Burning Ground

by D. A. Galloway

  Graham strode over to the site where Jackson had set up two tripods. His twenty-inch-by-twenty-four-inch camera was mounted on one. The second three-legged stand held a portable darkroom.

  “We will need to produce at least three negatives to get the right exposure. Watch carefully how I prepare the first one so you can assist me later. I’ll explain each step as it’s completed. Feel free to ask questions,” Jackson advised.

  “Yes, sir,” Graham replied. He was excited to see the professional photographer practice his art.

  “We start with a clean glass plate.”

  Jackson opened a slotted wooden storage box with a collection of glass plates. He gingerly removed a plate and carefully wiped it with a clean cloth.

  “The winds are light today. We should be able to prevent dirt particles from collecting on the wet plate. The first step is to pour collodion on the glass plate. I prepared the collodion solution last evening. It’s basically a mixture of raw cotton treated with nitric and sulfuric acids and dissolved in ether. It also contains small amounts of iodide and bromide.”

  Jackson carefully poured collodion from a bottle onto the center of the cleaned glass plate. He gradually tilted the plate in all directions and watched as the transparent, sticky substance coated the entire surface, funneling the excess fluid to one corner of the plate and into the bottle.

  “Come with me,” the photographer said.

  They moved over to the portable darkroom on the short tripod and ducked under the hood. As they knelt shoulder to shoulder in the dark, Jackson dipped the wet plate into a small pan containing a different solution.

  “This is silver nitrate. It binds with the iodide and bromide to form a silver halide coating, which is sensitive to light. That’s why we do this step in a dark area. Now we need to let it set.”

  After waiting three or four minutes, Jackson removed the plate from the silver nitrate bath and used a cloth to wipe the excess chemicals. He inserted the plate into a shallow, lightproof wood box that held it in position.

  “We’re ready to expose the plate to light and capture an image,” Jackson said as he stood with the holder and backed out of the portable darkroom.

  Graham followed him to the tripod, where the camera was mounted. Jackson snapped the wooden holder with the sensitized plate onto the back of the camera. Every part of the large camera was covered with a dark cloth tent except the lens.

  “The lens is already mounted on the camera and focused on the geyser,” Jackson informed his apprentice.

  He removed a slide from the wooden holder that covered the sensitized glass plate. The photographer looked up at the sky, then at the steaming Castle Geyser in the distance. He seemed to be making a calculation in his head. Jackson removed the lens cap. Graham could see his lips move as he silently counted twelve seconds before replacing the lens cap, followed by the slide.

  “Let’s go back to the darkroom,” Jackson said as he pulled the plate holder from the camera.

  “How do you know the length of time to expose the plate?” Graham asked.

  “Experience,” Jackson replied. “It depends on how much light enters through the lens, the amount of light reflected by the subject, and so forth. It’s partly cloudy today. If the sun would go behind a cloud in the middle of an exposure, it would significantly change the amount of light and therefore the exposure time. That’s why I often have to make multiple negatives because it’s difficult to get it right the first time. Let’s see how we did.”

  Graham noted Jackson’s use of “we” in his concluding statement. The photographer was certainly more affable than the self-important artist working a few hundred feet away.

  After both men were safely under the hood of the darkroom on their knees, Jackson opened the holder and removed the glass plate. Holding the plate over a tray, he poured a different chemical on the surface. Then he rinsed the glass plate with water to remove the excess developer.

  “This is a mixture of iron sulfate and acetic acid. We call this solution developer. All those tiny grains of silver halide exposed to light are converted into a metallic silver. There is one final step called fixing. We have to remove any unexposed silver halide by using a sodium thiosulfate solution.”

  Jackson placed the plate in a tray of fixing agent, then washed the plate a final time to remove the excess chemical. After exiting the darkroom, he held the plate against a dark cloth so the developed image could be viewed. Graham was impressed with what he saw. Jackson had a different opinion.

