Missteps Perfecting the Shutterbug Strut Read online

  Missteps Perfecting the Shutterbug Strut

  J.L. Michael

  Published by Swanky Owl Press, 2022.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Missteps Perfecting the Shutterbug Strut

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2022 by J.L. Michael

  Printed in the United States of America

  Publisher: Swanky Owl Press

  ISBN: 979-8-9863901-3-0

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2022911184

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the author, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This novel is a work of historical fiction: a spirited jaunt through the late 1920s. Actual events, settings, timelines, and business establishments have been included to formulate an accurate and informative representation of the era for the reader’s enjoyment and experience. Any fictional characters are a product of the author’s overindulgent imagination and are not based on, or associated with, any real or unaffiliated individuals.

  That being said, all real-life personages—whether unsung or renowned—were selected due to their timely proximity or direct participation in the events portrayed. Great care has been taken to represent them in an appropriate and consistent light to their previously recorded qualities and contributions to society. It is the author’s hope such instances will inspire the reader to seek further literature on their respective legacies.

  To contact the author or attain unique insights into the historical settings and events presented herewithin, please go to:

  shutterbugstrut.com

  Prologue

  Montana: August 1916

  IT WAS THE SUMMER BEFORE everything would change—before her parents fell permanently estranged or any iniquitous hearsay that she would one day reign supreme among the fallen. The three siblings routinely mounted up to find a spot along the Missouri River to cast their fly rods and camp a few nights. She would often wander off to sketch birds and entwine daisies into the more unruly strands of her blonde hair. Each sunset, she’d pen a letter to post to some far-flung address across the world, and desperately await a response. It was what eleven-year-old girls did, at least if raised in Montana and unwilling to admit that their British father was not always away on business, just away.

  The siblings would reconvene after dusk to set up their bedding and cook the day’s catch over a firepit. Thomas would play the harmonica, William would tell ghost stories, and they would all sing stupid songs until sleep came.

  This camping outing would be their last for some time, perhaps longer. Her brothers would soon take sea passage to Europe to fight the Great War. Why they had volunteered still confused her. America had yet to declare, and it remained her simple belief that life was not so frivolous an affair to be so recklessly wagered. They were several years removed from her in age; better acquainted with their Anglo-French heritage, while she had been raised pure Montana bobcat.

  All she knew was that she’d miss them terribly, as she did their deceased sister, Emma.

  As they sat one final occasion gazing at the stars together, she did not feel like singing, talking, or reminiscing about more innocuous days. All that stirred her mind was the unpleasant reality that she would soon be sentenced to the sole care of her mother.

  She’d hate them if she could for that unfairness.

  And then it sounded.

  The bloodthirsty howl stung her ears and starched her back. While the region was home to wolves, grizzlies, and mountain lions, none made so menacing a call. Thomas sprang up and headed for the horses as they neighed, unsettled in their tethers. He calmed them before freeing all three rifles from their saddle scabbards. Another wail rippled across the valley, muzzling the lesser chirps of the bordering woodlands. They each chambered a round and searched the darkness, waiting.

  A fleeting glimpse of the beast spurred her to gasp. The creature’s eyes flashed a hellish red in the bold sturgeon moonlight and possessed malevolent intelligence.

  It was not of this world.

  Hands shaking, she struggled to keep high and steady her father’s battle-tested Mauser 98. “It sounds rather hungry.”

  “Looking for a meal, Alee. Not an appetizer like you,” Thomas teased to calm her.

  The tall grass rustled to their left, now much closer. As quickly as they aimed, it was gone.

  William cussed, which he was prone to do. “It’s a Canadian gray. I’ll take it down.”

  These wolves seldom raided from the north and were more fearless than the local variety. The trio retreated from their camp to form a triangulated defensive position around the horses.

  Alee’s stance lent her to face the firepit. Her heart thundered as she readied herself to pull the trigger, but when the beast raced near the flames, all she could do was gawk. It appeared to be some unfathomable hybrid between a wolf and hyena. Brawnier than either, it posed an elongated jaw, gnarly fur, and a powerful rump slung low to the ground.

  Her brothers opened fire as it scurried off.

  Thomas retrieved an Eveready flashlight from his saddlebag and took careful paces forward to better inspect the grasslands.

  Alee kept vigil over the firepit.

  The night had its way of playing games with shadows. She could swear she looked upon the silhouette of a tall man standing amidst the distant trees. He wore a cape and top hat.

  She retreated several steps.

  The menacing figure flashed red eyes and walked off in a stiff stride; the infernal beast following as if a pet.

  Alee took aim and fired.

  The entity bequeathed a subdued, taunting laugh, unfettered by her defiance. It vanished.

  Thomas ran to her side. “What did you see?”

  “I don’t know,” Alee spluttered, “but it’s something I care to never see again.” Short of a photograph, no one would believe her. Others took her for having a fanciful imagination, so no one ever did.

