Letters from Yellowstone

by Diane Smith

  As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could now also see the woman in the tent quite clearly. She smiled and, although she was at least forty, maybe even fifty, she, too, seemed young, birdlike, with tiny, wide-set eyes which darted with pleasure as I handed back the glasses. She held them in her lap and shrugged, her small head dipping into her shoulders, her eyes crinkling.

  “Isn’t this wonderful?” she whispered.

  I looked around the small, homemade bird blind, for that was what we were sitting in, and understood that once, and not so long ago, I would have imagined such a stuffy, restricting place anything but wonderful. But now, that afternoon, it was exactly that. Wonderful.

  “My name is Mrs. Eversman,” she whispered, briefly offering me her hand. “Or, I should say, Mary Anne. I am here from New York to be a watcher in the woods. What brings you to Yellowstone?”

  I whispered a few words about my work in the Park, and she seemed delighted, her hands fluttering lightly in the pool of her skirts.

  “Oh, a scientist,” she sighed, now clasping her hands as if to quiet them. “How I do admire you. I have always wanted to be a scientist, but,” she added with an apologetic dip of her head, “I’m really just a dabbler. What you might refer to as a nature lover, I suppose. And now, ever since my husband died, I guess I’m also a bit of an adventuress,” she confided.

  She stopped as if to think what to say next, her opera glasses again scanning the trees. Taking note of the mother bird’s flight, she checked a small timepiece which hung from a gold chain around her neck. She then made a notation in her journal.

  “If I were a real scientist,” she said, closing the book and placing the glasses atop it, “I’ve been told that I would stay home and pay more attention to that which is around me. Instead, I prefer to travel. Looking,” she added, and motioned with her quick, birdlike hand around the expanse outside her small enclosure. As she did so, a bird in flight caught her eye.

  “Ah, there,” she whispered, handing me the glasses again. “In the tree, to your left. Do you see him? A mountain bluebird.”

  There was indeed a bright blue bird, the likes of which I had never seen. Small, almost iridescent against the green, it rested for only a moment and then was gone.

  “I guess I’m too restless for real science,” she said, leaning towards me to once again retrieve the glasses. She smiled, her eyes brightening at just the thought of her quest.

  She was certainly not dressed for the scientific life, nor for ad venturing for that matter. Compared to me, with my now ragged and filthy field clothes, she looked positively radiant, with her suit of pale blue serge, not unlike the color of a bird’s egg in spring. Her shirtwaist was starched and prim, her thick brown hair, softened by threads of grey, neatly pinned. Another smile crinkled her face, her head dipped into her shoulders, and she returned her gaze to the trees.

  “What a wonderful world this is,” she said quietly.

  I would have enjoyed sitting there all day with Mrs. Eversman, but I could now hear Professor Merriam calling me from down the hill. Since our near tragedy in the snow, I have come to understand that I really must be more responsible and responsive to the needs of my entire party. And from the Professor’s perspective, right or wrong, that means knowing where I am at all times. It is not the kind of arrangement to which I would normally agree, but Professor Merriam is still so clearly uncomfortable with my presence here that I need to do all that I can to make him think of me as an asset, as opposed to a constant liability.

  I could hear the Professor and now the student, too, calling again, closer this time, so I started to take my leave, regretting my departure from Mrs. Eversman and the tight confines of her blind, but fearing that their calls would disturb the birds. I felt uncomfortable, too, abandoning her there, all alone, in the woods. So, in leaving, I offered to help Mrs. Eversman back to the hotel with her things when my party and I headed back down the trail later in the afternoon.

  “Oh, no,” she said without hesitation. “I never go back to the hotel before nightfall. I love that hour or two before dark. The woods come alive, the birds settle, the weather calms. I never miss it.”

  Again the crinkle of the eyes, the small, almost apologetic dip of her head to one side, the smile. And then the opera glasses scanning the trees as I crept from the blind.

