Tamera Alexander - [Timber Ridge Reflections 01]

by From a Distance

  How like Wendell Goldberg this man was. Goldberg had a way of knowing what would motivate a person and never failed to use that to his advantage. He also never wanted to be bothered with something until that something held an advantage for him. Then he could change horses in the middle of a stream faster than imagined and with nary a splash. Just like this man.

  “I doubt my photographs of landscapes and wildlife would be of interest to you, Mr. Turner. Or to anyone else who lives here. You see both all the time.”

  “And who’s saying you can only take photographs of landscapes and wildlife, Miss Westbrook?”

  Elizabeth guarded her reaction. “Well, no one, of course. That’s simply been the bulk of my choices thus far.”

  His area of focus briefly drifted to encompass more than just her face. “One of the beauties about being out west is that convention isn’t so . . . burdensome a cloak in these parts. You’ll find that, out here, you can explore . . . other choices. And I’m hoping you’ll make time to do just that.” He tilted his head and looked at her in such a way that told her he meant for the gesture to come across as promising, perhaps even enticing.

  But his effort fell far short on her.

  With a hasty good-bye, she hurried to meet Ranslett, not daring to look back, but could feel Turner’s eyes following her. The attraction wasn’t there for her, yet a small part of her appreciated his attention. Hadn’t encouraged it, but appreciated it.

  For the first time in years, no one around her knew of her association with the Washington Daily Chronicle. No one knew she was the daughter of U.S. Senator Garrett Westbrook, decorated colonel in the Federal Army, and strategist behind some of the North’s greatest battle victories in the war—both distinctions coming with their own stigmas and preconceptions.

  Here, she was free of those past identities. No one saw her as the woman she’d once been. They saw her for who she was now, and the anonymity felt . . . wonderful.

  For the first time in her life, she truly believed she had the chance to be whoever and whatever she wanted to be.

  It was two minutes after nine, and Josiah confirmed that Ranslett hadn’t shown yet. Winded from hurrying back, Elizabeth peeked inside the butcher’s shop, wondering why he’d suggested they meet here. She got a whiff of what awaited past the entryway and decided against venturing farther in, until she spotted the man behind the counter. Then she changed her mind.

  He stood hunched over a slab of meat and repeatedly brought down his cleaver with a force worthy of his build. His shoulders matched the width of the doorway behind him, and his forearms and hands were massive. She stepped inside.

  The smell of raw meat and its vestiges hung heavy in the small building, and an oversized slate board propped by the door quietly announced what cuts of meat were available. She looked for an icebox but didn’t see one. Their butcher back home had a pristine ice-lined glass case where he displayed fresh cuts of beef, pork, chicken, and fish.

  The man behind the counter didn’t look up, so she took the opportunity to watch him, already knowing he would make an excellent subject for a portrait. She laid aside her pack and surveyed the room. Morning sun slanting through the front window would provide ample light, and the surroundings were perfect. Rustic, unrefined. Without a word, this setting, this man, would capture a slice of what it was like to exist on this frontier. Perhaps far better than the pictures of landscapes she’d been taking.

  She couldn’t say whether Goldberg would be won over by the photograph or not, but her instincts told her it held possibilities. Even more so if the butcher had a story to go along with the life experiences etched in his face. And she bet he did.

  The man briefly looked up, away, and then back again.

  He stilled, his meat cleaver paused midair. His bushy eyebrows met to form a single line. “How do, ma’am. Somethin’ I can help you with?” He sank the cleaver into the edge of the table and swatted at an unseen fly.

  “Yes, sir. At least I hope there is.”

  He gave her a quick up and down, then eyed her more closely. “Meat’s out back in the icehouse. Got what’s listed on the board right there—plus some elk I can sell you. Fresh. Just butchered yesterday.”

  Jars of jerky sat atop a shelf above the counter. She’d never cared for its salty taste or tough texture. “I’ll take four slices of jerky, please.” Her chances were always better if she purchased something.

  “Peppered or no?” He tore off a piece of butcher paper.

