Woman of Light (54)

When Luz opened her own eyes, she was in her white bedroom, lying across her bed, beside her altar with its dried marigolds, beneath her ceiling, so still in its blankness.

Was it possible? Yes, Luz decided, it was.

Her visions were changing, growing into something larger, something greater than pictures in the leaves.





TWENTY-FOUR




The Sharpshooter Simodecea Salazar-Smith

The Lost Territory, 1895–1905





Simodecea was in her spacious trailer when Pidre and the photographer knocked. She looked at her reflection in the hanging mirror, straightened her black braid woven with colorful ribbons, fiddled with her ruffled vestido, white and lavender lace all down her chest. She applied one last dab of rouge before reaching for her fringed gloves, the deerskin delicate and malleable against her hands. She considered her collection of guns before reaching for her Remington shotgun, hoisting the familiar weightiness of its Damascus double barrel, the engraving of her own name etched into the receiver. She stepped out of the trailer into the Animas sun.

The mustached photographer had traveled by railcar from that northern city, Denver, and he stood sweating beside Pidre outside the trailer with his accordion-like camera, a white backdrop, and a wooden chair centered in the landscape. Pidre offered Simodecea his hand, but she ignored the gesture and stepped down from her trailer in a wave of drapery, her skirt sweeping red soil. Simodecea lifted the fabric from the ground, shotgun and lace filling her palms.

“Here?” she asked, stepping beside the wooden chair, turning her chin until she felt the white backdrop bouncing sunlight over her face.

The photographer wiped his wet brow with a dirty kerchief from his breast pocket. He squinted. He wore a two-piece suit and he hunched over the camera to see Simodecea upside down in the glass plate. He twirled his jacket over himself and his camera, where he remained for a long moment. He then reemerged and twisted his mustache. He consulted with Pidre. “Standing or seated?”

Pidre made his fingers into a square. He peered between his own frame and shook his head. He wore a deep purple tunic and wide cotton trousers, and his clothes trembled with mountainous wind as he walked toward Simodecea. The air was fragrant with juniper and sandstone, the constant perfume of gunpowder.

Simodecea smiled. “What say you, boss?”

Pidre held his fingers to his mouth. His hair was violet black in the sunlight, longish to his shoulders. He took a seat on the chair, and Simodecea could see the lightness of his scalp. He then stood and pointed to the ground. “One leg on the chair,” he said. “They’ll see more of the dress that way.”

“And the gun. Hold it high,” the photographer said.

Pidre flashed her a tender smile and retreated from the camera’s eye.

Simodecea watched as the cloudless sky grew crowded with two hawks that soared toward the red theater. There was a meadow marked with wildflowers. The other performers’ trailers sat in various areas, some lower, some higher in the grassy land. Simodecea hoisted her shotgun and prepared herself to hold its substantial weight for the duration of the photograph. Images were important promotion, Pidre had explained. Keeps them telling stories about us.

“My goodness,” the photographer said, as he peered at the glass plate. “Wow. You make for a striking image. One, two, three.” He stepped aside and pressed the shutter. “Hold, hold, hold.”

He took three photos in that pose, and each time Simodecea imagined that her gaze spoke for her. What did she have to say? She laughed inside her mind. I’m a damned good shot, her eyes told the world.

As they finished, Simodecea breathed and dabbed her face with rice paper, absorbing the oil and sweat she was accumulating.

“Now,” the photographer said, checking his brass pocket watch. “Why don’t we get one with the two of you? After all, it’s Pidre’s Extravaganza.”

Pidre had stepped through the meadow and was turning a blade of grass between his index finger and thumb. He spun the blade and smiled. He held the grass to his mouth. He blew. There was a sound like a quacking duck. Simodecea laughed.

“I thought you’d never ask,” he hollered, knee-deep in purple flowers. He walked swiftly through the tall grass as if he were wading in the river. Pidre bowed slightly upon entering Simodecea’s space before the white backdrop and wooden chair. He smelled of the morning cook fire. He was several inches shorter than Simodecea, and she offered to sit in the wooden chair.

“No, I like you standing,” said Pidre. “It shows your stature.”

Simodecea smiled and caught herself wanting to once again check that the Remington wasn’t loaded. It wasn’t and she knew it, but it made her nervous to stand with a gun beside a man. Sometimes she wondered why her gift had given her so much when it had gutted her life just the same. Pidre reached up and rested his elbow against Simodecea’s shoulder, the pose of business associates.

The photographer retreated beneath the cloak of his jacket, checking his focus once more. Simodecea looked straight ahead. She could smell spearmint leaves on Pidre’s breath. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been this close to anyone, let alone someone who smelled so sweet, and this thought made her sad.

“Look this way, you two,” the photographer said. “Wonderful. Perfect. Hold, hold, hold.”