Where the Lost Wander

by Harmon, Amy

  As I watch, keeping my distance down the shore so the tribe will not feel threatened, I notice a woman near the back of the group. She leads a pack mule with two small children sitting atop a tightly bound pack and carries a papoose on her back, the round face of a black-haired babe peering from the top. Maybe it is the mule that catches my eye. He stops every few feet until she tugs on his rope, and then he bounds for a yard or two before he halts again. The third time he does this, the river bottom evades him, and he panics, dunking himself and the two children on his back and pulling the woman off her feet.

  The two children shriek, and the mule drags her along, obviously concluding that crossing is his only option. The woman lurches forward and goes under but recovers almost immediately, never letting go of the rope.

  But when she finds her feet, the papoose is empty.

  A small bundle whirls in the swift current, rushing away from the chaotic procession, down the river, and the woman starts to scream. She throws herself after the baby but catches a different current and is drawn in the wrong direction. The infant is light, and it offers no resistance as the water propels it forward.

  I dig in my heels, urging the dun into the water, and keep my eyes locked on the helpless form whirling down the center of the river. For a moment I think I won’t reach the child in time, but the current cuts back, sending it careening toward me, and I let go of my horse, hurling myself toward the baby and scooping him—her—out of the water and up against my chest. The dun begins to swim, but my feet find bottom, and I let the horse go, urging him forward as I fight to stay upright. The baby isn’t crying. She is naked—I don’t know if she entered the water that way or if the current stole whatever she was swaddled in—and her little limbs are still. She is bigger than Wolfe, older, more substantial, but still so small and slick I’m afraid I will lose her again in the water. I wedge her belly against my shoulder and begin to pat her back with one hand as I cling to her legs and bottom with the other, fighting to maintain my balance the remainder of the way. Several of the men are running toward me; the mother has not yet made it out of the river, though she is almost to the shore. I sink to my knees, setting the baby before me on the sand. I turn her onto her side, still patting her back, and a sudden rush of water erupts from her white-tinged lips. She immediately begins to squall and fight, her arms and legs pumping for air, and I scoop her up, resting her tiny belly against my forearm as I continue to pat her back.

  When the first man reaches me, his long hair flying out behind him, his breeches and moccasins wet from the river, I rise and extend my arms to him, holding the angry baby girl out in front of me. He takes her, looking her over before passing her to the old man behind him.

  I make the sign for good, and he nods, repeating the hand motion. “Att,” he says, and I recognize the word. Good.

  Seconds later, the mother arrives, panting and crying, her sodden, empty papoose still hanging from her back, and clasps her shrieking daughter.

  She thanks me as she rocks back and forth, holding the child to her chest, comforting them both. And though she still cries, her words tripping and tumbling out of her weeping mouth, I realize that not only do I understand her, I know her.

  “Ana?” I gasp, dumbfounded.

  She peers up at me, suddenly seeing beyond her emotion, and freezes midsway, midthanks.

  “John Lowry?” she asks, rubbing her eyes as though she cannot trust her vision. “John Lowry?” She says my name in exactly the same way Jennie has always said it, and I laugh as I pull her into my arms, planting a kiss on the top of her head.

  The growing crowd around us exclaims at my affection, and the older man who was second to reach my side shoves at my arms. I find out soon enough that he is her father, and he doesn’t like the familiarity.

  Then she is telling him and the people gathered around us who I am and how we know each other.

  “John Lowry, all the way from Missouri,” she says. “John Lowry, my white Pawnee brother.”

  She tells me they are Shoshoni, often called the Snake by trappers and fur traders because of the river that runs through their lands, and though I am out of practice and slow to remember the words to say, I have no trouble understanding her—or them—at all. They call her Hanabi—Ana is not so different—and she is the wife of the chief, a man named Washakie, who she says is good and strong and wise. The baby girl is their only child—the two children on the mule are her brother’s children—and she wants me to stay with them, an honored guest, so that I might meet him when he and many of the other men return from trading in the valley of the Great Salt Lake.

