Faithful (14 page)

I watched Tom out of the corner of my eye. His head was up. He reminded me of a colt, enjoying the breeze, living for the moment. My stomach tightened into little knots. I wished he would reach out one long arm and take my hand, and then look at me with those eyes. I could almost match his long-legged stride, and that felt nice, too, this swinging movement next to Tom—both of which made me giddy.

“It’s not too far. Just over there.”

“Oh, I don’t mind. I like the walk.”

Our eyes met, and we exchanged a smile, and in that instant I thought my heart might melt.

“There!” Tom pointed. I shaded my eyes. Just below us was a large corral. Inside I could make out a dozen animals grazing. They were huge and shaggy. “Buffalo.”

“Buffalo!” Tom was right, I knew nothing of Yellowstone, but I knew enough to know that bison were nearly extinct.

“Only forty years ago, they were here, tens of thousands of them. One old-timer told me he saw a herd so large the plains were black as far as he could see. Black with buffalo. They went on forever.” Tom was quiet a moment. “There are about thirty left. That’s it. Most are there, the rest on an island in the lake. And these aren’t really wild. They had to bring domesticated bison up from Texas.”

I felt the need to impress Tom, somehow, and dragged up something I’d heard my grandfather go on about. “Killing the buffalo did help subdue the Indians, though. And so we could settle the west.”

Tom wheeled on me, his face alive with emotion. “Is that what’s important? White man’s way? Conquer and destroy?”

I took a step back, surprised by his outburst, my mouth agape.

Tom looked at me as though seeing me new. “Do you mean all of what you say, Maggie? I know, it’s just the way you were brought up. You can’t help it, can you.” He shook his head. “You’re a snob.”

I felt as if he’d slapped me, and the tears came to my eyes. “I’m . . . I’m only telling you what I know.”

“And what you know is what you’ve been told. And it’s wrong.” He was looking at the buffalo now, not at me. His voice was bitter. I wanted to say to him, “Then tell me something I don’t know. Tell me what’s right. I can learn.”

“Have you ever even seen a live buffalo before?”

I whispered a tiny, “No.”

“Look. Just look at them. Big, old, mean-tempered . . . they’re built to survive the cold winters and dry summers.” He turned to me, his eyes shining. “For the Lakota, a buffalo was a spirit guide. Their life support. The bison gave them everything they needed—clothes, food, shelter. Then here we come, big white man with big gun, and we took the animals down for sport, just shot them down. They’re big targets. Even a fool with a peashooter could hit a buffalo.”

“I didn’t know,” I whispered. Please, oh, please, don’t be mad. How was I supposed to know, when everything around me, everyone around me, for all my life so far focused on parties and balls and weddings and clothes?

He backed off a little, but only a little. “While you’re here on your little working holiday you’ll learn a lot.”

“We’re not on holiday.” I regretted the words the minute they left my lips. But I was exhausted and miserable, and all the confused feelings I’d harbored for weeks bubbled up. In my misery, I forgot that I was talking to Tom, forgot that I liked him and wanted to impress him with my so-called worldly ways. I only knew my life was upside down. “We’re moving here. We’re moving here, all right? My father lied to me, sold our home. My mother left us. And my grandparents want to own me. I’ve been betrayed, and I have nowhere to turn.” I burned with pent-up emotion now, and it steamed out of me, directed at him. “You think you know so much. You may be smart about animals and Yellowstone and nature, but you’re not so smart when it comes to a girl’s feelings. So, I’m a snob? Well, fine. At least I was brought up to behave properly and not call people names, thank you very much. You’ve never even faced a bear! Maybe when you face something really fearful, maybe when your life turns upside down, maybe when you confront something so awful you can’t imagine the world ever being right again, well, sir, maybe then . . .” I sputtered out like a dying candle.

Tom stared as if I’d struck him in the chest. I stood shaking, with my anger and loss all exposed and raw.

I couldn’t stand it. I whirled and strode up the road toward the hotel, taking brisk strides that caused my skirt to flap and flutter.

“I’m sorry.” I heard his voice from behind me. “I didn’t mean to . . .”

