by Harmon, Amy
“You aren’t like them.” Naomi May hands me a bowl of something that smells like salt pork and pignuts, and I wonder if I have spoken out loud. I am so startled I take her offering, though I have already eaten. I’ve drawn early watch, but the grass is abundant, and the animals graze within a stone’s throw of the nearest wagon.
“Who?” I grunt.
“Every Indian I’ve ever seen.” She shrugs.
“How many have you seen?”
She doesn’t lower her gaze, though I am trying to make her uncomfortable. It is only fair. She makes me uncomfortable.
“Some.”
“Well . . . there are many tribes.” I take a huge bite of the stew. It isn’t bad, and I take another, wanting to finish quickly so she will take her bowl and her spoon and go.
“Which tribe do you belong to?” she asks softly, and I sigh.
“I wasn’t raised in a tribe,” I snap.
“You aren’t like the white men I know either.”
“No?”
“No. You’re very neat and tidy.”
I snort, half laughing. “I was raised by a very fastidious white woman. Everything had its place. Even me.”
She eyes my freshly scrubbed face and my rolled-up sleeves. My clothes are clean—as clean as they can be—and my hair too. I know how to darn a hole and mend a tear, and there are neither in any of my garments. Naomi smooths her skirt as if she is suddenly self-conscious about her own appearance. She needn’t be. She has three dresses—pink, blue, and yellow, all homespun and unadorned, but she looks good in all of them.
“Where is your place, Mr. Lowry?” she asks, and the breathlessness in her voice makes my chest tight.
“Ma’am?” I ask, a little slow to follow.
“You said everything has its place.”
“Right now, my place is with the mules, Mrs. Caldwell.” I tip my hat and move past her, handing her my empty bowl. She follows me.
“I would prefer you call me Miss May if you won’t call me Naomi.”
“Where’s Mr. Caldwell?”
“Which one?”
“The one who made you a missus, ma’am.” I sound pained, and it embarrasses me. I know she is a widow, but I don’t know the circumstances that made her one. How long has it been? How long was she wed? I want to know, but I’m afraid to ask. And I don’t want to draw attention to myself or to her or to the fact that we’re together. Again.
I quicken my step. When she quickens hers in response, I duck behind a cottonwood where I’ve picketed Dame, hoping to shake her off. She’s as persistent as Webb.
“Daniel Caldwell made me a missus. But he died. And I wasn’t a Caldwell for very long. I never really got used to being one. I forget sometimes and say the . . . wrong . . . name,” she explains. “If you call me Mrs. Caldwell, I’ll think you’re talking to Elmeda.” She stops beside me and reaches out to Dame, who greets her with a bump of her nose and a quiet chuff.
“ka’a,” I chide softly.
“You say that a lot. What does it mean?” Naomi asks.
“It doesn’t really mean anything.”
“You say it when you sigh.”
“It’s that kind of word.” Most of the time I don’t even realize I’m saying it. It is a word from my earliest memories, something my mother would whisper when she was weary or wondering, an exclamation of nothing and everything.
“I like it.”
“You’re going to get me in trouble, ma’am,” I say under my breath.
“I am?”
“Go back to your wagon. I’m on watch. And I don’t want someone finding you with me.”
“We’re within shouting distance of a dozen campfires, Mr. Lowry. There is nothing indecent about conversation.”
I take several steps back, widening the space between us, remembering what Abbott said. She is not for you, son.
“Everything has its place,” I say, and my tone is firm.
“I’ve offended you.”
“You haven’t.”
“I did not mean to insult you when I said you were not like other Indians. I only wanted to understand you.”
“Why?”
“You act like a white man. You speak like a white man—most of the time—and yet you are not.”
“I am.” I am as white as I am Pawnee.
“You are?” Naomi sounds surprised. “You said you were raised by a white woman. Was she your mother?”
“Yes,” I say. Jennie was a mother in every sense of the word, and I don’t want to explain myself. Yet when Naomi raises luminous eyes to mine, tilting her head to the side in patient observation, I find myself doing just that.
