Luke's Cut

by Sarah McCarty

“Do you do a lot of portraits, too? Of the living, that is?”

  “I would like to but people don’t trust a female photographer. I have started a new line taking pictures of hunter’s trophies.” She cut him a glance. “They don’t tend to move as much as people.”

  The laughter caught him by surprise.

  “I’m adding innovative to the list of adjectives I’ve mentally jotted by your name.”

  “Do I want to see this list?”

  “It’s not all so flattering.”

  “Then I’ll pass.”

  Folding his arms across his chest, he watched as she mixed her solutions. Gone was the shy disorganized woman. He loved the sight of her in her element. “You’ve changed a lot since you came here.”

  “I know.” She looked up. “I like the West.”

  “Most women find it intimidating.”

  “Oh, it is that. And big and scary, but it’s wide-open with possibilities in a way back home can’t be. You could fall flat on your face, of course. And something could squash you when you’re down there, but at the same time, you can be anything you want to be and for someone like me, that’s pretty exciting.”

  He felt the same way when he looked at the horizon. He’d just never heard someone put it so succinctly, before. Picking up her camera case and hitching it over his shoulder, he cupped her elbow in his hand. “You know what, Miss Kinder?”

  “What?”

  He steadied her over some loose rock. “We might just make a Texan of you yet.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE MORNING WAS going beautifully. The sun was hot on her back, the breeze refreshing on her face. The flowers were opening up and Josie was sure the images she was capturing were going to set a new standard. So much so, the photographic society would have to sit up and take notice regardless of the fact that she was a woman. She’d been waiting a long time for this opportunity. Being recognized by the society would guarantee her status. And that status would lead to her income and financial freedom. She’d been working a long time for her freedom.

  She sighed as she lined up the last shot, biting her lip as she squinted through the lens. If there was a fly in the ointment of her day, her feelings for Luke were it. The man was a confusing mix of gallantry, sexuality and compromise. The latter being the confusion in the mix. Gallantry wasn’t that vital. Sexuality was as common as fleas on the ground, but a man who saw the value in compromise with a woman? That was like finding a unicorn prancing across the meadow. She didn’t know what to do with it. What to do with him. Dammit. Why did Luke have to make things so complicated?

  Slipping the last of her tintypes into the exposure slot, she ducked back under the curtain, centering on the single pink wild rose in perfect bloom nestled between two jagged rocks. The way the shadow cut across the flower with subtle distortion was pure visual poetry. And if she could capture it, she would have a piece of art that would clear her path to recognition. Which was much more important to her future right now than the confusing nature of one Luke Bellen.

  The one thing she’d promised herself as a child was that she’d never be caught in the same traps that imprisoned her mother. She would never search for herself or for security within a union with a man. That was folly because once a woman took her vows, she used up the last of her options. But then again, without marriage, a woman fought for any options she had and the struggle to keep them was ongoing and difficult. Which explained, at least to her, the popularity of marriage.

  The shadow shifted with the changing light. Darn it. She pulled the hood off. Now she had to move the camera again. More focus and less daydreaming, that’s what was required here. She was too close to her goal to mess up this opportunity.

  Picking the camera up, she moved it to the left, checked again and then nudged it forward. The light was changing fast. As she worked, she could hear the men in the background talking in a quiet hum. Now and then a horse would nicker or wuffle. It was a peaceful rhythm to work to.

  A dull sound reverberated around the outskirts of her focus. Frowning, she blocked it from her awareness, mentally counting off the seconds to the proper exposure time. Then the first was followed by a second. A gunshot? She bit her lip, told herself it could just be a hunter and kept counting. This picture was going to be perfect. Just perfect.

  “Josie,” Luke called softly.

  As long as no one interrupted her before the exposure was finished. She ignored the summons. Low and urgent, it came again. Couldn’t Luke see she was ignoring him?

  “Goddammit, Josie.”