I stopped and faced him. “I need to write some letters, if you’ll excuse me. Then I’m going to dress for dinner. Me and my snobbish clothes.” I turned and continued my march back to town.

He caught up with me, but his face was averted. “Of course.” His long legs matched my hurried pace.

I stopped again, my hands on my hips, and I glared at him. “And you could do with a cleaning up, you know. Looking decent won’t kill you.”

“Okay,” he said, drawing the word out. I watched as color rose into his cheeks.

I turned and continued stomping up the path, Tom matching me step for step while I tried to tuck my loose curls behind my ears, irritated that I’d forgotten my hat. It was a useless gesture.

And as we kept walking, the soft afternoon air swelled around us, and my temper ebbed. Tom was right there with me. What he’d said was so hurtful that I wanted to drop down into the grass and weep. But I had stood my ground, and he was still there, matching me stride for stride, when everyone else in my life had either abandoned me or wanted to control me. Mama, Papa, my grandparents, Graybull, even Edward and Kitty—they’d never matched me stride for stride like this lanky man whom I hardly knew, but whose eyes penetrated my very soul.

I marched on up the road, tortured, having no idea how to undo the pain that circled my heart.

June 22, 1904

WE WALKED, NOT SPEAKING. THE PATH TO THE HOTELS felt longer on the return than it had when we set out. The swallows chittered above, and the breeze stirred the tall grasses,
swish, swish.
The sun washed the hills with a languid light. Tom and I shared a rhythmic cadence, our arms and legs moving together as if synchronized. It only made me feel worse, to think that we had some link yet we were so far apart. I glanced at him sidelong. He chewed his lip. I looked at my feet and chewed my own.

I had to break the silence.

“It’s light around here until late, isn’t it.” I pulled at a stalk of grass, tugged it loose and twisted it in my fingers. “Why, last night, I thought I could have read my book until well after supper. I guess that’s because we’re so far north?”

Tom took a deep breath, as if relieved. “That’s right. And the solstice was yesterday, too.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Midsummer. Longest day of the year.”

“Oh, of course. Midsummer.” I remembered my Shakespeare, thankful for a neutral subject. “Midsummer’s the time when wishes come true, right?” I sighed. “I could use a time like that.”

“Be careful what you wish for.”

I glanced at him. “That sounds sad.”

He didn’t look at me. “Sometimes you think you want something, only to get it and find out it’s all wrong.”

“That
is
sad.” I glanced at him again, wondering what wish had gone wrong for him, but I couldn’t ask. A breeze lifted my hair and I looked past Tom to the mountain that seemed gilded in the late afternoon light, dusted with fairy magic. “Midsummer’s a magic time, too.”

“Do you believe in magic?” Tom met my eyes; he was smiling now.

“I did when I was little.” I smiled back, then looked at my feet. “I used to think there were mermaids. In the ocean by our house. Once I saw a seal, or that’s what Mama said later, but I insisted it was a mermaid. She laughed at me.” But she’d liked it, my story. She told me that she believed in mermaids, too. I hoped she did. “Sailors have sworn up and down that they were rescued by a mermaid. Saved from drowning. By magic.” Saved by magic, pulled from the sea by a mermaid—I hoped Mama had believed that. I had to believe that.

“I believe in things that I can see and touch.” Tom’s voice was clear and firm.

I put Mama out of my mind. “Oh, so, what about those spirit guides you mentioned? The bear and the buffalo?”

He laughed and stopped walking. I felt a wash of relief and faced him and smiled. I liked the way he threw his head back and how his laugh sounded deep and genuine. Our eyes met and I could scarcely breathe from the joy of it.

“Margaret Bennet, you have a way of turning my words inside out. You’re right. Animals can be magical, or at least spiritual.” He cocked his head. “In fact, I’d wager the bear you’ve seen is trying to tell you something.”

I looked at the grass in my hand. I’d unconsciously twisted it into a bowline. The knot was one of several good knots Mama had taught me one warm summer afternoon as we lay stretched and lazy on the deck of our little sailboat, listening to the slap of waves on her wood hull. She was laughing, and I told her that the slapping waves might be the hands of merpeople saying hello.

