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 gone 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.