The falls are not spectacular by comparison to, say, Niagara, but they gate the river quite effectively. Mist hangs heavy, a great pale thunderhead above the sweating rocks forested hills. Water a fast green flow, sky darkening with rain clouds, every rock and crevice invaded by a moss-like plant with delicate white blooms.
Having observed photographed the cascade we retreat to a point of portage. Tom Compton knows of a local fur breeder who might be willing to sell us animals for pack.
Postscriptum to Caroline Lily: Miss you both greatly, feel as if I’m talking to you in these pages even though I am very far away — deep in the Lost (or New) Continent, strangeness on every horizon.
The fur breeder turned out to be a truculent German-American who called himself “Erasmus” and who had corralled for breeding, on a crude farm a distance from the river, an enormous herd of fur snakes.
Fur snakes, Sullivan explained, were the continent’s most exploitable resource, at least for now. Herbivorous herd animals, they were common in the upland meadows and probably throughout the eastern steppes; Donnegan had encountered them in the foothills of the Pyrenees, which suggested they were widely distributed. Guilford was fascinated and spent much of the remainder of the day at Erasmus’s kraal, despite the pervasive odor, which was one of the fur snakes’ less attractive points.
The animals resembled, Guilford thought, not so much snakes as grubs — bloated, pale “faces” with cow-like eyes, cylindrical bodies, six legs obscured under ropes of matted hair. As a resource they were a virtual Sears-Roebuck catalog: fur for clothing, hides for tanning, fat for tallow, and a bland but edible meat. Snake furs were the Rhine’s staple of commerce, and snake fur, Sullivan asserted, had even made an appearance in New York fashion circles. Guilford supposed the smell didn’t survive the shearing, or who would want such a coat, even in a New York winter?
More important, the fur snakes made workable pack animals, without which the survey of the Alps would be a great deal more difficult. Preston Finch had already retired to Erasmus’ hut to negotiate for the purchase of fifteen or twenty of the animals. And Erasmus must drive a hard bargain, since by the time Diggs had his mess tent set up Finch and Erasmus were still bargaining — raised voices were audible.
At last Finch stormed out of the sod hut, ignoring dinner. “Horrible man,” he muttered. “Partisan sympathizer. This is hopeless.”
The Navy pilot and crew remained aboard the Weston, preparing to sail back down the Rhine with specimens, collections, field notes, letters home. Guilford sat with Sullivan, Keck, and the frontiersman Tom Compton on a bluff above the river, enjoying plates of Digby’s reconstituted corned-beef hash and watching the sun wester.
“The trouble with Preston Finch,” Sullivan said, “is that he doesn’t know how to yield a point.”
“Nor does Erasmus,” Tom Compton said. “He’s not a Partisan, just a general-purpose jackass. Spent three years in Jeffersonville brokering hides, but nobody could tolerate the man’s company for long. He’s not made for human companionship.”
“The animals are interesting,” Guilford said. “Like thoats, in the Burroughs novel. Martian mules.”
“Well then maybe you should take a picture of ’em,” Tom Compton said, and rolled his eyes.
By morning it was obvious negotiations had collapsed altogether. Finch wouldn’t speak to Erasmus, though he begged the pilot of the Weston to hold up at least another day. Sullivan, Gillvany, and Robinson went specimen-collecting in the forests near Erasmus’ grazing pastures, obviously hoping the issue would by some miracle be settled before they returned to camp. And Guilford set up his camera by the kraal.
Which brought Erasmus stomping out of his lopsided sod hut like an angry dwarf. Guilford had not had any personal introduction to the herder and he tried to refrain from flinching.
Erasmus — not much above five foot tall, his face lost in Biblical curls of beard, dressed in patched denim overalls and a snakeskin serape, stopped a careful distance from Guilford, frowning and breathing noisily. Guilford nodded politely and went about the business of adjusting his tripod. Let the Old Man of the Mountain make the first move.
It took time, but Erasmus eventually spoke. “What exactly do you think you’re doing?”
“Photographing the animals, if that’s all right.”
“You might have asked first.”
Guilford didn’t respond. Erasmus breathed a few minutes more, then. “So that’s a camera, is it?”
“Yes sir,” Guilford said, “a Kodak plate camera.”
“You take plate photos? Like in National Geographic?”
“Just about exactly like.”
“You know that magazine — National Geographic?”
“I’ve worked for it.”
“Eh? When?”
“Last year. Deep Creek Canyon. Montana.”
“Those were your pictures? December 1919?”
Guilford gave the snake herder a longer look. “Are you a member of the Society, Mr., uh, Erasmus?”
“Just call me Erasmus. You?”
“Guilford Law.”
“Well, Mr. Guilford Law, I’m not a member of the National Geographic Society, but the magazine comes upriver once in a while. I take it in trade. Reading material is hard to come by. I have your photographs.” He hesitated. “These pictures of my stock — they’ll be published?”
“Perhaps,” Guilford said. “I don’t make those decisions.”
“I see.” Erasmus pondered the possibilities. Then he drew in a great gulp of the heavy kraal air. “Would you care to come back to my cabin, Guilford Law? Now that Finch is gone, maybe we can talk.”
Guilford admired the snake farmer’s collection of National Geographic stacked on a wooden shelf — fifteen issues in all, most of them water-stained and dog-eared, some held together with binding twine, sharing space with equally tattered obscene postcards, cheap Westerns, and a recent Argosy Guilford hadn’t seen. He praised the meager library and said nothing about the pressed-earth floor, the reek of crudely cured hides, the oven-like heat and dim light, or the filthy trestle table decorated with evidence of meals long finished.
At Erasmus’ prodding Guilford reminisced for a time about Deep Creek Canyon, the Gallatin River, Walcott’s tiny fossil crustaceans: crayfish from the siliceous shale, unbelievably ancient, unless you accepted Finch’s caveats about the age of the Earth. The irony was that Erasmus, an old Darwinian hand who had been born in Milwaukee and lived downstream from the alien Rheinfelden, found the idea of Montana creek beds intensely exotic.
Talk drifted at last to the subject of Preston Finch. “Don’t mean to offend,” Erasmus said, “but he’s a pompous blowhard, and that’s that. Wants twenty head of snake at ten dollars a head, if you can imagine such a thing.”
“The price isn’t fair?”
“Oh, the price is fair — more than fair, actually; that’s not the problem.”
“You don’t want to sell twenty head?”
“Sure I do. Twenty head at that price would keep me through the winter.”
“Then, if I may ask, what’s the problem?”
“Finch! Finch is the problem! He comes into my home with his nose in the air and talks to me like I’m a child. Finch! I wouldn’t sell Preston Finch a road apple for a fortune if I was starving.”
Guilford considered the impasse. “Erasmus,” he said finally, “we can do more and go farther with those animals than without. The more successful the survey, the more likely you are to see my photographs in print. Maybe even in the Geographic.”
“My animals?”
“Your animals and you yourself, if you’re willing to pose.”
The snake breeder stroked his beard. “Well. Well. I might pose. But it makes no difference. I won’t sell my animals to Finch.”