Letters from Yellowstone

by Diane Smith

  For the first time, I am having serious doubts that I can complete that part of the journey on my own. But this is a task unsuited to a William Clark, as critical to our initial success as you have been. For the next stage of the journey, what I really need is a Bartram. Bill, I need Miss Bartram to stay so we can finish our work here together. But not only do I need her. In all honesty, I want her to stay.

  I admit that I often have been contemptuous towards Miss Bartram. I have treated her like a child. Worse yet, I have ignored her for long periods of time, acting as if, in this self-contained world of men and science, she simply did not exist. When she first arrived, I hoped that she would understand the difficulty of my position and, understanding that, follow the proper course of action and, on her own volition, return home.

  Now, if given the chance, I would fall upon my knees and give her my word of honor that I would do all in my power to improve my treatment of her and atone for the worst of my actions. Sadly, I doubt that she would listen to me now. Or, even if she would, I doubt that she would believe what I have to say. So I will give you my word instead. I promise with all my heart to do my utmost to earn her respect for the duration of our stay here. I will do so, that is, if it is not too late, and I can yet convince her to remain with the expedition at least until we break this camp. I cannot promise more. I wish that I could.

  I hope that you are well, and you are enjoying life in our Nation’s Capital. I also hope that you are planning to relocate to that city, although not a day will pass that I will not miss your good company and counsel. Washington will value your abilities far more than President Healey ever could, and the Smithsonian will be a good and suitable home for a man with your intelligence and skills. Should you decide to return to Montana, however, and it is by chance before we depart from the Park, I do hope that you will visit our camp on your way back home. I want very much for you to see the scientific results of your vision and your unbending support.

  My best regards,

  Howard

  A. E. Bartram

  c/o Lake Hotel

  Yellowstone National Park

  August 14, 1898

  Dear Jessica,

  I hope you have been keeping my parents informed about my good health and wellbeing and that they are satisfied that no harm has come to me here. My life and my work are both going exceedingly well, in spite of the weather which, of necessity, forms the backdrop to everything we do. While I had the opportunity, I wanted to share a few events which might be of interest. You might want to share some of them with my father, as well.

  One afternoon, while the Professor and Joseph were cataloging specimens and I was taking advantage of a few hours on my own, I set up an easel just beyond the clearing where Joseph and Sara have established their camp. The day was unusually hot, as the weather has been in the late afternoons, and the sky was awash in a milky white cover of cloud.

  As I worked, I could hear thunder rumbling in the distance but before long, the wind picked up and thin lines of lightning cut through the blackness that advanced from the south. The sky overhead suddenly turned grey, then black, the temperature plummeted, and rain started falling in large, globular drops. As I hurriedly repacked my supplies and readied for the short walk back to camp, the wind continued to bluster, now carrying what appeared, at first glance, to be snow.

  The shortest route back to the safety of my tent was directly through Joseph’s camp, which I had avoided on my way out, thinking his family would want their privacy. But hail the size of pebbles was now pelting the earth, so I hurried directly through the Indian camp as I headed back towards my own. Sara and her children would no doubt be safely ensconced in their own tent, I reasoned, and would not witness my intrusion. Besides, even a few extra minutes in this weather could easily cost me my afternoon’s work, something I was not willing to sacrifice for what I considered to be a simple courtesy of questionable value to any of those concerned.

  Sara and her two children were indeed safe inside their tipi but they were not hidden away. Rather, they sat at the tipi opening, watching the advance of the storm. All three watched as I rushed into the clearing where they were camped. I acknowledged my presence with an apologetic smile, intending to hurry right past them, but as I did so a large explosion cracked a nearby tree and the wind picked up a branch of it and carried it like paper overhead. The oldest child gasped. I was never certain if it was the thunder, which was deafening, or if the bough just missed me in its flight. Perhaps it was both. Whatever the cause of the child’s expressed concern, Sara rushed from the tipi and grabbed me by the arm. My first instinct was to resist, since my own camp was only a few hundred feet away, but since I was rude enough to intrude on her privacy, I felt it would have been doubly rude to refuse her offer of shelter and respite from the storm, so I allowed her to lead me into her family’s home.

  I had visited Joseph and his family on a couple of occasions, bearing small gifts for his wife and their children. At the time, I wanted Joseph to know that, contrary to my earlier behavior and demeanor, I appreciated his knowledge and that his actions that evening at the lake had, without a doubt, saved the lives of Dr. Rutherford and our driver. But because these earlier visits to his camp were brief, mere courtesies really, I had not taken the time to fully appreciate the way he and his family lived. I now had an opportunity to look around.

  Unlike Professor Merriam’s hospital tent, which is a large rectangle of uniform height giving the impression of a room set aside for solitary confinement, the tipi I entered with Sara is of a conical shape, with a small fire pit at the center, and a ceiling which rises maybe twenty-five or thirty feet into the air. The family sleeping skins are laid out on one side, opposite some tools and supplies stacked neatly against the tipi shell. In spite of the awkwardness of my arrival, and the fact that I was a stranger in their home, I felt comfortable as I settled into the dwelling. Even the moaning of the trees in the wind overhead could not penetrate the homey warmth of that large, circular room.

