Letters from Yellowstone
Page 24
I could see tears well up in Rutherford’s eyes as he retreated behind a cloud of tobacco smoke.
As Rutherford regained his composure, Joseph joined him and, in an effective combination of Crow and English, informed Rutherford that the adults were a male and a female, a breeding pair. The juveniles, he believed, were also a male and a female. I have been told that even experts have a difficult time distinguishing the sex of ravens of any age, but knowing Joseph as I now do, I do not care what the experts say. If he believes the birds to be two males and two females, I believe that he is right.
“Can we take them with us?” Rutherford finally asked.
“Fine with me,” I said. “You have Captain Craighead’s permission, isn’t that correct? I am not planning to look in the box to see if you have stuffed more than one bird in there. Besides, as it stands now, any idiot with a gun can shoot these birds with immunity. Even in the Park. Seems like they would have a much better future with you.”
Rutherford nodded. The two students now joined him, peering into the crate, excitedly describing the aviary they would help him build. They could enclose a full acre if he wanted. They could even include bushes and trees. It could be everything Rutherford ever dreamed of, they enthused, and more. And, the two suggested, they would locate it on Rutherford’s family land outside of Bozeman. They would live out there, the two of them, so that Rutherford would not have to travel back and forth every day. They would even test some of Rutherford’s ideas about agriculture and plant growth and temperature, and help him manage the land while they continued with their own studies on campus.
“Like scientists,” the one student said. “We could live like scientists on the land, and have our own research facility.”
“And establish a real weather station,” the other added. “And we would check it twice a day.”
Rutherford puffed thoughtfully on his pipe.
“Three times,” the other student corrected.
Rutherford smiled. Then, taking the pipe from his mouth, he reached over and closely examined the birds, poking one of his ruddy fingers through the slats of the crate, as if to stroke one of the ravens on the head or rump, like he used to do with his other bird. At first, all four birds withdrew, wary of the intrusion, but then one of them, the biggest, hopped up to Rutherford’s finger, eyed it from side to side, and took a cautious taste. It squawked its disapproval and hopped back again.
“Edgar,” Rutherford said. “That one’s name is Edgar.”
I know now for certain that Joseph’s wife is right. There is a light that comes from darkness. After all, it does so every morning of every day.
All my love,
Howard
A. E. Bartram
Mammoth Hot Springs
Yellowstone National Park
September 1, 1898
Dear Jessie,
I have just a moment to write one last letter from Yellowstone, to mark the end of my field work and my summer here. The Professor, in an unusually ebullient mood, has arranged for our transport to Bozeman by train, so we are now all getting ready to depart.
The driver, Kim Li, and the two students have agreed to transport the wagon, supplies, and Dr. Rutherford’s four new birds back to Bozeman. The rancher, Ralph Clancy, has offered to accompany them since he, too, is headed home for the season. Joseph and his family will leave us here, preferring to travel less populated routes through the mountains, while Miss Zwinger and Mr. Wylloe will continue the journey as far as Livingston at which point they will leave us to board an eastbound train. You can never be certain where a road—or a train trip—will carry you, but it appears that Miss Zwinger embarks on that journey with more than a general sense of expectation, and a new measure of contentment which is clear to all in her demeanor.
Mr. Wylloe seems equally sanguine about life, although he promises to advise his readers thinking of travelling to Yellowstone Park to look instead to their own backyards if they want to experience the workings of the real world. A robin building its nest, a bee flitting from plant to plant, an apple tree swelling, budding, and seemingly overnight bursting into flower, a constellation rising in the summer sky—these insignificant events of life make Mr. Wylloe’s heart sing. Or so he says.
I, too, leave the Park with a new sense of contentment. This is so unfamiliar to me that I am still learning to accept it. Just the other morning, so that I might better understand and plan for my fate, I asked the Professor if there was any chance at all that he might allow me to return to the college with him. I could be his assistant, I argued, and help him rebuild the collection. I could reproduce the field notes, and catalogue and classify all that we had accomplished in the Park.