  I tell her I have to go back to the wagon train, that people are waiting for me to help them cross the river, and she confers with her father for a moment before promising to wait for me to return.

  “We have just broken camp and have a long journey ahead of us. We will await Washakie in the valley near the forks before we go to the Gathering of all the People of the Snake. But today we will stay here with you.”

  I ride back to the place I left the train and lead them upstream to the point where the Shoshoni crossed, warning them not to be afraid of the Indians waiting for us on the opposite bank. Webb wants to know if they’re Comanche, and when I explain that they are Shoshoni and one is my friend from years ago, he—and everyone else—is intrigued. Abbott is overjoyed when I tell him who I’ve found, and he cries when he sees her, mopping at his wind- and sunburned cheeks and saying, “Ana, little Ana. God is good.”

  True to her word, Ana and the Shoshoni are waiting, their packs already unloaded, their ponies grazing unhobbled in the grassy clearing just beyond the west bank. Before the wagons have even halted, the Shoshoni men and several women have crossed back over and begin the work of helping us cross, piling goods that will be ruined by water atop their rafts and ferrying them to the other side. We try to pay them, but they refuse. Ana says I have saved her daughter’s life, and for three years I was family when she had none.

  “I will feed your people today,” she says.

  My “people” are wary and watch with wide eyes and cautious smiles, but twenty wagon beds are unloaded, raised, and reloaded with nonperishables and possessions in less time than it would have taken us to cross two or three. Our passage is much less eventful than the Shoshoni’s was, and what would have been a strenuous afternoon crossing the swift-flowing river becomes a day of rest and rejoicing on the other side. We set up camp not too far from the crossing, agreeing to use the day to fortify ourselves and our teams against the next long stretch of dry, grassless trail.

  Ana—Hanabi—stays close to my side all day, her daughter slumbering on her back in a new, dry papoose, seemingly unaffected by her near drowning. She asks about Jennie and my sisters and even asks after my father. “He was quiet. Strong. Like my Washakie.”

  “I know he was not kind to you,” I say.

  She looks surprised. “He was kind. Always. He helped me come home. He gave me a mule and found a wagon train for me to travel with.”

  I am stunned by her revelation. He never let on that he had any part in her leaving.

  “He did not tell you?” Hanabi asks.

  I shake my head.

  “I think he was afraid I would take you away.”

  I frown, not understanding, and she laughs.

  “We are not so different in age, John Lowry. But you were not ready for a woman. I was a sister to you.”

  I introduce Hanabi to Naomi, telling her we will soon be married, and Hanabi insists on giving her a white buffalo robe and a deep-red blanket for our marriage bed. The Shoshoni women cook for us—a dinner of berries and trout and a handful of other things we don’t recognize or question. We simply eat our fill, the entire train, and I am tempted to marry Naomi today—right now—and make the feast a wedding celebration, but I hesitate to speak up and create new drama amid the peace. Then we are swept up in the attentions of Hanabi and her tribe, and I resist the impulse.

  As we eat, Hanabi tel
ls me of her journey home, about the wagon train and the family who let her travel with them. I translate her tale to the train, growing emotional throughout her account, stopping to search for English words and find my control as she recalls the moment she returned to her tribe. Her mother had died, but her father and her brother still lived. She had left them as a young bride to a fur trader who had befriended her father, who was then the chief of a small Shoshoni tribe. A year later, she was alone, far from home, with no husband, no family, and no people.

  “For three years she lived with my white family,” I say. “Abbott brought her to us. We have missed her.”

  “I was afraid to leave. But I was more afraid that I would never see my home or be among my people again.”

  The emigrants stare at her in hushed awe, and before the night is over, Naomi is drawing again, painting on paper and skins, creating pictures for our new friends until the moon rises high over the camp, and wickiups and wagons alike descend into slumber.

