Gardens in the Dunes (21 page)

Edward folded the newspaper as Hattie joined him at the little table.

“Anything interesting in the Albuquerque newspaper?”

“Oh, nothing too interesting, really. Your neighbor from Oyster Bay, Mr. Roosevelt, has been mentioned as a possible running mate for McKinley this time around.”

“That's interesting. I expected Mr. Roosevelt to settle for nothing short of the presidential nomination.” Hattie thought McKinley the worst of the greedy politicians. Edward smiled. She sounded like her father, Edward teased, “Don't forget: the budgets for acquisitions and independent contractors at the Smithsonian and for the Bureau of Plant Industry were quite generous under the McKinley administration.”

Hattie laughed. “So I sound like my father, do I?”

Just then the tray of tea and pastries arrived, and Hattie's expression became serious.

“Indigo says she has a mother and an older sister,” Hattie began. “As soon as we return, I want to look into this.”

But Edward was doubtful. The government required that strict records of the Indians be kept; Indian mothers did not easily part from their children.
Hattie glanced over at Indigo, who had started through the book of gardens a second time. The boarding school was run like prison; it was no place for a child as bright as Indigo. Hattie drew herself up straight in the seat. They didn't care the child was lost—they called off the search after only a day!

“Nothing government employees do surprises me,” Edward said. “Remember, I've worked with them in the field. The Indian Bureau employees are some of the worst.”

♦   ♦   ♦

The train stopped in Kansas City to change crews, which was enough time for a stroll through the downtown, though the humidity and heat were considerable. While Edward was at the telegraph office, Hattie and Indigo visited the soda fountain next door. Indigo loved the vanilla ice cream but the fizzing bubbles of the soda went up her nose and brought tears to her eyes. They saw a disabled automobile blocking traffic; the freight wagons and buggies jammed the downtown streets.

Indigo had not seen a Negro woman before, only Negro soldiers. She tugged at Hattie's sleeve and pointed at a tall, majestic dark-skinned woman who passed them in a lovely dress of pale yellow cotton trimmed in green satin ribbon; she wore a wonderful yellow felt hat with a single green feather and amazing button-up shoes of pale yellow leather with pearl buttons. As they walked through downtown Kansas City, Indigo saw a number of dark women dressed in satins and silks of the brightest prints and colors. On the streets crowded with people in clothing as ordinary as the dust, the Negro women were as lovely as hollyhock flowers in all their colors. Indigo decided they were more beautiful than white women in their pale colors of gray and beige.

Back on the train just after dark, Hattie pointed out the window to the great Mississippi River, as they crossed over it; but all Indigo saw was an ominous, surging darkness that went on and on like no river she ever saw. Night was the most difficult time; she missed Mama and Sister, and the thought of Linnaeus, alone in the distance and the darkness, made her cry. Her body was so tired of the motion of the train; her back and knees hurt from all the sitting. She lost count of the days they'd been gone. What if Hattie was not able to persuade the school authorities to let her go live with Sister Salt? What if Hattie gave up and left her at the school? The school authorities never intended to let her go home. Tears filled her eyes when she thought of Sister Salt, dragged away with the others considered too old and unruly for school. Yet she could not think of Sister without remembering
her fierce will and her quick wits. Sister Salt would escape the first week. Indigo was so proud of her sister that her spirits lifted and she drifted off to sleep, recalling the fun she had with Linnaeus in the red garden with the pomegranate trees.

They changed trains in Chicago in the middle of the night. Indigo awoke as Edward carried her off the train, wrapped in a blanket in her nightgown. She was embarrassed to be close enough to smell Edward—not just the soap he washed with but his odor. He held her lightly as if he were afraid she would break; women carried her differently. She pretended to be asleep and kept her eyes shut tight as they moved along the crowded platforms until they found the train and their car.

Hattie and Indigo spent much of the remainder of the trip in the observation car with the garden books open in their laps as they gazed out the train windows for glimpses of gardens and parks that resembled those illustrated in the books. The closer they came to their destination, the more Hattie's spirits and the spirits of the child soared.

Edward was relieved to have the parlor compartment to himself the better part of the day as he completed the statement his attorney requested concerning the circumstances of the failed expedition on the Pará River. He consulted his journal for the details from the beginning.

This morning the winds on the great river were high and against us; we were obliged to keep in port a great part of the day, which I employed in little excursions round our encampment. The live oaks are of astonishing magnitude, and one tree contains a prodigious quantity of timber, yet comparatively, they are not tall, even in these forests, where, growing on firm ground, in company with others of great altitude (such as Fagus sylvatica, Liquidambar, Magnolia grandiflora, and the high Palm tree), they strive while young to be on an equality with their neighbors.

The journal entries made no mention of the clandestine itinerary of the expedition; indeed, his attorney advised him to maintain his ignorance of Vicks's mission on the Pará River. All final preparations for the expedition
had been made by Lowe & Company when Edward received a telegram from Lowe & Company with news of the last-minute changes that were necessary.

Originally the plan called for Edward to travel alone; Lowe & Company was keen on modest overhead with high returns to their investors. Business was conducted discreetly; buyers or their agents made their requests, and Lowe & Company contracted with independent plant hunters like himself to go into the field to obtain the specimens. This time, however, the consortium of prospective buyers insisted their representative, Mr. Eliot, go along.

During his student years Edward financed his tours to distant and exotic locations by the resale of rare plants and other curiosities he found in public markets. From a trip to Honduras he brought home a lovely
Oncidium sphacelatum
for his mother's collection. How delighted she had been as the plant was unpacked and settled in its hanging basket of bark and moss. It was a robust plant with light green leaves; the flower spike that later emerged was nearly three feet long and well branched; the flowers opened in quick succession and lasted for weeks.

