Into the Unknown

by David Thompson

  “Nothing.”

  “Maybe we are mistaken,” I suggested. By “we” I meant “them,” but I was being tactful.

  At that moment his father and McNair emerged from the woods to the south of the lake. Nate spotted us and waved, and they came around to meet us at Nate’s cabin. By the look on his face, it was plain they had not found the sign they were looking for.

  “Not so much as a trace,” Nate confirmed.

  “All we can do is wait,” Shakespeare said, and once again reached into his bottomless bag of quotes. “‘It is the rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.’”

  “If you are saying it stinks, I agree,” Zach said.

  I sought to be the voice of reason. “It could be they will prove to be friendly.”

  “‘One may smile and smile, and be a villain,’” Shakespeare quoted.

  Nate cleared his throat. “This is what we will do. I will go warn Waku and his family to stay on their guard. The rest of you wait here. We will have supper together, and later decide our course of action for tomorrow.”

  As he trotted off, I turned to McNair. “Permit me to compliment you on your knowledge of the Bard.”

  Shakespeare reached back and patted a parfleche. “I never go anywhere without my copy of his works. Every spare minute, I spend reading him.”

  “Might I ask why? I mean, why him as opposed to some other writer?”

  “There are no others. They are all imitators. Old William S was the genuine article.”

  “It is the last thing I would expect,” I said.

  “Why? Because trappers and mountain men are supposed to be brainless clods who can’t read or write?” McNair clucked in disapproval. “Let me tell you something. Back in the days when beaver was in demand, the trappers would hole up for the winter. And do you know what they spent their days doing? Every hour from dawn until dusk, and often after by candlelight? They read. They collected every book they could get their hands on and devoured them from beginning to end. The Bible was one, of course. Sir Walter Scott’s works. Washington Irving. Jane Austen. The poets, Byron and Shelley and Keats. A favorite of most was that novel by Shelley’s wife, the one about the creature made of dead parts.” He paused. “We read, and we talked about what we had read, then we read some more. The Rocky Mountain College, we called it, and there was never a college anywhere from which men learned more.”

  “I had no idea,” I said.

  “Most don’t. A lot of folks back east think all frontiersmen are filthy, uneducated louts. And some are. But as many or more can hold their own in any talk about literature and religion, and are cleanly in their habits, as well.”

  I smiled. “You make a staunch defender.”

  He returned my smile. “I like you, hoss. You don’t put on as many airs as some do. You are too soft, but if you stay out here long enough, the wilderness will cure you of that.”

  “Soft?” I said.

  “You think the world is a friendly place and it’s not.”

  “How can you say that when you have known me such a short while?” I asked.

  “You thought we were wasting our time hunting for whoever is in our valley. I could see it on your face.”

  “Evidently you read people like you read books,” I said. “And you are right. I confess that I do not see an enemy or a beast behind every tree.”

  “It might be better for you if you did,” Shakespeare advised. “Better to be wary than dead.”

  Food for thought, but I could not change my ways at the snap of a finger.

  The women came out and listened to McNair’s recital of our search. Winona announced that we would eat in a couple of hours, and she kindly asked me if I wanted to rest until then.

  I was tired but also fired with enthusiasm. Already I had espied a few woodland birds and several waterfowl unknown to me, and I was eager to capture them on paper. Accordingly, I grabbed my sketchbook and headed around the lake on foot, seeking a particular duck. I had not gone far when I heard footfalls behind me and was taken aback to discover Blue Water Woman hurrying to catch up. She was armed with a rifle and a brace of pistols.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “We don’t want you wandering off alone, Robert Parker,” she responded in that soft voice of hers. “Since Winona is busy cooking and Evelyn is helping her, and Zach just got back and Lou wants to spend time with him, I volunteered.”

  I was surprised her husband had not come, and said so.

  “He wanted to, but I have not been out much today and can use the exercise.” Blue Water Woman absently ran a hand through her long hair. Her smooth complexion belied the streaks of gray.

  “This is kind of you, but unecessary.” I patted my pistol. “I can look after myself.”

  “No, you can’t.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You are an innocent, was how Zach put it. My husband agrees. You are used to the tame forests of the East.”

  I was mildly miffed. Here I was, a grown man, being treated as if I were five years old. But rather than hurt her feelings, I said, “Come along, then. And may I say how impressed I am by your English.”

  “Living with that white-haired lunatic has been an education,” Blue Water Woman said with a grin. “But when it comes to learning new tongues, I cannot hold a candle to Winona. She is a born linguist.”

  “I had imagined you would communicate with your husband through sign language, or in your own language.”

  “We do that, too. I speak four tongues, not counting my own.”

  “My word.”

  “Winona speaks twice as many and has a smattering of others. Nate says her English is better than his.”

  “I look forward to talking to her.” I turned to the lake and scanned it for the ducks I was interested in sketching. Their plumage was brown with green on the wings and around the eyes. But I did not spot any.

  “My husband tells me you are something called a naturalist,” Blue Water Woman said. “That your work is to study animals, how they look and how they live.”

