The Botanists: An Adventure

"M'sieur, madame, this way s'il vous plait." The maître-d' escorted them to a quieter corner of the establishment. Clemens's rants dwindled to a dull roar.

They dined simply and sparingly; neither were gourmands. Oysters, of course, and sole broiled in herbs, with asparagus greens and baby potatoes, and a dry Chablis from the Valley of the Moon. Light custard for dessert, with a glass of Napa sherry for each.

They barely noticed the elegant food and drink. Conversation trumped victualing.

They talked of life during dinner. T.S. pulled a notebook and maps from his dispatch case after dessert. They sipped brandied coffee and studied his material.

"You're going back to the Channel Islands -- when?"

"The MINERVA steams in two days. She will divert to San Miguel Island before docking in Santa Barbara. Ten days later she will take me to Santa Rosa Island. Ten days after that, to Santa Cruz Island for ten days, and then return here. Not nearly enough time but that is the best I can arrange."

"You will be back here next month?"

"Yes, and then we can organize a brief expedition into the Diablo Range. That's not far and certain pockets have not yet been surveyed. Here..."

He pointed at locations on a map. She leaned close to study the details. Well, also to lean against his muscular shoulder.

"Yes, I can arrange a survey then. We'll steam to Monterey and requisition a wagon from the Academy's station there, then head east..." Her finger traced the map route.

Her restrained breast pushed into his arm. Both noticed. Neither commented. Neither backed away.

The bells of St Mary's rang midnight before T.S. escorted her from their table. The crowd at the premier table was drunker and louder. Someone was trying to sing, and failing. Samuel Clemens was unconscious. Glamorous Lily Langtry looked bored.

The late hour made a stroll inadvisable; The City's night streets were dangerous. T.S. hailed a hansom cab for the brief ride up Dupont Street. They necessarily pressed close on the narrow seat. She held his arm.

He dismissed the cab and walked M.K. up her steps. She took his hands in hers.

"Sir, I... This has been a most productive evening." Her voice quivered in time with her heartbeat. "I expect that we shall work together well."

Her lips brushed his cheek as Chan Li opened the door. She quickly straightened.

"Indeed, ma'am. I look forward to our future studies. Good night."

He tipped his derby to her. She stood still, watching him, until Chan Li's giggle broke her trance. She flushed, frowned, and hastened inside. The door closed after her.

He considered the lonely hotel bed awaiting him. No, he was not yet ready for that. He walked the few blocks to Madama Martinez's tidy whorehouse. He would take a girl who looked nothing like M.K. He would not think of M.K. while he fucked a substitute, not a white woman. He would not obsess over M.K. That is what he told himself.

Chan Li helped her mistress prepare for bed. She was not gentle.

"You still horny," she sniffed. "You not get man yet. How long you going wait?"

M.K. sighed. "Li, I am lost," she admitted.

She did not cry herself to sleep. Sleep escaped her for hours. Her eyes only moistened. The storm was within her mind and soul; little leaked out.

T.S and M.K. each tended their own business the following days and weeks. She had a series of dreary but needful meetings across the bay with University of California faculty. He prepared and executed his Channel Islands survey. The impedimenta of semi-civilized life kept them apart for almost two months until the onset of the Bay Area's mild, foggy summer.

They faced the Folsom Street wharf with minimal baggage: bedrolls and clothes; journals and plant presses; surveying optics; his rifle and shotgun; her big Colt Navy revolver. A wagon-load of camp gear and supplies awaited them in sleepy Monterey.

Fog banks hung well off the coast when they steamed south to Monterey, a dawn-till-dusk passage. Weather patterns promised a fair week for their survey. Their scant luggage stowed, they sat tabled in the passenger steamer AMBROSIA's tiny canteen sipping hot sweet mocha, a mix of Guatemalan coffee with Ghirardelli chocolate and a hearty splash of Korbel brandy -- a sovereign remedy for the morning's maritime chill.

"Asa Gray's tyranny over botany must be broken, sir. He and his lackeys just do not comprehend Western environments and the forces shaping plant evolution here. They know Eastern and European weather, landforms, and gradualism. This is a different world, vastly different."

"Yes, ma'am. They don't see the relationships between species here, such as how Larrea divaricata" [that's the Mohave desert's defining creosote bush] "maintains regular spacing by emitting root phytotoxins that kill off competitors for scarce water. Or how Pholisma and Ammobroma" [clumpy sponge-like plant vampires] "parasitize plants dozens or hundreds of feet away under sandy desert washes. There's nothing like that back East. They have no conception."

