Where the Lost Wander

by Harmon, Amy

  “The cakes are for the party. But Maria’s set some bread and butter out. There are dried apples and apricots too. And cheese. Please help yourselves.”

  “But . . . ,” Ma protests. I know she is worrying about the boys and what they’ll eat while we stuff ourselves on bread and cheese and apricots.

  “We will go so you can bathe. Give me the baby,” Narcissa says, extending her arms for Wolfe.

  Ma wilts beneath her vehemence and settles him in Narcissa’s arms. She gives us another radiant smile and swooshes out of the kitchen with Maria trailing behind her.

  For a moment after the two women leave, Ma and I stand in stunned silence. Then we begin to laugh. We laugh until we are doubled over, we laugh through Ma’s coughing, and we laugh until we cry. And then we cry some more. For the second time in less than a week, we have been embraced by the grace of strangers.

  “You bathe first, Naomi. So the water’s clean,” Ma insists, and I cry again because of her sweetness. She pulls up a chair like she did when I was a girl bathing in the washtub on Saturday nights. I always went first then too, before my brothers took their turns and made the water murky with their little-boy dirt.

  Ma pours water over my head, rinsing out the soap. It smells like roses, and I’m overcome once more. When it’s Ma’s turn, I do the same for her, turning the tin cup over her sudsy hair until nothing remains but little silver streaks amid the glistening brown.

  “Someday my hair will look just like yours,” I murmur, following the stream of water with my palm.

  “Yes. But you have a life to live before then. And today is a new beginning.”

  Maria reappears before we are finished and whisks our dirty clothes away, leaving crisp cotton bloomers and chemises behind, and we begin to laugh in amazement all over again.

  There is no place to sit, so everyone stands, making a crowded half circle in the clearing cloaked in flowers and guarded by the trees. Webb isn’t wearing any shoes. He hasn’t worn them since we crossed the Big Blue. His feet are as tough as horse hooves, the dirt ground in deep, but Pa has made him comb his hair, and his cheeks are still pink from the cold water of the creek. Ma keeps mending the holes in his clothes, but he’s starting to look like a patchwork quilt. They all are. Wyatt and Warren and Will and Pa. They’ve made an effort, it’s easy to see, but nothing has been left untouched by our travels.

  The families of our company are all here too, wearing dusty clothes but freshly scrubbed faces. Abbott, Jeb, Lydia and Adam, Elsie and Homer, all smiling like I belong to them. Even Mr. Caldwell is here, his white hair neatly parted above his sunburned brow, and Elmeda is already weeping. Grief and joy are complicated. Love and loss too, and I know tears aren’t always what they seem. I smile at her as I approach on Ma’s arm, and she smiles back through trembling lips.

  Narcissa has made us wait until very last to make our entrance, directing the service like she’s directed everything else today. Pa is crying too, but he’s not looking at me. He’s looking at Ma in Narcissa’s lavender dress; it’s a little short in the sleeves and tight across the shoulders, but she looks like a girl again. We drew her hair back in soft waves from her face and coiled it at her nape, and Narcissa gave us both a handful of little white blossoms to carry. She called it yarrow, and it surrounds the clearing on every side.

  I keep my gaze averted from John. I know he is here, waiting for me. From the corner of my eye I can see him standing next to Deacon Clarke across from all our guests. I’m afraid if I look at him, I won’t be able to keep my mind right. I’m feeling too much, and I don’t want to share my emotion with anyone but him. I suddenly understand why he is so private, why he keeps things locked down tight. It’s because the moment you let go, those feelings aren’t just yours anymore. And I’ve been crying all day. I’ve been lost all day.

  I decided against the green dress. It’s a day of new beginnings, as Ma said, and when I saw Narcissa’s yellow dress, it made me smile. Yellow, for the first time we met. It isn’t fancy, but it’s the nicest dress I’ve ever worn. The full skirt is a tad short, but the round-necked bodice fits me just right, and the elbow-length sleeves are forgiving, hemmed as they are with a skirting of lace. I’ve saved the doeskin moccasins John bought me at Fort Laramie, and I wear those too.

