Laurie Kingery - The Outlaw's Lady

“I’m done now. You are free to move,” she said, coming back out from under her cover. She watched the Dupree girls stroll away, their bustles swaying as they each took one last, longing look over their shoulders. Apparently they had lost their nerve and weren’t bold enough to stay and hold Taylor to his promise of an introduction.

Tess wondered if the stranger was still standing where he had been, but she was much too busy now to look at him again. Carefully, she removed the glass photography plate from the camera and strode over to where her wagon stood parked in the shelter of three shady live oaks. Her darkroom while at a job consisted of a larger, dark canvas tent stretched over the square, shallow bed of the wagon, in which sat the developing bath. She had only ten minutes to develop the picture or the collodion in the plate would no longer be wet, and her efforts would have been in vain.

Tess wished Francisco, her assistant in the shop, could have come to the barbecue today to take care of the preparation of the collodion plates and the developing while she took the pictures so she could be done sooner. But he had told her he had to help his father today. She straightened her shoulders, reminding herself that Uncle James had often worked alone to photograph the aftermath of battles during the war. Whatever he had done in the hardship of the battlefield, she could certainly do at a barbecue.

“Tess, can you come out for a minute? There’s someone here who’d like to meet you,” Sam Taylor said, just after she had gone into the developing tent.

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I can’t right now, Uncle Samuel,” Tess said, staying under the tent and using her metal dippers to lower the undeveloped picture into the dipping bath. “If I don’t bathe this photograph right now, then hang it up to dry, the picture will be ruined. I’ll have to be in here for a few minutes, I’m afraid. Why don’t I find you when I’m done, before I start posing another photograph?”

Idly, she wondered who it was her godfather wanted her to meet. She feared her mother had infected him with her anxiety about the possibility of her daughter’s spinster-hood. Tess hoped he was not trying his hand at matchmaking.

She heard a rich chuckle outside the tent. “Well, if the picture needs a bath, it needs a bath,” an unfamiliar voice drawled. The voice was deep and accented in such a way to suggest that while Spanish was the speaker’s first language, he was equally fluent in English. For a moment, she was curious about the possessor of such a voice. Then, when she heard nothing more, she assumed the men had taken her at her word and moved off. She had work to do, Tess reminded herself, and in the shadows of the dark canvas tent, she concentrated on producing the best image she could.

Minutes later, the photograph laid out on cloth and pinned into place so it could dry next to the others she had taken, Tess backed out of the tent. Before she left the party, she would have to brush a coat of varnish over the images to fix and protect them from the dust and moisture, but that could wait until all the images were dry.

“Ah, there she is, our lady daguerreotypist,” Sam announced as she emerged.

Tess blinked, her eyes momentarily blinded by the brilliant sunlight after the semi-darkness of the tent. As her eyes adjusted to the afternoon light, her jaw fell open.

“Oh—it’s you!” she said, before she could think.

He watched with great interest as Tess Hennessy’s lovely oval face went pale, then flamed as she realized what she had said.

“I—I mean, I didn’t think y’all were going to wait right here!” One hand self-consciously flew to smooth her hair, which was coming down after brushing the overhead canvas too many times. Her gaze fled to Samuel Taylor, standing next to him.

Taylor stepped forward. “Tess, I’d like to introduce you to an old friend of mine, Sandoval Parrish. That is to say, he’s not old, but our friendship is. Sandoval, Miss Teresa Hennessy, youngest child of Patrick Hennessy, my good friend who owns the land next to ours. I’m her godfather.”

Parrish saw Tess blink as she heard his name. Sandoval, she would be thinking, a Spanish name, yet his last name sounds Anglo.

“I am pleased to meet you, Miss Hennessy,” he said, and remembering that Anglo women thought hand kissing too forward, offered his hand instead. “My given name is from my Mexican mother. My surname, as well as my height, is from my father, who was an Anglo.”

She colored again as if embarrassed that he had guessed her thoughts. “I see, Mr. Parrish. But you haven’t taken your mother’s name, too, as I understand most Mexicans do?”

He smiled, pleased that she knew of the custom. “Yes, my full name is Sandoval Parrish y Morelos, but it’s much too big a mouthful, at least on this side of the border.”

“And on which side of the border do you live, Mr. Parrish?” she asked.

Parrish cleared his throat. “I have ranch property on both sides of the river, Miss Hennessy, inherited from each side of the family.”

He watched her eyes narrow at his noncommittal answer. She probably thought he was one of the many Tejanos, Texans of Mexican heritage, whose larger allegiance lay with Mexico. When it came to the test, Anglo Texans didn’t trust them.

Ah well, it was a pity she seemed to feel that way, but maybe it was better. He hadn’t known he would find the lady photographer so interesting, but if she didn’t share the feeling, he could carry out his plan without distraction.

His suspicion was confirmed when she took a step back and said, “It was very nice to meet you, Mr. Parrish, but perhaps I’d better get back to my job. There were several other guests who wanted their photographs taken before I leave today.”

Now Taylor took a quick step forward. “Now, Tess, I didn’t mean for this barbecue to be all work and no play for you! The party ain’t half over, so there’s plenty of time for you to get to know Sandoval a little better. Why not let him get you some lemonade and y’all go sit down in the shade and get acquainted?”

“I…I really should do what you hired me to do before I stop to enjoy myself, Uncle Samuel,” Tess protested, “or I can’t take the fee we agreed upon.” She pulled a folded sheet of paper from the pocket of her skirt and brandished it at her uncle, almost as if it were a weapon. “There are still several names on my list….”

“Actually, I was interested in having a photograph taken myself, Miss Hennessy,” Sandoval said suddenly, “if you think you would have time today. If not, I could perhaps make time to come to the shop Sam tells me you have in town,” he offered. “It would be a present to my mother, whose birthday is coming soon.”

She hesitated.

“Who’s next on that list?” Sam demanded, grabbing the paper away from her with the boldness only an old family friend could get away with. “Ah, Sissy Dawson. Why, she’s much too busy flirtin’ with Fred Yancy’s youngest pup to be bothered sittin’ still right now,” he said, jerking his head in the aforementioned Sissy’s direction. Just as he had said, Sissy was giggling and fluttering her eyelashes at a young man who looked utterly captivated by her antics. “Why don’t you take Sandoval’s picture right now?”

Her eyes darted to Sandoval, then back to her godfather. There was no way she could politely refuse. “I…I suppose I could do that,” she said at last. “Very well, Mr. Parrish, please make yourself comfortable on that chair and I’ll just prepare another collodion plate…”

“Tess, Lula Marie’s motionin’ for me to come over and meet somebody,” Taylor said, “so I’ll just leave you two together. Make Sandoval look handsome, mind—his mama thinks he is, and nothing I could tell her will convince her otherwise,” he added with a chuckle, giving them a last wave as he strode away.