Читать книгу Wildlife Cameraman - Jim Kjelgaard - Страница 3

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Jase Mason untied the ropes that held his rolled-up wall tent on the battered jeep and laid the tent on the floor of his father’s garage. With his sleeping bag, gasoline stove, cooking utensils, extra clothing, and the seemingly numberless supplies he needed for a summer in the wilderness, he had a real packing problem. Jase turned to the big black and tan Airedale that sat on the front seat.

“Buckles, if you don’t wipe that grin off your face, I’ll clobber you!”

Not at all intimidated, Buckles yawned and wagged an amiable tail. Jase scratched the dog’s ears absently. The jeep was already loaded, and he still had to have room for his box of photographic equipment. If he discarded ... But he couldn’t discard anything; he’d already pared his outfit down to minimum essentials. He had a sudden inspiration.

“Ah!”

Taking everything out, he repacked boxes and bundles on top of each other, and when he was finished he had a corner big enough to hold another box. Instead of rolling the tent up, he’d carry it flat, lashing it over the whole load like a tarpaulin. In addition to giving him enough room, that would protect his load in the event of rain. Satisfied at last, Jase patted Buckles.

“Now why didn’t we think of that before? Come on, dog.”

Buckles beside him, he entered the house and went to his room. He looked thoughtfully at the wooden box that contained his daylight developing tanks, processing chemicals and equipment, and cartons of film and flash bulbs. His glance strayed from the box to his two leather-cased cameras.

The first was a 2¼ × 2¼ twin lens reflex, a fine camera for precise composition because, right up to the second of exposure, one could see the scene to be photographed exactly as it would appear on the negative. The second camera was a 35 mm. with a very fast lens that made it possible to take pictures under poor light conditions. In addition, the 35 mm., which Jase thought of as his smaller camera because it yielded a small negative, held 36 pictures as compared with the other’s 12, and it could be used with various lenses.

Jase picked up a long cardboard box, handling it as though it were made of egg shells. He sat down with the box across his lap, his eyes shining. Suddenly he was “Mason, famed wildlife photographer,” and the papers on the table beside him became a sheaf of letters from editors who pleaded for first look at the pictures he’d just brought back from India. His expedition had—

Jase’s descent from the clouds was rude. Buckles, who had been turning a quizzical head from side to side, padded over to his master and stuck his blunt, wet nose into the famous photographer’s face.

“Hey!” Jase squawked.

Buckles sat back, while his black eyes, peering through stiff, curly hair, glinted with mischief.

Then Jase grinned at the dog. He was not exactly “Mason, famed wildlife photographer.” Not yet, anyway. He was just Jase Mason, seventeen-year-old high school graduate who, by special dispensation, was to have this first summer after graduation to work toward his cherished goal of becoming a wildlife photographer.

Jase opened the box, lifted out a tissue-wrapped object, and stripped the paper off to reveal a 400 mm. telephoto lens. He held it up for Buckles’ inspection.

“How do you like it?” he asked.

Buckles was not impressed, but Jase was. Tenderly he turned the lens over and over again, particularly admiring the focusing and f-stop adjustments. He pronounced final judgment to Buckles.

“It’ll do. If we can see ’em now, we can get ’em on film.”

A faster 200 mm. lens, and perhaps just a little better one, would have been much more maneuverable. But those 200 mm. jobs ran into real money. As it was, the 400 mm. lens, even secondhand, had already cost Jase exactly one hundred of the two hundred and fifty dollars he’d been allotted for the whole summer.

Jase was more than satisfied with his secondhand lens. A photographer’s equipment was, of course, very important. But much more so was the way he used it. A thousand dollar camera would not take good pictures if the man behind it lacked imagination. Didn’t one of the greatest landscape photographers of all still capture his masterpieces on a battered box camera thirty years old? Hadn’t Alex Creedon, the outstanding wildlife photographer, earned his spurs by taking his magnificent series of grizzlies with a cheap little folding camera?

Jase’s eyes roamed the walls of his room, which was practically papered with Creedon photos cut from magazines.

There were deer, sheep, goats, all kinds of bears, antelope, lions, tigers, rabbits, alligators, ibex ... Most of the world’s wildlife was represented and every picture had that peculiar stamp of genius which was Creedon’s trademark. His pictures could be recognized even if they weren’t signed.