“I was raised by my father and his wife, Jennie. Jennie is Mr. Abbott’s sister. She did not give birth to me, but she still . . . raised me.”
“Who gave birth to you?” she asks, and my temper flashes. Naomi May is the nosiest woman I’ve ever met.
“A Pawnee woman. And you are not like the rest of them either,” I snap.
“The rest of who?” she asks, mystified.
I point at the companies, the camps, indicating the people huddled over fires and tin bowls, scooping beans and bacon into their mouths. “The other women. You are not like them.”
“How many women do you know?” Her voice is wry, and I recognize my own words turned back on me. She is not cowed by me. She is nosy . . . but I like her. And I do not want to like her.
“And how am I different?” she demands.
“You are here, talking to me.” She cannot argue with that, as everyone else—except her brothers—gives me plenty of space. I know it is more my fault than theirs. I am not friendly, and I cannot be Naomi’s friend. Time to run her off.
“You don’t seem to care what anyone thinks. Either you are stupid or you are arrogant, but I can’t afford to be either one,” I say.
She flinches like I have slapped her. It is exactly what I intended. Harsh words are not easily forgotten, and I need her to hear me.
Women are trouble. They have always been trouble; they always will be trouble, a truth I learned early. When I was still a boy, dangling my feet over the lake of manhood, a woman in St. Joseph, a friend of Jennie’s—Mrs. Conway—cornered me once in Jennie’s parlor and stuck her hand down my pants and her tongue down my throat. When I froze in stunned terror, she grew impatient and slapped me. A few weeks later she tried again, and I kissed her back, curious and conflicted, not knowing where to put my hands or my mouth. She showed me, and I enjoyed myself, though when Jennie caught us, the woman screamed and bolted, claiming I’d forced myself on her. I learned then that women couldn’t be trusted and I would not be believed; the woman’s husband came looking for me, and my father gave him his best mule colt from the spring stock to soften his ire.
I didn’t go to school with my sisters because the girls at school were afraid of me—the teacher too—and the boys always wanted to fight, though I usually started it. Fighting made me feel better, and I was good at it. The teacher asked my father to keep me away until I could behave. My father turned me over to Otaktay, a half-breed Sioux who worked for him for a while. Otaktay was good with knives, he knew how to grapple, and his rage was almost as big as mine. He wore me out and worked me over while Jennie taught me to read and write and do my figures. Language and numbers were never hard for me, and I had a good mind beneath my fine head of hair.
I “knew” some women at Fort Kearny—some Pawnee, one Blackfoot, and a handful of whores from Illinois—who set up in a row of lodges at the rear of the fort. Everyone knew who they were, and no one said a word. They just paid their visits and took their turns, and the women made their living. Captain Dempsey had a wife somewhere, but Dawn, the Blackfoot woman, was his personal favorite, and he didn’t like to share. When she smiled at me and touched my chest, it almost cost me my father’s spring contract. Captain Dempsey ordered me to take my attentions elsewhere, and I obliged him by heading back home. Women were trouble.
“You don’t think
much of me, do you, John Lowry?” Naomi asks, pulling me out of my reverie.
“I don’t think about you at all, Mrs. Caldwell,” I lie, emphasizing her name for both our sakes. I don’t like it when she calls me John Lowry in that Jennie-like tone, and I am angry with her, though I have no real reason to be. “I’ve found that women can’t be trusted,” I say.
“And I’ve found that men are just frightened boys. God gave you stronger bodies to make up for your weaker spines.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” I lie again.
“You are terrified of me, John Lowry.”
“Go away, little girl. I will not be your fool.”
“I am many things. But I’m not a little girl, and I’ve never befriended a fool.”
I think of the woman who wanted me to kiss her and then screamed when I acquiesced. I wonder if Naomi will scream and make a scene if I kiss her too.
“What’s your game, Mrs. Caldwell?” I sigh.
