by Harmon, Amy
“Please . . . go away. I can look after myself,” I moan.
“Drink,” she demands, scooping her arm beneath my neck. My head lolls against her breast, and I press my lips together to hold back the bile that rises against my will. I heave myself to the side before retching into a bucket she has placed by my head. I fall back, pushing her away with a weak shove.
“I won’t keep the medicine down,” I say.
“Then just sip it slowly. The best time to drink is when you’ve just been sick,” she says, confident, calm, like she’s certain I’m going to be just fine. I believe her for a moment, and then my stomach rebels again.
I push her away once more.
“If you don’t let me help you, someone else will try, and I know you like me,” she says.
“That’s why I want you to go away,” I groan.
“I know. And that’s why I won’t. Now drink.”
Hours pass. I am hardly aware of anything beyond my own agony, yet the shadows change and the temperature too, and when I am at last delivered, the pain becoming an echo instead of a roar, Naomi is still beside me.
“I was afraid you were going to die,” she says.
She looks as ragged as I feel. Her lips are dry, her eyes are ringed, and her hair is a curling mess around her wan face.
“You’re beautiful,” I say. And I mean it. She smiles, a radiant beam of relief and surprise, and I say it again, dazzled. Her very presence is beautiful.
“And you’re delirious,” she argues.
“No.” I try to shake my head and am overcome by dizziness. I wait for the nausea, for the pain to sweep through me, but I am simply weak, simply tired, and I open my eyes when the spinning slows, finding her face above mine. I don’t think she is breathing.
“John?”
“Cͮikstit tatku,” I whisper. I am well. “The pain is gone. I’m just tired.”
“Do you promise not to leave?” she asks. I know she isn’t talking about the trail or the journey west. She’s talking about dying.
“I promise.”
“Then I will let you sleep. But drink a little first.” She helps me lift my head and holds the tin cup to my lips. It is brackish, and I take little sips, willing my stomach to hold steady.
“You should sleep too,” I say. Her head is bobbing with fatigue. I reach for her hand and pull it to my chest, laying it across my heart. I must look a sight and smell even worse, but she curls at my side, her head in the crook of my arm, our hands clasped across my body, and we sleep, lost in the weightlessness of the newly pardoned.
When I wake again, I feel almost restored, though a weakness remains in my limbs, and my thirst is overwhelming. Naomi is gone, though a strand of her hair clings to my shirt.
Webb sits in the opening, the two sides of the tent making a vee above his head.
“Naomi says I’m to tell her when you wake. Are you awake, John?” he asks.
“I’m awake, Webb.”
“You’re not going to die like Abigail, are you, John? I liked Abigail. But I like you more. Don’t tell Warren. Or Pa. Pa doesn’t like you, I don’t think. He says you’ve got your eye on Naomi. Do you have your eye on Naomi, John? Naomi had a husband once. His name was Daniel. But he died too. You’re not going to die, are you, John?”
My thoughts are slow and my neck is stiff, but I manage to follow the stream of questions Webb hurls at me, shaking my head in response to the question he started and ended with. “Not right now, no.”
“That’s good.”
“Webb?”
“Yes?”
“Have you been looking after my animals?”
“Yep. I been watchin’ ’em. I picketed Kettle and the mules just like you showed me. Dame too. There’s plenty of grass just over the rise.”
“Good boy.”
“Everyone else is getting ready to move on. We’re to catch up as best we can. Mr. Abbott doesn’t want to leave you, but seeing as how the cholera is following us, he said he had to.”
“Are you all waiting on me?”
“Nah. There’s a few people sick. Lucy died. Just like Abigail, and Ma said Mrs. Caldwell is laid real low. Mr. Bingham is sick too, though he’s better than he was. Pa says we gotta move on, but Naomi says not without you. Do you think you’re well enough to ride in the wagon, John?”
“I need a drink, and I want to wash . . . without Naomi. How about we wait to tell her I’m awake, okay?”