Jase treasured a story he’d read in some photography magazine. About to start on another expedition, Creedon had been offered a large retainer plus all expenses just to give a certain magazine first look at anything he brought back. He’d rejected the offer, commenting that the least of his pay he took in money. Most of it came back to him in the satisfaction of a job well done, and in the knowledge that he was presenting the world of nature as honestly as he could. He had said that if he took money in advance he worked under pressure, and if he worked under pressure he couldn’t do his best.

Jase appreciated this show of ethics, but much more he treasured Creedon’s statement that he himself had scarcely scratched the surface in wildlife photography. The field was wide open. Creedon himself could not name the quality that made one animal picture outstanding and another picture of the same animal just an image. He knew only that the quality had to be possessed by whoever would be successful in the field. The only way to find out whether one had it, Creedon maintained, was to take wildlife pictures, many of them.

Jase did not know whether or not he had the elusive quality. But before the summer ended, he was pretty sure he’d find out. His eyes sought the few Jase Mason pictures among the many Creedons on his walls.

There was the one of Buckles retrieving a stick from a pond; that had won ten dollars in a competition sponsored by the Garston Sentinel. Then there was a picture of the cheer leaders at Garston High; a white cat sunning itself on a black roof that had brought an encouraging letter from a picture editor; fish breaking water in Garston lagoon; a robin with a bit of string in its beak that had won another small prize ...

Jase grinned ruefully. There were so very few Masons among so very many Creedons and none really worthy of being there. Then he brightened again at the thought of his newly acquired telephoto lens.

He removed his 35 mm. camera from its leather case, took out the standard short-focus lens, and inserted the telephoto. Setting up his tripod, he arranged the telephoto-equipped camera on it.

“Come on, Buckles.”

The Airedale, who had served as a model on countless occasions and who knew what was coming now, flattened resigned ears. Jase led him to the far wall and posed him in a sitting position. Buckles looked sad.

“Can’t you try to be at least a little bit happy?” Jase pleaded. “Pictures should have spirit, and you look as though someone had just stolen your last bone!”

Returning to his camera, Jase peered into the ground glass and focused on Buckles. At this distance, the dog’s head alone filled the ground glass. Jase would have to be much farther away just to get all of the dog onto the film. Jase nodded, wholly pleased. The 400 mm. lens would bring distant subjects satisfyingly close. But he discovered too that he would have to focus very critically. A hair’s breadth off one way or the other, and the image blurred.

“Smile!” Jase said seriously.

Buckles, who had his own ideas about photography as either a career or hobby, yawned prodigiously. If there was any sense in this whole proceeding, it had never been evident to him. Experimenting, Jase deliberately blurred the dog’s image and brought it back into sharp focus. He spoke to Buckles again.

“Bend your head a little to the left. There’s too much shadow.”

Buckles sat perfectly still. Jase grinned.

“Your ear just a little bit forward! No! That’s too much! Ah! Perfect!”

“Hello, Son.”

Jase looked up hastily to discover that his father had come into the room. Now in his early fifties, Harry Mason had spent half his life building a small store into a big one. Secretly, he thought of it as Mason and Sons. So far it was only Mason and Son. His older boy, George, had been happy to go into the store, but Jason seemed to prefer the outdoors.

“Hi, Dad,” Jase said sheepishly. “You’re home early.”

“Yes. I’m taking the five-thirty plane to Chicago and I did want another talk with you. How’s Buckles behaving as a model?”

“I’m trying out my telephoto lens on him,” Jase grinned, “and I guess I sort of talked to him.”

“Oh. That’s a telephoto lens?”

“A 400 mm.,” Jase said eagerly. “With it you can get pictures at a distance, sort of like a telescope. Have a look. With a short-focus lens, you’d see Buckles and a lot of the wall. With this lens, just Buckles’ head fills the ground glass.”

Harry Mason walked to the camera and squinted into it.

“It looks like a good one, Jason. How much did it cost you?”

“It’s secondhand. I got it cheap.”

“How much?”

Jase said in a small voice, “A hundred dollars.”

“Mm-m. That means you have a hundred and fifty left for your trip?”

“That’s right.”

“And with that much money you expect to drive some six hundred miles to this Lasher Wilderness area, maintain yourself all summer, and drive back?”

“I’m sure I can do it, Dad! I know I can!”

“It’s up to you. We made a bargain, remember.”