He was not merely a Yale alumnus bashing rival Harvard. He was deeply disturbed by academic incompetence and sloth. Asa Gray was a bottleneck. All botanical studies in America must funnel through his Harvard office to gain acceptance in the scientific world. And Gray's sloppy and sluggardly pace begat academic constipation.

T.S. refocused on M.K. She was flushed, breathing hard and fast, a thin sheen of sweat on her forehead, pupils dilated and bulging, lips tight and teeth flashing, a warm musky scent, And so lucid. Damn, she was wonderful when her hormones flowed!

"Their taxonomy takes forever and they don't get it right. It's rotten science, sir. That's why I've pushed the Academy's publication program so strongly. We can perform our own analyses, done right, and put them in print for the world to see. We can expect some little help from the University press but they focus on their own faculty, almost a vanity press, the same as any other college publisher. But until and even after the University expands their botany department, our bulletins and occasional papers are the main channel. We're building a repository that Gray's flunkies cannot challenge."

This was a familiar discussion by now. M.K. knew how to shake the scientific world. Better papers, and lots of them!

They would write hundreds of papers themselves, and many thousands of articles.

Their talk ranged from academic politics, to more naturalist gossip, to their own pasts. T.S. told many carefully-edited stories about his adventures in war and peace, his participation in transcontinental expeditions, his funny blunders and fortunate escapes. Only a few shipwrecks and broken limbs! M.K talked of the challenges facing a single woman in fieldwork and academia and of her own misjudgments and injuries.

"I thought I was a 'goner' when a herd of cattle stampeded our rough camp below China Lake in the northern Mohave Desert. But the teamster, that was Carlos Fueros, had his mastiff, Chiflado -- that means crazy -- and that crazy dog saved us all. He stood between the herd and the camp barking furiously. The herd split around him and bypassed the camp without touching any of us."

M.K. shivered at the memory.

"I panicked. I broke my ankle; I slipped on a sheer slab of quartz monzonite, running from that. Chiflado was like a miracle. I made sure the dog ate steak that night."

Their chairs edged closer as the day progressed. Sparks seemed to fly when their hands inadvertently touched as they passed papers, rulers, drafting compasses. Eyes occasionally locked together. But they maintained a decorous separation. Even magnetic chemistry demands control.

The steamer moored at the Pacific Street pier an hour before sunset. M.K. waved to the peasant-whites-clad teamster waiting dockside.

"¡Hola, Luís! Ready for an early start mañana?"

"¡Buenos tardes, Señora Curran! Sí, todo listo, everything is ready. You will stay at the Academy station, sí? Mi esposa has a fine meal for you. And you must be Señor Brandegee. Bienvenida, welcome to Monterey."

Luís Morales loaded their luggage in the buckboard; the three sat abreast on the hard bench seat. Luís shook the reins and clucked at his sorrel mare. The beast haughtily looked over her shoulder as if saying, "What's with you?" and then deigned to haul the load a few hundred yards.

The bayside three-story whitewashed clapboard building could have been transported bodily from Cape Cod. Neat painted lettering announced it as CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES -- MONTEREY FIELD STATION.

T.S. and M.K. left their gear for Luís to stow for tomorrow's journey. Each carried a small carpetbag of personal effects to their individual visitor's cells.

Charlton Webb, ex-Boston ship's master and chandler, served as station manager. The tall, slender Yankee with straw-thatch hair and cold steel eyes dancing in a lined visage was deceptively delicate-looking in his thin peacoat. Yes, very deceptive; he had boxed so successfully in his youth that his face remained undamaged by bare fists.

"Doctor Curran, so good to see you again, ma'am. Major Brandegee, welcome." Hands were shaken. "Professor Foyle wired the necessary information to us. We'll have you going at first light. But now, let's see what gustatory delights Señora Morales has in store for us."

The half-dozen station hands had already eaten and were bent to their evening chores. Luís the teamster joined the manager and botanists in the station's simple dining room. Their pre-dinner talk of trip plans halted hungrily when Señora Morales displayed her Oaxacan heritage with a splendid chicken molé entrée and the usual trimmings: juicy beans, maize corn tortillas the size of her hand, hard and soft cheeses, spicy salsas, fresh mulberry juice, and dark beer.

