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 not 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.”
