Where the Lost Wander_ A Novel - Amy Harmon Page 0,36

Lowry. My mother was Pawnee. I am . . . both. Pítku ásu’.” I shrug, turning my palms up.

“Pítku ásu’,” the brothers murmur, nodding their heads as if it makes complete sense, and they fall silent again. I think they have fallen asleep, and Charlie wriggles beside me.

“What should I tell Captain Dempsey?” I ask. “I will tell him whatever you wish me to say.”

They all begin speaking at once, mumbling over the top of one another, and I don’t know who says what.

“Tell him the Kanzas are below us. The Sioux above. Cheyenne too.”

“They steal from us. We steal from them. We understand each other. But we don’t understand the whites.”

“They trample on the sacred burial grounds of our ancestors. The wagons go through—we see the tracks of their wheels.”

“One man makes a promise, we sign a treaty, and another man breaks it.”

Their anger is palpable, and they glower at me as if I am to blame. I am grateful I am speaking to old men. I suspect Dog Tooth and his war chiefs would run me out. Or run me through.

“You tell him we will stay right here,” a brother says.

“Let him fight the Sioux with his cannon. We do not want to fight them,” another adds.

“I will tell him,” I say, but I know it will do no good. Someone will visit the village again, asking the brothers to go, and they won’t take no for an answer. I tell them that a wagonload of corn and flour will arrive in their village, a gift from Captain Dempsey, but this time when I rise, they don’t look up at me, and Charlie follows me out. When I step from the big lodge, my eyes adjusting to the light, I see that the village has repopulated itself as though the old men and the smoke from their fire have called their people home. The corn has been delivered from Fort Kearny, the flour too, and the women are unloading it; they glance up at me in suspicion and pause in their work.

In Pawnee, I ask them what else they need. Their eyes widen with surprise, the typical response when I speak the language. But they scoff.

“Are you going to get it for us, half man?” one woman says.

Half man. It is a new twist on the more common half breed. I was run out of my mother’s village enough to know that I am no more welcome among the Indians than I am among people like Lawrence Caldwell. It was a stupid thing to say. I do not have the power to grant them anything or give them what they need.

Charlie tugs on my arm. “Can you find your way back to the fort, Mr. Lowry? Or would you like me to run with you?”

“I can get back, Charlie.”

He claps my shoulder, his eyes sober. “Thank you for letting me ride your horse. It was a good day. I hope I will see you again.”

I nod. “I would like that.”

“And I hope you find your way,” Charlie adds.

It is not until the village is behind me, the prairie and the Platte stretched before me, that I wonder if perhaps Charlie wasn’t talking about returning to the fort.

I report back to Captain Dempsey, who doesn’t seem surprised by the response but sighs and makes a notation in his ledger, like he is keeping a record of his attempts at peaceful removal. Then I write a letter to my father and another to Jennie and post them with a trapper who says he’ll take them to St. Joe. I don’t know why I write two—I assume they will share them—but with my father I can never be sure, and I do not speak to them in the same way. To my father I report the condition of the mules and Captain Dempsey’s reaction to their quality, size, and overall demeanor. I also tell him Captain Dempsey says good, amenable breeding jacks are in great demand and that I will be able to sell stud services at every fort and trading post from here to California. Pott and Kettle are mine, though the contract for the mules was my father’s. I don’t tell him the particulars of the deal, only that the full contract payment will be made to his account in St. Joe. Then I tell him I’m not coming home.

I do not tell him about Naomi May or the pictures she draws. To speak of her would be to