Edwin Young was behind his front desk when Miss Abigail came into the hotel lobby, lightly stamping snow from her feet as she closed the door behind her.
"Here, let me help you with those things, Miss Abigail," he offered, coming across the lobby.
"Thank you, Edwin, but I've got them in hand."
"These're your wedding things, I suspect."
"They certainly are."
"Too bad the weather had to turn nasty right before your wedding."
"I really don't mind the snow," she said. "I had the thought this morning that it makes the entire mountain look as if it dressed up for David's and my wedding."
Miss Abigail sure has changed, Edwin thought, since David Melcher came to town. She was just as nice and common and friendly as could be. A person felt comfortable around her now. Edwin even dared to touch her chin lightly.
"You just keep that smile on your face, Miss Abigail, and—if you'll pardon my saying so—your photograph will be pretty as a picture."
They laughed and Edwin noted how Miss Abigail had lost her loftiness which used to make him think she considered herself a cut above the others in this town.
"I take it Damon Smith has arrived on the morning train as expected?"
"Oh, he sure did, Miss Abigail. Drug in enough gear to photograph the entire population of Colorado, the way it looked."
"I worried about the snow blocking the tracks. I was relieved to hear the whistle."
"Nope. He's here, all right, and if you'll follow me I'll be happy to show you to his room and help you carry these things."
"You don't need to do that, but thank you anyway. As long as I have everything in hand I'll just go up if you'll tell me what room he's in."
"He's in number eight. You sure I can't help you?"
But she was halfway up the stairs by that time.
The long, narrow upstairs hall dissected the building down the middle, with four rooms on either side.
Number eight was the last one on the left, where a long window lit the hall, sun glancing in off brilliant snow, giving life to the faded moss roses on the carpet.
Juggling the garments in one arm and holding the ivory dress folded over the other, she knocked on the door with its centered brass numeral eight. She had never been in a hotel room in her life and was rather discomfited at being here now. She intended to make sure the door remained open during the session.
Footsteps came across the floor on the other side of the door and she wondered what Damon Smith would be like. David had met him and thought highly of his work. The doorknob turned and the door was opened by Jesse DuFrayne.
She gaped at him as if she'd gone snowblind. She blinked exaggeratedly, but, no, it was Jesse all right, gesturing with a sweep of hand for her to enter.
"I must have the wrong room," she said, standing rooted to the spot, the eight on the open door seeming to wink at her.
"No, it's the right one," he said, unperturbed.
"But it's supposed to be Damon Smith's room."
"It is."
"Then where is he?"
"In my room, right there." He pointed to the closed door of number seven. "I persuaded him to trade rooms with me for a while."
"You persuaded him?"
"Yes, rather. A favor between fellow photographers, you might say."
"I don't believe you. What have you done to him?" She turned toward number seven, half expecting Jesse to try to stop her. But he leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, and said—oh so casually, "I paid him off. He won't be taking your photograph. I will."
Angry already, she flung at him, "You are just as pompous as always!"
He grinned charmingly. "Just paying my debts is all. I got that free dinner, but I still owe you one portrait, just like we wagered. I'll take it for you today."
"You will not!" And Abigail rapped soundly at the door of number seven. While she waited for an answer, behind her Jesse said, "I told him you and I are old friends, that you'd even saved my life once and by a lucky coincidence I'm here in town to do you a favor in return."
Just as she raised her knuckles to rap again, the door was opened by a blond, blinking man who was buttoning his vest and suppressing a yawn. It was apparent he'd been sleeping. He ran a hand through his tousled hair, grinned in a friendly manner, and glanced from one to the other. "What's up, Jesse? Is this Miss McKenzie?"
"Yes, this is Miss McKenzie!" snapped Miss McKenzie herself.
"Is something wrong?" he asked, surprised.
"Are you Damon Smith?"
"Yes… sorry, I should have intro—"
"And were you commissioned to take a wedding portrait of me?"