Webb fetches a bar of soap and digs through my saddlebags for clean clothes. He keeps watch for me as I wash in the creek, stripping off my soiled things until I’m naked as the day I was born and almost as helpless. By the time I’ve washed and wrung out my clothes and dressed myself in the dry ones, I’m shivering and unsteady, but Webb slings his arm around my waist and pulls my arm over his shoulders, providing a crutch as we make our way back to the camp.
NAOMI
John often sleeps in a little tent that he breaks down and packs up each day, but when it storms or the wind blows, he finds shelter beneath Mr. Abbott’s wagon. He is among the first to wake and is usually packed and ready before the rest of us, often helping others gather their stock and yoke their teams.
I know all his habits and patterns; I have been shameless in my interest. So when I see his tent, still pitched and standing off to the side, though the camp has been stirring for hours, I know something is wrong. I stand abruptly, my duties forgotten, and stride toward it, trying not to run, to draw unwanted attention.
Crossing the distance between where I was and the little opening of his tent feels like walking another mile in the Platte, my feet on shifting silt, my legs heavy and bogged down by fear, and when I call his name, it is a shrill bleat that hurts my throat. He doesn’t answer, and I do not hesitate, parting the canvas sides and crawling inside.
It is just as I feared, and he is already vomiting, the final stages for Abigail. She didn’t last an hour after she began retching. But John has enough strength to insist I leave, enough fire to push me away, and I take heart in that.
I spend the remainder of the day at his side, leaving only to gather medicine and tell my family they will have to leave me behind until John is improved. Ma understands, Pa too, though he grouses about the impropriety of my care.
“Surely Mr. Abbott can see to his needs. After all, they are family,” he protests, but Grant Abbott keeps his distance, worried that he too will find himself ailing, and Pa says nothing more. Arguments about indecency ring hollow when death comes to call.
It ends up that the entire wagon train remains at Elm Creek, only eight miles from where we crossed the Platte two days earlier. John is not the only one stricken down by cholera. Several others, including Lucy Caldwell Hines, Daniel’s sister, have succumbed to the deadly plague. Lucy dies just before sunset.
Ma sends Webb to tell me—for some reason the children have more resistance to the disease—and I leave John’s side to stand beside a hole in the earth, watching as my sister-in-law is put in the ground by poor Adam Hines, who has the same stunned expression that Warren still wears about his eyes. She is clothed in her wedding dress, blue silk with lace collar and cuffs, and rolled in a rug instead of a winding cloth. The rug once graced Elmeda’s parlor, but there is nothing else, unless we want to start tearing apart their wagons.
Lucy said she would wear the dress again when we reached California and attended Sunday meetings. It is Sunday today, and I suppose a funeral is a sort of worship. Deacon Clarke, who is not well himself, says something akin to the words he said for Abigail, and everyone hitches out a wobbly rendition of “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” Ma’s the only one who knows every word. Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down, darkness be over me, my rest a stone, yet in my dreams I’d be nearer, my God, to thee.
I don’t sing. My voice has all the beauty of a honking goose, and the words of the hymn weaken my control. I don’t cry either; I can’t. I cared for Lucy, cared for Abigail, but grief is draining. I am hoarding my strength
and my stamina for life, and I will not spend it on death. Gotta get your mind right, Naomi May. If all I have is my will, then I must use it well. For Ma. For Wolfe. For my brothers. And for John Lowry, who is still very much alive.
And so I turn away from the shallow grave when the words are spoken and the song is sung, my teeth clenched and my spine straight.
“How can you be so cold, Naomi?” Elmeda Caldwell wails at my back. “You tend to a man who isn’t family when my Lucy lay dying?”
I say nothing. I do not defend myself because it is the truth. But Lucy had her mother. Lucy had her husband. And John has no one but me. I know whose death will break my spirit, and it isn’t Lucy Caldwell’s. But I turn back to embrace Elmeda, preparing myself for her clinging sadness, girding myself against her need. I am tired. I washed my hands and face, straightened my hair, and changed my apron before joining the others by the grave, but I know I look as depleted as I feel. Elmeda pushes me away, her hands on my shoulders like gnarled claws, and I immediately step back, oddly relieved by her rebuff. Anger is good. Anger is better than fear; anger is better than grief. I let Ma console her. Mr. Caldwell sputters his condemnation at my back, but I return to John and to the hope that still lingers.
