could become so absorbed in his thoughts that he subtracted himself from the current of life around him. He could sit in a noisy coffee shop and be totally unaware of conversations right over his shoulder as he performed mental calculations. He could easily have lived alone. Indeed, he thought this would be his destiny. But then he found Jill and they began a life together, and children came, and love called Henry into the world.
* * *
—
THE PASS WAS STILL SNOWY in early July. As Lucky pointed out animal tracks, Henry realized how little he knew about the natural world outside of the laboratory. He lived in miniature, in so many respects, seeing life through a microscope. Now he felt microscopic himself, dwarfed by the trees and the mountains and the risky task he had set himself, which was beginning to feel like a trap.
The forest thinned out, and the trail switched back and forth in wide swings. The horses picked their way through a boulder field as pikas played hide-and-seek on the rocks. “If you’re especially fortunate, you might see a wolf,” said Lucky. “If you do, you can think of me.”
“Why is that?” Jill asked.
“That’s my Indian name, Yellow Wolf. Many people in my tribe are named Wolf-something. We regard Mister Wolf as very wise and cunning.”
Finally the trees fell away and the land opened into a vast meadow with high grass and flowers. The Bitterroot range lay across the horizon, jagged, snow-capped, splendid. Jill drew a breath. “It’s glorious,” she said.
“This was the way it was before they found gold and everything changed,” Lucky said. He hitched the horses to a post under a stand of fir and led them to the place where the creek spread into a broad pool, which was percolating with brook trout feeding on the hatch. He helped Henry put up the tent and then tied a rope around the food chest and hoisted it over a limb about fifteen feet off the ground. “Just out of reach in case a grizzly passes through,” he said.
“Are there grizzlies?” Jill asked. This was not something she had reckoned with.
“Not really. Black bears, yes. Maybe there was a report or two about grizzlies, but we never see them. They’re pretty shy. Still, best to keep your food out of reach. Don’t encourage them.”
Lucky had to get back over the mountain before dark, so he rounded up the horses and left Henry, Jill, Helen, and Teddy alone. It was just what Henry had longed for, although without horses they were essentially marooned in this paradise; at least, Henry was.
That first evening they sat in camp chairs watching the animals come to the creek. A herd of elk tore the grass on the opposite bank, and then a huge male moose with a rack six feet wide stomped into the pool. Henry had never appreciated how lethal such antlers could be, shaped like great opened hands with sharpened fingers, some of them a foot long. The moose announced his presence with a trumpeting bellow that caused the children, on that first night, to dart into the tent. He came every evening near dusk with the same bold cry. Teddy began calling him Bullwinkle. A bald eagle perched on a nearby boulder, preening itself, unfazed by their presence. All of the animals displayed a kind of regal indifference, as if they were only tolerating the presence of the Parsons family. They returned the human gaze with equal curiosity. We are all animals here, they seemed to be saying.
The third night it rained hard, with lightning strikes bursting right overhead, so bright that they lit up the tent like flashbulbs. Helen buried herself in her sleeping bag, but Teddy enjoyed the show, until one strike came so close they all jumped. Jill pressed her body into Henry’s, and the children inched their bags closer to his. Henry lay awake like a sentry until the storm passed and the thunder grumbled in the distant mountains. As he finally fell asleep, he thought that this was exactly what he was aiming for, an experience that brought them closer and showed them that what is frightening is not necessarily fatal.
* * *
—
TEDDY ASKED HIM, “I’m like Lucky, aren’t I?”
Henry and his son were collecting firewood after the rain. Henry showed Teddy how to whittle the bark off the wet sticks, which were dry inside. “You mean, because you’re both Indians?” he said.