The Shadow Catcher

“We carried him in here,” Clara corrected, pointing toward the house. “To my room. He may still be sleeping.”

“—Edward? — sleeping in daylight?”

A spark of understanding arced between them: it was unlike the man they knew to squander time.

“Pain,” Clara explained.

She waited in the kitchen while Asahel went to see his brother but he was back within the minute. “No point in waking him,” he said. He took her hand. “You two will be all right—?”

She nodded, though she didn’t meet his eyes.

“The Indians—?” she asked.

“They took to their canoes with the others of their tribe as soon as they saw smoke. Everyone, it seems, is rowing to Seattle to give aid.”

He gripped her shoulders again and she felt with dread that he might kiss her but instead he held his breath then let her go.

“Do you want my rifle?”

“Why—?” And then, “Certainly not.”

He seemed to entertain the idea to embrace her one more time but then he left, mounting the horse with less bravado than his brother might have, she couldn’t help herself from thinking, then he rode away.

She returned to Edward.

“Who was here?” he asked her, waking.

“Asahel. Seattle is on fire.”

He struggled to sit up.

“Show me,” he said.

“Too soon,” Clara intervened.

“I need to walk.”

“I know you do. I know it, Edward,” she said, smoothing the sheets around his legs. “But not now. We’ll do it slowly.”

He stopped her hands from fussing and pressed them to his thigh.

“—pain?” she asked.

“—better when you press, like this—” He renewed the pressure on her hands.

“Roll over…” She pulled the sheet away and leaned the full weight of her body on her hands on his hip.

He sighed.

“That’s better, Scout.”

He turned and looked at her across his shoulder.

“—promise me we’ll try to walk tomorrow?”

She nodded.

“Those poor people.”

“—who?”

“—in Seattle. You should see the way some of them live. Cheek by jowl.”

“I thought it was a wealthy city. Newly minted money.”

“What city is only wealthy—?”

She was reminded, briefly, of the novels her mother had made her read written by Dickens and the Frenchman, Balzac.

“I would never want to die by fire,” Edward said.

“What makes you think anyone is dying in Seattle?”

“I just told you.” Then on second thought he added, “Maybe there is no good way to die.”

“Together.”

“—what?”

She was thinking of her parents. “With the one you love,” she said.

“I would rather die alone.”

“—why?”

He looked at her again.

“Do you want someone to watch you die?”

She helped him into the pyjama top—

(“Where did you find this—?”

“I went to your room.”) — and then she helped him urinate into the chamber pot from a sitting position on the edge of the bed, each physical transaction being almost technical between them until she said, “I saw your photographs,” and he grabbed her hand.

“I didn’t invite you.”

“You didn’t not invite me, Edward.”

“They are not for others’ eyes.”

“Well, too late. I saw them.”

She pressed him back against the pillows, straightening his spine, until he was at an angle with the least amount of pressure on his hip.

“Why are they blue?”

“I can’t afford to purchase silver.” On her look he said, “The prints you saw are called cyanotypes. Poor man’s proofs. A non-silver process. Using iron. And cyanide. Developed by the sun. From glass plate negatives,” he told her. She had no idea what he was talking about but he gripped her hand again. “Your father was an artist, you must tell me what you think.”

“I think they’re beautiful,” she said. “And brave.”

“So I’ll ask again: do you think there is a living to be made from this?”

“—a living?”

“Livelihood.”

“A life, perhaps, Edward. Certainly, a life.”

“Lives are what we have right now. I want something more.”

She almost answered So do I but the way he looked at her already sealed the pact between them of mutual, if still unspoken, ambition. How do you make the life you want? she wondered. Talent, her father used to say, is more abundant than you think. You have to have the temperament to tolerate hard work. You have to flirt with luck. You have to take the chances that most people wouldn’t take.

“I’m not certain that making a wage should be your foremost consideration in entertaining the prospect of a life in art,” she told him. “Traditionally, artists are not wealthy men. The people who commission them are.”

“Then how do I attract these wealthy people? The ones who will commission me?”

“Establish in a city, Edward. In Seattle. No one is going to find you here.”

“I don’t want to be another of those men you see, traveling house to house, ‘Your portrait, Miss, on tin for a few pennies…’I don’t want to spend my life immortalizing babies, brides and corpses.”

“—then what do you want?”

His gaze left her, went inward. “I don’t even know if the photographs I make are passable,” he fretted. “Within the range of the profession. Or even, for that matter, pleasing.”