Knight in a Black Hat

by Judith B. Glad

  Nellie hurried to catch up so she could walk beside Gertie. "That sounds exactly like the one I'm looking for. Where did you see it? Were there many?"

  "I disremember. Up one of them canyons, I reckon. Let me think on it."

  "I've found it--or something like it--at several places. The flowers are smaller in the valley, but they're exactly the same as the big ones I found near the lakes above our camp. I was wondering if their size was dependent on elevation."

  "Where was the ones with little flowers?"

  "There were some near the small lake below our camp, and more up behind the ridge on the west side of the big lake."

  "Was they about knee-high, with leaves that looked like they'd been left out in a high wind and was tore all apart?"

  Nellie clapped her hands. "Exactly! What a good description. Do you know where there are more?"

  "They're all over the place. I reckon we could find some close to this trail, if we was to look." A few hundred yards on, she turned off the trail, led Nellie through the woods. Soon they were in a shady glade where water trickled slowly down a mossy cliff. "They ought'a be around here somewheres. Leastways, I think I seen some here."

  Sure enough, Nellie found several of the taller plants after a short search. "I wish I had my vasculum," she said, touching a flower. It was larger than the ones in the first group she'd found, and the plant was more compact. The leaves were still finely dissected, but smaller and closer together on the stem. Is this different from either of the ones I've seen? Or is it simply one step in a gradual progression from tall to short, from small-flowered to large?

  She explored the clearing but found no other plants she had not seen before. Once she was back with Uncle, perhaps she could persuade him to come up here.

  Or Malachi. He could accompany her to this lovely, hidden dell and they could lie together on the mossy ground and lose themselves in loving.

  Nellie closed her eyes as a wave of heat spread through her.

  "You ready to go?"

  Startled, Nellie turned. "Of course. I was just..." She paused, not sure what to say.

  "Ain't you gonna pick any?"

  "Oh! No. No, I'm not. I haven't any way to keep them fresh until I can press them."

  As they walked back to the trail, Nellie tried to explain to Gertie how plants were pressed and dried.

  "Seems like a waste of time to me, mashin' 'em flat like that," Gertie said, when she'd finished. "Only reason to pick a flower is 'cause it's purty, and if you're gonna mash it, it ain't purty no more."

  Having never thought of it quite that way, Nellie had to agree. While she saw the faded beauty in a pressed specimen, she had never thought about the loss of vibrant color and sweet scent. "It's the only way to preserve them," she said, but even to her, the words sounded more like an excuse than a justification.

  She saw glimpses of water ahead through the trees as they descended a long, gradual slope. Near the bottom, Gertie stopped. She dug into her pack and pulled out a filthy leather pouch. "Here, put this all over your face and hands." She dug a finger in and drew out a dollop of yellow grease which she smeared across her face and neck.

  Gingerly Nellie took the pouch between thumb and forefinger. "Why?"

  "Skeeters. They'll eat you alive." Now Gertie was applying the grease liberally to the backs of her hands and on her wrists well up inside the ragged shirt she wore.

  Nellie followed suit, twitching her nose at the smell, rancid and gamey. "What is it?"

  "Bear grease. Skeeters can't bite through it."

  Nellie rather thought they couldn't stand the smell. But she smeared it on every square inch of exposed skin, right over the top of the dried mud she wore to protect herself from sunlight.

  Once they reached more or less level ground, mosquitoes swarmed around them. Soon the back of Gertie's dark wool shirt looked like a live thing, its surface moving and shifting. She realized that it was covered with the insects, wing to wing.

  So was hers, and many of them were biting clear through it, wherever their beaks could reach skin. When Gertie broke into a quick trot, she kept up.

  They ran for what seemed like more than a mile, on ground that gave with their every step. Sometimes they splashed through water. Each time a foot touched ground, another cloud of mosquitoes rose, to circle their heads and seek out any unprotected skin.

  Both of them were panting when Gertie finally slowed. Only then did Nellie notice that the swarms of mosquitoes had disappeared, leaving behind only a few stragglers. "Worst place I ever seen for skeeters," Gertie said, wiping away a great glob of grease from below her nostrils. It held embedded insects. "Even the moose hate comin' here."

