Marianne Wiggins - The Shadow Catcher

But he did not come back. The buckboard bearing Hercules, Eva, Ellen and Asahel returned that afternoon, Asahel telling her from behind the reins even before dismounting, “I’m sorry, Clara, I could find no doctor who would leave Seattle, owing to the fire — how is Edward?”

“Edward’s gone.”

He could see that grief had had its way on her, her eyes were sunken, her face gray, as if she hadn’t slept, and he thought his brother dead until Clara asked him, “Did you see him on the road? He took the mule, the camera. Asahel, he’s hardly fit enough—”

“Hear that, mother? Your son is cured — we have rushed back for nothing…”

Yes, nothing, Clara thought you’ve rushed back to your home, your lives. To nothing. She avoided conversation with the women and stood with Hercules as he unhitched the horses.

“Did you see the fire, Clara?”

“Only in the sky.”

“—it was enormous . So bright you could see each building from across the water. Sparks like firecrackers falling in the harbor, then they’d fizz and pop and there would be this ghost , scary shape of steam shooting from the water like the spirit rising.”

“— spirit rising , Hercules?”

He gave her a canny look.

“They’re Baptists, Clara, and they talk that way. And the best part — you know who the heroes were that day? The horses.”

She followed him, leading both the dray mares to water in the corral beside the barn.

“The horses drove the water wagons right up to the burning houses and the fire men, the men who put out fires, they put gunneysacks over the horses’ heads and leather blinders on their eyes so they couldn’t see and then the horses went right up to where the flames were because they’re trained to be obedient…”

“You like horses,” she affirmed, smiling at him.

“I love them. Mr. Silva gave me a book about the role of horses in the history of the world—”

“—Mr. Silva?”

“—the farrier. And you probably don’t know this but it’s really horses that have saved the world. Especially America. Did you know there were no horses here until the Spanish brought them? They were looking for gold, the Spanish people were, so they brought horses on their ships. Can you imagine that?”

She smiled. “No. I barely can.”

“—horses on a ship, I mean a hundred of them. And the boat was only, well, from here to here . The only boat I’ve been on was that ferry that we took, but, still, I can’t imagine what it must have been like, way back then, to cross an ocean in a wooden boat with hundreds of these animals on deck…” He smoothed the silver hairs of the mare’s neck. “Are you feeling all right, Clara?”

“Better for the sight of you.”

“You don’t look your usual.”

She tilted her head and asked him, “What’s my usual?”

He shrugged and petted his favorite animal. “Like a horse,” he said.

“—I beg your pardon!”

“—you know. Noble. And intelligent.”

“I love you, Hercules.”

“Well you have to. You’re my sister.”

He would be just fine without her for a while, she sensed, for the time it would take her to secure a job and housing for them in Seattle — but, still, the pleasure of his company and the towline of her duty to him kept her wavering in her decision through the next few days. That, and the fact that in some recess of her mind she still believed that she had forged an understanding and a bond with Edward. He would come back and they would continue to grow closer, in both mind and body. Or so she hoped.

But he did not come back and his not-coming-back became more than a constant ache, a wound that wouldn’t heal: it became the truth she had to live with, the truth about the man. He would always go , she realized, like that idealized photographer he’d read about when he was ten or twelve in the Christian Weekly , the one who had gone out to map the West with nothing but a camera and a mule. Like Hercules with horses, Edward had found his first romantic love at a young age and nothing in his adult life was going to stand between himself and that first love — not his family — not a woman — not her — and she understood that, now, and, in fact, drew courage from it.

If he could go, then she could, too.

At the end of the week, she sought a private conversation with Asahel. “I’m going to Seattle,” she told him.

“Clara, the fire’s out—”

“I’m not going for the fire.”

“The city is in turmoil, wait a while and then we’ll go—”

“I’m going there to look for work. To live. To make a livelihood.”

His brown eyes swelled with color. “Have we not been good to you?”

“Can you drive me to the ferry in the morning?”

His lips parted but he couldn’t speak.

“Don’t do this,” he finally said. “What about Hercules?”

“I’ll come back and get him when I’m settled. Meanwhile you’ll look after him. He’s happy here.”

She told the lies she needed to tell to Ellen and to Eva and she said what truth she needed to say to Hercules. And as farewell he handed her a book. “ The History of the Horse ,” he told her. “You’ll learn from it.”

She put on the traveling suit she hadn’t worn for more than half a year, the one she’d worn on the train ride west, she closed the Icarus chest and packed a small valise and put on a hat and gloves. She had seventy seven dollars left of the eighty dollars Lodz had given to her and she gave five of them to Hercules, telling him, Don’t spend it all on clothes. She hugged her brother, climbed onto the buckboard next to Asahel, waved good-bye to the Curtis women and set her eyes on the road ahead. Asahel drove in silence, for which she was grateful.

“It’s not far,” he finally said.

“No,” she agreed.

“I could be there within hours. If you would ever need me to.”

She made no response.

On a stretch of open road, with the proximity of the harbor in the air, they saw a single figure in the distance, with a mule, approaching. The man, bearded, was limping slightly and leaning on a walking stick.

“Speed up,” Clara said.

Asahel held tightly on the reins.

“Speed up ,” Clara said again.

As they drew nearer to the figure in the road it was clear to both of them that the man they were approaching was Edward and that he, in turn, had recognized them.

Clara seized the whip from Asahel and beat the horses once, then twice, into a gallop, overtaking Edward in the road and speeding past him, before Asahel had the chance to grapple tack and team from her and bring them to a stop.

“—he’s my brother ,” he objected.

“Then get down ,” she told him, taking the reins from him and pushing him onto the ground. She was standing in the buckboard with both leathers in one hand, whipping with the other, when she heard the shout behind her—

“—Scout!”

She urged the horses forward, his voice ringing in her ears—

“—Scout!”

And then, unmistakably—

“— Clara! ”

She stopped. The road ahead, its vanishing point, beckoned to her like the dark back of time, like the unknown space a figure in a painting faces when it turns its back upon the present, turns its back upon the viewer, on their shared experience. Behind her, someone whom she knew she loved was calling out her name. Behind her, his blue eyes.

And so she turned.