  “Too light,” he said critically. “See how the steam in the geyser reflected the sunlight and washed out the walls of the cone? We need to make another negative with less exposure time.”

  The entire process was repeated with six seconds of exposure. This time the photographer allowed Graham to perform some of the simple steps, such as removing the slide from the plate holder and washing off the developer and fixing agent. While the black-and-white image had much better contrast, Jackson insisted on producing a third negative. With an exposure time of eight seconds, he was finally satisfied.

  “This negative will produce a print that fairly represents the Castle Geyser. I regret we can’t wait here until it erupts and capture that event. Unfortunately, I’m told this happens only every ten or twelve hours.”

  Crater of Castle Geyser by William H. Jackson

  Jackson carefully placed the glass plates inside the specially designed wooden storage box with individual slots.

  Graham looked at his watch. It had taken two hours to set up the equipment and produce three negatives, only one of which met the photographer’s standards. The time traveler thought about his Kodak Instamatic camera in his backpack and the dramatic improvements in technology over the next century. Could William Henry Jackson envision a day when twenty-four color images could be captured on a flexible roll of cellulose acetate film from a palm-sized camera?

  “I’m going to disassemble everything so we can pack it on Hypo. Why don’t you ask the soldiers to bring our mules and horses before checking on Mr. Moran?”

  Graham walked over to the trees where the equines were tethered. The two soldiers were relaxing in the shade. He retrieved his backpack hanging from the saddle horn on his mule, then directed the soldiers to take the animals to Jackson. As the military escort walked toward the area where the equipment was being stacked, Graham stayed behind and removed the map of the geyser basin and the Kodak from his backpack. The brochure indicated the small blue spring in front of the Castle Geyser was named Crested Pool.

  The amateur photographer replaced the map in his backpack and snapped a photo of Castle Geyser as it belched and steamed in the distance. In the foreground, soldiers, horses, and pack mules were assembled with Jackson near the Crested Pool. Graham hoped to someday compare his color photograph with Jackson’s black-and-white photograph of the same landscape. He tucked the Kodak into his pack and ambled over to the artist.

  Thomas Moran looked up from his sketchbook as Graham approached.

  “How did you fellows do with the photography?” he inquired.

  “We produced three negatives. Mr. Jackson was pleased with the final one. We’re going to pack up now. How about you?”

  Moran picked up his sketchbook and showed Graham his partially colored but incomplete field sketch. The artist used the same technique for Castle Geyser as he used for his sketch of Grand Prismatic Spring; he had penciled reference notes directly on the sketch so he could complete the landscape scene later.

  Graham mentally compared Jackson’s black-and-white image of Castle Geyser with Moran’s interpretation of the same thermal feature. His sketch approximated reality, but Graham now understood the artist’s purpose was not to replicate it. He had taken liberties and created an ethereal scene that romanticized the landscape. Most notably, Moran’s sketch showed Castle Geyser spouting a narrow stream of hot water into the partly cloudy Wyoming sky. Yet the geyser had not erupted during the time it was being photographed and sketched.
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  The images and sketches created from the serendipitous partnership of Jackson and Moran would prove decisive in persuading legislators to set aside this wilderness area as the country’s first national park. Their collective works were truly complementary. While Thomas Moran’s magnificent paintings and illustrations brought the majestic features of Yellowstone to life in splendid colors, William Henry Jackson’s black-and-white photographs proved the artistic renditions existed.

  “Very striking!” Graham said admiringly.

  “Thank you. I will join the group as soon as I store my watercolors.”

  The time traveler strode over to the photography site and assisted Jackson with the arduous task of loading and securing the heavy boxes and supplies on the mule.

  “Actually, we have a very short walk,” Jackson said. “Those steam vapors you see over the treetops in the distance are coming from Old Faithful. That’s where we’re headed next. I suggest we walk the mules and horses.”

