Where the Lost Wander_ A Novel - Amy Harmon Page 0,18

am not so blind as to think being a man would be much better. Easier, maybe. Or not. I’m not sure. Every path is likely just a different version of hard. But I’m still angry.

“I’m mad at Pa. At Daniel. At Mr. Caldwell. At Warren. I’m mad at Mr. John Lowry too, if you want to know the truth. I’m just angry today.”

“Anger feels a whole lot better than fear,” Ma concedes.

I nod, and she squeezes my arm again.

“But anger is useless,” she insists. “Useless and futile.”

“I don’t know about that.” It isn’t useless if it keeps the fear away.

“Are you angry with the bird because he can fly, or angry with the horse for her beauty, or angry with the bear because he has fearsome teeth and claws? Because he’s bigger than you are? Stronger too? Destroying all the things you hate won’t change any of that. You still won’t be a bear or a bird or a horse. Hating men won’t make you a man. Hating your womb or your breasts or your own weakness won’t make those things go away. You’ll still be a woman. Hating never fixed anything. It seems simple, but most things are. We just complicate them. We spend our lives complicating what we would do better to accept. Because in acceptance, we put our energies into transcendence.”

“Transcendence?”

“That’s right.”

“You’ll have to explain that one to me, Ma. I don’t know what transcendence means.”

“That’s where your mind goes when your hands are drawing,” Ma explains. “It’s a world, a place, beyond this one. It’s what could be.”

I nod. That much I understand. When I draw, it does feel like I go somewhere else. I escape. It’s the reason I’ll never stop, even when it seems like a waste of precious time.

“Put your energy into rising above the things you can’t change, Naomi. Keep your mind right. And everything will work out for the best.”

“Even if there’s a lot of pain along the way?”

“Especially if there’s pain along the way,” Mama says firmly.

We walk for a moment, side by side, lost in thoughts of a better place.

“Why are you mad at John Lowry? I like him,” Ma asks suddenly. She doesn’t ask why I’m mad at Pa or Warren or Mr. Caldwell, as if my anger toward them is justified. I throw back my head and laugh before I confess.

“I like him too, Ma. That’s why I’m mad.”

3

THE BIG BLUE

JOHN

I am worried about Winifred May. I don’t understand her husband. I would not have taken a woman on the brink of childbirth onto the plains. She does not ride in the wagon but trundles along beside it, her daughter’s arm linked through hers. I cannot blame her. The jostling wagon will break her waters. She is better off walking.

They are a handsome pair, Winifred and Naomi, though the mother is worn and softly wrinkled, her chestnut hair threaded with gray. Naomi is vibrant and slim beside her mother, but they share the same stubborn chins and smiling mouths, the same green eyes and freckled noses.

The May boys, especially Webb, have attached themselves to me like cockleburs, and though I keep gently picking them off, they latch on again before too long. Webb has memorized the names of my animals and rattles them off in a long greeting each time he sees them, like the apostles from the Bible that Jennie made me read.

“Hey, Boomer, Budro, Samson, Delilah, Tug, Gus, Jasper, Judy, Lasso, Lucky, Coal, and Pepper,” Webb cries, but he always lowers his voice reverently when he greets the two jacks, Pott and Kettle, who seem to like the boy. My horse, Dame, likes him too, and Webb doesn’t forget to greet the mare with the same enthusiasm.

“Hey there, pretty Dame,” he says, and he doesn’t shut up until I send him off or someone comes to fetch him.

I want to ask the boy questions I have no right asking. I’m curious about his sister, about her missing husband and the leather satchel she always carries, but I don’t. She introduced herself as Naomi May, and that is how I think of her, but Webb said she is Mrs. Caldwell, and the Caldwells in the train are clearly connected. I do ask Webb how his mother fares, and the little boy wrinkles his nose as if it never occurred to him that his mother might not be well.

“She’s just fine, Mr. Lowry. She says you’re welcome to come to supper round our campfire if you want