  “Not peppered, thank you.”

  He formed a sleeve and slipped the jerky inside. “Ten cents.”

  Handing him the coin, Elizabeth noticed the swelling around his knuckles and the scars crisscrossing the tops of his arms and hands. Butchering was a costly occupation. Maybe he’d be willing to let her take a photograph of him closer up, after she got his image with the butcher block and cleaver. “Sir, I don’t mean to be too forward, but I—”

  “In my experience, ma’am, anytime a person starts out with ‘I don’t mean to be too forward . . .’ it usually means they’re aimin’ to be just that. They’re just hopin’ the other person won’t take offense.” He handed her the jerky.

  She laughed softly, not having expected him to be quite so insightful, or forward. “I admire your candor, sir, and will come straight to the point.”

  “That’s usually best, miss.” He kept a straight face, but she detected a smile edging his voice.

  “I’m new to Timber Ridge and have come here to photograph your beautiful mountains. But . . .” She tried for a shy smile. “I’d very much appreciate the opportunity to take your personal photograph, sir. I have my equipment here, and—”

  He shook his head. “No thank you, ma’am. Not interested.”

  “No fee is involved. It won’t cost you a penny.”

  “Good day to you, ma’am.” He walked back to his table.

  Elizabeth moved down a few steps to keep in his line of vision. She’d heard of natives who didn’t want their picture taken for fear the image would steal a piece of their soul and they would enter the next world unwhole, but she’d never encountered a white man who held that belief. “It won’t take but just a few minutes, and it doesn’t hurt a bit.” She ended on an upbeat.

  He picked up his meat cleaver. “My answer stands.”

  Elizabeth tightened her grip on the jerky, and the paper crinkled. “May I ask why you’re so averse to my proposition?”

  He grasped his cleaver, brought it down hard, twice, and laid aside the two cuts of meat. “Maybe ‘no thank you’ means somethin’ different back east, ma’am.” Another clean cut, but this time with the crunch of bone. “But out here when someone says it, it’s considered rude to keep pushin’. ”

  “I don’t mean to push, I just—”

  “Morning, Lolly. I just got the meat from the icehouse and left those two guns in the back.”

  Elizabeth startled at the voice behind her and turned, hearing the butcher’s deep grunt in response.

  Ranslett’s tone was all friendliness and welcome, but disapproval shaded his expression. And she noticed something else. His beard was gone. His jaw was smooth and clean-shaven; his hair looked freshly washed. A still-damp hank of hair curled at his temple and he’d traded the worn buckskin for a well-fitted shirt, vest, and dungarees.

  The change was astonishing, and the question was out of her mouth before she’d thought it through. “Going courting this morning, Ranslett?”

  He smiled and rubbed his jaw, his dimples even more pronounced without the beard. “Not that I know of, Miss Westbrook. But the day’s young yet.” He winked. “How ’bout I get back with you on that?” He glanced over her shoulder toward the butcher, his demeanor sobering. “Is there a problem here?” he whispered.

  “No. No problem. I was just asking Mr.—” What had Ranslett called him? “Mr. Lolly a question.” She shot a glance at the burly man, who seemed absorbed again in his work.

  “And I believe Mr. Lolliford”—Ran
slett gave the name added emphasis—“gave you his answer.”

  She hesitated, not caring for the tone of his correction. “So it would seem. By the way . . . you’re late.”

  “My apologies.” He dipped his head. “I had a letter to post for Monday’s stage.” He gestured toward the door. “Shall we?”

  She grabbed her pack and preceded him outside. The tan mare he’d had with him in the mountains was now hitched to a loaded wagon, and his beagle sat perched on the wagon seat. Josiah stood in the street, clutching the mule’s reins.

  She stopped short on the boardwalk. “Are we taking a trip?”

  Though she couldn’t see his face, she heard his chuckle.

  “I need to deliver some meat to a family outside of town. It shouldn’t take us long. Then we’ll see if we can find something worthy of that camera of yours. Something that will . . . impress.”