I wake to darkness but sense the dawn. The camp will soon wake too, and we have to move on, whether or not death has further winnowed our numbers. I have slept three hours, maybe four, but it is all I can afford. John is breathing deeply beside me, his hand still wrapped around mine. I want to weep with relief. With joy. His condition is much improved. He is going to be okay.
I ease myself up, careful to not disturb him. His skin is cool, his limbs relaxed. I whisper a grateful prayer to the God of my mother, to the power she swears is present in all things, and I leave John’s side, convinced that I have done what I can do, and he will not slip away. He won’t leave me. He promised he wouldn’t, and John Lowry strikes me as a man who keeps his promises.
When breakfast is done and the sun is pressing us onward, I send Webb to keep watch over him with firm instructions to tell me when he wakes. The entire camp is in a state of weary dishabille, children crying, animals braying, entire families brought low by disease and discomfort. Abbott is making the rounds, assessing who can move on and who cannot and putting out the word that the train will move out by noon, regardless. Homer Bingham needs someone to drive his team, another family has decided to return to Fort Kearny and wait for another group, and Lawrence Caldwell is demanding we leave immediately or we’ll all be stricken down. Elmeda has not left her bed in the back of their wagon, but she is not racked with cholera; she has simply given up.
When I check on her, she doesn’t speak to me but lies with her eyes closed and her hands folded. She won’t respond to anyone, though her eyes flutter beneath her lids, and occasionally tears slide down her cheeks. Her son, Jeb, has retreated to the comfort of caring for their animals, and Mr. Caldwell has taken his frustration out on anyone unfortunate enough to cross him. He is throwing gear into the wagons, muttering to himself, rumpled and raging.
“It’s your fault she’s sick, Widow Caldwell,” he snaps at me as I climb down from his wagon.
“How so?” I say, my voice level.
“Have you forgotten Daniel so easily?”
“Daniel’s gone, and I can’t bring him back, Mr. Caldwell.”
He wags his finger at me, jutting out his chin. “You’re glad. You’ve already hitched your wagon to Lowry like we never even mattered.”
Lawrence Caldwell is grieving, but there isn’t a soul in camp who isn’t. He leaves me hollow with his trembling chin, his shaking jowls, and his judgments. Elmeda too. If she dies, it will be because she is desperate to escape him. It is an uncharitable thought, and I bite my tongue so it doesn’t get loose. I turn away, feeling his eyes on my back as I make my way back to our wagons. I can hear Wolfe crying and know I’ve left Ma to fend alone for long enough.
I rush to gather blankets and dishes, scrubbing and folding and packing as quickly as I can, my eyes constantly straying to John Lowry’s tent. Sleep, especially now that the worst has passed, is the best thing for him, but I’ve just about decided to check on him again when he and Webb make their way from a cluster of willow trees rising up from the banks of the shallow creek.
John is pale, his eyes hollow, the angles of his face sharper, but he is upright, he is dressed in fresh clothes, and he is walking toward me, his arm slung around Webb.
“Here he is, Naomi,” Webb crows. “He’s wobbly as baby Wolfe, but he says he’s not sick no more. He even took a bath.”
I rush to them, my eyes searching John’s face, and he smiles a little, though it is more a grimace than a grin.
“Do you think you can travel?” I ask. “Mr. Abbott says we have to move out. We’ve lost so much time. Ma says we can make you a bed in Warren’s wagon. He’s well enough to walk along beside the oxen. Wyatt and Will can drive your mules, especially now that you’ve got less than you did.”
“I can ride.”
“No. You can’t.” I shake my head. “Not yet. Riding in the wagon may not feel like rest, but it’s the best we can do. One day. Maybe two. Please, John.”
He wants to argue, I can see it in the strain around his lips and the furrow on his brow, but he doesn’t. I doubt he has the energy to take me on. He can barely stand.
“I need to gather my animals. I think I can string them to the wagon, now that there are fewer. Will can ride Dame . . . at least for today.”
“I can round ’em up for you, John,” Webb says. “I’ll get Will to help me.”