"Why, yes, but Jesse explained how he just happened to be in town at the right time to do it instead, and since the two of you are such close friends I have no objection to stepping aside. As long as he paid me for my trouble, there are no hard feelings. No need to apologize, Miss McKenzie."
"I am not knocking on your door to apologize, Mr. Smith. I am knocking to get my photograph taken as we agreed!"
Smith scowled. "Hey, Jesse, what the hell is this anyway?"
"A lovers' quarrel," Jesse answered easily, in a stage whisper. "If you'll just bow out, we'll get it settled.
See, she's marrying this guy on the rebound." Jesse continued lounging against the doorframe.
Smith grunted while Abbie, outraged, swung first to one man, then to the other, claiming to deaf ears,
"He's lying! I hired you to do my picture, not him. Now will you do it or not?"
"Listen, I didn't even set up my equipment, and besides, I don't want anything to do with whatever bones you two are picking. Just leave me out of it. Jesse already paid me twice what you would have, so why should I go through the trouble of setting up my gear? If you want your picture taken, let him do it. He's all set up for it anyway."
And before her astonished eyes, Damon Smith withdrew, mumbling about how in the hell he'd got into the middle of this in the first place, and slammed the door.
Immediately Abbie whirled on Jesse, incensed. "How dare you—" But he came away from that door, propelled her toward number eight, looking back over his shoulder down the hall with a conspiratorial grin.
"Shh," he teased. "If you want to pull your fishwife act, wait until the door is closed or the whole town will know about it."
She balked, outraged, jerking her elbow out of his grasp and taking root.
Rather than force her, he again made a gallant, sweeping gesture, saying politely, "Step into my parlor…"
Venomously, she added, "… said the spider to the fly!"
"Touché!" he saluted, smiling at her clever riposte. "But all I want to do is take your photograph, and you really don't have much choice in the matter now, do you?"
"I have the choice of having no photograph taken at all."
"Do you?" he asked, quirking one eyebrow.
"Haven't I?"
"Not if you want Melcher to remain blissfully ignorant of your midnight
tête-à-tête
last night with a caller who crept out of your house at three in the morning. Then, too, there's that clerk downstairs who knows perfectly well that you're up here at this very minute, having Damon take your photograph. Just how are you going to explain away your time spent with him if you can't produce a picture?"
She glared at the closed door of number seven and knew the spider had trapped her even before she entered his parlor. She could see that he did indeed have a hooded camera set up on a tripod, but it was little consolation. She thoroughly mistrusted him.
"Having created such a sensation the first time you entered this town," she reasoned, "you're certain not to have been missed this second time. The clerk knows you are up here too. One way or another David is bound to learn that you've been in town."
"But I have a perfectly legitimate business holding in this town, which he probably also knows I came to check on. So far nobody knows that you and I were together last night, or today for that matter, except Smith and he's been taken care of."
The man totally frustrated her. How could he change from the understanding warm person of last night to this conniving sneak?
"Ohhh! You and your railroad and your money! You think you can buy your way into or out of anything, don't you—that you can manipulate people's lives with the flash of your money."
"What good is my money if I don't use it to make me happy?" he asked innocently, once more indicating the open door.
She was licked and she knew it. She entered huffily while he began closing the door.
"Leave it open, if you please," she snapped, thinking, what can he do with the door wide open?
"Whatever you say," he agreed amiably, leaving the door as it happened to be, nearly closed, but unlatched. He advanced toward her, reaching politely for the things she held. She was now so leery of him that when he would have taken the garments, she refused to relinquish them.
Glancing at her hand clutching the ivory satin, he warned, "You'll wrinkle your wedding dress before you pose. What will David say?"
He took the garments and placed them on the bed, then came back to her. "Let me help you with your coat," he said, standing behind her while she unbuttoned it and let him remove it. "Nice coat," he noted as she shrugged it off. "Is it new?" She didn't have to see his face to recognize the knowing gleam in his eye.
The coat was obviously part of her trousseau: it was obvious whose money had paid for it.
