Tamera Alexander - [Timber Ridge Reflections 01] (40 page)

The silence lengthened, and Daniel finally looked up. Tears streamed down Elizabeth’s cheeks. Josiah’s too.

“I’m so sorry, Daniel.” She wiped her face. “I . . . I didn’t know what I was asking.”

“I sorry too, sir, for the burden you been carryin’ inside you for so long.”

Daniel felt sick. He didn’t deserve their compassion. Josiah Birch had every reason to loathe a man like him, to hold so much against him, including life before the war, yet he didn’t. And Elizabeth . . .

If she knew how he’d served during the war, what he’d been . . . Her reaction at the possibility of Josiah having murdered a defenseless man hung close, and his gut twisted, knowing he needed to tell her the truth. But he didn’t want to. It would change the way she looked at him.

She took a deep breath. “There was . . . or is, a reason behind my asking about that night, Daniel. And believe me when I say that I had no idea how . . . dearly that battle cost you. My intention in telling you this now isn’t to cause you more pain. But to . . . to not tell you would feel false inside.” She touched the place over her heart. “And I’ve had enough of that for a lifetime.”

He studied her face, not following.

She seemed to have trouble forming her next words. “My father . . . was a colonel in the Federal army. He was the commanding officer in Nashville and”—her voice grew thin—“the tactical commander for the battle of Franklin.”

Daniel stared at her as another piece of who Elizabeth Westbrook was fell into place for him. And as another reminder of what he’d done during the war sliced through him. “Your father was a colonel in the Federal army?”

She nodded. “Colonel Garrett Eisenhower Westbrook.”

Disbelief stole through him, followed by confusion. “But he’s still alive.”

She gave a tiny smile. “Yes, he is.”

“So . . . he wasn’t on the battlefield that day.”

Confusion slipped into her eyes. “He orchestrated the battle plans but was called to Washington the morning of the battle. Another colonel, a close friend of my father’s, Colonel Henry Jackson, took his pla—” Her frown smoothed. She blinked, then shook her head. “What was your assignment during the war? Were you an officer?”

She said it with such hope. But Daniel saw it in her face. She knew. The threads were pulling taut inside her just as they had for him seconds ago.

“I held the rank of captain . . . but served in a special unit. Our primary mission was to eliminate commanding Federal officers from the field before the start of battle. I was—”

“A sharpshooter,” she whispered, looking as though she’d seen a ghost.

“When they realized how well I could shoot, they sent me to Atlanta for more training. And they issued us each a Whitworth.”

Her attention moved to the gun propped beside him. “So that means that . . . if my father had been there that day, you would have . . .” Her focus slid back to him.

His jaw went rigid. “Yes,” he whispered. “I would have killed him.”

“Did you ever miss, Daniel? Even once?”

He was touched by her attempt to absolve him. “No, Elizabeth. I never missed.”

She stared at him for the longest time, then lay down on her pallet. He wanted to talk to her, and for her to talk to him. When Josiah excused himself, whether by necessity or to give them time alone, Daniel moved over by her.

He gently touched her shoulder, knowing she was still awake. “Elizabeth, look at me.”

She shook her head. “I can’t. Not right now.”

He smoothed the curls falling down her back and felt her body shake. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth. I’m so sorry. . . .”

She slowly turned over. Tears stained her cheeks. “So am I. . . .”

When he reached for her hand, she pulled away and curled onto her side again, away from him.

“Please leave me alone, Daniel.”

He reached for her again, then stopped himself, knowing it was useless. So much for the truth setting a person free.

35

E
lizabeth saw him coming and rose from packing her satchel. The sternness in his expression didn’t bode well for another attempt at this conversation, but she had to try. He was hurting, and she knew full well that she was the cause. “Daniel, I’d appreciate the chance to speak if—”

“We’re late getting on the trail.” He strode past her. “If you want to get to Mesa Verde today, I suggest we move out.”