  Wolfe is the only one who cannot sleep. He fusses in Winifred’s arms as Naomi finishes her last picture by lantern light, a sketch of Hanabi holding her daughter, her loveliness and strength glowing from the page.

  Hanabi accepts the gift, marveling at the lines and the likeness. She stands, bidding me good night, grasping my hand and then Naomi’s, but she hesitates, her sleeping infant in her arms. For a moment, Hanabi watches Winifred spoon milk into Wolfe’s anxious mouth.

  Hanabi hands her sleeping daughter to Naomi, who takes her in surprise. Then Hanabi sinks down on the other side of the yoke Winifred is using for a seat and extends her arms toward Wolfe.

  “Tell her I will feed him, John Lowry,” Hanabi says to me. “I have more milk than my daughter can drink.”

  Winifred hands her son to Hanabi, her eyes gleaming in the tepid light, and Hanabi, without any self-consciousness, opens her robe and moves the child to her breast, guiding her nipple into his mouth. He latches on without difficulty, becoming almost limp in her arms, his cheeks working, his body still.

  Winifred weeps openly, one hand pressed to her mouth and one to her heart, and Naomi cries with her, holding Hanabi’s daughter, her eyes on the little boy, who suckles like he’s starving, first one breast and then the other, until he falls into a milk-induced slumber, releasing the nipple in his mouth. Hanabi closes her robe and sets the babe against her shoulder, rubbing Wolfe’s small back. He burps with a satisfied rumble, and Winifred smiles through her tears as Hanabi lays him back in her arms.

  I have completely forgotten myself, struck by the scene and caught up in an intimacy I should have turned away from. I am embarrassed by my own presence, but Hanabi looks up at me without censure or discomfort as she takes her child from Naomi’s arms.

  “Tell the mother I will feed him again at dawn, before we part. She must eat and rest and let her body make milk for him.”

  I repeat her words to Winifred, who nods, unable to stem the flow of her tears. She tries to speak, but for a moment she can only cry. Hanabi seems to understand, though she looks to me for reassurance that all is well.

  “She is grateful, Hanabi. She has suffered greatly and never complains,” I say, battling back my own emotion.

  “I saw this . . . in my dreams,” Winifred stutters between sobs. “I saw another woman . . . an Indian woman . . . feeding him, and I . . . was afraid. But I am not afraid anymore.”

  13

  FORT BRIDGER

  JOHN

  We part with Hanabi and the Shoshoni early the next day, restored both in strength and in spirit. We travel a barren fifteen miles and close out the day by crossing the waters of Blacks Fork, which Abbott and the emigrant guide claim we will cross three more times before reaching Fort Bridger.

  “It’s nothing like the Green. Not at any point. Just a little wadin’ is all. Shouldn’t need to unload the wagons or worry about being swept away,” Abbott reassures us as we make camp on the other side, but I have begun to fret about other things. I am weighed down by the unknown and by my inability to prepare for it. I want to go on ahead. The entire train can’t sit at Fort Bridger while I pull together an outfit—wagon, riggings, ropes and chains, spare parts, and two months’ worth of supplies—and pause to marry Naomi. I need time, and if I travel the final thirty miles with the train, I won’t get it. I talk to Abbott, who is agreeable to the idea, if not optimistic.

  “I don’t remember there bein’ much at Fort Bridger. It ain’t like Laramie. It’s a good place to stop and catch your breath. Good water and grass and timber to burn, and a much smoother route than the Sublette, but you might be disappointed by what you find.”

  My uneasiness grows, and I quietly curse him for not speaking out before now. Fort Bridger is a major point on the trail. I’d expected a variation of Fort Laramie where everything a traveler could want was in ready supply, even if it cost extra. Extra I can handle, but I can’t work with nothing. When I pull Naomi aside, telling her my plan, she listens without comment, her eyes on mine, her lower lip tucked between her teeth. She needs some convincing.