Jase said hesitantly, “Dad, if you’d rather I didn’t go—”

“No, Jason, I want you to go. If you succeed, you’ll have found your own career. If you don’t, you’ll have convinced yourself. In any event, you aren’t going to be happy in the store or elsewhere until you get this wildlife photography bug out of your system. However, I’m going to hold you to our agreement. You’ll have to stretch the rest of your money.”

“I understand.”

“But,” Harry Mason smiled, “don’t be foolish about it. If you get in trouble, and need money or help to come back, call or wire the store. Either George or I will always be there.”

“Thanks a lot, Dad.”

Harry Mason extended his hand. “Good-bye, Jason. Keep in touch with us—and good luck!”

The jeep’s headlights stabbed the pre-dawn blackness. Sitting beside Jase, Buckles breathed deep draughts of the cool morning air and bristled hopefully when a scavenger dog appeared under a street light. Steering with one hand, Jase laid the other on the dog’s collar.

“Cut it out, Buckles! You’re supposed to be my faithful and ever-loyal companion, and not just see how many fights you can scare up!”

When they were safely past the scavenger dog, Buckles relaxed and Jase gave himself over to serious thinking.

He knew that his father, for all his willingness to have Jase make this trip to the Lasher Wilderness, was skeptical of the results. Jase even admitted to himself that the venture was a shaky one. He had good photographic equipment and a fair amount of experience. But did he have the qualities that went beyond equipment and technique? Did he have what it took to make a great wildlife cameraman?

“What do you think, Buckles?” he asked. “Should we turn back?”

Buckles grunted happily and rubbed against him, and Jase began to feel better. Dismayed by doubt, suppose Alex Creedon had turned back? Had he not once been a rank beginner? It was a safe bet that Creedon never had any guarantee of success, nobody had that, and he must have known his uncertainty and fears. The only way to find out if one could do something was to try doing it. Failure was not as shameful as a faint heart.

Jase reviewed his plans.

He had the jeep, his supplies, and everything was paid for. It worried him somewhat because he had been unable to bring his enlarging equipment along, but that was bulky and there would be no electricity in a wilderness camp. But he did have daylight developing tanks and the proper chemicals for them, and that was a comfort. Too many commercial photographers were careless, leaving negatives scratched, under- or over-developed, or otherwise imperfect. Jase worried most about his lack of money. Of course if he sold some pictures—but he couldn’t count on that.

Well, he had a tent and all necessary camping equipment; there’d be no hotel bills. Though he would buy all his meals while going and returning, once in camp he could prepare everything himself. Watched carefully and supplemented with whatever fishing he found in the Lasher, groceries could be held to a minimum. Somehow or other he had to arrange for prints from his negatives, and there was no way to do that except paying cash. But he would have only the best ones printed to submit to editors. There was no way to avoid buying gas and oil for the jeep. But it wouldn’t need either in camp. Jase decided he could get by.

He swerved into a lighted cafe, parked, and stepped out.

“Watch it, Buckles,” he said. “I won’t be long.”

He did not worry about the jeep and its load; anyone who tried to tamper with it while Buckles was on guard, did so at his peril. Jase seated himself at the counter and a drowsy man in a white apron looked sleepily at him.

“Yeh?”

“Coffee, bacon and eggs,” Jase ordered.

He ate hungrily, bought a couple of hamburgers for Buckles, and drove on.

The sun rose on a glorious day. Jase sped up the road, entirely happy now. At half-past nine, he pulled into a filling station.

“Fill her up, please,” he told the attendant.

He stood watching while two dollars and ten cents worth of gas was pumped into the jeep. Jase took his wallet out, extracted a five-dollar bill, and replaced the wallet. When the attendant brought his change, he tucked it into his watch pocket and climbed into the jeep.

“Pardon me.”

Jase turned to see a stocky, middle-aged man with a tired face and gentle brown eyes approaching. Obviously he wanted something but was hesitant to speak.

“Yes?” Jase asked.

“I—I must reach the Carson Road and have no way of getting there. I was wondering if—”

“Oh, sure,” Jase said agreeably. “Be glad to have you if Buckles doesn’t mind.”

Two and a half hours later, having left his passenger off at the Carson Road, Jase pulled into a new filling station partly for gasoline and partly to stretch his legs.

The indicator on the gas pump stood at $1.48 and the attendant was checking the oil when Jase reached mechanically for his wallet. He felt again. He looked at the floor, then searched the seat.

His wallet was gone.