Chapter Twenty
Twenty
Izzy didn’t have it yet.
She’d been trying for hours, and she still didn’t have the shot. Setting down her tripod, she knelt to tie her hiking boot. The last thing she needed was to trip and break an ankle, which would make it nearly impossible to work.
She stood and zipped her jacket, surveying the canyon as the wind whipped against her cheeks.
Daylight was fading, and the temperature was dropping fast. Five hours out here, and she was no closer to accomplishing her goal than she had been when she’d decided to spend one of her precious days off scouring the area for the perfect shot that would impress Zach Olmstead.
She’d been out here a few weeks ago with a different camera, mainly playing around with contrasts.
But this time was different because she had a specific mission.
She was determined to come away with at least one damn photograph that she could add to her portfolio.
So far, she had shots of the canyon floor, along with dozens of La Ventana, the rock window that was one of the most famous landmarks in the area.
But every tourist who hiked through here posted the same picture on social media, and she wanted something original.
Izzy pulled the water bottle from her pack and took a long swig.
Despite the cold, she’d worked up a sweat hiking from the rim of the canyon all the way down to Gold Springs Creek and back up again, and she was losing fluids.
She remembered her boyfriend’s worried look this morning when she’d told him where she was going.
Hydrate, he’d said. And watch out for mountain lions.
Izzy took another sip and tucked the bottle into her backpack. She debated getting out her headlamp, but she still had a few minutes of light left, and anyway, she was almost there. She swung the tripod onto her shoulder and continued up the trail.
It didn’t used to be this hard.
Or maybe it did, but she hadn’t minded because back then everything was shiny and new.
Things seemed different ever since she’d moved back home.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt that giddy excitement of capturing the perfect shot.
Years ago, she had felt it a lot. But that was before she had taken her most special hobby, the one thing she’d ever really been good at, and tried to turn it into a paycheck.
Izzy had once been convinced that she had what it took to make it as a professional photographer.
But that was after she’d managed to escape Madrone and the world still felt brimming with possibilities.
That was before fate reached out and yanked her back here.
She trudged up the path, straining to see as the dusky purple shadows started closing in on her.
It was time to get serious. She envisioned the trail in her mind and thought about potential night shots she could get along the ridge between here and the trailhead.
Because the Dark Sky Gallery owner was all about nighttime photography. What was it he’d told her?
We take our night sky seriously.
She adjusted her camera on its strap and checked the settings.
The camera was new—or new to her, at least—but that wasn’t the problem.
She’d been using Nikons ever since high school, when her yearbook teacher had put a D600 in her hands and assigned her to take pictures of the homecoming parade.
Soon, Izzy was shooting pep rallies and Friday night football games and school fundraisers.
Mr. Gaffney took her under his wing that fall and spent time with her in the darkroom, showing her how to use an analog camera and develop film to achieve different effects.
Not long after that, Izzy discovered nature photography, and that was when she truly got hooked.
Izzy picked her way up the rocky trail, which, ironically, was the same place she’d come to create the portfolio that she’d sent to NYU.
That portfolio had included sandstone bluffs and towering hoodoos and giant yuccas with sword-shaped leaves.
She had often wondered what it was about those pictures that convinced the admissions officers to give her the chance of a lifetime.
To a committee of urbanites, her arid landscapes and weird rock formations must have looked like something from another planet.
She still didn’t know why they’d picked her.
She hadn’t gone to a top-tier high school or taken art lessons her whole life or won loads of awards.
Izzy had spent her entire first year there feeling self-conscious about her roots, determined to hide the fact that she’d never been to a real concert and the only things to do in her hometown were parking lot parties and midnight trips to Stop-N-Go.
It wasn’t until year two, when everyone moved past the “where are you from?” phase, that Izzy started to let her guard down and ease into her program.
Even after that, though—and even to this day—she still sometimes felt like an imposter.
Izzy moved through the brush, taking care not to snag her clothes on the ocotillo and catclaw that jutted into her path. A noise made her freeze.
Holding her breath, she tried to listen.
She heard it again—the soft, tambourine-like hiss of a rattlesnake.
Adrenaline surged through her. She glanced around the trail, but the sound faded before she could place it.
It was almost dark, and she could barely see out here.
Which was the point, really. She had hoped to cap off her expedition with some dusk and nighttime shots.
But when she’d packed her gear for this, she’d been thinking about cold and dehydration, not nocturnal predators.
She had a tube of pepper spray, but she’d left it in her car at the trailhead.
Izzy swung the tripod off her shoulder. Striding up the path, she whisked it back and forth like a machete.
Not that it would help if a diamondback struck from the shadows.
But she at least felt like she was doing something.
Her thighs burned as she powered up the trail.
She reached the crest and was greeted by a gust of cold air.
Shivering, she looked ahead and spotted the wooden sign for Gold Springs Trailhead.
She turned to face the overlook. A juniper skeleton on a rocky ledge caught her eye. The tree’s black form was silhouetted against the purple sky.
Her pulse quickened. This was her shot.
She looked past the juniper to the valley below. She’d seen this view before, but only in the daylight when the highway was visible, and she hadn’t liked the way the man-made asphalt road intruded on the landscape. Everything looked different now with the moon rising over the mountains.
Screw rattlesnakes. She wanted this shot.
Izzy snapped open her tripod, attached her camera, and peered through the viewfinder.
A pair of headlights moved along the highway, and she waited for them to disappear around a bend.
“Come on, come on.”
When the headlights were gone, she got ready to take the shot. But something felt off.
Zoom with your feet.
The words of her yearbook teacher came back to her. Mark Gaffney had drilled into her the importance of not being lazy when it came to composition. She picked up her tripod and moved it closer, allowing the curvy branches to fill up the space.
It was back again—that bright, bubbly feeling of composing just the right shot. This was the photograph that was going to land her an exhibit with Zach Olmstead. She could feel it.
She adjusted the lens.
Perfect.
She stepped back to make sure. Another step, and her heel caught on something. She tripped backward, flinging her arms out to catch herself as she landed on her butt.
Fire shot up her arm.
She snatched her hand back, but the fire burned hotter.
“Omigod omigod omigod.”
It felt like she’d grabbed a fistful of razor blades. She unzipped her backpack and rummaged for her flashlight. Switching it on, she aimed it at the ground.
A devil’s head cactus. She’d planted her hand smack in the middle of the sharp white needles.
Izzy swept the flashlight over the area and saw something pale and smooth on the ground. She leaned closer.
“What…?”
Recognition dawned.
Izzy crab-walked backward as a scream tore from her throat. She scrambled to her feet and ran.