  Five seconds. That was all she needed. Five more seconds.

  There was no pretending the next explosion wasn’t a gunshot. No telling herself it wasn’t closer.

  “We’ve got to go.”

  All around them were miles and miles of open country. Where did he think they could “go”? Surely, one more second wasn’t going to matter.

  Footsteps pounded closer. Darn it!

  She had a second to close the lens, protecting the image before Luke grabbed her by the upper arm and yanked her out from under the hood.

  “My camera!”

  “Leave it!”

  No way in heck was she leaving her camera. Digging in her heels, Josie yanked her arm out of his grip. In a mad dash, she scooped up her camera. Hugging it against her chest, the tripod banging on her legs, she ran toward her wagon. Thank goodness she no longer worked with glass plates.

  “Forget the wagon.”

  “I am not leaving my wagon.” Every tintype she’d taken was on that wagon. Her developer was on that wagon. Her future was there.

  Luke caught her arm. His fingers bit deep into the muscle. “Goddammit, Josie.”

  She spun around, her hopes and dreams clutched in her arms. “I’m not leaving my camera. I’m not leaving my wagon. Not unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  And maybe not even then.

  “We’ve spotted riders, senorita.” Zach’s impatience was barely concealed from where he sat mounted, rifle across his saddle.

  “Where?” She looked around. Nothing was untoward here, if you discounted Zach and his men’s hard-eyed expressions and drawn rifles.

  The vaquero over at the ledge called something out in Spanish before heading back to his horse.

  Zach cursed. “Montoya vaqueros are under attack.”

  Oh crap. “Where?”

  “Is it the Doc?” Luke asked.

  “Si.”

  “I don’t understand—”

  Zach interrupted, “She will be safer here away from the fighting.”

  Her brain finally caught up. “Bella’s doctor? The one they’re waiting on? He’s under attack?”

  “Yes.”

  Josie plucked at Luke’s fingers. He didn’t even sway. “You’ve got to go.”

  “I can’t leave you here.”

  “What am I going to do in battle besides get in the way?” Switching the camera to her left side, she swept her free arm wide. “Who’s going to look for me up here? I’ll be fine, but Bella needs that doctor.”

  “You know she is right,” Zach agreed.

  Luke was torn, she could see it in his face. She was touched, but time was wasting. She opened the back door of the wagon. “Go.” Setting the camera down, she scrambled up onto the bed. Kneeling and holding the door, she promised. “I’ll lock myself in my wagon. I won’t make a sound. No one will even know I’m here.”

  “Fuck.”

  She blinked. No one had ever said that word in her presence. It was a measure of Luke’s stress that he had.

  “Who’s got a spare revolver?” Luke snapped.

  “What’s wrong with yours?”

  “Hair trigger.”

  Stefano rode forward and handed Luke a gun.

  “Thanks.” He handed the revolver to Josie. She took it gingerly.

  “Do you know how to fire that?”

  She nodded. He didn’t look convinced but also didn’t argue.

  “Luke…”
Zach said.

  “Go ahead. I’ll catch up.”

  The vaqueros rode out.

  “You’ve got six bullets,” Luke explained.

  Six didn’t seem like much.

  “The first two you’re going to use to signal for help if there’s trouble.” He held up a finger. “One shot. Count to three slowly and then fire again. Someone will come running.”

  Swinging up onto Chico, he paused. “If I don’t come back—”

  “You’ll come back.”

  “If I don’t come back in three hours, ditch the wagon, hop on Glory and give him his head. He’ll find his way back down to the Rancho Montoya.”

  “I can’t ride.”

  “Then you’ll have to learn fast. The wagon’s too visible and too slow.”

  More gunshots reverberated off the hills. Chico pranced. Luke’s jaw tensed.

  Urging the horse closer, he hooked a hand behind her neck and pulled her forward. They were of a height with him on the horse and her kneeling in the wagon. His eyes searched hers as she balanced there. “Promise me you’ll do as I say.”

