Geometric mountain range on upper arm

The chain team finished the baseline on Tuesday, four miles of rods laid end to end across the flat ground below Carn Dhu, and Mr Pryce swore at the wind the whole morning because it kept lifting the tripod out of true. I have the angles now. Seven peaks, sharp as a row of broken teeth, and the one in the middle is the one the shepherds call the Widow, though none of them will tell me why.

I sat up with the theodolite until my fingers went white, sighting each summit against the line we measured. The eastern faces take the morning sun, so I hatched them with the pen, close strokes like rain on a window. The northern faces keep the shadow all day and the snow longest, so I stippled those, dot by dot, until the paper looked like frost on a gate. Pryce says a survey should have no feelings. I told him a map is only a picture someone was brave enough to get wrong slowly.

On the last evening the cloud lifted off the ridge all at once, and the whole range stood up on its line like a fleet waiting at anchor. I drew it twice. The second copy is folded inside this letter, with the Widow marked in pencil. Pin it on the kitchen wall where Father's clock used to hang.

The office will not name the peak until the sheet is engraved, so I wrote asking that it be called Ruth. They will refuse, I expect. The oldest shepherd heard me say it and laughed until he had to sit on the wall, then said that was a fine name for something that would not move no matter how hard the weather pushed.