by Diane Smith
Our camp table, which had been moved to Joseph’s clearing, was where Kim Li, wrapped in an old buffalo robe, now sat, carefully watching Joseph as he stripped the leaves from a pile of yarrow. The driver’s dog, tied to one of the legs of the table, yapped and wagged its tail at my approach. Joseph nodded in my direction but continued his work.
“Did you know,” I said to Miss Bartram, thinking this the perfect opportunity to note our compatibility when it comes to the botanical sciences, “that Achilles used the yarrow plant to stop the bleeding of his soldiers’ wounds at the battle of Troy, and that is why you refer to the plant as Achillea?”
I pronounced the scientific nomenclature perfectly, but Miss Bartram looked up at me as if she had no idea what I was talking about.
“Achillea, Miss Bartram. It provides insight into the plant’s use. In this case, it is the scientific name that resonates with history. It’s the kind of information I’m working to document, to ensure that traditional plant uses are not lost to us forever.”
As I walked over to the fire to join her, the two children ran to their mother, who did not even acknowledge my presence. She did not leave, this was her home after all, but simply continued her campfire watch. The younger child, a girl, clambered into her mother’s lap, while the older child stood beside her, keeping a close watch.
“We have not lost anything,” Miss Bartram said as if she were paying no attention at all to me. “It’s all here, in this book,” she said, indicating the open journal on her lap.
As usual, Miss Bartram caught me off guard. She clearly had ideas of her own. I looked at the journal, expecting to see Miss Bartram’s field notes, but instead saw a brightly colored drawing of our campsite by the lake. We were all there in the drawing, just as we had been the night of Rutherford’s celebration—the night before the fire. In more exactness and artfulness than a photograph could have ever captured, there was Miss Bartram, Rutherford, Kim Li, Joseph and his family, and all of our visitors that evening, including Miss Zwinger, Mrs. Eversman, and Mr. Wylloe, all of us sitting around the table which had been draped in red and gold-colored cloths. Not a detail had been missed, from the food on our plates to the exact shape and color of the flowers in the vases. Even Edgar had hopped into the scene, his feathers the bluish black of gun metal as they reflected the lantern lights glistening overhead.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Miss Bartram smiled. “And there’s more,” she added.
She turned to another page, as enchanting as the one before. This one illustrated the diminutive orchid, with Miss Bartram, Joseph, the student, and myself all circled around it in the shade of the trees. In the foreground sat John Wylloe, his hat in his hands, soaking his feet in the stream.
Next she showed me a picture in which she was collecting monkeyflowers in a narrow ravine. On a rocky crag above her, Miss Zwinger and Mr. Wylloe sat next to a placid looking family of bighorn sheep. On the road between the two was Joseph, who appeared to be shouting, frightening off a grizzly bear which was bounding down the mountain on the opposite side.
“You never told me you encountered a bear,” I said.
“There are some things, Professor, that it is best that you do not know,” was Miss Bartram’s instant reply. But studying the drawing she added, “I did think it odd, though, Joseph’s singing.”
As I examined the picture, she looked closely at me, as if she were trying to read what was hidden in my face. I doubt there was anything left there to read.
“Isn’t it strange, Professor, how as scientists we become so focused on what is close at hand, that we often miss the real picture?”
These drawings captured our shared experience with such clarity and objectivity, that I could not help but smile at Miss Bartram’s question. Then I laughed as I realized Miss Bartram was right. We had not lost everything after all. Our summer was captured in our field journals and there, in the drawings in her book.
“Miss Bartram, you never cease to amaze me,” I said finally. “These pictures are truly a work of art.”
“But it isn’t my work,” she quickly corrected. “It was Joseph and Sara. They did this. It is a gift. For all of us. They did this for us because we are their science clan,” she added with seriousness.
At this the tall Indian woman looked at me again, and stood to leave.
“There should always be a light that comes of the darkness,” she said, in perfect boarding school English. “That is the Indian way. Your people pray at night, because they are afraid of entering the darkness. We say our thanks in the last moments before the dawn, when you cannot see the face of that which approaches. We are not afraid of darkness because we know it comes before the light.”
“I didn’t know she spoke English,” I said as Sara and her children left the campfire to join her husband and Kim Li at the table.
“That’s probably because she did not know that you cared.”
Again, Miss Bartram gave me that look of hers which I find so unsettling, because inevitably I find myself unable to respond.
“Once again I find I must thank you, Professor,” Miss Bartram finally said. “I know that I will never abandon my commitment to science. It is not only my life. It is my passion. But now I understand that there is more to the world than I have been able to discover through the limited perspective of science.”
She indicated the journal still open across her lap and then nodded in the direction of Joseph who was showing Kim Li how to properly prepare the yarrow leaves for storage.
“The world is so vast and so unbelievably beautiful,” she added, “it is difficult at times to see the whole universe of possibilities. So we only look at parts of it at a time. Like the photographs Dr. Rutherford commissioned the other day. Each is as useful and true to the experiences of the real world as the other, but they do not show the whole picture. I know that now.”