"Gracias, Señora Morales. ¡Muy delicioso! And thank you for your kind hospitality, Captain Webb." T.S. pulled out a small notebook and penciled a few words. "I certainly hope the Academy sends me to Monterey often." Notebook and stylus returned to his coat pocket. He drained his mug and sighed with contentment.

T.S. declined an offer of after-dinner cigars. He and M.K. climbed the narrow stairway to the widow's walk atop the station to watch sunset's afterglow fade from the Pacific horizon. Her hand crept from his elbow into his palm. Only a friendly, innocent grasp; their fingers did not intertwine.

"I never tire of this, ma'am," he said softly. "On the lower coasts, the Channel Islands, the Sea of Cortez. Dawn or dusk overlooking open water remains magical. The breezes, their scents and sounds; always the birds; the light on clouds or fog. Sometimes a green flash at sunset. No matter how far inland I venture, I always return to shore."

M.K. took a chance. Nobody in the vicinity could see them clearly. She dropped his hand and circled his waist with her arm. He did not resist; he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and gently pulled her closer.

"Do not think me too forward, sir; I merely wish--"

"I think I know what you wish, ma'am. We have time."

They stood still, lit only by distant street torches and a more distant sliver of setting moon. Thoughts swirled silently. Body auras mixed, blended. Chemistry simmered.

Church bells rang the twelfth hour. T.S. followed her down the twisting stairway to the residential hallway. They bid goodnight with a handshake and took to their lonely beds.

"Where is this going?" each wondered. They dreamt in parallel.

Morning came too soon. Morning always comes too soon, doesn't it?

T.S. no longer wore civic broadcloth and derby hat. He was dressed for field work in heavy Levi Strauss denim trousers and long coat and a flat-brimmed Zacatecas sombrero. M.K. was similarly attired, topped with a wide canvas hat. She found 'ladylike' dress unsuitable for expeditions. Her big revolver hung from her dainty hip.

They breakfasted heartily on Señora Morales's desayuno tipico of that morning's eggs scrambled with fresh-plucked tomatoes and scallions, thick hand-size tortillas, chunks of white cheese, scoops of creamy pinto beans, and fat plantains shipped up from Mazatlan and nicely fried.

Good food gave them strength; hot coffee laced with aguardiente rum gave them courage; the long day before them provided determination. Time to roll!

The teamster and the botanists carefully checked the overland wagon's load before departing. Light horse tack, weapons, survey equipment, tentage, folding tables and chairs, bedrolls and clothes, provisions for a week, barrels of water -- they were ready.

Luís hitched two horses to pull the wagon and tied the two relief horses' reins to the tail posts. He kissed his wife goodbye; the rest exchanged handshakes.

And they were off. The sixty-mile journey would take two days with an overnight camp near San Juan Bautista's old mission. Their path led across low coastal hills the first day, then through busy little Hollister and into the Diablo Range the next, across the dry Quien Sabe ("who knows?") Valley, and then up to rugged Ortagalito Ridge, their destination.

They made many stops along the way to examine likely prospects for new findings.

"These poppies -- do you see them as Eschscholtzia, or Papaver, or Argemone, or...?" He held up stems bearing bare buds devoid of petals. Their springtime had passed. "No, not Papaver, those are only old-world."

[Eschscholtzia californica is the California golden poppy, the flower that makes this the Golden State. It is the world's most beautiful flower, yes?]

"The hirsute stems? Probably Argemone, some variety of intermedia, but those are not like the corymbosa subspecies I collected on the Mohave Desert two years ago. More like a platyceras species. This is very far north for them. Yes, press those, sir."

They pitched a simple camp beyond earthquake-shaken San Juan Bautista and dined on Señora Morales's wrapped enchiladas and tamales heated over low coals. A single kerosene lamp lit their lazy talk. Hot cocoa splashed with rum lit their internal fires.

Orion was high in the night sky when M.K. crawled into her pup-tent, T.S. unrolled his blanket under the stars, and Luís spread his bedroll beneath the wagon. Luís was not officially a chaperone, merely the Academy-mandated help, but still... Respectable unmarried people did not play around. Not even middle-aged scientists. Not openly.

Dawn arrived early, this close to the summer solstice. A breakfast of roasted bully beef and maize corncakes sluiced down with cowboy coffee saw them off.