She stared at his back, having grown accustomed to seeing it over the past five weeks. What she wasn’t accustomed to was the wall between them—and that she’d been the one to lay the first brick only added to her frustration.

He finished loading the packhorse, his movements sharp and defined, more like a soldier’s than the man she’d come to know.

When he’d shared with them two nights ago about the war in Franklin and about being a sharpshooter, she’d been too shocked to respond, unnerved when considering what could have happened—what
would
have happened—had her father been on the battlefield that day. Unable to discuss it that night, she’d thought they would talk about it the next morning. But by then, the damage had been done.

His silence was piercing and reeked of resentment. She felt as though she’d taken his trust and, in an effort to handle it more gently, had crushed it instead. But he couldn’t avoid her forever, and he was also right. They’d lost a week as she and Josiah had recuperated with the Ute, and her deadline to get the photographs of Mesa Verde to Wendell Goldberg was fast approaching.

She also remembered what the butcher back in Timber Ridge had said about not pushing someone. It had worked for James McPherson with this same man; maybe it would work for her.

She climbed into the saddle, and Josiah fell in line behind her. He also had been subdued since that night. Not sullen, like Daniel, nor evasive, just distant in his own way.

The scenery was still breathtaking but had undergone a transformation. The mountains had grown flatter on their tops, trading their rugged peaks for mesas—tabletops. She could hardly wait to see Mesa Verde and hoped her equipment would be there waiting. But she preferred not to arrive with this tension between them.

They stopped briefly for lunch and to water the horses. She sensed the men’s anticipation and guessed they were as excited about seeing the cliff dwellings as she was.

By late afternoon, she was beginning to wonder if Daniel had miscalculated the distance. She checked her compass, then her map. It seemed as though they should be going more toward the south to get to the cliff dwellings, but she wasn’t about to question him.

When the sun started its descent, disappointment set in. She’d so hoped to get there today. Daniel paused in front of her on a ridge. He didn’t say anything, just stared off to his right. She followed his line of vision, not seeing what he was—

Her breath caught, but only for a second. She jumped from her horse and ran to the edge of the ridge, peering across the canyon. Her body tingled. Palaces, shadowed rooms carved directly into the mountainside, hundreds of feet from the canyon floor, glowed orange red in the setting sun. Remarkable . . .

She framed the scene with her hands, as though she were looking through her lens, and could see it perfectly. She’d have to come back to this very spot to take a picture. This angle was perfect—and Daniel had known it would be.

She turned to look at him. His gaze was fixed on her. She smiled, not expecting him to return it. He did, barely, but his eyes communicated a satisfaction all the same. It would take her time to win back his trust. But she would do it.

Josiah took off his slouch hat and leaned forward in the saddle. “How’d them people do that, ma’am?”

Laughing, she shared his wonder. “I have no idea, Josiah. I’m just so glad they did.”

It was well after dark when they arrived in the nearby town, and the mercantile was already closed. When Daniel suggested they stay the night in the hotel, Elizabeth could’ve kissed him. She took a long, hot bath that evening, wrote a letter to her father to mail the following day, and awakened refreshed the next morning, ready to see if her equipment had arrived.

Downstairs in the hotel lobby, Josiah was waiting, solemn-faced. “We gots some good news, ma’am, and some bad news.”

Her excitement went flat. To have come all this way for nothing . . . “What is it?”

“Good news is your equipment is in, Miz Westbrook. Bad news”—his grin broke through—“is I thinkin’ you ain’t gonna be totin’ your camera by yourself no more.”

She followed him outside to find Daniel standing by a cart loaded with crates. Next to him, atop a tripod, was a camera whose lens was almost twice as big as her old one! She took the stairs in twos and ran a hand over the polished mahogany. “Did you do this, Daniel Ranslett?”

He glanced at the cart. “I wish I could take credit for it, but I can’t. I think somebody’s just looking out for you . . . and that you were meant to be here taking pictures of this place, for whatever reason. Just like all the places on our way back to Timber Ridge.”