He was at first taken aback by my request, but he was clearly determined to refuse me. Having seen his concerns this summer, I am certain he worries about the personal responsibility for caring for someone like me. He kept insisting that there was nothing in Bozeman which he could offer me.
“But there is much that you can offer,” I countered. “We need to rebuild our summer’s work. We can do it,” I said, “but we need each other to get it done.”
The Professor laughed sadly at my impertinence. He thinks I am much too bold, but he is too kind to reprimand me now.
“Miss Bartram, you have managed quite well on your own this summer,” was all he would say. “You do not need me.”
But Jessie, I really do need him. Looking back through Joseph and Sara’s ledger book, I realize I have come such a long way since arriving in the Park, but I still have so much farther to go. Miss Zwinger once advised that I should not embark down a road unless I would be absolutely satisfied with where that road was headed. I will never be satisfied if I return the way that I have travelled, and I am forced to go back to where I have already been.
When I argued this to the Professor, he did not appear in the least bit interested in anything I might want or need. Not that I can blame him. I have been so arrogant and self-centered when it comes to him and his friends, that in retrospect I cannot imagine why he ever let me stay.
His insistence that there is nothing for me in Bozeman only served to fuel my own desires, and my determination not to be sent back home. By the end of our argument about my future, I was practically on my knees. At the height of my argument, the Professor reached out and ever so briefly touched his hand to my cheek. Instinctively, I took his hand in both of mine.
“Please?” I asked. “I don’t need to be your assistant,” I added. “I could be your companion, a partner, a friend.”
But as kind as the Professor was trying to be, he would not budge. In fact, he seemed as determined as he was the day I arrived. And, just as he did that afternoon in the hotel, he removed and wiped his glasses, balanced them back on his nose, and then examined me closely. How I wished that he could see that not only have I become a better scientist during my tenure here, but I have become a better person as well. I have gained a new appreciation and respect for the Professor and his friends, and even for Joseph and Sara and their knowledge of the world. Time and again they have put me and my so-called education to shame. I still prefer the exactness and predictability of the science that I practice, but I am now more than willing to admit that just because it is exact, does not necessarily mean that it is true. So much of what we refer to as science is built on a foundation of pure faith, given to change at a moment’s notice of new information. And just because science is based on what we see, it does not necessarily represent what is there.
In acknowledging that, I also realize that I need and want much more. I need to move forward with my botanizing, but I also want to move forward with my life. I do not want Professor Merriam to leave me behind. So you can imagine the joy I felt when he later informed me that I have been offered a most generous salary to prepare and catalogue the remaining collection on behalf of the Smithsonian, and that I will assist President Healey of Montana College while Bill Gleick is on leave. I am pleased to report that the Professor
seems quite satisfied with the possibilities of this new arrangement. As am I.
Best yet, someone the Professor met during the Independence Day festivities has forwarded to him two railroad passes for unlimited travel throughout the West. It is not the funding for a new research facility of which he once dreamed, but these passes provide something potentially greater than mortar and bricks. By providing an opportunity to travel and collect, it in essence supports the research itself.
I cannot predict the future, but like Miss Zwinger, I, too, will travel down that narrow, windy road out of the Park with a great sense of expectation. We all have so much work to do, and as the Professor is fond of saying, where there is work, there is hope. Now there is much hope for us all.
I would so love to see you and my family, Jessie, but you must believe me when I tell you that the Professor, Dr. Rutherford, Dr. Peacock, Joseph, Sara, and the rest have become a family of sorts to me here. They are my science clan. And I love them. Each and every one.
I will write to you and my family to let you know what lies ahead. You must travel west, as Thoreau once advised, and experience my new world for yourself as soon as you possibly can. I am more confident than ever that it will be rapture, Jessie. Pure rapture.
All my love,
Alex