  At first neither Sara nor I had much to say to the other. I was grateful, of course, for her hospitality, and I told her so, but she sat perfectly still, almost immobile, looking out past me at the now retreating storm. She has long hair, the deep blue-black of Dr. Rutherford’s Corvid, and she has a detached way of looking that makes her appear as if she were far away, or not quite of this world.

  As the weather calmed, and the hail changed to a light but steady rain, I thanked her again for her courtesy, and began to take my leave.

  “It is my pleasure to assist you,” she said. “You have been most generous to my husband, and appreciative of his science stories. For that I am grateful.”

  Jessie, I can admit to you alone that I was stunned that she had spoken so clearly to me. And in such perfect English. I am not so prejudiced to think her dumb or incapable of speech. It is just that I had never imagined that she would have anything to say to me. It turns out that she had much to say, from which I hope I am able to learn.

  As a light rain continued to fall, Sara shared her own stories, about how, when she was very young, she was sent away to a missionary school, not to learn white man ways, as she referred to them, but to learn to be a leader in her tribe. Unlike white families, she explained without the slightest hint of condescension, Crow families value their women. They are considered important to the foundation of society.

  Ironically, it is the value of women that puts them at risk. Although men and women do marry, the wives of other men can be highly prized and, according to Sara, can be taken away—in essence stolen—if another man has what Sara referred to as a prior claim. She then revealed the real reason she and Joseph have been travelling for so long with us in the Park—Sara had learned from her sister that a tribal leader was planning to kidnap her and make her his wife.

  “This man had already taken the wife of a friend,” she told me, “and was planning to steal me as well. I love my husband and my family,” she said. “I made the decision I w
ould not go.”

  I was shocked at such a confession. But you know me, Jessie. I can never stay silenced for long. I had to know what she could do to prevent being taken away.

  “I told Joseph I would not go without a fight,” she said flatly. “This put my husband in a difficult situation, considering the man’s claim, so he agreed that we should leave. He said we would go gather medicine. Collect materials for knives and tools. And we would wait until the man lost his interest.”

  In spite of her willingness to share these confidences, she still looked at me as if I were miles away. She never smiled. In fact, she never really acknowledged it was me to whom she was speaking.

  “So how will you know it is safe for you to go home?” I asked.

  “We will return when it is time,” she told me. “When we are done here, we will go home. By then the man should understand that I will not leave with him and that I plan to stay with my husband. That should be the end of it.”

  She said this with such conviction that I dared not question her further. But, Jessie, can you imagine? How could anyone live with those fears? She is like property, to be stolen by any man who wishes to claim her. But when I consider the young women travelling with Miss Zwinger, many of whom will be, when it comes right down to it, purchased by the highest bidder, I cannot pass judgment on Sara and her kind. I now see for myself what my father has maintained all along to be true. Native people may live in a different world from ours, but it is not an inferior one. I admit that I have been quick to condemn Joseph for what I have perceived to be his primitive beliefs, but he and his wife are not savages, as their detractors would have us believe. Or at least they are no more savage in their world than we are in ours.

  When I readied myself to leave, Sara looked at me with a piercing familiarity, and then invited me to visit again. “Do not wait on the weather,” she advised, looking at me directly for the first time.

  Jessie, you would not believe her strength and demeanor. She puts most women I know to shame. Myself included. I know I have had my prejudices, no more than ignorance really, to overcome in this world. I am beginning to see that I need to learn how to recognize what is good and kind and true in each individual’s view of the world. I can only hope that my own primitive beliefs will not stand in the way.

  But there has been more to my experiences here than just a long-overdue opening of my eyes. My spirit has been opened as well. The other day Professor Merriam, Dr. Rutherford, Joseph, the two students, and I left camp early and headed out under a vaporous cover of cloud. Steam was rising from the creekbed we followed, mixing with the fog and mist, transforming the world around us into a seeming fairy land of sparkling white. In spite of the damp and cold we were all in excellent spirits, calling out to each other like children in the mist, as we worked our way through the damp, thick undergrowth.

  As we cleared a rocky outcropping, and the creekbed took a turn to the south, we found ourselves on the edge of an expansive high mountain meadow awash in color. Even Dr. Rutherford, who reluctantly had agreed to join us on this outing, and who had lost his good humor about half way up the mountainous climb, was overwhelmed by the sight.

  Lupinus argenteus, Castilleja miniata, Geranium viscosissimum, and Perideridia Gairdneri painted a field with bright blue, red, pink, and occasional white brush strokes against a sea of low-lying mist and green as far as the eye could see. As if to intensify the moment for us alone, just as we entered the meadow, the sun rose past a ridge to our east, and glistened against the thin blanket of ice which was spread across the field. I looked at my colleagues and I could see that they, too, felt as I did. This was the moment for which all of us, each in our own way, had been waiting. We stood silent, as if in prayer or meditation, and then slowly, one by one, we went to work.