  When Jackson’s group arrived at the thermal feature named the previous year by the Washburn expedition, numerous other survey members were standing or sitting near the base of the quiet geyser. Albert Peale was diligently collecting water samples and taking temperatures. Henry Elliott was sitting on a log sketching the view. Several members of the Barlow group were admiring the landscape. A small cadre of cavalry soldiers was mounted on horses behind the civilians, content to enjoy the view and obey their captain’s orders to keep a safe distance from anything in the geyser basin.

  “I can’t take a good photograph. There are too many people!” Jackson complained.

  Many visitors would be saying similar words in a hundred years, often with a few expletives added as color commentary. Graham had seen the broad, semicircular boardwalk around the southern half of the popular geyser stacked six people deep with amateur photographers during the height of the summer tourist season. Scores of Nikons, Minoltas, Canons, and Kodaks pointed toward the erupting geyser as their respective owners elbowed and jostled for a prime view. Sadly, the clicking and whirring of the cameras diminished the quiet majesty of the geyser. Every hour or so, the same sightseeing ritual was repeated with another gaggle of tourists.

  Jackson removed his hat and scratched his head. After a few minutes, he said, “I’m going to head back to camp and spend the afternoon preparing more chemicals. We can return tomorrow to photograph Old Faithful. Everyone else will be headed for the lake, and it will be quiet here.”

  “The light is quite good for sketching. I will come back this afternoon and get started,” Moran declared.

  Graham recognized a fundamental difference between these two artistic media. Jackson’s photographic image captured everything in the frame as is. Moran’s watercolor field sketch depicted the cone geyser as he imagined it. It made no difference to the landscape artist whether there were horses, mules, and men crowded near the base of the geyser. He could choose to include them in his sketch—or not.

  “I’d like to stay a little while before returning to camp,” Graham suggested to Jackson. “Unless you need me to unpack Hypo in camp.”

  “No need. Thanks for your help today, Graham. Check with me in the morning. If Mr. Dixon’s health is improved, I won’t need you tomorrow. If he is still feeling poorly, I’d like you to assist.”

  “Yes, sir,” Graham replied sincerely. He was pleased Jackson considered him a competent assistant.

  Jackson, Moran, and the two soldiers mounted and headed back to camp near Grand Geyser. Graham located a shady area where he could view the geyser. He picketed his mule, removed his hat, and sat under a tree, pulling up his legs and resting his forearms on his knees.

  Shadows moved across the floor of the geyser basin as the sun briefly disappeared behind scattered, fair-weather cumulus clouds. As he stared at the steaming quiescent geyser, the time traveler noted how different this view was in 1871 compared with contemporary times. The Old Faithful Inn, the venerable, immense log structure erected in 1904, was conspicuous by its absence. There were no crowds, no buildings, no tour buses, and no parking lots.

  Graham recalled the park ranger’s presentation in the Yellowstone Lake Hotel about the earliest history of this region. Six hundred thousand years ago, the Yellowstone caldera was formed by a giant explosion of magma. Archaeologists found evidence of humans inhabiting the area eleven thousand years ago. For hundreds of thousands of years, the only witnesses to these periodic eruptions were wildlife that roamed the basin.

  Twenty minutes after sitting down, Graham was rewarded with an eruption. Boiling water gradually started spewing from the cone, rapidly growing into a vertical water column. Thirty seconds later, Old Faithful reached a maximum height of one hundred fifty feet. An outer wall of steam reflected the sunlight and drifted slowly from the center of the geyser in the light breeze. A few minutes later, the water column shortened and quickly dissipated. It was as if an unknown force had closed a valve and shut off the underground water supply. The entire eruption cycle had lasted less than three minutes.

  “Bide-mahpe,” a voice behind him said softly.

  Graham was startled. He jumped to his feet and spun around to see Makawee leaning against a tree.

  “Geez!” Graham exclaimed. “You scared me!”

  “I’m sorry,” Makawee said. “I didn’t want to interrupt your thoughts while the bide-mahpe was active.”