  Funny, the notion people have of science. I can think of nothing more tedious than sitting for literally all hours of the day in a stuffy, dark bird blind not much bigger than a wide-brimmed hat covered with a heavy piece of canvas. And yet, there that woman sits, day in and day out, fighting off flies, mosquitoes, and the stifling heat of day, meticulously observing and documenting the nesting habits and life cycles of birds. If that is not science, I do not know what is.

  I have since learned from Miss Zwinger that Mrs. Eversman has led a national campaign amongst amateur birdwatchers like herself to replace the use of shotguns with opera glasses, and to discourage the growing popularity of collecting bird eggs and nests. She has even waged war against the use of feathers in hats and has travelled extensively on behalf of her cause. This is, no doubt, from where the “nature lover” classification has come. Scientists who write for professional publication, and who prefer to tramp through the fields with guns, can be extremely cold-hearted toward those who do not pursue their own brand of science. Particularly old women who sit alone in the woods with opera glasses for hours on end.

  I, for one, can certainly sympathize with Mrs. Eversman’s perspective. A dead bird, no matter how beautiful and informative it appears neatly laid to rest in a drawer, is still nothing more than a stuffed museum specimen. To understand the true nature and classification of birds, you must, like Mrs. Eversman herself is doing, spend hours on end observing the living, breathing—and I might add messy and unpredictable—creatures in the field. That, at least to my mind, is real science, no matter what the other so-called scientists say.

  Jessie, I know I am sounding quite didactic, but there is so much bad science or non-science wrapped in the guise of science that I cannot tell you how refreshing it is to meet this watcher in the woods. She may be sentimental about her subject, but she relies entirely on patient observation for her understanding. We need more of these so-called nature lovers in the world.

  But I digress.

  As I hurried around Mrs. Eversman’s clearing, careful not to disturb her birds, and down the hill toward the creekbed where I could still hear the Professor searching for me, I saw John Wylloe, another of my new Park acquaintances if you can believe it, heading up the trail a half a mile or so below me. He waved, having seen me, too, and hurried up the path in my direction.

  Mr. Wylloe is the writer my mother most admires, much to my father’s scientific and literary consternation. I think my mother has read every book John Wylloe has ever written, both his nature essays and his poetry. He was kind enough to share a few of his volumes when I first arrived in the Park, but I must admit I find his work too sweet for my palate. However, considering all the inferior so-called nature writing—and I use the term lightly—in the world today, at least Mr. Wylloe’s is based upon sound observation of the natural world. In fact, he has used his name and reputation to effectively argue against this ubiquitous kind of writing which makes for entertaining and humorous reading but is not, contrary to the authors’ insistences, based on the real world. As Mr. Wylloe passionately argues (and I assume Mrs. Eversman would agree), song birds do not conduct singing schools in the woods for their young, nor do they set their broken legs with mud casts bound with grass, twigs, and horse hair. I do not care one fig for what has been “documented” in the likes of Harper’s and Forest and Stream.

  It is against such nonsense and the magazines that publish it that Mr. Wylloe rigorously campaigns. In fact, he has publicly taken to task George Bird Grinnell, the editor of Forest and Stream, arguing, quite rightly I might add, that a man in his position should know better than to print such foolishness. Mr. Grinnell considers h
imself a hunter naturalist, an oxymoron if ever I heard one. He is also one of the founders of the Boone and Crockett Club and established the Audubon Society, both dedicated in their way to an appreciation and preservation of the natural world. Surely these organizations cannot possibly believe that you can only appreciate and preserve that which is somehow human. That is like the Baptists maintaining that true believers can only celebrate that in which they see God.

  But I must give Mr. Grinnell credit. He is wily when it comes to Wylloe. In his editorial wisdom, Mr. Grinnell has hired Mr. Wylloe to contribute to Forest and Stream, and is sponsoring his summer-long stay in the Park. Mr. Wylloe claims not to need the money, apparently even nature writing based on science is a lucrative profession these days, but he has taken the assignment, he says, to demonstrate to Mr. Grinnell and the rest of the popular press that the truth of the natural world, in all its interesting and unpredictable diversity, can be as entertaining as that which is based on some urban writer’s imagination. What a stroke of editorial genius to send him, then, to Yellowstone National Park where the scientific “truth” is as far-fetched and fiction-like as anything the average reader would encounter anywhere in the world! I am curious indeed to learn how Mr. Wylloe will handle his dispatches.