It was a day of steep mountain grades; all four horses were needed for traction. T.S. and M.K. put their shoulders to the tailgate and pushed more than once. Their eagle eyes spotted more new specimens, of Eriogonum (buckwheat), and Astragalus (locoweed, one species of which would be named for M.K.), and Cucurbita (gourds, one species of which would be named for T.S.), and even an Antirrhinum (snapdragon).

Their slow but steady pace brought them before the late dusk to their site in a saddle on steep Ortagalito Ridge. The setting sun provided light for them to establish camp: a canvas campaign tent for M.K. and the survey gear and field desk; tall pup-tents for the men; folding chairs and table; and an iron campfire grille and cookware.

Luís tended the horses and tack. M.K. assembled a dinner of beans, bully beef, Modoc potatoes and carrots roasted beside the flames, and a tin of asparagus greens. Fresh beer soothed their throats. Hot cocoa with rum served as dessert.

In other times and places, T.S. would shoot and dress some poor creature for fresh meat, and M.K. would gather a salad of wild greens and such. Or vice versa. Years of fieldwork had taught them self-sufficiency. But foraging was unneeded here and now.

"Buenos noches, good night, señora y señor." And a new faddish phrase: "Do not let the bedbugs bite, ¿sí?" Luís chuckled as he retired to his tent and bedroll.

M.K. and T.S. sat beside the campfire on folding stools and nursed their hot mugs. They gazed silently into the flames. Their eyes found each other.

He stood and offered his hand. "Ma'am? Walk with me?"

She stood and took his hand. Their fingers intertwined.

The trail over the rocky ridge saddle was barely visible under the Milky Way's starry extravaganza. They walked slowly for some time, and stopped. The westerly breeze carried dry summer scents with no trace of ocean air. Something far away howled. Soft scuttering sounds -- night creatures were out, hungry rodents and ground birds and small fierce predators, working their timeless life-and-death struggles, fluttering at the edge of sensation.

M.K. turned to her man.

"Do not think me too forward, sir; I--"

"Ma'am, I think of you forward, and backward, and sideways."

Her blush was hidden by the night. Her arms encircled him; his captured her.

"And sometimes I think of you upside-down," he whispered.

Their arms tightened. Their embrace intoxicated. He felt her fine uncorseted breasts press into his chest. She felt his stiff member dimple her groin through their denim layers. They sighed, and pulled yet closer. Her cheek rested on his shoulder.

"Sir, I must confess my feelings. I am more than distracted. I am lost."

She looked up. Starlight reflected from her damp pupils. He fell into those infinite pools.

"I will admit to being off the map myself, ma'am, in uncharted territory."

His rough lips brushed hers.

"A sextant and compass will not suffice to bring me in. I need a star to guide me."

He nuzzled her soft face.

They stood quietly together, hearing and feeling their breaths and heartbeats, smelling the remains of the day's sweat, aware of their organic chemistry.

"We have time, ma'am. We have time."

Hand-in-hand, they retraced their trail to camp, and to their separate beds.

The week passed quickly and productively. They saddled horses and rode the slopes.

They found a number of unknown and unobtrusive species of Poaceae (grain / grass family) as well as Brassicaceae (mustard family) and, most excitedly, a new Euphorbia (spurge). You-Forbs, as we call them, range from spiny cactus-like monsters from South Africa, to the flashy Poinsettia of Christmas, to North America's ultimate belly-plants, pinhead flowers so small that you must crawl on your belly to see them.

That is how T.S. made the discovery. He was distracted while walking. He tripped over an exposed sage root. He fell heavily. When he came to, he was face-down in clotted dirt. His eyes opened. He saw the 'you-forb' floret. He yelled.

His yell only spooked his pinto mare. M.K. was a mile away on her own search.

The botanists spent their days riding and searching. Luís passed the time reading bad translations of lurid penny-dreadful paperback novels written by Eastern city-slickers about fanciful wild cowboy-and-Indian adventures. He occasionally masturbated. He missed his wife already.

Nights followed a pattern. Similar dinners, and campfire chats fueled by hot rum-laced drinks. Luís joked and turned in early. The botanists strolled, and embraced, and whispered. And eventually they kissed. With tongue. Much tongue. M.K. surely appreciated that T.S. had smoked no after-dinner cigars.

And they walked back to their solitary tents. It was not yet time.

-----

Time.

Schedules.

Commitments.

It was time to pack their hard-won collections and notes, to break camp, to negotiate the steep grades. Time to return to San Francisco. Time to resume semi-civilized life.