“I’ll do it, Webb. But you can come too. Walk beside me, like you’re doing now. Keep me steady,” John says. “We’ll bring them in together.”
“John, let the boys go. You need to sit,” I insist.
“Naomi.” John’s voice is low, his eyes soft. “They spook easy, and I need to attend to them. They’ve been neglected for two days.”
I watch the two of them pick their way slowly across the circle and beyond to the line of willow trees that obscures the view. Five minutes later, Webb is back, and John isn’t with him.
“Pa!” Webb hollers. “Pa! Mr. Lowry’s mules are gone. Kettle and Dame too. They’re all gone. We found their picket pins. All of ’em. They got pulled out, like someone went to gather them and the animals got spooked or something.” His little nose is running, and tears stream down his dirty cheeks. “We looked all around. John whistled for Dame, and she didn’t come.”
“Where is John now?” I gasp.
“He doesn’t want to quit looking, but he’s awful weak. He told me to come back and tell Mr. Abbott.”
My brothers, Pa, and Abbott fan out, searching in an ever-widening circle, but within fifteen minutes they all return to camp without the animals in tow. John is with them, but he is gray faced and bent over, and Mr. Abbott insists he sit before he collapses. It is a testament to his condition that he obeys, and I run to him, trying not to cry.
Mr. Abbott blows his little horn, calling everyone together, explaining what has occurred. There is genuine empathy and alarm, and most of the men—those in good health—volunteer to conduct another brief search.
But every man returns empty handed.
I pack John’s tent and gather his things, insisting he conserve his strength, but when Abbott tries to convince him that there is nothing to be done, John just shakes his head.
“We gotta keep going, John,” Mr. Abbott insists. “We’ve been laid up here for two days waiting on you and the others. We’ve got a stretch of country ahead that’s dry and long, and with the number of trains goin’ through, what grass there is will be gone.”
John is frozen in stooped shock, his eyes on Abbott’s face, his hands clasped between his knees. He stands slowly, his expression bleak. He doesn’t argue, but he turns to Pa.
“I need to borrow a mule, Mr. May,” John says.
Abbott hisses in protest, but I beat him to it.
“You can
’t go, John. You can barely stand. You’re still sick,” I argue, terrified.
“I have to go. If I don’t find my animals, I can’t continue.” He doesn’t say my name or address me directly, but when his eyes find mine, I hear what he’s telling me. If we’re going to have a future together, he has to have something to build it on.
“Then I’m going too,” I say.
“Naomi!” Pa barks. His face is grim, his jaw set. “That’s enough.”
“Someone has to go with him!” I shout.
“I’ll go,” Webb cries. “I’ll go find ’em.” He is upset, tears streaming down his cheeks like he believes he has failed John. Someone has failed John, but it isn’t Webb. Lawrence Caldwell didn’t help search when Abbott put out the call, and now he waits, sitting on the box seat in his wagon, his mules harnessed, ready to pull out, Jeb and Adam in the wagon behind him. Webb says Kettle, Dame, and the mules were still there before breakfast, and no one is pointing the finger of blame at anyone else, but I have no doubt Mr. Caldwell set them loose.
“John can’t go alone,” I say, looking from Pa to Mr. Abbott. “You know he can’t.”
“I’ll go with him, Naomi,” Will says, slipping his hand into mine. “I’ll look after him.”
“Wyatt should go with Mr. Lowry, William,” Ma says quietly. “It’s only right.”
“We need Wyatt to drive the second team,” Pa protests.
“I can walk beside the oxen, Pa.” Warren speaks up, his cheeks gaunt but his chin firm. “I’ve been laid up long enough.”
“No one is going. Not Wyatt, not Will. Not Naomi. No one,” Pa insists, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, John. But your mules aren’t as important as my boys.”
“Pa!” I shout.
“Pa . . . Mr. Lowry has helped us plenty. We have to help him,” Warren argues.
“William,” Ma chides.
“Damnation,” Pa moans. “Damn it all to hell.”
“Go get the mules, Wyatt,” Ma says, and Wyatt rushes to obey, Webb at his heels chattering about gathering the canteens and lariats and lead ropes.