  "I've never seen anything like that. Are they always so abundant?"

  "Have been, every time I've been here." She picked a handful of grass, used it to wipe some of the grease from her face and hands. "I always feared they could suck me dry if I was to stay around too long."

  Nellie shuddered as she wiped her own face. "I think they might." She scratched at her shoulder, where the thin calico of her blouse had provided no protection whatsoever. Willard had warned about mosquitoes, and she'd thought he'd been exaggerating. Now she knew better.

  They had run along the shore of a lake for the last while, and now they were at its outlet. A fire had swept along the shore in the recent past, leaving only a few standing trees. Its black scar extended up the ridge to the north. Nellie's heart sank when she realized what it meant.

  They would find no camp here.

  "This must'a burned last summer," Gertie said. "I ain't been here for a while."

  "Is there another lake nearby?"

  "Over there." Gertie pointed to the south, where yet another ridge rose sharply.

  Nellie wondered if she had any climb left in her. Gertie might be tireless, but she had her limit, and it seemed, at this moment, very near.

  "We can go around the end. Might be better, seein' as how it's so late." She set off along yet another faint game trail. This one led slightly downhill, paralleling the outlet stream.

  Nellie trailed after, not at all sorry they weren't going to climb another hill.

  * * * * *

  Nothing interrupted the professor's collecting that day. Malachi and Willard took him around the shoulder of the hill to the south of their camp, into a marshy area where tall grass grew as high as a horse's shoulder. By the time they'd picked enough of the flower stalks and grass stems to fill all three of the vasculums--Malachi could almost hear Nellie correcting him--all three of the vasculi, his boots were soaked and his britches were wet to the waist. Willard had fared a little better, having collected along the dry edges of the marsh.

  "Well, that will do for today," Dr. Kremer said, when Malachi handed him a last bundle of purple-flowered plants.

  If he'd been back in Virginia, he'd have called them daisies, but he reckoned the professor would call them something else, unpronounceable and mysterious.

  Dr. Kremer handed the vasculum to Malachi. "This is certainly a productive site. It's unfortunate we didn't come here earlier in the season."

  "You said you didn't want to waste time on wet places," Willard said as they joined him. "You wanted sagebrush."

  "Nonsense, man. What I said was that I hoped to collect from all the different plant assemblages. The variety of plants found in sagebrush happened to be more interesting to me than others. Marshes are, after all, much the same wherever one finds them."

  "A-huh!" was all Willard said.

  "So do you want to come back here tomorrow?" Malachi asked, when they were headed back to camp.

  "Perhaps. I must peruse my maps before I decide."

  The path they followed was along the creek draining the marsh, and as they drew closer to its confluence with the west fork of the river, Rogue began tossing his head. Malachi drew him up, stood in the stirrups and looked ahead. A clump of willows bordering the narrow stream shook slightly as he watched. He held out a hand, signaling those behind h
im to halt.

  The professor rode right past him.

  Quickly Malachi spurred Rogue forward, until he could catch Dap's bridle. "Hold on there!"

  "What are you doing? Let go of my horse!"

  "Quiet!"

  "Don't you tell me to be quiet! And take your hand off my bridle!"

  The willows shook again, and then a black bear burst out of them. It took one look at the three horsemen not fifty feet from it, turned tail, and ran downstream.

  Malachi held on to Dap's bridle. "That could have been a grizzly, Professor," he said, keeping a tight rein on his temper. "I waved you to stop."

  "You held out your hand. It meant nothing to me. And why should I stop just because you're afraid of a bear? He ran away, didn't he?"

  Willard caught up. "The old fool came on afore I could stop him, Malachi."

  The professor opened his mouth, but before he could make a sound, Malachi said, "Dr. Kremer, if you have anything to say to me, keep it until we get back to camp. Right now I'm not feeling too favorable toward your demands."

  After a few sputters, the professor clamped his lips shut and grabbed the saddle horn.

  Keeping hold of the bridle, Malachi urged Rogue into a trot. He led Dap until they had rounded the end of the ridge and were headed back towards their camp.