  “Abbott says we’re two and a half days’ travel out of Fort Bridger if we just go steady. If I take my mules and the dun, I’ll make it in one. It’ll give me a day to put things in order. Now that we’ve crossed the Green and the driest stretches, there shouldn’t be anything the wagons can’t handle.”

  “I’m not worried about us,” she says. “But . . . if you must go . . . will you take Wyatt with you? He won’t slow you down, and I’ll feel better if you’re not alone.”

  “If your folks don’t mind, I’ll take Wyatt,” I agree. If I take Wyatt with me, he can ride one of my mules and lead a string of three behind him, and I won’t have to move my animals in one long line. I don’t dare leave them behind with the train. Mr. Caldwell seems to have resigned himself to my presence, but I don’t trust him, and I don’t want to burden the Mays with their care.

  The following morning, before the birds even wake, I kiss Naomi, who insists on seeing us off. I promise her that it’ll all work out and I’ll see her in two days.

  “You aren’t going to run out on me, are you?” she asks, a smile in her tired voice. “’Cause I’ll come after you. I can be mean when I want something.”

  “She can too, John. Meaner than a wet hen,” Wyatt teases, but he’s chipper this morning, excited for the break from the monotony, and he urges Samson forward without looking back. “Let’s go, mules, giddyap.” He clucks his tongue and digs in his heels, and Budro, Gus, and Delilah move out behind him.

  I swing up in my saddle, but Naomi looks so wistful, standing with her lantern in the cool predawn, the red blanket Hanabi gave her wrapped around her shoulders, that I lean down and kiss her again.

  “I love you, Two Feet,” she says.

  “And I love you, Naomi May. Try not to worry. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  The speed at which Wyatt and I travel, my animals loping along like they could run all day, makes me almost giddy. I unstring the dun and race him across the flat, just to feel him go, before swinging back for Wyatt and the mules. It’s a relief to move, and we ride at an almost constant clip. The only stops we make are to change mounts and water up before starting again. The relative ease of the journey, with no wagons to slow me down, is a sobering reminder of what I’m getting into. For the next two and a half months, I will be driving a wagon at oxen speed, Naomi beside me on the seat. That thought makes me grin like I’ve just struck gold, and I let the dun have his head.

  We rest for supper at a grassy bend near a cold stream, but we don’t camp. We’ve made good time. The sun sets late this time of year, and we finish the last few miles of our ride several hours before dark.

  Fort Bridger—named for Jim Bridger, the mountain man who established it and is purportedly still in residence—is a handful of long cabins made of rough-hewn logs slapped with a bit of mud to keep the wind out of the cracks. The structures are surrounded by a ten-foot wall constructed of the same material. Adjacent
to the enclosed square of buildings is a large corral for horses, of which there are many.

  But that is all.

  I rein in the dun and slow my mules with a soft “Whoa.” Then I just sit, my hands resting on my thighs, looking at the sad state of my destination.

  A few dozen tents crowd a single wagon in a clearing on the west side; it looks like a small militia of some sort. A cluster of wickiups, not unlike those of the Shoshoni along the Green, can be seen a ways off, with a few more scattered lodges lining the fort walls. A company has just pulled out, ten wobbling wagons moving away with the same dejection with which I approach.

  This is not Fort Laramie. Not by any stretch. There will be no private quarters to rent, no dresses to buy, no shelves brimming with supplies.

  “I thought it would be bigger,” Wyatt says, incredulous. “Are we in the right place?”

  A board nailed above two tall posts, creating an unimpressive entrance, declares it so.

  “We don’t got much, but we got a blacksmith,” boasts a thin man with a wispy gray mustache and an even sparser beard when I inquire within the building that serves as the trading post. Every item on the shelf is priced sky high, and there isn’t a whole lot there.

  “I don’t need a blacksmith. I need a wagon,” I say, my heart sinking. “I need a whole outfit.”