Where the Lost Wander_ A Novel - Amy Harmon Page 0,12
pain was useless, and I was never one to wallow. I got angry instead. I got busy. I worked from sunup to sundown. It was planting season, and there was plenty to do. So I did it. I worked all my anger into the ground where Daniel slept, but I didn’t water his grave with my tears. It wasn’t until I sat down on a Sunday afternoon, when the harvest was over and the cold was setting in, that I found myself drawing his face. And then I couldn’t stop. I drew picture after picture—Daniel in all the stages of his life. Daniel as a boy pulling my hair and scaring the chickens. Daniel as a brother. Daniel as a son. Daniel as a husband, and Daniel in the grave.
I cried then. I cried and drew until my fingers were bent like claws. But I only kept one. I gave another to his mother—an unsmiling portrait of the man I married—and buried the rest in the dirt beside him.
I haven’t cried the same way since. It still hurts, but it’s been more than a year, and I am resigned to it. The Caldwells say that I am one of them now, that I am part of their family, but I still feel like a May, and without Daniel, I feel no permanent obligation to them. When I informed them that I would be traveling west with my parents in their wagon, Mr. Caldwell protested vehemently, and Elmeda, Daniel’s mother, looked at me with Daniel’s wounded eyes.
“My mother needs me,” I said simply. It was true, but mostly I couldn’t abide being anywhere near Mr. Lawrence Caldwell. Had Daniel lived, I would have been driven crazy by the end of our journey. Their daughter, Lucy, and their new son-in-law, Adam Hines, will be traveling with them, along with their sixteen-year-old son, Jeb. They’ll make do just fine without me. And being called Mrs. Caldwell makes my hackles rise. Mr. Caldwell has taken to calling me Widow Caldwell, as if I have entered old age without having ever lived the intervening years. I think Mr. Caldwell likes drawing attention to Daniel’s death. It makes folks behave more kindly to him, and it’s his way of laying claim to me. Ma and my brothers are the only ones who just call me Naomi. I suppose widowhood at such a young age gives me a certain freedom some girls don’t yet enjoy, if freedom means being allowed a bit of leeway in speech and conduct. People who hear my story shake their heads and cluck their tongues, sometimes in judgment but generally in sympathy, and I am mostly left alone, which suits me fine.
Webb tugs at my skirt and points to the river, his words tumbling over themselves trying to be first. “There’s Mr. Lowry! He’s got his mules. Look at his donkeys! Those are Mammoth Jacks. For breeding with the mares.” Webb knows too much about breeding for an eight-year-old, but I’m sure he’s right. He goes right on babbling about stallions and jennies and their offspring, called hinnies, which supposedly aren’t nearly as desirable as mules.
John Lowry is one of a swarm, and it takes me a moment to pick him out. John Lowry Sr., his shock of white hair easily identifiable, follows behind, waving his hat and driving the animals forward. Twelve mules are strung together in two long lines behind the younger John Lowry’s horse, the two donkeys Webb is so excited about bringing up the rear. Fine animals, the lot of them. The donkeys are black and lanky, with long ears, thin noses, and oversize eyes. They look almost comical, like childish drawings that trotted off the page and grew with every step. Despite their spindly legs and narrow hips, they are the biggest donkeys I’ve ever seen, their backs as tall as the powerful string of Lowry mules being led to the water’s edge.
With no hesitation, the younger John Lowry urges his horse, a tawny bay with powerful haunches and a thick neck, into the muddy waters. The mules and the jack donkeys follow him with only a little urging and immediately begin swimming hard toward the opposite shore. A skiff, loaded with packs and paddled by a huge Negro, sets off about the same time, keeping an easy distance from John Lowry and his animals. I’m guessing the man’s been hired to get Lowry’s supplies across so they don’t get wet in the swim.