  “I have loved animals all my life. Even as a small child I would spend hours a day studying the bugs and birds in our yard.”

  “It is important, this work you do?”

  “I think it is. The more we know about the world around us, about the creatures we share it with, the better we can get along with those creatures.”

  “Get along how?”

  “I have this dream,” I said, and stopped. I had been laughed at so many times that I was loathe to be ridiculed again.

  “I am listening.”

  “You will think it silly.”

  Blue Water Woman smiled. “Naturalists can predict what people will think? How remarkable.”

  I stopped and faced her. She seemed to be sincere so I decided to air my innermost self. “Do you remember when beaver fur was all the fashion for whites? And white men overran these mountains, trapping every stream and river?”

  “Of course,” Blue Water Woman said. “My husband trapped for a while. So did Nate King.”

  “And what happened?” I answered my question before she could. “I will tell you. The beaver were almost wiped out.”

  “For a while there were hardly any, yes. But in recent years we see more and more of them.”

  “The same thing has happened to a lot of animals east of the Mississippi. In some states wolves and cougars have been exterminated. In others, game which was once abundant is now scarce. Most people don’t seem to care, but I do. I think we should respect the right of all creatures to walk this earth with us, and not wipe them out because we are afraid of them or because they are a nuisance.”

  “My people believe we should live in harmony with all things, too,” Blue Water Woman said quietly.

  “My own kind care only about themselves. They take what they want, and the consequences be hanged. If animals like beaver are wiped out, no one cares. They don’t seem to realize that once an animal is gone, it is g
one forever. I say that is wrong. And I hope, by my studies, to show how we can get along with the animals that share our world so that we don’t have to wipe out any more of them.”

  Blue Water Woman studied me, then placed a hand on my shoulder and gently squeezed. “I like you, Robert Parker. You are a good man. You have my friendship for as long as you want it.”

  I thought my ears were on fire. “Thank you.”

  She started to say something, glanced past me at the water, and her eyes widened.

  I turned.

  The thing in the lake had created another swell. Even as we watched, a long form briefly appeared, then dived.

  Blue Water Woman smiled. “It is a delight to see.”

  “Yes, it is,” I said. But I was looking at her.

  Chapter Twelve

  The next week was a joy.

  I spent every waking minute either sketching or painting or writing in my journal. Wildlife was everywhere, and I caught on canvas two new waterfowl, three songbirds, and a mouse never before recorded. The plant life was equally fertile, with varieties not found east of the Mississippi.

  My explorations took me all over the valley floor and adjacent slopes. My hosts let me do as I pleased, and I must say, their hospitality was beyond reproach. My only nitpick was that they would not let me go anywhere alone. They continued to treat me as if I could not lace up my boots without help. I resented it, but my resentment waned as I came to relish the company of the person who served as my nursemaid.

  That person was Blue Water Woman.

  I hardly saw Zach. He had been away from his wife for so long that they sequestered themselves in their cabin and rarely came out. Winona hinted that they were hoping to start a family, so I could guess what they were up to.

  Nate spent a lot of time prowling the valley in search of the intruders he felt certain were hiding somewhere.

  Shakespeare McNair was busy building a raft, of all things. He had determined to get to the bottom of the mystery of the thing in the lake, and he intended, once the raft was done, to try and catch it.

  I saw nothing of the Indians in the green lodge. Well, except for the young man, Dega, who came regularly to go on long strolls with Evelyn King. Unless I was mistaken, a romance was blooming.

  Winona had too many chores to do about the cabin and in her garden. She accompanied me a few times, but the rest of the time it was Blue Water Woman, who had taken a keen interest in my work and was fascinated by my lifelike portraits and drawings. Although she was twice my age, if not more, and from a different culture, we shared an affinity of spirit. She was very much interested in the natural world and the creatures in it. But then, many Indians are, simply because they must relate to it each and every day in a manner many whites cannot conceive.

  Civilization serves to separate whites from the natural order. Town and city dwellers do not need to kill their food, or skin game for hides to make their clothes. They get all they need by buying it. An artificial order is in place, a system, I am afraid, that separates us from the world in which we live.

  Farmers grow and make their own food, but even many of them no longer make their clothes when apparel may so readily be purchased. They are close to the earth, but not as close as the Indians, who are so much a part of it that they depend on the creatures about them for their very existence.

  I admit it. I admire the red man. They have learned to adapt to nature rather than control it. They share the world with everything around them; they do not conquer for the sake of conquering. Perhaps it is silly of me but I wish my own kind could learn from the Indians and come to regard all living things with the respect I feel all creatures deserve.

  Blue Water Woman shared my belief. We talked about it many times. That, and many other subjects. She was remarkably well versed in white ways and had learned a lot about white history from her husband.

  On the eighth morning after my arrival in King Valley, I proposed to ride up to the glacier. Zach had mentioned a small bird found in its vicinity and nowhere else. My curiosity was piqued. Accordingly, I had my packhorse and my mount ready to depart at first light. No sooner did I climb on and take the lead rope in hand than around the corner of Nate’s cabin came Blue Water Woman on a fine mare.