  Deacon Clarke is wearing a black necktie and a fine black coat with his tattered trousers, but I stare at John’s boots. He’s shined them so they gleam like his glossy black hair. It’s grown considerably, and he’s brushed it straight back so it touches the collar of his new shirt, which is stiff and clean like his trousers. His sleeves are rolled, and his forearms are strong and brown like the column of his neck, the line of his jaw, and the blade of his nose. I look everywhere but his eyes, and then I look there too.

  He is not smiling. He isn’t even breathing. But then his chest rises and falls, a deep breath, once and again, and his eyes shine down into mine. The lost feeling flees, and I am me again. Confident. Sure. Ready. I smile at him the way I did that first day, sitting in the middle of the street on a barrel in St. Joe. I think I knew even then.

  “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife. And they shall be one flesh,” Deacon Clarke says, and I feel his words to the bottom of my soul. He takes us through our promises, and we repeat his words.

  “I take you, John.”

  “I take you, Naomi.”

  “To have and to hold, from this day forward. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. To love and to cherish, till death do us part.”

  JOHN

  She is sitting at the little writing desk in the corner of the Vasquezes’ room, a candle flickering at her side, and she is wearing my shirt. The sleeves are rolled to free her hands, and the hem falls several inches above her knees, baring her pale legs. It is not a comfortable shirt. It is new and scratchy, and I couldn’t wait to take it off, but I like the way it looks on her. Her long, tangled hair tumbles down her back, and in the flickering light she is a collection of lovely shadows. I watch her between half-closed lids.

  “You are beautiful,” I whisper.

  “You only say that when you are dying or half-asleep,” she answers, not raising her gaze from her pencil, but her lips curve.

  “But I always think it.”

  “I didn’t mean to wake you. I’m sorry.” She sighs. But I’m not sorry. I can sleep later.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “I am drawing a picture for Mrs. Vasquez. To thank her. A portrait. She has a lovely smile.”

  “You are wearing my shirt.”

  “It was easier to pull on than my dress.”

  “It is easier to pull off too.”

  “Yes.” Again the curve of her lips.

  “Did you sleep at all, Naomi?”

  “I was too happy. I didn’t want to waste it in sleep. If I stay awake, the night will last longer.” Finally she looks at me, and the same turbulence that glowed in her eyes at our wedding is there again.

  “Come here,” I say.

  She makes a stroke here and there on the page in front of her and then rises, the obedient wife, the candle in one hand, a sheet of paper in the other. She climbs into the bed beside me, burrowing her cold toes between my calves.

  “I drew this too,” she whispers. “A wedding gift for my husband.”

  The lines are clean and dark, our bodies intertwined, my head bowed over hers, the length of her naked spine and the curve of her hips visible beneath the circle of my arms.

  “I don’t know if that is how we appear, or if it is only the way you make me feel. I don’t ever want to forget this day,” she says.

  I take the candle from her and the picture too and, pulling my shirt over her head, vow to help us both remember. I kiss her, and she returns my fervor, but when she pulls back for a ragged breath, she cradles my face in her hands, and her thumbs stroke my lips. Love wells in my chest, so fierce and so foreign that I have to look away. I
turn my face into her palm, pressing a kiss to its center.

  “I don’t want to leave you behind tomorrow,” she whispers. I have told her my plans to build a wagon, and we’ve agreed that the rest of the train will leave in the morning without me and Wyatt.

  “You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?” I murmur.

  “Yes. You’re going to say it’s only a few days.” She pauses a moment. “And what do you think I’m going to say?”

  “You’re going to say we don’t need a wagon. You’re going to say we can just continue on the way we have been.”

  “Exactly.” Her voice is soft, and she rests her head against my arm, her eyes pleading, her lips rosy and well used.

  “But if we continue on the way we have been, I won’t be able to do this.” I kiss the tip of one breast. “Or this,” I say and kiss the other. “If we go back to the way we were, I will have to keep my distance, and you will have to keep yours.”

