Margaret Brownley by A Vision of Lucy

won’t take a good photograph?”
    “I didn’t mean you,” she hastened to assure him. “I meant . . . your clothes.”
    He glanced down at himself. “What’s wrong with my clothes?”
    “They’re a bit . . . intimidating,” she said for want of another word. His rifle was intimidating.
    He stiffened. “I heard it on good authority that women like men in uniforms.”
    “To a certain extent,” she said carefully, not wanting to insult him. “The war has been over for quite some time. You don’t want to give the impression that you’re . . . stuck in the past.”
    He frowned. “So you think I should change my clothes?”
    “I think it would help.” A haircut and shave would help just as much.
    Timber Joe scratched his head. “The only other uniform I have is at the laundry and it looks just like this one. I don’t own any other clothes. My disability pension doesn’t allow for luxuries.”
    Lucy tapped her chin with her finger. Replacing a threadbare uniform with civilian clothes hardly seemed like a luxury. “You do know that having a wife can be rather . . . expensive,” she said gently.
    “That’s why I got me a job,” he said.
    “You have a job?”
    “The Wells Fargo bank hired me to stand guard during business hours just in case those stagecoach robbers get any fancy ideas.”
    “Oh, Timber Joe, I’m so happy for you.” Her mind raced. She was almost positive that her brother’s or father’s clothes would be too large.
    “Why don’t you come back another day? Say, Saturday?” The bank was closed on the weekend, which meant he wouldn’t have to miss work. Surely she would have solved the uniform problem by then.
    He frowned. “I won’t have any other clothes on Saturday, either. I don’t get paid till the first of June and that’s still a couple of weeks away.”
    She smiled and gave his arm a reassuring pat. “Leave everything to me.”
    “Very well,” he said with considerably less enthusiasm than he showed earlier. He stood. “You really think changing clothes will land me a bride?”
    She glanced at his ever-present rifle and sighed. “It’s a start.”

    Close to an hour later, she pulled on the reins of her horse and set the brake on her wagon. This was the exact spot where the stranger had come to her rescue. Recalling her hair-raising ride and terrifying encounter with the bandits, she glanced around in apprehension.
    The sun glinted off the Rocky Creek River. In the distance, river drivers fought to break up logger jams with long steel poles. The lumbermen were too far away to come to her aid should misfortune strike, but their presence offered a measure of comfort, however false.
    She climbed down from the wagon and followed a path through the woods, careful to watch where she was going. The ground was still waterlogged from the recent rains and made squishy sounds beneath her feet. The area was also prone to sinkholes due to eroding limestone, so she was alert for telltale fissures or cracks in the ground
    She followed the same path the stranger took. The trees grew so thick that little sun reached this area. Still, she could find no cabin or campsite. The only building anywhere in the area was the old mission. Would he have been able to make it there and back in the short time it took him to fetch salve for her wound? Possibly.
    Convinced he was close by, she found a relatively flat open space away from the road and set up her camera, then slid a dry plate into place.
    Taking some deep breaths, she tried to calm her fast-beating heart. “This better work,” she muttered.
    Confident that the lumbermen were out of hearing range, she cleared her throat, held her arms rigid by her side, and let out a bloodcurdling scream. She then ducked beneath the black cover and waited.
    She didn’t have to wait long.
    The stranger appeared in the clearing directly in front of the camera lens. Instantly she squeezed the black bulb. She didn’t dare allow for more than a few