  She ignored the teasing in his tone. “Josiah has my equipment packed on the mule. Can we tie on to your wagon?”

  “Fine by me.”

  She noticed Josiah didn’t move but watched Ranslett instead. Not until Ranslett gave a nod did Josiah do as she had suggested.

  “Mind if I ride in the back there, Mr. Ranslett, sir?”

  Saying nothing, Ranslett unpinned the back hinge, lowered the railing, and made room enough for a person to sit.

  “Thank you, sir.” Josiah climbed in and situated himself.

  Ranslett started around to her side of the wagon, presumably to help her up, but Elizabeth placed her camera on the floor beneath the bench seat and climbed up on her own accord. He smiled up at her, offering her a curious look, and moved to check the harnesses.

  The beagle snuggled up, and Elizabeth held her hand outstretched for him to sniff it. He licked it, and she rubbed him behind the ears.

  “Remember, Ranslett, you promised me a day of hunting and I want the full experience. Exactly what you’d do during a normal day of scouting out an animal to cut down in the prime of its life.” She waited for his reaction and could tell he had one but hid it, because he purposefully wouldn’t look at her.

  “It’s called tracking, ma’am.” He leaned down to peer beneath the wagon. “And I told you before, I’ll do my best.”

  She pulled the pad and pencil from her pack and made note of his phrasing, then slipped it back inside again. She’d already noticed what was beneath a blanket in the back. “Is the rack spoken for?”

  He put his foot on the wheel to climb up. “Beau, to the back!” The beagle vaulted over the seat and climbed to where Josiah was seated. The dog began licking Josiah, which didn’t seem to bother Josiah at all.

  Ranslett climbed up beside her and sat down. The bench seat shrank by two thirds. Holding her camera, Elizabeth tried to scoot over so that they weren’t touching so much, but her right hip met with the edge of the box seat. It wasn’t as if she were some prim young schoolgirl who had never rubbed thighs with a man when riding in a carriage, but this seemed different. This seemed so much . . . closer.

  She looked at where their bodies met, then lifted her gaze to find him smiling.

  “There a problem, ma’am?”

  She lifted a shoulder as nonchalantly as possible. “No, everything is fine. And you?”

  “I couldn’t be better.”

  “I am, however, still awaiting an answer to my question. . . . Is the rack spoken for?”

  “Yes, ma’am, it is.” He gave the reins a snap and the mare responded.

  She gripped the bench seat. She didn’t know how she would manage to ship something like that back to Washington but knew it could be done. And she also knew Goldberg would prize the gift. He’d be the envy of the other board members, and her thoughtfulness wouldn’t hurt her chances at the job either. “What if I were to say that I’d like to buy it from you?”

  “Then I’d have to tell you that I’m sorry, that it’s already spoken for, again.”

  She weighed his answer. Her funds were by no means unlimited but the accommodations and food here were far less expensive than what she’d budgeted for, so she had some leverage room. “What if I offered you more than your current buyer?”

  “I’m pretty sure you can’t match his offer, Miss Westbrook.”

  “Try me.”

  He maneuvered a path around a freight wagon whose owner was unloading supplies at Ben Mullins’s store, then pulled back on the reins and waved another wagon through the intersection. “I appreciate your interest, but . . . no thank you.”

  Elizabeth realized then that he’d been behind her in the butchery for longer than she’d thought. She sighed and stared off to her right. He probably thought himself comical at repeating what Lolliford had said to her. He snapped the reins again, urging the mare forward, and they rode in silence.

  They were nearly out of town when she heard her name being called. She turned on the seat. Ranslett must have heard it too because he slowed the wagon.

  Sheriff McPherson waved to them from the boardwalk and held up a hand, indicating for them to wait. He shook the hand of the man he was speaking with, then strode toward them. “I’m glad I spotted you, Miss Westbrook. My sister reminded me this morning to set a time to bring you out to the homestead for that photograph. Once she gets something in her mind, it’s hard to budge it.”

  Elizabeth smiled at him. “I’m much the same way, so I understand.”