  Everything was wet with the mist and icy dew, which numbed my hands and fingers as if I were collecting under ice water, but there was simply not enough time to wait for the sun to warm the day. Dr. Rutherford joined me, along with Rocky, and the three of us commenced collecting on the far western reaches of the meadow where, we reasoned, the sun would be the warmest, while Professor Merriam, Joseph, and the other student treaded through the crunchy grass to collect along the clearing nearest to the creek.

  As we worked, it occurred to me that this might be ideal conditions to see Ursus horribilis, and I mistakenly mentioned the fact to Dr. Rutherford.

  “Grizzly bears?” he asked. “Here?”

  “Can’t you imagine them living here?” I asked him. “It seems like perfect country for bears. Look at those berries. And all that decaying wood along the line of trees.”

  Dr. Rutherford turned pale. He had no desire to see wildlife and, after the mountain man’s tale, was determined to avoid seeing bears, any bear, at just about any cost.

  We all worked diligently throughout the morning, except for Dr. Rutherford who was forever keeping a lookout over his shoulder for marauding bears. Finally, around noon, with the sun and temperature rising, we made our way back to the shady creekbed to decide how next to proceed.

  Professor Merriam suggested that, after eating lunch, we ascend the rocky ledge to the east of us, and search the ridge for additional alpine variations. This particular ledge did not present a risk or climbing challenge to any one of us, however, Dr. Rutherford, still leery of bears and unwilling to climb any farther, voted against the idea. He suggested instead that we return to camp, noting that it had been a long and exhausting day and that we could always collect along the streambed as we headed home.

  Professor Merriam then turned to me and requested that I voice my preference. I was surprised that he would ask and, because my opinion had never before been solicited, I found myself unprepared to offer one. Jessie, can you imagine it? I did not have an opinion! Instead, I assured Professor Merriam that I would be content with either decision.

  The Professor nodded and suggested that we eat our lunch. “It’s always easier to make plans on a full stomach than an empty one,” he said.

  Dr. Rutherford grunted in agreement and, as we removed our bread and cold meat from our field bags, he excused himself and retreated into the privacy of the woods.

  Before I had time to spread my cloth upon my lap, we all heard Dr. Rutherford’s loud hollering as he came rushing through the trees.

  “I heard it, I saw it,” he shouted, valiantly trying to pull his trousers from around his ankles as he ran.

  “Up there. I saw it,” he cried again. “It was huge, walking, back there, through the trees.”

  As Dr. Rutherford splashed to the other side of the creek, we all sat still for a moment and tried to sharpen our eyes and ears in the direction he was pointing.

  “There, there, did you hear it? That crashing. Did you hear it?”

  We could indeed hear something moving through the underbrush. It was hardly a crashing, but it was approaching, slowly, cautiously, on the far side of the creek. We hastily returned our lunches to our cases and stood, the five of us, peering into the shadowy darkness on the other side of the creek, while Dr. Rutherford buttoned his trousers.

  “I told you we should go back to camp,” Dr. Rutherford shouted. “I told you.”

  On many occasions, Dr. Peacock has assured me that the bears we are most likely to encounter here and throughout the Park feeding at the garbage pits and begging outside of the hotels are not particularly dangerous unless, of course, you interfere with their young. Grizzlies are another story, but since they prefer to avoid contact with humans at almost any cost, even they pose little threat. Naturally, since U. horribilis are less adapted to human contact and interaction, I have become more determined than ever to see one before returning home.

  “We should go see what it is,” I suggested to Professor Merriam. “It could be a grizzly,” I added, “and there aren’t many opportunities to see one in the Park.”

  “Miss Bartram,” the Professor responded, “I know you have great curiosity when it comes to bears, but I would pref
er for the safety of us all that you remain with the group. At least until we understand what we’re dealing with here.”

  He looked around the small clearing where we were now huddled together, and added, “Perhaps we should move to open ground where we can see the animal better if it does continue to advance.”

  I was disappointed by yet another example of the Professor’s lack of interest in anything outside of medical botany and common names, but we could hear the bear or whatever it was moving just above us now, where the streambed took a turn to the south, so I reluctantly joined my party as they re-entered the open basin. From our new location, we could still see nothing, but we could hear a splashing, as if the creature were following our path down the creek.

  Rutherford became even more agitated as he realized we were now standing in an open area with little or no protection. Should the bear decide to attack, we would have nowhere to hide.

  “We have to go,” he warned. “Up there. Onto that ridge.”

  Professor Merriam cast me a sly look to ascertain whether or not I understood that this was the very same ridge that only moments before Dr. Rutherford had refused to climb.

  “Well, I suppose that would work,” he said with a shrug.

  As we gathered our things in preparation for the ascent, the bushes along the creekbed shuddered briefly and Dr. Rutherford panicked.

  “There, there,” he cried. “There it is.”

  Now we could all see a large shape, just through the trees, as it moved alongside or, more likely, through the water. Then we heard it grumble, groan, and then—swear.

  Dr. Rutherford was stunned but he identified the sounds immediately.

  For the first time, at least in my hearing, Dr. Rutherford swore in return and then added, “Peacock. I should have known.”