Miss Bartram closed the journal and then handed it to me as if in confirmation of what she had learned. I, in turn, handed to her the parcel I was still holding.
“I saw Mrs. Eversman on my way up here,” I explained. “She wanted to return these. I guess she did not want the fire to be a total loss for you.”
Miss Bartram took the package into her own blanket-covered lap and held it there, her attention focused elsewhere.
“It’s too bad that I wasn’t generous or thoughtful enough to give some of my duplicates to friends,” I said. But Miss Bartram was not listening. She skimmed her hand across the surface of the package, almost caressing the paper and twine in which the specimens were wrapped.
Again at a loss as to how to respond to her, I intended to return my attention to the ledger book but was distracted by the barking of the mountain man’s dog. The dog strained at its leash, leaping with each bark, in the direction of something or someone approaching Joseph’s camp.
“Where is that Rutherford?” Peacock demanded, entering the clearing carrying a large load covered in a waterproofed tarp. He was followed by the mountain man who carried an equally large bundle.
“I was just in your camp, Merriam, and couldn’t find any sign of him. Couldn’t find any sign of anyone.” He quickly scanned the area of Joseph’s camp. “I guess that’s because you are all up here,” he added, momentarily appeased.
Peacock placed his cumbrous package gently onto the ground and slid out from under another large bundle which he had ingeniously strapped to his back. He squinted and blinked in our direction.
“So where is the son of a b——?” he said, his original mood returning. “Excuse me Miss Bartram,” he added, “but Rutherford has my bugs. Where did he put them? There’s nothing left at the camp.”
“No,” I confirmed. “There is nothing left at the camp.”
Peacock squinted and blinked again, as if trying to comprehend what I was telling him.
“You mean the specimens, too?” he asked.
“All of it,” I replied. “Gone.” There was no other way to say it. “Everything was lost.”<
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Peacock blinked and grunted. “I knew I should never leave any of my bugs with that Rutherford,” he said.
“Well,” I tried to correct him, “it wasn’t really Rutherford’s fault.”
I tried again to explain that it had been an accident, and to remind him that a good portion of his collection had been forwarded to Washington anyway so it was out of harm’s way, but Peacock was not interested in hearing it.
“I told you, didn’t I?” he said blinking with great conviction. “But no. You insisted that Rutherford would take good care of our work. That he was dedicated.” He blinked and grunted, and began untying the first bundle. He grunted again to make certain I understood exactly what he thought of my so-called judge of character.
“Well, all I can say is that it’s a good thing I didn’t listen to you,” he added, pulling one small paper-wrapped tin case after another from within the larger bundle. He stacked them neatly into a series of orderly rows.
“Found this great cave. Just the thing for long-term storage. Dry. Isolated. You know, there are a lot of interesting places in this Park. You should get out of camp more often, Merriam.”
Miss Bartram looked at me to ascertain if I fully understood what Peacock was saying. I understood perfectly. Then she laughed, wiping at her eyes, as Peacock grumbled and blinked at us from across the fire. I also laughed, and then I, too, had to remove my spectacles and rub at my eyes.
“Never give your best specimens to someone else to look after,” Peacock chided me. “You know that, Merriam.”
He then asked Kim Li for some better packing material.
“I need to get these ready to go back home,” he explained.
I tried again to put in a word of defense for Rutherford, but Peacock was still not interested in anything I had to say in that regard.
“So what about the two of you?” Peacock demanded, squinting at us over the fire. “Where did you stash the best of your collections?”
I shrugged. “We were all supposed to be in this together,” I reminded him.
“Hmmm,” he grunted and blinked again.
“You, too, Miss B?” he wanted to know.
“Yes,” she confirmed. But then, still holding the small package of specimens on her lap, she added, “Well, no, as a matter of fact, I do have duplicates. Yes, I do.”
She nodded with a grave authority hoping, I’m sure, to discourage any more negative comments from Peacock.
“See,” Peacock said to me. “A real scientist. What did I tell you?”
And then, looking around the camp, he added, “So where’s the other woman? The one with the wine? It’s been a long day. I could use something good to drink.”
At this, the mountain man untied his dog as if to leave, but before departing he walked over to Miss Bartram and towered over her in that silent, hostile way that he has. I prepared myself for the worst, even though I knew I would be no match for him if he tried something foolish. But he said nothing. Rather, he crouched down and in a single, unexplained gesture, presented her with a solitary, late-blooming wild rose. And then, without a word, he stood again and retreated, his dog wagging its tail by his side.
So, you see, Mother, we have gone through the worst together, and I am now more confident than ever that if given the time to salvage what is left of our work, we can and will be a party again. We can all return to campus now, knowing that each of us in our way has the opportunity to draw upon the richness of our experiences here to produce meaningful work. Just the prospect of that work gives me much hope.
