Where the Lost Wander_ A Novel - Amy Harmon Page 0,95

in the other. She climbs into the bed beside me, burrowing her cold toes between my calves.

“I drew this too,” she whispers. “A wedding gift for my husband.”

The lines are clean and dark, our bodies intertwined, my head bowed over hers, the length of her naked spine and the curve of her hips visible beneath the circle of my arms.

“I don’t know if that is how we appear, or if it is only the way you make me feel. I don’t ever want to forget this day,” she says.

I take the candle from her and the picture too and, pulling my shirt over her head, vow to help us both remember. I kiss her, and she returns my fervor, but when she pulls back for a ragged breath, she cradles my face in her hands, and her thumbs stroke my lips. Love wells in my chest, so fierce and so foreign that I have to look away. I turn my face into her palm, pressing a kiss to its center.

“I don’t want to leave you behind tomorrow,” she whispers. I have told her my plans to build a wagon, and we’ve agreed that the rest of the train will leave in the morning without me and Wyatt.

“You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?” I murmur.

“Yes. You’re going to say it’s only a few days.” She pauses a moment. “And what do you think I’m going to say?”

“You’re going to say we don’t need a wagon. You’re going to say we can just continue on the way we have been.”

“Exactly.” Her voice is soft, and she rests her head against my arm, her eyes pleading, her lips rosy and well used.

“But if we continue on the way we have been, I won’t be able to do this.” I kiss the tip of one breast. “Or this,” I say and kiss the other. “If we go back to the way we were, I will have to keep my distance, and you will have to keep yours.”

“I can’t,” she moans.

“I know.” I laugh. “So now what are you going to say?”

“We need a wagon of our own,” she says, making me laugh again.

“We need a wagon of our own,” I repeat, pressing my face into the crook of her neck, nuzzling, tasting, my mouth opened against the sweetness of her. Her pulse quickens, and the hand that cradled my face is now at my heart . . . and at my hip . . . and at the small of my back, urging me to her. She is ready again.

Then her lips are beneath my lips, and her body is beneath my body, flesh and bone and beautiful indentations, and we both forget all the things we didn’t say.

I post a letter with Teddy Bowles the next morning, worried that I will forget in the days ahead. He promises someone will be going east before long. He’s got two canvas satchels packed to the brim with emigrant letters. I do not write two this time. I don’t have the patience or the paper. I scrawl out a few lines letting Jennie and my father know I am well, the mules are fine, and by the way, I just got hitched. There is no way to break the news more artfully in a very small space, so I don’t even try. I sound stiff and cold, maybe a little simple too, and I wince at the inadequate lines. But my gift for language does not extend to the written word, and I finish with this:

Her name is Naomi May. You met her once, Father. Her family is traveling with the train, and we will remain with them until the journey is through. Jennie will be happy to know we were married by a deacon and scripture was read and a hymn sung. Naomi is a fine woman, and I love her. I found Ana. She is the wife of a Shoshoni chief and has a beautiful baby girl. She is grateful for you both. As am I. I will write again when I reach California.

Your son,

John Lowry

15

SHEEP ROCK

JOHN

More than one wagon lies at the bottom of the hill, all in various states of decay and destruction: missing wheels, tattered canvas tops, rotted tongues, and bent axles. I can only stare, my hands on my hips, feeling the same wash of despair I felt when I saw the fort.

“Don’t worry, Lowry. I don’t get my mule if you don’t get your wagon. We