  “I can’t,” she moans.

  “I know.” I laugh. “So now what are you going to say?”

  “We need a wagon of our own,” she says, making me laugh again.

  “We need a wagon of our own,” I repeat, pressing my face into the crook of her neck, nuzzling, tasting, my mouth opened against the sweetness of her. Her pulse quickens, and the hand that cradled my face is now at my heart . . . and at my hip . . . and at the small of my back, urging me to her. She is ready again.

  Then her lips are beneath my lips, and her body is beneath my body, flesh and bone and beautiful indentations, and we both forget all the things we didn’t say.

  I post a letter with Teddy Bowles the next morning, worried that I will forget in the days ahead. He promises someone will be going east before long. He’s got two canvas satchels packed to the brim with emigrant letters. I do not write two this time. I don’t have the patience or the paper. I scrawl out a few lines letting Jennie and my father know I am well, the mules are fine, and by the way, I just got hitched. There is no way to break the news more artfully in a very small space, so I don’t even try. I sound stiff and cold, maybe a little simple too, and I wince at the inadequate lines. But my gift for language does not extend to the written word, and I finish with this:

  Her name is Naomi May. You met her once, Father. Her family is traveling with the train, and we will remain with them until the journey is through. Jennie will be happy to know we were married by a deacon and scripture was read and a hymn sung. Naomi is a fine woman, and I love her. I found Ana. She is the wife of a Shoshoni chief and has a beautiful baby girl. She is grateful for you both. As am I. I will write again when I reach California.

  Your son,

  John Lowry

  15

  SHEEP ROCK

  JOHN

  More than one wagon lies at the bottom of the hill, all in various states of decay and destruction: missing wheels, tattered canvas tops, rotted tongues, and bent axles. I can only stare, my hands on my hips, feeling the same wash of despair I felt when I saw the fort.

  “Don’t worry, Lowry. I don’t get my mule if you don’t get your wagon. We take the best and leave the rest,” Jefferson says, starting down the incline, his boot heels digging into the shale-covered climb.

  I have never built a wagon, and I don’t know if I’ll recognize what’s good and what’s not, but I slide to the bottom of the ravine with a willingness to learn. Jefferson begins to dig through the tired remains, grunting and discarding before he declares one wagon a “gold mine.”

  “The box is intact, and there’s no rot. Looks like everything’s here underneath too: pins and plates . . . the hound is in good shape. Looks to me like the brake beam snapped. I can fix that, put on some new brake shoes.” He has crawled underneath the wagon to survey its underpinnings. “We need bows for the top and a new piece of canvas—Teddy can help us with that.”

  I search the wreckage and find a dozen bows to support the cover, and before long Jefferson has selected two wheels from other wagons that aren’t warped or cracked.

  “They’ve seen wear, but we’ll grease ’em good. Maybe replace some of those spokes. The hubs are here, axles too, and this one even has one of them tickers that records the miles. Never used one myself, but it might be handy to have.”

  Jefferson enjoys the hunt, and he picks around at the bottom of the ravine for another hour, muttering about tar buckets and feed boxes, before he calls it good. With my mules and a set of chains, we drag the wagon up the hill, Wyatt at the top, Jefferson and me scrambling up beside it. Halfway up, the chain slips, and Jefferson’s gold mine slides back down the hill, snapping off another wheel.

  “No problem at all,” Jefferson bellows. “I can fix that.”

  An hour later, we manage to pull the wagon all the way to the top, but Jefferson decides it’ll be easier to repair the wheels and reinforce the snapped brake line right here rather than taking it apart to haul it back to the fort.

  “If I do that, it’ll save us some time.”

  He gets started before realizing he doesn’t have all the tools he needs, and we end up pulling it apart after all, unscrewing wheels, removing the wagon box from the undercarriage, and loading everything into Jefferson’s wagon.