  Once they'd dismounted, the professor stomped off to his tent, followed by Beckett. "You pissed him off but good, this time," Willard observed, as he stripped the saddle blanket from his riding mule.

  "D'you know, John, that doesn't worry me a whit." Malachi helped wipe down all four mounts, finding a certain satisfaction in the rhythmic activity. After a while he said, "Nellie--" He had to clear his throat, for it felt tight and aching. "Nellie told me that her uncle had been collecting in the West for about ten years, but I don't see that he's learned anything from it."

  "Were I a betting man, I'd say he's never before been west of St. Louie," Willard opined. "I've listened to his tales, and they're the sort you read in them Dime Novels, You know, bigger'n life and twice as exciting."

  Malachi paused, looked across Rogue's back at the older man. "You could be right," he said, amazed that he'd never considered that possibility. "But if you are, how'd he get the reputation he has? I've seen a couple of the books he's written, and Nellie showed me articles of his. One of them's called "Plant Explorations on the Beartooth Plateau," or some such. It had a list of all the plants he brought back from there."

  Willard shooed Beckett's mare into the corral and started wiping the mule's sweat-stained back. "What if somebody else picked those flowers and brung 'em back to him? Reckon he'd let on they wasn't his?"

  "But Nellie said he's always gone west as soon as he was through teaching in the spring, and never came back until late fall. Where'd he go then?" As soon as he'd asked the question, Malachi knew the answer. There was no word but Dr. Kremer's that he'd been in the western territories. "He could have been anywhere, couldn't he? Just sitting and waiting for his man to being back a bale of plants."

  Willard winked and nodded. "That's about the way I figure it. Hold on there!" he said, as his mule started tossing its head. "What's got into you?"

  The mule let out a mighty bray, which the rest of them took up. For a moment Malachi wondered if they'd deafen him. He dodged to the side of the corral as the animals began milling, lest he get stepped on.

  "Cat," Willard said softly, as he followed Malachi between the ropes that confined the animals. "Over there." He pointed.

  Sure enough, Malachi could make out the shape of a panther just at the edge of the woods across the creek. He grabbed his rifle, from where it leaned against a nearby boulder.

  "Hold on," Willard caught hold of Malachi's arm. "Something's peculiar here."

  The panther sat back on its haunches, as if it had a right to be there. The tip of its tail twitched a couple of times, then it looked back over its shoulder.

  Shadowy motion between the trees turned into the shapes of two people. Either they wore the baggiest britches he'd ever seen or they were...

  Women!

  * * * * *

  Gertie drew Nellie to a stop just inside the fringe of trees. "This's as far as I go, My Girl. I reckon I won't see you again."

  Nellie stared at her. "Of course you will. You're coming back with me, remember?"

  The old woman shook her head. "Naw. You don't want the likes of me, back in your fancy town. 'Sides, what would happen to Buttercup? I can't go off and leave him."

  "Gert-- Ma, he's a wild cat. He'll do just fine alone. And you don't have to live in town. We can find a place for you out in the country. Why, I'll come live with you, and we'll be happy as can be." Am I really trying to convince this crazy woman to go home with me? As if she was really my mother?

  Yes! She's a good woman, and only crazy in some ways. I can't go off and leave her here.

  Gertie cocked her head. "I got to think on it. You go on back there to your man, and I'll let you know."

  "But how?"

  "I'll be around. Keep your eyes open, and you'll see me." She turned away, but not before Nellie saw a single tear trace a line down one dirty cheek.

  "Wait!" Quickly she caught up with Gertie. Catching her in a tight embrace, Nellie whispered, "You take care, now, you hear? And you think about coming home with me. Please?"

  A sniff, then another. "Yeah, I'll think on it." Gertie pulled free and wiped a hand across her eyes. "Go on now. He's a'gonna be wonderin' what's holdin' you."

  Reluctant to leave the old woman alone, Nellie said, "You're sure you'll be all right?"

  "I'll be fine. Ain't I took care of my self for all these years?"