  As Mr. Wylloe advanced up the path, slower now as he appeared short of breath, Professor Merriam emerged from the creekbed, again calling out my name. He saw me now and waved, but when he saw John Wylloe, he hesitated.

  “When you have a chance,” he said abruptly, and retreated into the narrow ravine.

  Since Professor Merriam could rest easy knowing of my location, I waited for Mr. Wylloe to ascend the final few feet to where I stood. He was visibly out of breath, struggling as he advanced. Dressed as he was, you would need a good deal of that urban writer’s imagination to see him as the Nation’s leading naturalist and outdoors-man. With his long white hair and beard, black suit, wide-brimmed hat, and fishing creel, he looked more like an ancient scribe, perhaps someone from the Bible assigned to carry bad news, or one who has travelled for miles to worship at some holy shrine.

  “Forgive me, Miss Bartram,” he said, clearly out of breath, “but I find I still am not conditioned to these higher elevations.”

  Balancing himself with his hands on his knees, he lowered his head. Although I hated to see him so distressed, it was reassuring to note that even the greatest minds and talents are limited by the same physical rules of nature as the rest of us. Mr. Wylloe waited thus for a moment or two, his head bowed as if in deep concentration, took two deep breaths which he exhaled as deeply, and then raised his head slowly, like a snake uncoiling its face to the sun.

  “Miss Bartram,” he said, offering me his hand in salutation or perhaps to steady himself. In either case, he drew himself closer to me, taking my solitary hand into both of his. He took another deep breath, and sighed.

  “I have come here to ask a favor of you,” he said. “One which I hope you will be so kind as to grant me.”

  I told him, of course, I would do for him what I could, and he smiled, a thin, weary slit which lifted the corners of his beard for only the briefest of moments.

  “I would like to accompany you, if you will have me, on your outings into the field.”

  I was quite taken aback, not that he would ask, for I know of his general interest in science and natural history, but that he would ask me, rather than directing his question to Professor Merriam. I was certainly not in the position to grant his favor, and I told him so.

  “The Professor decides who should . . . ,” I started, but Mr. Wylloe interrupted me, as impatient as he was out of breath.

  “It was Professor Merriam who referred me. You see, it is you—or I should say your work—that I am interested in and, thus, it is you and your work I would inconvenience if such an arrangement were not to your liking. Therefore, the Professor referred me to you directly.”

  I admit, I was puzzled by the request. Flattered, of course—all I could think of was wait until I tell Mother!—but it did seem a bit of an inconvenience for all concerned. And yet, how could I refuse him his offer? He was, after all, John Wylloe.

  I told him he would be welcome to join our daily expeditions at his convenience. However, I warned him, he must keep Professor Merriam informed of his desire to join us on any particular outing. It would be presumptuous for Mr. Wylloe to inform me of his intentions in this regard. It would place me in an awkward position within my group.

  Mr. Wylloe thanked me, still holding my hand warmly between his own, at which point I excused myself, reminding him that the Professor had asked that I join him.

  “Well, then, if it is not inconvenient,” Mr. Wylloe smiled, releasing me, “I will accompany you, and we shall inform Professor Merriam of your decision together.”

  This, too, seemed inappropriate but I did not object. Rather, I led Mr. Wylloe down a thickly shaded path until we reached the creek. Professor Merriam looked up at our approach, but said nothing.

  “She said yes,” Mr. Wylloe called out, at which the Professor nodded slightly in acknowledgment, before returning his attention to the Indian.

  As I advanced down the trail to where Professor Merriam was working, I started to apologize for the delay in responding to his calls, anxious to inform him of my encounter with Mrs. Eversman and her blind, but he, too, cut me short with an abrupt wave of the hand.