Tom and I stood on the walk in front of the Cottage Hotel. Steam from the springs trailed up into the air and disappeared. I wished for a way to make the moment with him last.

As if rising up out of the ground, Mrs. Gale appeared through the steam, walking down the path, carrying her equipment.

“There!” I cried. “There’s magic right there. Pictures that come from a box.”

Tom grinned, and I felt giddy as I smiled back. “Photography’s not magic,” he said. “It’s science. It’s a way to use light, the same way the eye makes a picture in your brain.”

“Yes, but with a camera you see differently. You see things as they were meant to be seen. One at a time, without all the extras added. That’s a kind of magic.” I was so sure of what I was saying that my fists were clenched into tight balls.

He looked surprised and—to my delight—impressed. “So, you win. Maybe there is a bit of magic there.”

Mrs. Gale joined us and set her equipment down with a sigh. “Hello, Tom.”

“Ma’am.” Tom glanced at me. “Mrs. Gale works on commission for the Haynes Studios here in the Park.” He thumbed toward the rustic building fenced by antlers—the Haynes building. “My friend Margaret thinks your camera is magic.” His voice lifted as if he was trying not to laugh.

“Oh, but it is, my young friend, it is.” Mrs. Gale smiled at me. “Hello again, dear. Your friend Margaret and I met yesterday, when she was in a terrible hurry.”

I blushed, but my mind was already churning with something new, something surprising. Mrs. Gale wasn’t a tourist taking pictures for her own pleasure. The camera in the box at my feet was not for her entertainment. She worked. She, a woman who seemed of means and social standing, was employed.

I’d said it to Tom earlier: women of my class in Newport were not employed; it simply wasn’t an option. The only path for an upper-class woman was marriage and family, not working a trade. Girls like me did not chase after dreams, like men did. I stared at Mrs. Gale. She wore the right clothes, had the right bearing, was clearly a lady of proper upbringing. I didn’t know what to think. Kitty would have been horrified; my grandparents, scandalized.

But I was neither, I came to realize. I was impressed. I liked the fact that she did what she loved and made money doing it. I stared at her with newfound respect.

“Hello?” Tom laughed and waved his hand in front of my eyes and jolted me out of my mind-wandering. “Margaret?”

“Right!” I blushed as red as the petunias on the porch behind me. “At home my friends call me Maggie.”

“Maggie.” I liked the way Tom said it, and I felt my blush deepen. “So, Mrs. G, what do you think? Is it science or magic?”

Mrs. Gale squared her broad shoulders. “There are mysteries in life, Tom, and I think the most mysterious is art. Inspiration. Sometimes when I watch a picture grow on the white paper in my darkroom, I can’t even tell you where it came from. It’s not always what was in my mind. But there it is, pale and evolving, blooming like a flower.” Mrs. Gale smiled, and I did, too, at her eloquence. And I thought about Mama and her paintings and how she must have felt watching an image evolve beneath her fingers.

How she must have felt when I asked, demanded, that she destroy such a precious thing. I felt a sudden, stabbing guilt. I wished I could take it back.

Tom’s laughter brought me back to the moment. “You’ve got me there.”

“Well now, Tom, your father contacted me. He’d like me to photograph some outcrop or other,” said Mrs. Gale. She bent and wrestled her equipment up into her arms. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Maggie.”

“You know where to find us?” Tom said as he helped her adjust her burden.

“Indeed. Good-bye, then.” Mrs. Gale smiled at me and I smiled back like an awestruck child, and I watched her make her way down the road toward the National.

Tom stood so close to me that I could have touched his hand with mine if I’d only lifted my fingers. He shuffled his feet. “See you around?”

I tucked wisps of hair behind my ears, wishing the afternoon would not end. “Thanks again for the ice cream. And the buffalo.” I smiled up at him.

He looked back at me, his eyes warm. “I’ll be here in the Mammoth area a bit longer. My dad has work around the Park, but we’re here for now.”

I laced my fingers behind my back. I didn’t know what was in store for me now. “I’m not sure where I’ll be. I haven’t asked my father about it.” I hadn’t talked to Papa since that first night. I didn’t want to talk to him.