She gazes at me steadily, blinking once, twice, the long sweep of her lashes drawing me in. Her wrist is narrow, and my fingers touch as I wrap my hand around her arm and pull her toward me. She lifts her chin, her nostrils flaring like a mare sensing danger, but she comes willingly. Her breath tickles my face, and when my mouth nears hers, it is all I can do not to crush the small bones beneath my fingers.
I decide I will be rough. Harsh. Then she will run off crying and leave me alone. Or her father will come with his big rifle and insist I go. Fine with me. I am weary of the slow pace of the wagon train and can make it to Fort Kearny by myself. I’ll get there in half the time. Better to be done with the train and teach Naomi Caldwell a lesson she should have learned long ago.
But at the last minute I cannot do it. I can’t be harsh, and I can’t kiss her.
I avoid her mouth altogether, even though she’s lifted it to me. Instead of passion and punishment, the peck I lay on her forehead is soft and sweet, a child’s kiss on a mother’s brow.
She pulls away and looks up at me expectantly.
“That is not the way I want to be kissed,” she says.
“No?”
“No,” she answers solemnly. She takes a deep breath, and her words bubble out in a nervous rush. “I want you to kiss me like you’ve been thinking about it from the moment we met.”
I laugh at her pretty words so that I don’t feel them. I see her swallow, her throat working in discomfort. I have embarrassed her. Her fingers curl in her skirt, gathering it as if she is about to flee. Good. That is what is best for her.
Yet I reach for her again.
This time I am not gentle or timid, and her lips flatten beneath my mouth, but she does not pull back or push me away. She slides her fingers into my hair—my hat has fallen—and tugs so hard my teeth snap and my back bends. Her ribs are slim and dainty beneath my palms, and I encircle her, lifting her up and into me. For a moment I kiss her blindly, boldly, invading her mouth and suckling her lips, teaching us both a lesson.
But she is softer than I anticipated—softer lips and skin, softer swells and softer sighs. And she is sweet.
It stuns me, and I shove her away, ashamed of myself. She staggers and reaches for my arm, but I have stepped back, and she crumples, falling to her knees, catching herself with the palms of her hands.
I curse, long and low, a word Jennie would slap me for saying. My father says it all the time, but even he knows better than to say it in front of a woman. I step forward to help Naomi up, but she ignores my proffered hand and rises nimbly without my assistance. Fine. It is better that I don’t touch her again. My hands are shaking and my legs aren’t steady, and I wipe the kiss from my mouth with the back of my hand.
She brushes off her palms and shakes out her skirt. Even in the shadows her lips are crimson. I have kissed her too hard, and I desperately want to do it again. She avoids my gaze, and I am certain I have accomplished my aim; she is angry with me. That is good. That is best. But my heart is pounding with the need to redeem myself.
“I know why you are being unkind.” Her voice is gentle, stunning me all over again.
“Why?” I gasp.
“You don’t think we’re the same.”
“Good night, Mrs. Caldwell,” I say, dismissing her. I need her to go. To stay. To forgive me. To forsake me.
“The Andersons are from Norway. The McNeelys are Irish. Johann Gruber is from Germany. You’re part Indian, and I’m a widow.” She shrugs. “We all need each other. We can all live side by side peaceably, can’t we? We don’t all have to be exactly the same.”
“Some cultures do not mix. It is like having fins but trying to live on land,” I whisper.
She says something beneath her breath, and I duck my head trying to catch it.
“What?” I ask.
“So be a turtle,” she repeats, enunciating each word. She grins suddenly, her teeth flashing in her pretty face, and I laugh out loud. I laugh, disarmed in the face of her honesty, my discomfort and defensiveness melting into the moonlight.
“Good night, John,” she says, turning away. She walks from the clearing, leaving me smiling like a fool in the copse of cottonwoods, my horse the only witness to my undoing.
She is so different.
Most everyone I know is afraid. Including me.
But Naomi May—Naomi Caldwell, I correct myself—is not afraid.