  “I promise.”

  His kiss was hard, quick and possessive. Her lips tingled. “If you don’t, I’ll hunt you down.”

  “If you don’t come back,” she whispered against his lips, gripping his wrist, the conviction coming from someplace deep inside, “I’ll hunt you down.”

  He shook his head. “No, you won’t. You’ll get your ass to safety.”

  She wouldn’t promise that. He was too busy ensconcing her in the wagon to notice. The left door closed, then the right, and she was back in the familiar dark of her workspace.

  His “I mean it, Josie” came through the door.

  She placed her palm on the warm wood. “I know.”

  But she wasn’t going to promise.

  Chico galloped away. As his hoofbeats faded, she realized she was truly alone for the first time since coming out West. The vastness of the land surrounded her. The wagon was just a spec on its face. Gunshots reverberated. Birds tweeted. She could add her screams to the mix and no one would hear.

  She was, utterly and completely, alone. Panic started to build. She wanted to get on Glory right now but not to ride back to Rancho Montoya. She wanted to be where Luke was. To know what he faced. To stand with him. But that wasn’t an option.

  Still, she had to do something or she’d go crazy. The camera box whispered her name. She couldn’t lose that picture. And she was trapped here anyway…

  Cracking the window to let in the teeniest amount of light, she took out the latest tintype. Her hands shook in a mixture of excitement and dread. It was bittersweet to be developing the photograph of her lifetime during the most dangerous time of her life. But maybe that’s what life was all about. Balancing your risk against the possible reward.

  Developing the tintype was no less stressful than waiting on Luke. Wondering if he was all right. Wondering if he and the men were saving the doctor. They had to save him. Just as she had to save this picture. Assuming they didn’t die today, she still had a future to worry about. She couldn’t hide out in the West forever.

  Despite her shaking hands and strained nerves, the developing went smoothly. When the process was complete, and the image was dry, she opened the window. Sunlight streamed in.

  And she smiled.

  The flower bloomed on the plate in endless gradients of gray. The shadow cast by the sun highlighted hidden depths of the wild rose, the slight blurring of the captured breeze added to the complexity. Letting her breath out, she placed it very carefully beside the picture of her puppy, Rascal, caught in the midst of stalking a grasshopper. Just as carefully, she layered a cotton cloth over both and closed the lid of the box.

  Sitting down on the trunk, she took a breath. She’d done it. No one had ever taken the unpredictably of movement to create something more. Something new. This was art. Her art. And it was groundbreaking in a way that wouldn’t be ignored. Maybe others would even want to study her technique. There might be lectures and talks, a demand for work. Probably not forever, but it would be enough to give her a start. Clasping her hands in front of her, she tried to contain her excitement. She’d actually done it.

  Outside the wagon, the familiar jangle of a bridle brought her to her feet. Luke was back! Full of excitement, she threw open the door. She expected to see Luke and Zach standing there flanked by the vaqueros. Instead, she tripped out into the arms of a smelly bear of a man with long hair, a tangled, bushy beard and breath that smelled like a rotten garlic clove was stuck in his teeth.

  “Hola, señora. We were just about to knock.”

  “It’s senorita.” Pushing away from his chest, Josie wiggled out of his arms. She didn’t fool herself that she was successful because of any weakness on his part. She’d felt the muscle under her hands. He’d wanted her out of the wagon.

  “My apologies.” His tone made a mockery of the words.

  With feigned calm, she closed the door to the wagon behind her and turned back around to face them, dropping into the shyness that used to consume her life. Hiding in the illusion, she took stock of her situation. There were four men in all. She didn’t need to be told they were bandits. Their filthy attire spoke volumes. Men who had no respect for hygiene had no respect for anything else.

  “Thank you.” It was a stupid thing to say, but manners were all she had to work with right now. She spared a brief thought for the revolver sitting in a box in the wagon. Six bullets would be very welcome right now.