As for Miss Bartram, I have suffered greatly, unable to ascertain how best to assist her. I cannot tell you how much I have longed for her to accompany us back to campus, but when considering the possibility I must admit that I have nothing there to realistically offer her. President Healey has made it perfectly clear that he will not support an assistant in my office, even if it were Miss Bartram, whose company he clearly enjoyed at the hotel. But then, the president would probably decline to support me if given the opportunity, and I am a member of his agricultural experiment station—albeit a reluctant one.
I am certainly in no position to invite Miss Bartram to stay in Montana without some promise of appropriate work and support. My rooms in Bozeman are inadequate, not to mention ill-suited, to entertain the company of a woman as much as I might like to have her by my side. Instead, I have asked Bill Gleick if he might offer her some opportunity should he decide to stay at the Smithsonian. If nothing else, I was hoping he might provide her with time and perhaps an extra stipend to reproduce her field notes and illustrations before forwarding them to the Smithsonian as we had promised she would do. I was resigned to the fact that if that was all that I could do for her, it would have to be enough, even though she deserves so much more.
So you can imagine my relief and, yes, my joy, when I learned that Bill Gleick had contacted President Healey on his own behalf and, through some shrewd negotiations, has managed to work out an arrangement which benefits us all. First, Gleick requested an annual leave from the college so that he might remain in Washington for the remainder of the year. Reluctant to make a commitment to the Smithsonian in the long run, Gleick has instead offered to stay through a transition period to help them adapt to Philip Aber’s death. At the end of the year, he has promised to reconsider his options, both personal and professional.
When presented with Gleick’s request for a leave, the president was less than enthusiastic, arguing that Gleick is needed on campus, and that he relies on Gleick and his assistance. Besides, the president argued, in these early days of the college, every penny that is given to support outsiders is a penny he, the president, would prefer to keep in the college construction fund.
Now the president is wise when it comes to finances, and knows perfectly well that he can use Gleick’s salary to hire someone at a much lower rate. But Gleick is also shrewd when it comes to these kinds of negotiations and, pretending not to understand the options, proposed an alternative that the president was hard pressed to refuse. The Smithsonian would support Miss Bartram as Gleick’s replacement for the year, with the one condition that she be provided with adequate time to document and catalogue the specimens from the Park. This was an arrangement to which President Healey was more than willing to agree. Apparently if Miss Bartram is to assist the president—and not me—he has no objections whatsoever and is more than willing to provide her with the time she needs to pursue her professional obligations to the Smithsonian and to Bill.
And Miss Bartram will need plenty of time, for it turns out there is still much work to be done and an extensive collection with which to work. Even before we knew about the arrangements that Bill Gleick was making, Miss Bartram had made arrangements of her own. Unbeknownst to me or anyone else in our party, Miss Bartram has routinely shipped multiple specimens and illustrations to Cornell for safekeeping. She has since asked that those specimens be sent directly to the college for cataloging. Once again, Peacock was right. Miss Bartram is a fine and thoughtful scientist, with foresight and a level of professionalism which put us all to shame. Bill Gleick suggests that when we forward the Smithsonian’s portion of those specimens to the Institution, that we formally refer to it as the Bartram Collection. I agreed with all my heart.
When I told Miss Bartram that she was invited to stay in Bozeman for the year, not as my assistant but in a position of her own, she took both my hands into hers and thanked me so sincerely, you would have thought I had bestowed upon her the world’s greatest gift. She warmly embraced me, giving me hope that Miss Bartram is no longer as contemptuous of me as I had once believed. Of course, I cannot read too much into that spontaneous action, as she embraced Rutherford and Peacock, as well. They were as flattered and flustered by her attentions as I was at the time. But even though I cannot be so presumptuous to assume that she thinks highly of me, there may be a slight possibility that she does not think I am totally without promise as a scientist—or as a man. That alone gives me gre
at hope as we prepare for our journey home.
Rutherford, too, faces the return trip with a renewed sense of optimism. As we were making our final preparations, Joseph approached the wagon carrying a large wooden crate. He asked permission to put it on board, and I told him that he had my permission, but that he must first check with Rutherford, to ensure that it was agreeable to him as well.
“What is it?” Rutherford asked, his lack of interest communicated by the tone of his voice. Although Rutherford has tried his best to help us prepare for our return, I can tell that his heart is not in it. I know he must be anxious to get back home, but since the fire and the sad loss of his bird, he has not shown much interest in anything he does.
“I don’t know,” I told him. “Something Joseph wants us to transport to Bozeman. You better see what it is.”
Rutherford shot me an impatient look. “You know we can’t take artifacts out of the Park. Even if they are for Joseph.” He took the pipe from his mouth and waved it at me. “We will be detained,” he warned. “I don’t care how friendly you think you are with that captain.”
“I know,” I assured him. “That’s why I want your advice before we decide how to proceed.”
Rutherford sighed and walked heavily to the back side of the wagon where Joseph had deposited the crate. He sighed again and peered inside it. Two adult and two juvenile ravens looked back at him, their thick, black beaks curiously probing the spaces between the wooden slats.
