on a pallet on Ma and Pa’s kitchen floor instead, and they never made me go back.
When we left Illinois, I sold everything in the cabin for a few dollars and closed the door on my life as a wife. There was no room in the wagon for my belongings, scant as they were, and that suited me fine. I have never had a room of my own or even a bed of my own. Most folks don’t. The only space I’ve ever had to myself is the quiet of my own thoughts and the blank page in front of me, so I don’t know why John is so insistent that we have a wagon of our own. I can spend two months in a tent. I can spend a year in a tent. But I can see it in the set of his mouth and the stiffness in his spine. He isn’t going to yield on it, and it’ll do me no good to try to convince him otherwise. John is proud, and he is private, and I suppose if I’d spent my life feeling like a stranger in my home, I would be more driven to have a place I could call my own.
John is driven . . . and I’m going to let him drive, wherever he needs to go and whatever he needs to do, just as long as he lets me ride beside him. Just as long as he’ll let Ma and Pa and my brothers tag along. They’ve all become quite attached.
When we stop to noon at yet another branch of Blacks Fork, Ma brings out the old family Bible. In the front is written a long line of names and dates, marriages, and births from generations past, meticulously recorded. Ma never reads from it; she has another Bible for reading. She keeps it wrapped in a cloth inside a wooden box, and it’s been stowed beneath the main bed since we began.
“I’ve let this go for too long. It’s been on my mind,” she says as she adds Wolfe’s name and his birth date to the long list of her children and records the day Abigail died.
To the right of my name she adds a connecting line and writes John Lowry, m. July 1853. A line to the left of my name says Daniel Lawrence Caldwell, b. Oct 1830, m. Oct 1851, d. Jan 1852. The b stands for born. The m stands for married. The d stands for died.
I don’t want to blot Daniel out, but I don’t like the way it looks, my name centered between the two men. I can’t imagine John will like it either and am glad Ma’s chosen to bring the Bible out while he’s away.
“Don’t you think you better wait until we’re married?” I ask.
“No. When was John born?” she answers serenely, her quill lifted, awaiting my response. She’s feeling better today. Hanabi’s generosity restored her.
“He doesn’t know. Winter of 1827 or ’28.”
“Winter?”
“His mother told him there were tracks in the snow, so it must have been winter.”
“What kind of tracks?” Ma stills, and a great black drop of ink splatters onto the page.
“Footprints. Like a man wearing two different shoes,” I answer, but Ma is distracted by the blot.
“Oh no. Look what I’ve done,” Ma mourns, staring at the spot. It has completely obscured her name.
JOHN
A standoff is taking place. The men from the tent city have taken a position about twenty yards in front of the fort, barring the way to a mounted band of Indians, who are weighted down with meat and furs and have no doubt come to trade.
“We’re looking for Jim Bridger,” I hear someone shout. “Nobody’s getting in this fort until we find him.”
“We got in the fort,” Wyatt says, frowning. We’re stringing Kettle, the dun, and the mules behind us, and they’re not happy to be heading out again. I’m not happy to be heading out again. I have business to conduct and very little time to do it. We hug the outer walls just east of the entrance, keeping back from the fray.
Teddy Bowles and a man I assume is Vasquez stride out of the fort moments later. Vasquez looks about my father’s age, though his hair has not yet lost its color. It’s slicked back, and he’s clean shaven, an oddity among mountain men. He’s wearing a cloth shirt rolled at the elbows and a leather vest with a gold watch chain dripping from his pocket. He