James Smith: Hybrid

“No, I’m talking about you and James Fennimore Cooper. Now who do you think I mean?”

At the beginning of the summer, Dieter was uneasy about following up on Molly’s suggestion to hire an Indian for a nanny. Not that he didn’t trust an Indian with his children. Just an unfamiliar culture, that was all. Molly had told him that he ought to take with a grain of salt the stuff he used to see in the movies. He’d learned later that his feelings of anxiety were mutual. Amy Little Bear had told Molly “I don’t care what kind of doctor he is, he’s a stranger from two thousand miles away. He’s single, unemployed, and wants a woman around.”

When Molly arranged a meeting between Dieter and Amy, neither impressed the other. He thought her much too young. She thought him much too serious. But both had in common one thing: Molly’s friendship. The deal was struck. Amy rented a bungalow in Colter but spent weekends at Hebgen Lake with her family. There, Dieter had been told, she enjoyed her favorite hobby of flying a small plane out over the big sky country of Montana.

Dieter said, “The kids love Amy. That’s the important thing.” He didn’t want to comment any further. He swallowed a yawn and then spoke about the early morning delivery of a colt.

“I’ve never met the Loudermilks,” Molly said. “But I’ve heard most people don’t have much to do with them. I hope you got cash on the barrelhead from the old man.”

“Not yet.”

She chuckled. “Good luck with that.”

While she drove, Molly chatted about Josh Pendleton, the rancher they were meeting. He’d been a good friend of hers and the Judge’s for the past twelve years, ever since Pendleton moved just outside Colter and started a llama farm. A good bit older than she, he lived alone. His great-grandfather was one of a flock from Germany who followed the gold rush to the West. When he gave up on panning, he discovered real gold in peddling merchandise.

“Josh never married, never held a real job, and never intended to do anything about either,” she said. A genuine Rocky Mountain roustabout, he told tales of living the life of a wildcat miner, trapper and occasional guide. “He trapped or hunted wolf, coyote, Grizzly, wild cat, and who knows what all for thirty years all over the Rockies.”

They finally arrived at the ranch to the sight of a big man riding a palomino in a small corral. The over-sized cowboy, muscle-bound in his ragged denim overalls, brandished a lasso overhead as the horse cut for a calf. He threw the loop forward, but at the last moment the sprite animal dodged the snare. The rope struck it in the rump and splashed dust when the lasso slapped the ground. The cowboy cussed and pulled up the slack, coiling the rope into his free hand.

“Yep,” Molly said, “that’s Ol’ Josh.”

While Molly parked at the fence, another lasso sailed toward the calf with the same result as before. The rider dismounted with a look of disgust and tied the palomino’s reins to the top rail.

Molly sauntered toward him, shaking her head. “You just ruined one fine reputation I set up for you with that pitiful performance, Joshua. I don’t think your cattle have anything to worry about. Neither do those cute little calves.”

Josh Pendleton flaunted red hair and a beard a few shades darker that almost hid his dewlaps. “Never pretended to be a cowhand,” he mumbled.

“I want you to meet the new vet in Colter,” she said.

Pendleton shook Dieter’s hand with enthusiasm and a grin. “Molly told me a lot of good things about you, Doc. She don’t say such things about most people. Except maybe about me and the Judge.” He winked.

Dieter couldn’t quite get a grip on a hand as big as a horse’s hoof.

“You’re married to that good-lookin’ gal from the Blackfeet?” Josh asked.

Dieter jolted back his head. “Oh, no. That’s Amy Little Bear. She’s been taking care of my two kids this summer.”

“Wish I had a fine woman like that to take care of me one or two nights a week.”

“Shut your mouth, Josh,” Molly said. “The Doc here’s a professional.” She pointed behind Josh to a llama with dingy cream wool meandering toward them. “Besides, you can always cuddle up with one of Rocko’s girl friends on chilly nights.” She jabbed Dieter in the side with her elbow.

The llama’s banana ears pointed skyward from the top of a head that bore a half-comical expression. He studied Dieter with a haughty air, as if declaring his territory to a stranger. Josh patted the llama on the neck with one hand and held onto his back with the other. “You’re one handsome brute,” Josh said, as Rocko licked at his nose and cheek.

“Say hello to our professional visitor here,” Josh said.

Dieter reached out to stroke the animal’s neck, careful to avoid the head. The curly wool belied its look—soft, silky.

“Rocko’s my master llama,” Josh said. “North American breed. Pure muscle and bone. No dainty Peruvian genes in this animal, I tell you.”

“One of your guards?” Dieter asked.

“You bet. Takes good care of the herd and watches over my sheep—Targhee and Suffolk mostly. Let me ask you something, Doc. What other animal do you know that could carry a baby on its back along a mountain pass but still bring down a five-point buck?”

Dieter knew that llamas were unique farm animals. He’d treated a few in Pennsylvania and never understood why more farm families didn’t raise them. “How many you have?”

“Thirty-two in the field.” Josh pointed toward Rocko. “No coyote or wolf is going to get within ten yards of my llamas or sheep what Rocko won’t be all over it like a rat after baloney. When he puts the full force of those four hundred pounds on his raised front legs, he’ll hammer any intruder to death in seconds.” Josh jabbed his fists in the air. “I don’t understand for the life of me how one of my prized studs was butchered by another animal, a damned wolf no doubt.”

When Rocko discovered a clump of clover to munch on, Dieter thought of Megan lying on the lawn.

“Let’s go take a look at the kill,” Josh said. “You’ll see for yourself what’s keeping me up at night.”

Whenthe clerk at the West Yellowstone Country Inn spotted Gus Parsons’ Arizona address on the registration, he eagerly struck up a conversation. It turned out that the clerk had moved to Idaho from Flagstaff sixteen years before. He recommended that if Parsons wanted wildlife photos, he should take the trail along the Madison, one of the country’s most celebrated fly-fishing streams. The clerk said that legions of fishermen followed that path over the years to seek wild German Brown or Rainbow. And plenty of big mammals hung out near the banks.

“The Madison comes from the mating of two easy going rivers,” the clerk had said. “The Gibbon and the Firehole. When those two merge, they give the Madison one hell of a flow. And strangers to her can be easily fooled by her peaceful danger.”

He spoke of how one fly-fisherman from Toledo met his death on the river the summer before. Tucked inside chest-high waders, the angler shuffled about in water above his waist. “Most likely he was battling a feisty Rainbow when he slipped on the moss-covered rocks and sank like a rock. That current is totally unforgiving, by God.”

Parsons arrived mid-morning along the Madison River near Yellowstone’s western border. At his first stop he snapped telephoto shots of a trumpeter swan nesting in marshes. Later, he parked his white SUV—pearl white to reflect the Tucson sun—by the roadside and collected his gear.

Taking deep breaths as he strolled, he began the hike along the trail that followed the river. The crisp mountain air smelled of meadow grass. The flowing water surged around granite boulders and rippled like a melody over rocks and gravel in the shallows. In a field by the river a pair of great blue heron stabbed their long bills into the weeds as they foraged for insects. A red-winged blackbird dive-bombed the male, targeting the bright onyx head feathers.