Where the Lost Wander_ A Novel - Amy Harmon Page 0,22
more, and this time he doesn’t argue but watches me with his lips tight and his hands a bit looser on the reins.
I coax Mr. Caldwell’s mules into the river without a quirt or a quibble, showing them exactly what I want and what I expect, and before long I have the wagon, the mules, and the Caldwells on the opposite bank. Mr. Caldwell does not thank me, but Elmeda allows me to help her from the seat and clings to my arm for a moment as she steadies her legs.
Fifty wagons and two hundred–odd folks cross the Big Blue without mishap, though we are all wet and weary when we set up camp on the other side. We are not the only ones camped along the river, and we won’t be the last. By nightfall, campfires dot the darkness, hot pokers in an inky dusk, each company making its own circle and establishing a watch over its animals, though there have already been squabbles over meandering cattle and claims of ownership when the herds mix. The Kanzas Indians who were running their ferry stroll into our camp and demand to be fed, and the emigrants are quick to oblige them. They’ve been told stories of Indian attacks and degradations. It makes them amenable to sharing their supplies. The Kanzas eye me with suspicion. They don’t know what to make of me.
“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.
“Âka’a,” I chide softly.
“You say that a lot. What does it mean?” Naomi asks.