  “You are here alone, senorita?”

  Was there a right answer? She didn’t look up. “Yes.”

  “I find it strange that a beautiful woman such as yourself would be left unchaperoned.”

  “These are modern times,” she whispered. “I don’t require a man’s escort to go where I need.”

  He looked at her like she’d sprouted a second head. Clearly, her suffragette speech was better saved for back East where it was no more appreciated but at least politely tolerated.

  “Do you think me a fool, senorita?”

  She kept her head down, buying time with meekness. “I don’t know you well enough to think anything.”

  His eyes narrowed and that false friendliness disappeared from his tone. “I asked you a question.”

  He likely wasn’t going to believe the truth any more than a lie. She waved her hand to the hill. “I’m taking pictures of the flowers.”

  “You drove a wagon all the way up here to take pictures of the flowers?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think you are perhaps a little loco en la cabeza.”

  That did not sound flattering. “I don’t understand.”

  He made a circular motion by his temple.

  Would being crazy help or hurt? “I wouldn’t say so.”

  “The crazy never see themselves as such.”

  She whispered, “Now you’re just being insulting.”

  Looking over his shoulder, he said something in Spanish. The men laughed. “You are the one who takes pictures of flowers when you could just pick them.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “I would see your pictures.”

  She crossed her fingers behind her back. “I haven’t developed them yet.”

  “I think you are lying, senorita.”

  Oh no.

  “I think you came up here in your fancy wagon to this place where no one ever comes to meet your novio, eh?”

  “My what?”

  “The man you meet.”

  He thought she’d come up here to spark with a man? That meant he didn’t know about Luke and the others. That had to be an advantage. He was waiting on an answer. She shrugged.

  “Which of the Montoya men do you wait upon?”

  Wracking her brain, she tried to remember the name of one of the more obscure vaqueros. She came up blank.

  “You are ashamed, perhaps?”

  Shame she could work. One of his men chuckled, the sound making
her skin crawl.

  “It is a shameful thing for a woman to be out meeting a man without a chaperone.”

  She peeked out from under her lashes and whispered, “We’re going to be married.”

  At that, they laughed outright. She would laugh, too, if anybody told that tale to her, but she’d seen her mother go through the same self-delusion too many times. She knew how to make this believable. It was time for indignation.

  “You don’t know him like I do. He loves me!”

  “And yet he is not here, and we are.”

  “He will be, and when he arrives, you’ll be sorry.”

  “For what? A man cannot be blamed for speaking to a beautiful woman.”

  The wind shifted and his body odor surrounded her. She ducked her head again and itched her nose, pretending to sneeze. She didn’t know if bandits would be offended by someone vomiting on their boots, but she might be about to find out. Why hadn’t she paid more attention? Why had she been so sure she was safe? Texas wasn’t bucolic Massachusetts. It was wild and untamed and dangerous. She wouldn’t forget again—assuming she even got the chance.

  She didn’t like the way the men were looking at her, as if she was a prime slice of beef ready to grill.

  “I think you should come with us, senorita.”

  “My fiancé will be coming for me.”

  She was beginning to resent how just saying the word fiancé sent the men into guffaws. It wasn’t so inconceivable that someone would want to marry her.

  “I am afraid we must insist.”

  He took her by the arm, his grip only tightening at her resistance.

  Darn.

  “It would not be gallant of us to leave you here.”

  One man with a pointy face and an aura that made her think of vermin, sidled closer.

  “I would not mind relieving this one’s disappointment.”

  She would. It took everything she had to keep her head down. Her fingers clenched into a fist. The revolver was just five feet away behind the thin wood walls of the wagon. She had to get to it. She hadn’t saved her virginity to lose it this way. That was so unfair, she wouldn’t accept it.

  Renewed gunshots echoed out from below. One of the bandits strode over to the ledge and then came back. He said something in a rapid spate of Spanish.