She smiled, and then remembering her calculations from last evening, her enthusiasm tempered. “I thought about that last night. It’s already June. I’ll need at least a week to take pictures here. And I’m afraid that leaves little time for taking photographs on the way back, and there’s still no guarantee the pictures will make it to Washington by the end of August.”

“That might be true. . . .” Daniel took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. “If you didn’t take into account that I spoke with the mercantile owner this morning and the same freight company who delivered this shipment will be back through here in four days.” A subtle gleam lit his eyes. “They’ll pick up whatever you have ready and will take it on to the next town, where it’ll meet up with another freighter who’ll carry it on to a town with train service back east. So you’re guaranteed not to miss your deadline—
if
you can have your photographs ready in four days.”

She closed the distance between them. “I can, and I’m giving you full credit for that.” She kissed him squarely on his freshly shaven cheek and saw his response, despite his attempt to hide it. “My reaction the other night hurt you, Daniel, and I’m sorry for that. Especially after everything you shared. It just . . . caught me so unaware. Imagining what would have happened to my father had he been there, and knowing what
did
happen to your brother because of my father’s leadership in planning that battle . . . I just needed time to sort through it all.”

He nodded and took a step back. “That makes two of us.”

The scene was perfect, the morning light pristine. Daniel had chosen this morning’s ridge with as much care as he’d chosen yesterday’s. Elizabeth started to remove the lens from the camera, then hesitated. President Lincoln’s familiar address came back to her without falter, no matter that she hadn’t uttered it in weeks. She thought about Josiah and Daniel standing behind her.

Josiah stepped forward. “Somethin’ wrong with it, Miz Westbrook? You need me to get somethin’ for you, ma’am?”

“No, nothing’s wrong. I’m just wondering . . . Have either of you heard the remarks President Lincoln gave at the battlefield at Gettysburg?”

“No, ma’am. Can’t say that I have. But I sure ’preciate what that man done—God rest his soul. Not right what got done to him in return.”

She looked at Daniel, who just shook his head.

She returned her attention to the photograph and to the ancient palaces set within the frame of her lens, and carefully removed the lens cap. “ ‘Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation . . .’ ”

The words took on deeper meaning knowing they were listening. She could still hear Lincoln’s high, clarion tones in her memory.

“ ‘We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting place of those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. . . .

“ ‘The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.’ ”

As she spoke, she pictured President Lincoln standing tall on that platform, two or three pages of manuscript in his left hand, and him glancing at them only once as he spoke. The image of a boy of nine rose inside her, one who shared Daniel’s green eyes and dark hair, and who wanted to be a man of honor like his older brother.

“ ‘ . . . that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.’ ”

Careful not to bump the camera, she reinserted the lens cap.

Being in such a place, seeing such grandeur, was like a dream all over again—capturing images and sending them home to be published, images that could well garner her the position as the
Chronicle
’s next journalist and photographer. But the opportunity Wendell Goldberg had given her suddenly seemed wistful, somewhat emptied of its importance in light of her experiences in the past weeks. Especially since her interaction with Drayton Turner. She didn’t want to have anything to do with Turner’s kind of newspaper reporting, and the similarities between him and Goldberg were disturbing. Surely there was something more.

They spent the day taking pictures—ten in all, and six turned out exceptionally well. Late afternoon found them back on the ridge Daniel had chosen the previous evening. All day long, Elizabeth had looked forward to capturing this particular perspective, at sunset, just as Daniel had shown it to her for the very first time.

They camped in the canyon just below the dwellings. The summer day seemed to stretch forever, and after dinner, she leaned back, imagining what life had been like for the people who lived in the cliff dwellings. The wind whispered through the shadowed houses, encircling the ruins and carrying remnants of ancient voices from times long past.

She stole looks at Daniel, wondering how she was going to get him alone to speak with him. But she would before they left Mesa Verde.