4
CHOLERA
NAOMI
“Ma?” I ask. I don’t know if she’s still awake. Ma and I are bedded down in the wagon. The camp has been quiet for half an hour, yet my mind won’t settle, and my heart hasn’t slowed since I made John kiss me. I knew exactly what I was doing. I suspect he knew it too.
“Did you say something, Naomi?” Ma’s voice is wan, and I almost say never mind, but I need to talk.
“From the moment I saw John Lowry on the street in St. Joseph, I wanted him,” I confess in a whispered rush. “I don’t even know why.”
“I know,” Ma murmurs, and my heart finds its rhythm. Ma always has that effect on me.
“Is that the way it was with you and Pa?” I ask. “You just knew, right then and there?”
“No.” Typical Ma, no lies and no careful tread. “Me and Pa were more like you and Daniel.”
“Friends?”
“Yes. Friends. I liked him, though. And he really liked me. That’s always nice, when someone really likes you. And your pa, he let me know that he liked me.”
“I’ve let John know I like him.”
“I know you have.”
She is trying to tease, but I feel shame well up in my breast. I don’t want to chase John Lowry. I don’t especially like the way I want him so much. But I can’t help it.
“What if he’s a bad man . . . and he decides to let me catch him?” I worry.
“I’ve had dreams about Mr. Lowry. He’s not a bad man. But even so . . . I’m not sure he’ll let you catch him. He’s full of distrust and denial. It’s going to take patience, Naomi, patience and understanding. And I don’t know if he’s going to be around long enough for you to show him either of those things.”
I don’t know what to pounce on first, the dreams or the disappointing truth that I might be left wanting forever.
“Tell me about the dreams.”
She is silent for too long, and I sit up, bending my back with the curvature of the wagon top. I can’t see her expression in the darkness, but her eyes gleam, and I know that she is not sleeping but thinking.
“Have you ever seen a great bird come off the water?”
“Ma,” I groan, thinking her thoughts have wandered, but she continues, her voice sleepy.
“In my dreams, a big white bird lifts off the water in a great flapping of wings. As the bird rises, he sprouts the body of a man, and his wings are a feathered headdress. Like the one that Potawatomi chief was wearing in St. Joe that day. In my dream, the bird turned man walks on the water . . . like Jesus in the Bible . . . until he reaches the shore. The man has John Lowry’s f
ace. I’m not sure what that means, Naomi, but I’ve been having that dream long before I ever met John Lowry.”
“How do you feel . . . in the dream?” I know that for Ma, the way the dream makes her feel is the most important part.
“Sad. I am so . . . sad, Naomi, but I am grateful too,” she whispers. “It’s like he has come to help us. I’m beginning to sink, like Peter, and he reaches out his hand and lifts me up.” When Ma references the Good Book, no one argues.
“Like Jesus, walking on water?” I speak so softly I can hardly hear myself, but she repeats my words.
“Like Jesus, son of Mary, walking on water.”
JOHN
Once we cross the Big Blue River, we are able to follow the Little Blue River north toward the Platte and Fort Kearny, where my journey with the company will end. The terrain is familiar—I have traveled this road before, but Naomi has not. After the noonday meal, her mother relents to riding beside Mr. May, and Naomi rides Trick, who has turned out to be a remarkably sound mule, just as my father promised. Naomi is writing in her book again; it is propped up by her satchel, which rests against the saddle horn, and her body sways with the gait as her hand moves across the page. I kissed her so she would run away, yet I am the one who seeks her out, sidling Dame up beside her to see, once and for all, what she is doing.
“You’re always writing in that book,” I say, my voice accusing. “You are going to fall.”
I try to keep my eyes forward, as if my presence beside her is happenstance.
“I’m not writing.”
When she doesn’t say more, I am forced to look at her.
She shakes her head at me, wrinkling her nose a little as she grins. Her bonnet has fallen back on her head, and the afternoon sun turns strands of her brown hair red. She’s going to have a hundred more freckles if she doesn’t fix it, but I say nothing. “I have no interest in words,” she says.