  McPherson’s focus drifted. “Ranslett . . .” He nodded once. “How’ve you been?”

  Ranslett shifted on the narrow bench beside her. “Fine, Sheriff. Keeping busy.”

  Sheriff McPherson acted as if he might say something else, but he didn’t. A moment passed.

  Elizabeth would’ve had to have been completely unobservant to miss the tension traveling between the two men. And she was fairly certain Ranslett hadn’t been gripping the reins so tightly a moment ago.

  “Rachel’s eager to learn more about what brought you out here, Miss Westbrook, and about Washington. She asked for you to bring whatever pictures you may have of back east.”

  “I’ll happily do that. I only hope my stories won’t disappoint her. Washington isn’t as exciting as people often imagine.”

  “Don’t forget where you are, ma’am. Timber Ridge is a beautiful place, but it hardly matches the happenings in a big city. Rachel always dreamed of visiting places like Washington when we were growing up.”

  “And where did you grow up?”

  “Little town south of Nashville, ma’am, called Franklin.” Sheriff McPherson shot Ranslett a quick look. “You’ve probably not heard of it . . .” A shadow crept over his face. “Unless you knew somebody who fought there in the war.”

  It took a moment for the name of the town to register. And when it did, Elizabeth swallowed. “Yes . . . I—” She took a quick breath, wondering if she sounded as breathless as she felt. “I remember . . . reading about that particular battle.” And hearing numerous officers recount what a great victory it had been for the North, and for her father in particular. He had been scheduled to be on the battlefield that day but was called back to Washington. His longtime military friend and colleague, and her “Uncle” Henry, took his place. And before the battle had even begun, Colonel Henry Jackson had been killed by a sharpshooter. After telling her the news, her father had never spoken of it again, but she knew he carried the burden of that day inside him. Just as she did the guilty gratitude that he hadn’t been there.

  Mindful of the heritage of the two men present, she suddenly grew conscious of her own heritage and stance in the war. “Sheriff, please tell your sister”—she pushed away thoughts resurfacing about the war and the number of soldiers killed in that battle—“that I look forward to seeing her again. I’m free to come out late tomorrow afternoon if that’s convenient for her.”

  “Actually, tomorrow might not be the best day. How about . . . next Saturday? A week from today?”

  As they settled the details, Elizabeth stole a glance beside her. Ranslett hadn’t even attem
pted to join the conversation.

  “Ranslett, you’re welcome to join us too.” The sheriff was studying the ground, but his invitation seemed sincere. “Might be good for you and—”

  “I can’t. But thanks.”

  Elizabeth sensed McPherson wanting to press the issue, and waited for him to do so. But he didn’t. He simply gave a slow nod, tipped his hat to her, and walked on. As Ranslett drove the wagon from town, she thought again of what Lolly had said to her about not pushing a person. Especially when they turned the corner and Ranslett stole a backward glance in the direction the sheriff had walked.

  10

  They’d traveled nearly a mile before Elizabeth dared test the silence. Josiah hummed a tune from the back, one she remembered hearing at a rally she’d attended where the speaker had been a former slave. Somehow Josiah managed to weave the melody into the slow plod of hooves and the squeak of wagon wheels.

  She moved her head slowly to the left, a fraction at a time, as though she were watching the rise and fall of the passing mountain peaks instead of sneaking a look at Ranslett beside her.

  He seemed lost in another world, one in which she was not a part. He was an impressive-looking man, in a rugged, unconventional way, and vastly different from the polished, well-bred Southern boys she’d known who had attended Georgetown University before the war. His jaw was more square than her memory had assigned and his hair thicker, with a curl to it. His eyes turned down at the corners, giving him an almost boyish appearance, and a melancholy one. But the boyish look ended abruptly at his muscular neck and shoulders—at that point, powerful was the overwhelming descriptor she would choose to assign him. He and Josiah were very similar in that regard.

  “Beautiful country, isn’t it?” He looked her way.

  She quickly focused on the mountains beyond him. “Yes, it is.”

  “You’ve never been out west before.” It wasn’t a question.