  William lowered his rifle and pointed down. “You’re bleeding.”

  Alee lifted her skirt, thinking she’d pissed herself, but it was blood. A disquieting notion set in over what it heralded. Henceforth, the rules would change.

  Any hope to live a simple life was nevermore to be.

  Chapter 1

  Territory of Papua: August 1926

  OCCASIONALLY, THE ONLY unpalatable difference between adventure and misadventure is eating exotic foods as opposed to being exotic food. The sweltering rainforest teemed with blaring pitfalls shrouded in silence. It was an unforgiving wilderness
, untrodden land, but to Alexandra Illyria Bathenbrook it served as a refuge from everyday life. From a crouched position, she studied the indigenous tribesmen through her field glasses as they tramped over a dried riverbed half a football pitch away. They had emerged from the greenery parroting the stealth of bashful apparitions: stocky men wearing feathered headgear and nothing more. Colorful dyes graffitied their dark skin, which rendered them evermore ferocious to her fascinated gaze.

  Sharpened bones pierced their nostrils and jutted from the tips of crude weapons, touting a most unappetizing demise.

  “They look like bloody cannibals! Why did I ever agree to this?”

  “Not cannibals, Bannister,” she said to reassure him. “According to the map, they’re the next valley over.”

  Owing to prior forays as an aspiring photographer, novice ornithologist, and fledgling explorer, Alexandra was well-rehearsed in stirring misadventure. At age seven, she had learned to swim in the Amazon jungle, and ever since, she’d fancied dipping her toes into unfamiliar waters. It was not a footpath for everyone.

  Patrol Officer Bannister, her hoodwinked guide, felt differently.

  Alexandra sighed fretfully. “They’ll shrink our silly heads, though, if we dare introduce ourselves.”

  Bannister gulped. “How do you know they’re headhunters?”

  Her field glasses locked onto the shriveled skulls dangling from their spears. “Just a hunch.”

  Bannister wilted in posture, becoming one with the rainforest. He presented a strapping figure in his khaki uniform and Akubra hat. His starched mustache accentuated a resolute jaw and daring blue eyes, but perilous fieldwork did not fill his resumé. The valley dimmed under the cloak of storm clouds. He feared the headhunters might spot a reflection off of the tripod-mounted camera once the sun broke free. The fingers of the young lady in his charge remained on the flashlamp bulb, and she seemed the sort who’d risk snapping the photo. He’d piss himself if he had anything in the tank.

  “Quite a peck of pickled peppers I’ve picked,” Alexandra jested.

  The five tribesmen were heading for the Ficus trees at which her Victorian Hasselblad field camera was aimed. She retrieved her pistol. It was a Colt 1908 vest pocket; her preference when traveling. It took up little space in her luggage, and while a meager sidearm, it was more dissuading than either teeth or fingernails. Her fevered mind calculated all the motion before her: the pace of the headhunters’ steps, the churn of the turbulent clouds, the half-light cast upon the riverbed. She made a final gambit that the synchronicity of all these elements would sway her way and reclaimed the bulb, intoxicated by the moment. A wave of re-emerging sunlight rolled forward.

  The tribesmen kept a steady gait.

  It was going to be razor close.

  She whispered, “Fortune favors the brave,” and squeezed.

  Despite beads of sweat tickling her nose and something slithering over a boot, Alexandra’s focus remained squarely on the headhunters. Everything had fallen into place for a pitch-perfect shot, and she believed it had been pulled off undetected. The lead tribesman turned away just as sunlight exposed her camera. The second followed, and then the third. You fourth bugger, don’t you dare look back she silently pleaded.

  The last of them evaporated into the dense foliage.

  She lowered the field glasses. “You can set down the camera.”

  Bannister did not hesitate. “Long way to come for a silly bird.”

  Her cattish grin was unwavering. “Not for me.”

  Two months had passed since Alexandra took sea passage for Singapore to rendezvous with her father as he toured Southeast Asia. Her junior year at college had concluded, and it was healthy for her to get away from her mother over the idle summer months. It was an era of irreverent behavior and momentous social change. Young women were lighting up cigarettes just to be rebellious, allowed to perspire while dancing, and no longer too timid to talk a bit saucy. Alexandra would vote for the first time this coming November, and as a dual citizen of England, she’d likely exercise the franchise there too, as women’s suffrage was on the brink of dropping to age twenty-one. She found the times invigorating, as long as one didn’t lose their head over it.

  While Archibald Bathenbrook had spent much of his adult life scouring the globe as a geologist for the British Colonial Office, Alexandra knew her father’s genuine passion lay beyond discovering riches to be plundered by the empire.

  The man found his greatest joys in birdwatching.