His mother had been so excited the morning the first buds opened, she called him to the glass house to see her “dancing ladies” in their yellow ball gowns, bright red vests, and elaborate tiaras of chocolate brown and butter yellow. The orchid thrived and became a special favorite of his mother.

From that time on, when he collected wild orchids for his mother's collection, he brought back a few extra plants to sell to collectors of her acquaintance. His first sale to other collectors had been specimens of
Brassavola nodosa
he brought back from Guatemala. The orchid was always a favorite because of the heavenly fragrance of its odd white flowers resembling wild swans in flight. His mother lost her specimen to overwatering. Sadly, the loss of this orchid was followed by others as his mother compulsively watered the orchids in the days that followed his father's funeral.

Mr. Albert of Lowe & Company assured him the company had complete confidence in him as a field collector of wild orchids; however, due to the substantial sums at stake, the investors had requested their man come along. Edward assumed the man would be one of the hybridizers who wished to go see for himself the natural habitat of the orchids. Although Edward preferred to travel alone, he had no objection to traveling companions. The list of orchid specimens wanted was quite extensive, and Edward could use the assistance.

When he first traveled the jungle rivers twenty years before, a splendid
profusion of wild orchid flowers could be seen along the riverbanks, and specimens were easily gathered. But the orchid mania swept in, and though it ebbed, it did not subside; over the years the demand for wild orchids used by hybridizers made the plants increasingly scarce and difficult to obtain.

Ordinarily, Edward made his own travel arrangements at his own expense; he went alone to enjoy the exotic beauties and curiosities in the solitude of the forests and mountains. He brought along a list of plant material desired by his private clients, wealthy collectors in the east and in Europe. The sales of the specimens he collected ensured that he did not deplete his capital. But during 1893, shocking setbacks had occurred for many investors, and Edward suffered significant losses on the stock market. The remote destination and the magnitude of the specimens sought on the Pará River required far more of a cash outlay than he could afford; so Lowe & Company agreed to advance a large sum to outfit the expedition.

Edward was to receive a generous honorarium, and it was understood he might collect as many specimens for himself as he wished, but he was in no position to object to additional members of the expedition. Mr. Eliot might be helpful with the labeling and packing of the specimens.

The other addition to the Pará River expedition was far more unsettling; Mr. Vicks was an Englishman who came by special request of the Department of Agriculture in cooperation with officials at the Kew Gardens. Mr. Albert swore Edward to secrecy because Mr. Vicks was on a special mission for Her Majesty's government and time was of the essence. A virus, rubber tree leaf blight, was destroying Britain's great Far Eastern rubber plantations. Mr. Vicks's mission was to obtain disease-resistant specimens of rubber tree seedlings from their original source, the lowland drainages of the Pará River. It was imperative Kew Gardens obtain specimens that resisted and survived the leaf blight so stricken plantations in the Far East might be replanted with resistant trees. Otherwise the supplies of cheap natural rubber would be lost to England and the United States; Brazil would enjoy a world monopoly of rubber once more.

The problem was, all British horticulturists were denied entry visas to Brazil because twenty-five years earlier, diplomatic feathers had been ruffled when Henry Wickham smuggled seventy thousand rubber tree seeds past Brazilian customs officers to break Brazil's monopoly of natural rubber. Only three thousand seedlings were obtained from the seeds by the Kew Gardens, but they were enough to open up vast rubber plantations in Malaya and Ceylon.

Before Wickham's daring feat, Brazil and her Portuguese godfathers had jealously guarded their rubber monopoly. Twice before Wickham, agents sent out by Kew Gardens were arrested by the Brazilian authorities in possession of hundreds of
Hevea brasiliensis
seedlings. Clever Wickham chartered a riverboat and smuggled the seeds hidden in Indian baskets; for his daring, Wickham was knighted by the queen.

Since that time, any foreigner found in possession of rubber tree seeds or seedlings was arrested immediately. Thus, as an extra precaution, Vicks traveled under a U.S. passport specially prepared for the mission. The Brazilians and Portuguese would be delighted if the British rubber plantations all were destroyed. The leaf blight virus might well restore Brazil's world monopoly on natural rubber.

Mr. Albert assured Edward Mr. Vicks would be no bother; researchers in Surinam learned deserted rubber plantations were the best sources of disease-resistant specimens. While Edward and Mr. Eliot went out to collect orchid specimens, Vicks would travel by canoe to abandoned rubber stations upriver.

The Pará estuaries teemed with unimaginably diverse animal and plant life; monkeys, colorful parrots, and cascades of rare orchid flowers were not all; the Pará River was the only habitat of the
Hevea brasiliensis
, the most important source of natural rubber in the world.

Hevea brasiliensis
, the Caoutchouc Tree, the Pará Rubber Tree, sixty to one hundred thirty feet tall in native sites, floodplains in the watersheds of the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers. Leaflets elliptic, two to twenty-four inches long, thick and leathery. Seeds used as food by natives; the milky juice is the best and most important source of natural rubber.

Edward read over his notes with a growing sense of regret; he felt uneasy about additional companions so near the departure, but he trusted the judgment of Mr. Albert and the company, so Edward did not object.

He had more misgivings after his two companions were introduced: Eliot was a large sullen man who might be mistaken for a prizefighter were it not for the finely tailored white linen suit he wore. Vicks was small and dapper, but his eyes did not meet Edward's when they were introduced. Mr. Albert produced the list of the rare orchids they were to collect, and Edward realized Mr. Eliot knew little or nothing about orchids. Eliot interrupted Edward's descriptions of the orchids' habitats to ask frivolous
questions about the wet seasons and the dry seasons. The first time Eliot behaved rudely, Edward looked at Mr. Albert, who returned his gaze; after the second interruption Mr. Albert looked down at the list of orchids, cleared his throat, but said nothing.