  "Of course." Still she hesitated. Then, "Gert-- Ma? I love you. Come home with me."

  "Git, afore he starts shootin' at my cat." Gertie walked rapidly away. Buttercup leapt to his feet and followed at a lope.

  Soon they were lost to Nellie's sight. When she could see them no more, she turned and walked out of the woods.

  Two men were standing at the side of the corral, staring toward her. She had not noticed them before, not having been aware she and Gertie were so close to the new camp. Now the tears that clouded her vision obscured their identity.

  Until one of them, the one clad all in black, started running toward her. Then she knew.

  "Malachi! Oh, Malachi!" She stumbled forward on legs weak and shaking. She was caught in strong arms, was swung around in a circle.

  "Thank God, Nellie. You're alive. You're safe." He held her close against him, so close that her nose was pressed tight against the hard strength of his chest, so close that she could hardly draw a breath.

  Nellie let him hold her until her legs could support her, then she pushed gently away. Looking up into his face, she saw new lines of strain at the corners of his mouth, deep shadows around his eyes that had not been there before. Hesitantly she reached up to touch his cheek. "I'm safe," she said, her voice breaking. "I was never in danger."

  "But where--"

  "It's a long story, and I'd just as soon tell it once." Casting modesty aside, she stretched up onto her tiptoes. "Kiss me, please?"

  "Oh, yes," he breathed, just before his mouth covered hers.

  Nellie lost herself in his welcome.

  An eternity later, she heard a throat being cleared. Malachi lifted his head slowly and looked to one side. So did she.

  "Reckon you folks might want to save that 'til you're alone," Mr. Willard said, red coloring his cheeks. "Here comes the professor."

  Both Nellie and Malachi turned, and he dropped his arm from about her. But he didn't step away from her, and Nellie felt protected and defended by his nearness as Uncle approached. His choleric expression told her clearly the state of his mind.

  She took a step backwards, wanting badly to turn and run.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  "Have you any idea of how much my work has been delayed by your absence?"

  Now why did I expect him to be glad to see me? " Y
es, well, I'm back now, Uncle, so there is no more need for concern." As he stared at her, Nellie became aware of how she must appear. Her hair was knotted and tangled. The bottom of her skirt was ragged, and her coat, tied around her waist like a backwards apron, was mud-spattered and grease-stained. She didn't even want to think about how dirty her face was, what with the remnants of the bear grease she hadn't completely wiped away. And surely there were still smears of the mud she'd spread over her cheeks and nose to prevent sunburn.

  "Just see that it doesn't happen again." He turned away. "Bradley, now that Nellie is back, she can care for young Ernst. There's no longer a reason to restrict my investigation to nearby areas."

  "Ain't you even gonna ask where she was?" Willard said. "Man, she's your own niece, and we'd gave her up for dead."

  "Nonsense! I told you she'd gone off on her own. "He glanced back at Nellie. "I'll speak to you later, young lady. Get yourself cleaned up. You're a disgrace." Without another word, he stalked back to his tent.

  "Why that old bas--"

  "No, he's right, Mr. Willard. I do look a disgrace. The first thing I want to do is bathe"

  "You do look a sight." Mr. Willard shook his head. "Jest tell me, Missy, was you...was you harmed?"

  "No, of course not." Then she understood what he was really asking. What they all must have been thinking. Why Malachi stood so stiffly and protectively beside her.

  "No, I wasn't harmed. Gertie--the woman who took me--treated me like her own child."

  Even though he wasn't touching her, she felt tension drain from Malachi's body.

  "A woman? You're tellin' us a woman carried you away?" Disbelief was plain in Mr. Willard's voice.

  "Yes, that's right." A wave of weariness swept over her. The last thing she wanted to do was relive this past week. "Please. I'm so tired. Just let me get cleaned up and I'll tell you everything."

  "Let's go, then." Malachi said, "I'll stand watch while she bathes, John, if you'll keep the others occupied."

  Nellie stumbled when he tugged on her arm. Her feet, aching when she put the moccasins on this morning, now reminded her that she'd walked many miles on rough ground with only a thin layer of leather protecting their soles.