  Upon arrival in Papua, he had arranged with officials a trip up the Fly River to meet with prospectors and assess what natural resources might fill the vaguely charted interior of the island. These briefings were conducted over liberal amounts of gin and tonics, consumed for what was impishly deemed “medicinal reasons.” The quinine in tonic water was a remedy for malaria, which had afflicted Archibald since Ceylon. His eagerness to subject himself to such a taxing quest, however, held its appeal in spotting a Paradisaea raggiana—among the most colorful of the bird-of-paradise genus. Prior to departure, he was informed that further upriver were nesting grounds for a grander prize: the Paradisaea apoda. Rumor held these birds lived in only two remote regions of the world: the islands of Aru and the higher reaches of the Fly River. There, too, roamed the most feared of tribes—the cannibalistic Marind-Anim.

  The hotel proprietor had shared what little was known of their culture, for of the handful of whites who’d encountered them only a thumbnail had returned. This perilous tease had taken the last wind from Archibald’s sails. He had retired to bed, asking Alexandra to offer apologies to their guide come morning.

  To idle in Port Moresby for another week seemed an intolerable sentence. She had not sailed nine thousand miles to forego such an escapade and prepped to conduct it in her father’s absence. When Bannister arrived at the Moresby Hotel to collect them, she’d stood in the lobby kitted out in a chic dotted net shirt, khaki waistcoat, skirt, and shoestring leather boots. Her rebellious hair was temporarily subdued under a floppy straw hat that boasted a large brim ribbon. She had put on lipstick hoping that a youngish man might show and knew upon their greeting she’d have her way.

  And here she stood.

  Rain began pattering, eliciting riotous calls from the wildlife filling the leafy canopy. Alexandra lifted a pad from her satchel and ruffled through the drawings of birds she had likewise photographed with her handheld Eastman-Kodak Brownie 2 along the journey upriver.

  “Such risks and nary a hint of the bloody bird,” Bannister said, growing impressed as a duplication of the lead headhunter materialized onto a fresh page of her sketchpad.

  Alexandra offered an unapologetic confession without breaking the rhythm of her hand. “I photographed the ‘bloody bird’ from the raft while you were dozing.”

  Bannister decried, “Then why are we risking shrunk noggins?”

  “I felt further exploration was in order.” She looked up and issued a contrite smile. “Anyhoo, whenever will I have another opportunity to see naked headhunters? It’s unlikely back in Montana. I cannot fathom the discomfort of having their schlanges tied up to their waistlines so.”

  “Schlanges?” Bannister repeated, dumbfounded. “Why would you refer to them like that?”

  She held up her palms and shrugged. “Is that not what you call them around these parts?”

  Bannister fumbled for a respectable response but could find none. His mouth fell agape, having never witnessed a young woman sketch a man’s schlange tied up to his waistline.

  Alexandra completed her drawing, bagged her utensils, and darted to her feet. “In the harbor, another ship passed. Several sailors pointed down, howling, ‘Nimm a meinen schlange!’”

  “We might have driven the Germans off this island, but some of their coarse nature remains.” He slung his rifle and tossed the camera across a shoulder, but then paused. “Which way the river?”

  Having always been directionless, Alexandra never felt lost. She pointed east. A fetid
mist rose from the soundless floor bed once the rain subsided. She bit into an orange and began peeling its skin. “Have you seen much of the world, Bannister?”

  “I served on the HMAS Sydney. We transported poor buggers to Gallipoli and returned to Australia whatever remained of them.”

  Alexandra’s spirit soured on hearing that the Great War had wrapped its ugly tentacles even as far as Down Under. It had certainly sullied her life. “Bully for you in making it home.”

  He hastened his pace to walk beside her. “You beguile me, Miss Alexandra. I need to know more about you. What of your family? Your other talents? I beseech you!”

  “My family background is too absurd to be believed,” she conceded, forever uncomfortable when being beseeched. “As for other talents, I fare well at getting men to carry my belongings, unsolicited.”

  THE MASSIVE FLY RIVER stretched for a thousand kilometers, evolving in attraction and mystery the closer one delved toward its headwaters near the Dutch West Indies. Days prior, Alexandra and Bannister had journeyed up its lower course on the riverboat Vanapa, which conducted routine trips from Kiwai Island to a remote outpost called Everill Junction. Once docked at the wharf, supplies for those daring to live on the cusp of the known world were off-loaded, and the booty of prospectors secured for delivery to the coast. Presbyterian missionaries had established a settlement, and Alexandra had milled about its stilted thatch huts meeting the amicable villagers.

  While capturing a shot of a Paradisaea raggiana, she had spotted a sturdy raft, and a foolish impulse to go for the grand prize had usurped better judgment.

  Alexandra had not noticed the wooden handle on the back of the raft along their trek beyond the junction. She had enticed the captain of the Vanapa to tow them, rendering the trip swift and the handle’s purpose unforeseen. Yet now, in the return riding a slight current, sixty kilometers was proving a significant distance. Nature was calling.