  “No, that’s not why I called,” he said. “Here, I want you to see this.”

  He then led me to a solitary pink blossom, growing next to the stream.

  “Do you know what it is?” he asked.

  I had to admit, even after close inspection under my hand lens, I could not name it. Located as it was next to a stream, with three sepals and three petals, a member of Orchidaceae was the best that I could do for certain.

  “Joseph has asked me not to remove it,” Professor Merriam informed me.

  I must have looked at him very strangely because he hastily continued.

  “It is alone,” the Professor explained. “And since it cannot be named, Joseph is convinced that it must be sacred.”

  Professor Merriam watched me closely for my reaction. Of course, that was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard, and I told him so.

  “You cannot name it if you do not take it,” I reminded him. “Besides, what about the collection?”

  As Professor Merriam and I talked, John Wylloe removed his boots and socks with great ceremony, rolled his pant legs to just below the knees, and sat gingerly upon a large rock, slowly easing his feet into the icy creek. Even from where I was standing, I could see them lying low in the water like two albino Salvelinus. He took off his hat and, again, unfurled his spine, vertebrae by vertebrae, so that his face was fully oriented toward the sun, his long white hair and beard almost translucent in the fierce light.

  As Mr. Wylloe settled in, Professor Merriam conferred with the Indian in Crow, and then the two of them advanced down the streambed, leaving me, Mr. Wylloe, and the intact orchid without another word. The student looked at me apologetically, and then he, too, followed the other two downstream.

  “It is a slipper of Venus,” Mr. Wylloe said to me once the three of them had woven their way out of sight. “Or a fairy slipper. I have heard it called different things associated with footwear on the rare occasions I have seen them near my cabin. But the Indian is right. From my limited experience, they are rare. He may be right, too, about them being sacred, but that is beyond my ken.”

  With that short burst of speech behind him, Mr. Wylloe removed his feet from the water and placed them carefully, side by side, like rare specimens, upon the rocks to dry. Then he returned his face to the sun, closed his eyes, and appeared to doze.

  Of course, Mr. Wylloe’s information, like the term Indian paintbrush and all other such non-scientific nomenclature, gave me little if anything to go on. A fairy slipper could be anything from a Cypripedium to a Lilium to a Campanula.

  I opened my journal a
nd started to write a physical description but then hesitated, removing my colors from my case instead. Perhaps the process of observation and reflection needed to illustrate the specimen would help me come to better know it and, thus, identify it. At least that was my thinking.

  Illustrating its precise form was relatively easy. The flower stood atop a small, sheathed stalk which barely held its own in a bed of decaying wood thick with moss. Once I pushed the debris out of the way, I could see that it also had a single basal leaf which was just beginning to emerge.

  The flower itself was easy enough to capture on paper, its bilaterally symmetrical petals and prominent lip all easily translated for my visual record. It was not the flower’s form which gave me pause, but rather the color, a shocking pinkish purple with tiger-like stripes tinged along its edges with a golden brown. Sensuous, succulent in the non-botanical sense, if the plant were indeed a slipper, it would be something worn by Titania rather than Puck, if I dare make such a pedestrian literary comparison to you, my dear friend, who is so much better read.

  I tried with my colors to capture the plant on paper, but after more than two hours, the day was drawing to a close and my attempts were either too bland, not at all capturing the showiness of the specimen, or too gilded, losing its sense of naturalness in my clumsy translations.

  Now it was I who let out a long, exhausted sigh. I returned my glance to Mr. Wylloe, who was watching me closely from his perch on the rock.

  “Beautiful, is it not?” he said.

  It is showy, I was thinking. A function of survival, I started to note. But for some unknown reason, I said nothing. Jessie, can you believe it? I held my tongue.

  But then an even stranger thing occurred. Mr. Wylloe responded to me as if I had spoken. Or as if he had read my mind.

  “I meant the setting. You look but you do not see, Miss Bartram. The dappled light, the sound of falling water, the intense green, almost devoid of color in the shadiest corners, your deep concentration. All beautiful.”