He laid it on the bed along with the other things, then turned to face her. They said nothing for a moment, and Abbie began to feel uneasy. What was she supposed to do, change clothes now?
"Isn't this where you're supposed to ask me if I'd like to see your etchings?" she asked sarcastically.
He surprised her by exclaiming, "Good idea!" with a single dap of his hands. "They're right over here."
Impossible as it was to believe, he meant it, for he squatted down by three large black cases and began unbuckling the straps on one of them. She knew immediately that these must be his photographs he'd mentioned so often.
"I was being facetious," she said, more mellowly.
"I know. Come and have a look anyway. I've wanted you to see these for a long time and maybe once you do you'll feel better about posing for me."
"You said you don't do portraits."
"I don't," he said, glancing up, sitting on his haunches with his hands resting on his thighs, "just yours."
He opened the first case and began removing layers of velvet padding from around the many heavy glass photographic plates, then the plates themselves.
"Come on, Abbie, don't be so skeptical and stubborn. I'll show you what it takes to build a railroad."
She was curious to see what kind of photographs he took, but still hesitated uncertainly. She'd been disarmed by him many times before.
"C'mon." He reached a hand up as if to pull her down beside him where he sat now, encircled by glass squares. He looked very appealing and even a little proud as he waited for her to join him. She ignored the hand but picked her way to the clear spot on the floor beside him and knelt in a puff of skirts, her eyes moving immediately to the photographs. The first one she saw was not of a train but of a square-sailed windjammer.
"I think this vessel would have a little trouble negotiating the rails," she observed.
He laughed and picked up the photograph, dusted it with his sleeve, and smiled down at it. "She's the
Nantucket
, and she made it around the Cape, from Philadelphia to San Francisco in just one hundred twelve days in eighteen sixty-three. The
Nantucket
brought the first two engines."
"Railroad engines?" she asked, surprised and interested in spite of herself. He gave her a brief smile, but his interest was mainly for the photographs.
"Everything came by ship then and everything rounded the Horn—engines, rails, spikes, fishplates, frogs
—everything but wood for the ties and trestles."
Fishplates? Frogs? He sounded like he knew what he was talking about. Furthermore, while he talked, a delight shone from his eyes like none she'd ever seen there before. Next, he pointed to a picture of a locomotive riding aboard a lithe, graceful river schooner whose stern wheel churned the waters of the Sacramento levee.
"The railroads had to rely on the river steamers," he explained. "Did you know that the levee was built especially to transport supplies for the railroad, only to lose its own lifeblood to the railroads after doing so?"
He studied the picture, and she could not help being touched by the sadness that came into his eyes. He might have forgotten she was in the room, so absorbed was he. He reached to dust the picture with his fingers and she saw things about him she had never seen before.
Without taking his eyes from the picture, he reminisced, "I rode on a riverboat several times when I was a boy. New Orleans will never be the same without them." In his voice, in his touch of fingertips to glass plate, were both passion and compassion, and they moved Abbie deeply.
Next came pictures of trestles, their diamond girders snaking away into the hearts of mountains or the abysses of canyons.
"Sometimes the cinders set them on fire," he ruminated, frowning as if unable to forget a bad memory.
Next was a picture showing hundreds of antlike coolies pushing minute wooden barrows toward those endlessly stretching trestles, ballasting them by hand against the threat of fire. Jesse explained each photo, often smiling, sometimes frowning, but always, always with a concentrated emotion which struck Abbie deeper and deeper.
"That's Chen," he said of a wrinkled, sweating Chinese man.
She looked at the ugly, leathery looking face, then up at Jesse, who smiled down at some good memory.
"Was Chen's skin really yellow like I've heard?" she asked, mystified.
Jesse laughed softly and said, almost as if to himself, "No, more like the color of the earth he carried in his barrow, never complaining, always smiling." Again he dusted the picture with his sleeve. "I wonder where old Chen is now."
There were tunnels that stretched into black nothingness, their domed tops cavernous and foreboding.