Where the Lost Wander_ A Novel - Amy Harmon Page 0,51

alone with him, he’s going to ask the deacon to marry us.

I tell Pa, “Fine with me,” and that shuts Pa right up. I sit with John as much as I can, trying to draw as we lurch along.

“We found one of your pictures, me and Wyatt,” John says softly, and I raise my eyes from the page.

“I left five or six. Maybe more.”

“Why?”

“I was leaving you a trail,” I say. “Silly, I know. But it felt wrong to just go on without you. People leave signs and mile markers. I left pictures.” I shrug.

“I wish I’d found them all.”

“They weren’t my best. I had no trouble parting with them.”

We are quiet for a moment, me drawing, John’s eyes closed.

“Do you know the problem with your pictures?” he says after a while.

“What?” I think he’s going to criticize the many I have drawn of him.

“None of them are of you,” he answers.

John does not flirt. He doesn’t say pretty, empty things. He listens, soaking everything in. John’s a doer. An observer. And his thoughts, when he shares them, are like little shoots of green grass on a dry prairie. The flowers on the prickly pears that grow among the rocks.

“I’ve never tried to draw myself,” I muse. “I’m not sure I could. It’s hard for me to summon my own face to my mind’s eye.”

“I would like a picture of you,” he says, and I am touched by the soft sincerity in his voice. “I would like many pictures of you,” he adds.

“You can look at me whenever you like.” I realize I sound coquettish and cover my mouth, wishing I could take the words back. “You know what I mean,” I amend.

“Not anytime I want.”

“You can look at me now.” I stick out my tongue and pull out my ears, trying to make myself look as homely as I can. John just raises his eyebrows, but the silliness eases the tension that always starts to build inside of me when I’m with him. I sigh, letting it out in a whoosh.

“If I were to draw a picture of myself . . . for you . . . would you want a portrait . . . or a place? Would you want a picture on the trail or perched on Trick? Or bouncing around in this awful wagon?” I ask.

“All of those would be just fine.”

I shake my head and laugh.

“I want a picture of you sitting on a barrel in a yellow dress and a white bonnet in the middle of a crowded street,” he says, looking up at me.

It takes me a minute to remember. When I do, my nose smarts and my eyes sting, but I smile down at him.

“I’m gonna sleep now,” he says, closing his eyes.

I spend the next hour sketching the day we met, imagining myself the way he described me, but when I’m done, the arrested expression on my face reflects the way I felt when I saw him standing there beneath the eaves of the haberdashery, his arms full of packages, his stance wide, and his eyes unflinching, watching me. One long gaze, one meeting of our eyes, and I was caught. I haven’t been able to look away since.

Just like I did with Elmeda, I leave the drawing on his blanket for him to find.

8

THE SANDY BLUFFS

NAOMI

The bluffs are soft with sand, and the travel is slow, but we have no trouble finding water, though we veer north one day to avoid a swamp, hugging the low bluffs that extend for miles, only to swing south again when the bluffs push us back toward the Platte. In some spots there is ample timber, which we need for our fires, but no water for our teams. In other spots there is good water but nothing but sage or willow bushes to burn.

We hoard kindling and branches when we can; I threw a felled branch into Warren’s wagon at Elm Creek when Mr. Abbott warned us about the difficulty of finding timber on the road ahead, but the branch was infested with tiny insects. By the time we stopped for the night, the bugs had burrowed into the bedrolls and blankets. The branch made a great fire, but I had to beat the bugs out of the bedding with the broom, and even then we all had bites for days after.

Maybe it was the bugs in the bedding, but John returned to riding, his mules strung out behind him, after only a couple