried to stay calm, the faster her pulse raced. And the narrower her throat seemed to constrict.

A portrait of her mother flashed in her mind. Mama at the same age as she was now, their features so strikingly similar. And painted only three months before Mama died.

Elizabeth’s legs gave way. For a fleeting second, the image of her body lying sprawled amid the glass took perfect form. She felt herself being lifted.

A woman’s voice floated somewhere above her, followed by a deep, low rumble against her left ear. Then she was running, only it wasn’t her. The hard jostle of each step rattled her teeth. Strong arms crushed her close, almost to the point of hurting.

She was a lifeless rag doll with tufts of cotton for a throat.

A rush of cool air hit her in the face but stopped just inside her mouth. The pounding from the running matched the pounding in her temples, and a hole somewhere deep inside her opened up.

She teetered there on the edge, able to feel little else than a high-pitched hum coursing through her body and the crushing weight inside her chest. And that’s when Elizabeth knew . . .

She was going to die, just like her mother.

22

S
ucking on a peppermint stick, Daniel rode back into Timber Ridge. The look on Davy’s face when he saw the picture of him and Beau had been nothing short of precious, as his mother might have said. And better than any picture of an elk he could have given him.

He’d stayed at the Tuckers’ an hour longer than planned, just sitting with Davy, talking about hunting, and letting the boy hug and love on Beau. Mrs. Tucker had been real complimentary. “I promise you, Daniel, that dog of yours is better than any medicine any doctor ever made.” It wasn’t as if the Tuckers didn’t have a dog. They had three. But none like Beau.

Daniel glanced down at the dog he’d raised from a pup. Beau looked up at him at the same time, trotting alongside the horse, tongue lolling as he panted. Knowing how much Davy loved the dog, and how much Beau loved the boy, it occurred to him that letting Beau stay with the Tuckers for a few days would be a kind thing to do.

And yet—he felt like a child admitting this, even to himself—he couldn’t imagine not having Beau with him out at the cabin. After all, the dog had been his companion for fourteen years. Still . . . next time he was in town for an overnight stay, he pledged to run Beau out to the Tuckers’ and let him stay the night with Davy.

He glanced up at the boardinghouse as he passed by, wondering if Miss Westbrook was in her room. He really should stop and apologize to her. It was the woman’s own business if she went traipsing off on a journey like the one she had planned. He’d offered his opinion where none had been solicited, and he hated it when people did that with him. Yet from the way she’d closed the door in his face that morning—quietly but firmly—he doubted his face at her door was what she’d want to see right now.

He was to the end of the street when he heard his name being called. He turned to see Josiah running toward him, Miss Westbrook limp in his arms.

“Mr. Ranslett! Help me, sir!”

He jumped down and met Josiah as he climbed the stairs to the doctor’s office. He opened the door and Josiah rushed inside. No sign of the doctor.

“Lay her here.” Daniel pointed to the table. “What happened?”

As Josiah gave a quick account, Daniel checked her pulse and could barely feel one. Her lips were a light shade of blue.

“She gots a problem with her lungs, sir! She takes medicine, but I can’t find it in that room!”

“Go find the doctor, Josiah. Now!”

The door slammed against the wall as he ran out, and nearly closed back again.

“Miss Westbrook!” Daniel slapped her cheeks.

She didn’t respond.

He’d been around enough doctors and makeshift hospitals during the war to know something of what a doctor would do first. Try and get air in.

He took her face in his hands and pried her jaw open. He pressed his mouth to hers and blew air in. Her cheeks inflated. But he felt the pressure of his own breath returning to him. He tried again, watching her eyes, waiting for the rise and fall of her chest, for any sign that it was working.

Nothing.

He checked her pulse. And didn’t feel anything. He looked around, not knowing what to do next.