  “What did you say?” Graham asked as he tried to calm himself and hide his embarrassment. He wondered how she could have approached him without making any sound, especially since he had perfect hearing in both ears. If she were someone with ill intentions, more than his pride could have been hurt.

  “Bide-mahpe means sacred or powerful water,” Makawee explained. “It is what Crow call the geysers.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Our camp is there,” Makawee explained as she pointed to the base of Geyser Hill a short distance away downriver. “I saw men at the geyser and recognized you.”

  “Oh, I see.” Graham had not realized how close they were to the wickiup. His countenance brightened at the prospect of talking to Earth Maiden. He invited her to sit and was pleased she had approached him.

  Neither one spoke for a minute. Graham wanted desperately to continue their conversation from yesterday but was flustered by her unexpected appearance today at Old Faithful. He stole a furtive glance at the beautiful Crow woman and struggled for something meaningful to say. He was grateful when she broke the silence.

  “Rides Alone is a good man. He is a strong and brave warrior,” Makawee stated.

  Graham looked at her and nodded.

  “He has taken a vow as my stepbrother to protect me. It was a solemn oath he gave to his father, Long Horse.”

  Makawee paused as she searched for the right words.

  “Rides Alone respects only fellow warriors—those who have proved themselves when facing an enemy or a danger. These are the only men he trusts to speak with me or be alone with me. That’s why he was so angry yesterday when he came back from his hunting trip and found us together.”

  “Is there anything I can do to earn his respect?” Graham asked.

  “One thing you cannot change. You are baashchiile - a white man. Rides Alone believes the Crow cannot trust any white man because much of our homeland has been taken and our people have been pushed onto a reservation.”

  “I can understand why he would feel this way,” Graham said glumly. He knew from history Native American peoples from all tribes were treated poorly by the government and its agencies.

  “But if you proved yourself to be a warrior . . .” Makawee’s voice faded as she spoke.

  “Then I would be worthy?” Graham finished the statement.

  “Perhaps. Rides Alone would look at you more favorably.”

  That’s great, Graham thought. All I must do is defeat an enemy or exhibit bravery when confronted with danger. Both actions were open for interpretation. Who was the enemy? Was he supposed to hop
e for a perilous event to prove his courage? It didn’t seem likely a white man from Pennsylvania would ever be regarded as a warrior by a Crow Indian from Montana.

  “Thanks for explaining,” Graham said dolefully. Her words were dispiriting. He wanted to talk with Makawee and spend time with her as much as possible in the limited number of days they would be on the expedition. Clearly her stepbrother was a formidable gatekeeper.

  “So, we must be careful Rides Alone does not know about our conversations.”

  “Does this mean you would still like to talk?” Graham was heartened by her last comment.

  She looked into his eyes and briefly touched him on his forearm. “Yes.”

  Graham’s heart leaped. Her sincere response and gentle touch triggered a thrill that rippled through his body like an electrical pulse. He composed himself by taking a deep breath and slowly exhaling.

  “So do I,” the time traveler responded. “I promise to be discreet when we meet or talk.”

  “I do not know this word discreet.”

  “It means I will be careful. I will make sure Rides Alone does not see us talking.”

  Makawee nodded and quickly stood in front of Graham with her back facing the sun. The gray-white sinter of the burning ground created a striking background for her lithe, dark-brown figure.

  “I must go. We will see one another on the way to the lake tomorrow.” Her tone indicated these words were both a statement and a question.

  “Yes. I hope so,” Graham replied.

  As Makawee turned and walked toward her camp, Graham donned his cowboy hat to shield his eyes from the midday sun. He sat motionless for a long time and reflected on their conversation.

  Rides Alone was a staunch protector of his adopted sister. He had established an impossible requirement for someone to talk with Makawee; it was one Graham was unlikely to meet. On the other hand, Makawee recognized her stepbrother as an obstacle to their nascent relationship. They had tacitly agreed to arrange clandestine meetings where they could talk.