  “I told you that you need not come,” I said by way of greeting. “I have already imposed on your gracious nature enough.”

  “Good morning, Robert Parker,” she said. “I have nothing better to do, and I like your company.”

  “Very well. But there is a chance I will not make it back by nightfall. What will your husband say, you alone with another man?”

  “If you imply he would be jealous, you are mistaken,” Blue Water Woman replied. “He knows I would kill any man who laid a hand on me. And I know you would never do that, gentleman that you are.”

  “Of course I wouldn’t,” I said, my throat constricted. I clucked to my horse and we were off.

  A stiff breeze out of the northwest caressed my skin. Out on the lake the geese and ducks were huddled close together, while in the forest the songbirds were filling the air with their first warbles of the new day.

  It felt glorious to be alive. I savored the pulse of life in all its myriad variety—moments like these were the moments I lived for.

  Blue Water Woman let me lead where I would. She did comment that using a game trail would be easier on the horses, but I was having too much fun exploring. Again and again a plant or an animal would spark my interest and I would rein to one side or the other. Now and then I glimpsed the white of the glacier far above, ensuring I did not drift too far afield.

  Most of the morning had gone by when we entered a belt of firs. Arrayed in tall phalanx, they did not permit the sunlight to reach the forest floor. Shadowy gloom shrouded us.

  Suddenly wings fluttered to my left, and I glanced up to see a bird in flight. We had spooked it. I saw it only for an instant, but I would swear it was a small owl.

  My pulse quickened. The owls of the Rockies were not well documented, and it could be that the one I had seen was not a juvenile of a known species but a new species altogether. Accordingly, I slapped my legs against my horse and took off after it.

  The firs were so closely spaced that I was constantly reining one way or the other to avoid them. I glimpsed the owl again and could not identify it.

  We must have gone a hundred yards or more when the firs abruptly ended near the bank of a swift-flowing stream. Disappointed, I came to a stop. “I suppose this is as good a spot as any to rest the horses.”

  “Did you want to paint that owl you were chasing?” Blue Water Woman asked.

  “Do you know what kind it was? I mean, the name whites call it?”

  Her brow knit, and she shook her head. “So far as I know, Robert Parker, it does not have a white name.”

  “Then it must be a new species!” I declared, thrilled at the prospect of being its discoverer. “After we rest we must look for it or another of its kind.”

  “They usually only come out at night,” Blue Water Woman said. “To see one during the day is rare.”

  “I must try.” I dismounted and led my mount and packhorse to the stream. She followed suit with her animal. I doubt she was aware of it, but she possessed a natural grace I greatly admired. That, and her perpetual calm. I never saw Blue Water Woman upset or flustered.

  One day at the lake she had slipped on a rock and fell, banging her knee. She did not throw a fit of temper, as I would have done. Instead, she calmly got back up and smoothed her buckskin dress.

  “Didn’t that hurt?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she answered. She tested her leg, limping with each step. “But the pain will soon go away.”

  “You are always so composed, so in control of yourself,” I mentioned. “Doesn’t anything fluster you?”

  “My husband, when he leaves his dirty clothes lying around, or when he butchers an animal outside our door and does not bury the remains, or when he goes off somewhere and does no
t tell me where he is going and then he is gone for hours on end—” Blue Water Woman stopped, and self-consciously grinned. “You men have a knack for flustering us women.”

  I chuckled. “For all that, you love him very much, don’t you?”

  She gazed down the mountain at the cabins along the lake and a longing came into her lovely eyes. At that instant I envied Shakespeare McNair as I never envied anyone. “I love my husband with all I am. He is everything to me. Were he to die, I would slit my wrists so I could follow after him.”

  “You shouldn’t talk like that,” I chided.

  “I speak my heart, Robert Parker. For all his silliness, Shakespeare is everything to me. My breath, my life. I heard someone say once that it is possible to love too much, but I say that too much is never enough.”

  “McNair is a lucky fellow. I would give anything to be in his boots.” I quickly added, “And have a woman who cares for me as deeply as you care for him.”

  “If you look for a wife as devotedly as you look for birds, you will find her,” Blue Water Woman said.

  I often wondered about that. I am a man; I have certain urges. But I have never given any thought to a family and a home. My relationships have all been dalliances of the flesh more than anything. How, then, am I to find a woman willing to spend the rest of her days with me? It would help if I stopped traipsing all over creation, but I am not about to quit anytime soon. Heaven help me, I would rather devote myself to science than to a wife.

  As if she were able to read my thoughts, Blue Water Woman said, “Give yourself time, Robert Parker. You are fairly young yet. When that special woman comes along, you will know.”

  I changed the subject. “Tell me, fair lady. Can you write?”

  “Yes, my husband taught me. I do not do it as well as Winona, but it is legible. Why do you ask?”

  “It would benefit me immensely if you could make a list of all the animals you know which do not have a white name and where to find them.”

  “There is a purpose to this?”

  “Odds are, if they do not have a white name, they have not been discovered. Those are exactly the animals I came west to find. A list would save me a lot of time and effort.”