Tucker’s Grove (28 page)

His family had been run ragged for the past couple of weeks: Dropping everything to pile in the car and drive from Wisconsin across country to the Black
Hills. A mile back in the deep woods they found the deserted cottage, which was surrounded on all sides by tall dark pines.

Content simply to be out of the car, baby Beth slept while Will, Nancy, and Chet made a quick exploration of the rooms. Nancy had c
hanged the baby
’
s diaper, propped Beth
’
s basket against the diaper bag, and left her to doze. Nancy found a brown grocery bag and dropped the disposable diaper in it, then set the bag outside the screen door. Will watched her do everything in an efficient
but rushed manner, anxious to get back to inspecting the cottage.

Chet made a quick trip to the bathroom before dashing outside to go “
exploring”
around the cottage. Will considered going with his son, but ultimately decided he didn
’
t have the energy to bo
und around the yard. Nancy automatically called “
Be careful,”
but Chet gave no indication that he heard.

One entire wing of Henry Franklin
’
s cottage had been co
n
verted into a photography studio. As he entered the sparsely fu
r
nished room, Will noticed the m
assive wooden beam that had crashed down from the rafters to lie in a hulk on the floor. An ancient camera stood poised and erect on its spindly tripod, sta
r
ing with its Cyclopean lens at the hardwood floor.

Will moved forward in grim fascination
—
Uncle He
nry had died here, trapped and immobile, all alone. The old man had stared at these barren walls, at the camera, for a week…
pinned by the beam, paralyzed. Had he even been able to blink his eyes? Will swallowed the thickness from his throat. The eight-inc
h
-thick oak beam had snapped cleanly for no apparent reason. Impossible. On the phone, the lawyer called it a “
freak accident.”

As it fell, the heavy beam had barely missed crushing the a
n
tique camera. Will forced himself to stop looking at the floor
—
there
didn
’
t seem to be any blood, thank God
—
and felt a strange attraction from the camera. It was in such beautiful co
n
dition. The lens pointed down, as if waiting to take a snapshot at the moment of Uncle Henry
’
s death. Beside the camera rested a black leather
case that contained two glass plates, each wrapped in black paper.

The old camera wouldn
’
t be too difficult to use, he supposed: complicated photography attachments had not been invented u
n
til after this one
’
s time. It looked so easy
—
focus the lens, place
the plate in the camera, open and close the shutter by hand. Pe
r
fect.

The darkroom entrance waited on the other end of the studio. Will flicked the red-light switch on the outside before he zig-zagged his way through the light baffle
—
three black wooden pa
rtitions staggered so that light couldn
’
t get through. Inside the shadowy room, red light flooded all the corners while washing out most of the detail. A narrow shelf ran above the developing tanks, cluttered with numerous jars of chemicals, all the mater
i
als needed for developing and fixing the photographs. Will realized that Uncle Henry would have needed to coat his own glass plates, too.

As he disturbed the jars on the shelf, Will noticed a sparkling glow in one of them, scintillating in the red light, b
ut it vanished quickly, and he convinced himself that the darkroom had been playing tricks on his eyes.

He found his way back out of the light baffle and blinked in the harsh light of the studio. Nancy was calling him from the kitchen to come eat a lunch s
he had pieced together from their leftover camping supplies and Uncle Henry
’
s canned soup. Beth still slept, but Chet had come in, messed up and flushed from running around outside. But his hands were clean
—
Nancy had seen to that.

“
Find anything interestin
g out there, Chet?”
Will pulled up a chair across from the boy and met him eye to eye, man to man.

Chet
’
s eyes sparkled. “
I found a secret hiding place! With two mummies inside
—
they were real ugly, but it was neat! And they were dressed up in funny clothes
. And I found some Bi
g
foot-tracks in the woods, and a giant spider in a tree!”

Nancy shot Will a sharp look, but he refused to meet his wife
’
s gaze. He knew what she was thinking, and they had had the “
discussion”
over and over again about Chet
’
s obsession
with monster movies and creepy-crawly things. Nancy insisted it was unhealthy for her son to have such morbid preoccupations, but Will reacted against the parental quashing of anything in which the boy showed an interest, as Will
’
s own parents had tried
t
o do to him. The argument still simmered, unsettled, but Will was too tired now to make a comment. Besides, their tempers were both short from the wearying drive, and they might end up saying too much. Will ate his soup with careful concentration.

Henry F
ranklin
’
s testament, recounting his photography business in Deadwood, South Dakota, 1948
–
1968:

“
My studio was an enormous success with the tourists, but everyone in town could see I wasn
’
t happy. Thank God nobody cared enough to find out why. All alone in
the shop, I had only the camera to keep me company; I made and developed the glass plates myself; other than the customers, who came and went, never to be seen again, I was alone.