  It takes all day. We roll into Fort Bridger an hour after sunset, a full fifteen hours after Abbott and the train pulled out. Jefferson said it would take a day to retrieve it, so we’re not behind schedule, but my confidence in him is shaken. I expect I’ll have snakes in my belly until I’m with Naomi again. I’m becoming used to the sensation, but the snakes are heavier and rattle harder when I’m at the mercy of someone else, and I am at the mercy of Jefferson Jones.

  “We will work all day tomorrow. Don’t worry,” Wyatt says when we roll out our beds for a few hours of sleep. “We’ll be able to move a lot faster than the train with your mules. If we’re three days back, we’ll still catch up before they reach the turnoff. You heard Abbott. Northwest to Soda Springs, then left at Sheep Rock to the cutoff, and the road is tolerable all the way. We’ll catch up to ’em by then.”

  NAOMI

  When we reach Smiths Fork, two days out of Fort Bridger, we’re able to cross a bridge completed only the year before by some industrious travelers. It is a good deal easier than unloading the wagons and wading through hip-deep water, but Trick and Tumble don’t like it at all and have to be coaxed, along with every other mule in the company. Webb has learned a thing or two from John and shows them how it’s done, his little arms spread wide, trekking back and forth until he can convince them to follow. The grass is green and plentiful at the fork, but the mosquitoes are so thick the animals can’t eat. None of us can, and Abbott presses us to move on.

  “There’s only one road he can take, Miss Naomi. He’ll catch us before long. But we do ourselves no good to camp here. No one will rest,” Abbott explains, and the consensus is to move on.

  I rip a long strip off the bottom of my tattered, stained yellow dress and wrap it around a tree near the heaviest ruts and leave a message nailed beneath it.

  John and Wyatt,

  We’ve gone on. We are all well. Mosquitoes bad. Heading to Soda Springs.

  Love,

  Naomi

  We forge on, walking much of the night by the light of the moon, and reach Thomas Fork the next day, eager for sleep and grass and water without mosquitoes floating on the top. We’re moving north along the Bear River, and the valley is lush and green, but the bugs plague us continually. A swarm of grasshoppers descends on us just past Thomas Fork, and we walk with blankets slung over our heads, shrieking and striking at our clothes as they land. The mules like the grasshoppers even less than they liked the bridge, and they kick and shimmy, trying to be free of the horde. The oxen just bow their heads and plod on, their tails swishing like the pendulum on a clock.

  Elsie Hines is afraid to ride in the wagon. Her baby could come any day, and she doesn’t want her waters to break. She’s been riding Tumble, who has the smoothest gait, but with the grasshoppe
rs making the mules skittish, she waddles along, even more miserable than the rest of us.

  Six days have passed since we left the fort. Six days of praying and looking over my shoulder. We reach Soda Springs, where the water gurgles and spouts like it’s boiling even though it’s cold. In one place, the water shoots straight up into the air with a great rumbling and whistle, and we can hear it and see it from a good ways off. A few of the men experiment a little, setting items of varying weight and size over the opening to see whether the pressure is enough to propel them into the air. Jeb Caldwell puts his saddle over the opening, thinking he’ll ride the stream, and gets flipped like a coin. He doesn’t get hurt, but Elmeda isn’t amused. The water tastes odd but not entirely unpleasant. It bites and bubbles, and Abbott says we can drink it.

  “It’s the minerals in the water that makes it taste funny. Some folks like it. They say it soothes the stomach.”

  Four miles beyond the soda springs, the range of mountains directly before us ends in an abrupt and jagged point, and the Bear River we’ve been following for miles makes a sharp curve around it and heads back in the direction from whence it came. We’ve made Sheep Rock, where the trail splits again, another parting of ways. North to Fort Hall and the Oregon Trail, straight west to the old California road.

  “It’s only noon, but let’s stop and make camp,” Abbott says. “We have a hundred thirty-two miles of dry, hard travel ahead of us, so we’ll take the rest of today to rest the teams and gird up. Plan on pulling out first thing in the morning.”

  “We told Wyatt and John we would wait at Sheep Rock,” I protest, trying to maintain my composure.

  “I told John we’d take the cutoff at Sheep Rock,” he says, his voice gentle. “But he knows we can’t wait.”