I chuckled. “For all that, you love him very much, don’t you?”
She gazed down the mountain at the cabins along the lake and a longing came into her lovely eyes. At that instant I envied Shakespeare McNair as I never envied anyone. “I love my husband with all I am. He is everything to me. Were he to die, I would slit my wrists so I could follow after him.”
“You shouldn’t talk like that,” I chided.
“I speak my heart, Robert Parker. For all his silliness, Shakespeare is everything to me. My breath, my life. I heard someone say once that it is possible to love too much, but I say that too much is never enough.”
“McNair is a lucky fellow. I would give anything to be in his boots.” I quickly added, “And have a woman who cares for me as deeply as you care for him.”
“If you look for a wife as devotedly as you look for birds, you will find her,” Blue Water Woman said.
I often wondered about that. I am a man; I have certain urges. But I have never given any thought to a family and a home. My relationships have all been dalliances of the flesh more than anything. How, then, am I to find a woman willing to spend the rest of her days with me? It would help if I stopped traipsing all over creation, but I am not about to quit anytime soon. Heaven help me, I would rather devote myself to science than to a wife.
As if she were able to read my thoughts, Blue Water Woman said, “Give yourself time, Robert Parker. You are fairly young yet. When that special woman comes along, you will know.”
I changed the subject. “Tell me, fair lady. Can you write?”
“Yes, my husband taught me. I do not do it as well as Winona, but it is legible. Why do you ask?”
“It would benefit me immensely if you could make a list of all the animals you know which do not have a white name and where to find them.”
“There is a purpose to this?”
“Odds are, if they do not have a white name, they have not been discovered. Those are exactly the animals I came west to find. A list would save me a lot of time and effort.”
“It will take a while, but for you I will do it.”
Again my ears burned. “You can start now if you want.” I brought her a pad and bid her sit on a log. My head was swimming with all the new species I might find. I would be famous. My discoveries would be on the front page of every newspaper. I would be hailed as the leading naturalist of my day and might secure a prestigious position at a university. I did not become a naturalist for fame and fortune, but neither was I averse to recognition and a comfortable income.
I walked to the stream and knelt. Cupping my hands in the cold water, I splashed my face and neck. It brought me out of myself, out of my fancies and to the here and now.
“Do you want every animal I can think of?” Blue Water Woman asked. “Snakes and bugs as well?”
“Everything without a white name, yes,” I reiterated. “No matter what kind, no matter how big or how small.”
“It will be a long list.”
“Good!” The more new species I discovered, the better. I went to the packhorse and got out my journal, figuring I might as well catch up on my entries. I became so absorbed in my observations and descriptions that when a shadow fell across me, I gave a start.
It was Blue Water Woman. “I am finished.” She held out the paper to me. “If I have not written enough I can add more.”
She had done a marvelous job. First, she had listed birds, then mammals, then reptiles, then insects. She even put down a short list of fish. To give but one example, her first bird was “
“It could be that whites know of some of them, but I do not know the white name because when my husband and I talked about them, we talked in my own tongue.”
“McNair speaks Flathead?” I stupidly asked.
“Fluently. With a memory as good as his, he learns new tongues easily. Not as easily as Winona, but close.”
“You keep bringing her up,” I said.
“She is my best friend. I am in awe of how quickly she learns things. What would take me six months, she learns in a week.”
“You exaggerate, surely.” I scanned her list again, and something gave me pause. “Wait a minute. What is this? You wrote here, ‘A giant bird that carries off buffalo and sometimes people.’”
“Yes. My people call them thunderbirds. It has been many winters since they were last seen, but in my grandfather’s time my people lived in great fear of them.”
“So you have never seen one yourself? This is more of a legend?”
“You said everything, big or small,” Blue Water Woman reminded me. “I did not write about the giants or the little men, though, since they are people like you and me.”
“The what?”
“Long ago, when my people, the Salish, first came to the country where they now live, they fought with giants who lived in caves and wore bearskins. From time to time one would sneak into a Salish village at night and steal a woman.”
“Legends,” I stressed.
Blue Water Woman did not seem to hear me. “The little people had dark skins. They lived in the thickest woods where it was hard for men to travel, and they would signal one another by beating on a tree with a stick. The bow was the weapon they liked best. They made pictures on rocks, but no one could read what the pictures said.”
“Honestly, now,” I interrupted. These accounts bordered on fairy tales. “And where are the giants and the dwarfs now?”
“The giants were killed off long ago. They were a terror and had to be stopped. The dwarfs did not hurt anyone, so the Salish left them alone. My grandfather saw one when he was a boy.”
I was about to say how preposterous all of this was when a jay took wing squawking on the other side of the stream, and a few moments later, a handful of sparrows, twittering noisily, did the same.
Blue Water Woman raised her rifle. “On your feet, Robert Parker. We are not alone.”
Chapter Thirteen
Anything could have spooked the birds, and I said so.
“We must hide, quickly,” Blue Water Woman insisted. She did not wait for me to reply but turned and hastened to the horses.
I was slow to rise. In my estimation her alarm was uncalled for. Yet another example of the senseless dread displayed by the McNairs and the Kings. They acted as if everything and everyone were out to get them. For grown adults to behave so childishly was silly.
“Hurry,” Blue Water Woman urged.
“We have seen no sign of anyone else all day,” I mentioned. “What makes you think we are in danger?”
“Please, Robert Parker.”
“That is another thing,” I said. “Why do you call me by my full name? Robert will do. Or even Bob, if you like.”
“I like how your name sounds.” Blue Water Woman turned, leading her horse, but she only took a couple of steps. Then she abruptly stopped and started to raise her rifle to her shoulder.
“I wouldn’t, were I you, squaw. Not unless you want me to shoot you smack between the eyes.”
It was Jess Hook. He had come up out of the woods, his rifle trained on her. I suppose I should not have been surprised, but I was. I started to jerk my own rifle when a gruff voice behind me froze me in place.
Jordy Hook had stepped from the trees across the stream. He, too, had his rifle to his shoulder, only his was aimed at me. “Set that long gun down, painter man, or I’ll drop you where you stand.”