“
Sarsaparilla Studios always got popular in the summer. I could prey on Bla
ck Hills visitors coming to see the old west, Boot Hill, the saloon where Wild Bill Hickok got shot, Mount Rushmore, or the mines left over from the Black Hills gold rush. The tourists look so unhindered by care or conscience, so d
e
fenseless. I can
’
t remem
ber the last time I enjoyed myself as they all seem to be doing.

“
My prices were high, but Sarsaparilla Studios was more than just a photography place. Look what you got for $29.95 and a little piece of your soul! With the special camera I could ca
p
ture th
eir portraits on old glass and print them in sepia tones so that the photographs look like antiques. The tourists thought it was great fun.

“
Physically, I haven
’
t aged since that day decades ago when I shot the half-paralyzed photographer. Thanks to my unw
itting bargain with the
thing
connected to the camera, I feel energetic, but my vitality does me no good. I have no friends (for my own protection and theirs), and I
’
ve become hardened. The pathetic victims never even knew when they had their souls assault
ed, part of their lives sucked away.

“
But I do have a conscience, no matter how many people call me a bitter old grouch. They
’
d be bitter too. My conscience just isn
’
t strong enough to fight the incubus.

“
The hardest part was severin
g all ties with my family. Ima
g
ine trying to convince them that I had grown grim and cold, that I was smugly successful and didn
’
t need them anymore. It
’
s ea
s
ier to keep away from people who think they hate you. Dear A
d
die, my sister, used to forgive just
about everything I did
—
but it
’
s hard to measure the amount of
relief
I felt when she finally broke all contact and refused to speak to me unless I changed back to my old self. But that was already impossible ten years ago. At least Addie stopped threatenin
g to come out and visit me. What if she had asked me to take her photograph with the camera? I don
’
t know if I could have stopped myself.

“
That sort of thing gives me nightmares.

“
I couldn
’
t help but feed the incubus. It uses the camera as a tool to suck t
he life energy from its victims, taking little sips from the soul, a bit here and a bit there, so that none of the customers knows. The incubus and I have a symbiotic relationship: I feed it by taking photographs with the camera, and it gives me health an
d
success in return. But I can see now that I was manipulated from the first moment I saw the camera. I thought I was using its powers to advance myself
—
it
’
s laughable to think that I didn
’
t even see the puppet strings on my own arms.

“
Meanwhile, my custome
rs came and went, a steady stream, paying a much higher price than any traveler
’
s cheque. And with each photograph I took, the incubus grew stronger and stronger. I couldn
’
t do anything to stop it.”

“
Chet, can you move a little closer to Mommy?”
Will crou
ched under the tent-like cloth behind the old camera, peering through the lens as the boy squirmed closer to Nancy. Baby Beth bawled her lungs out in the crook of her mother
’
s arm.

“
This is going to be great!”
Will kept fiddling until he felt satisfied wit
h the focus.

“
Hurry up, Daddy,”
Chet called from between teeth that were clenched into a forced grin. Will removed one of the black-covered glass plates and pulled it up under the dark folds of cloth. He had only the two plates Uncle Henry had left b
e
hind
—
no room for mistakes. He had checked the darkroom and found the chemicals he needed to develop his first shot. “
Family Portrait #1”
by Will Steiger.

Unfortunately, he couldn
’
t be included in the photo. This camera was from before the days of automatic dev
ices to trip the shutter. Offhand, Will wondered why he
’
d never seen a phot
o
graph of his Uncle Henry. Not a one.

In the dimness under the hood, Will peeled the black paper from the coated glass and slid the plate into the camera. “
Ready…
hold very, very sti
ll now
—”

Beth let out a loud yowl, as if to spite him. Will opened the shutter by hand, waited an instant, then closed it again.

Beth fell silent, as if someone had snipped her vocal cords.

Both Chet and Nancy winced simultaneously as if a cold claw had ho
oked into their stomachs, tearing something from them. Will fumbled with the plate under the dark cloth covering and didn
’
t see them.

“
Is that all, Will?”
Nancy sounded exhausted. She looked down at Beth and smiled. “
Look at the baby
—
she
’
s sleeping like a
rock! All that yelling must have pooped her out.”

Chet yawned and stretched with comic seriousness. “
I
’
m tired too, Mommy.”

Nancy stood from the bench, pulling Chet to his feet. “
Of course you are, honey. You
’
ve had a rough day.”

Will poked his head out of
the tent cloth. “
I think you could use a nap, kiddo.”
Chet didn
’
t object, which Will found odd, since the boy
always
hated taking a nap.

Nancy rubbed her eyes. “
I
’
m going to lie down, as long as the house
’
ll be quiet. Wake me up when the photo
’
s finished.
”