Where the Lost Wander: A Novel
Amy Harmon
PROLOGUE
NAOMI
The wheel is in pieces. It’s not the first time one of the wagons has lost an axle or broken a rim since our journey began in May, but it’s a long, dry stretch with no grazing, and it’s not a good place to stop. We didn’t have much choice. Pa and my brother Warren have been working on the wheel for hours, and Mr. Bingham is helping them. Will and Webb are supposed to be keeping watch for Wyatt and John, but the day is bright and still—warm too, and they’re playing among the black rocks and bristly sage, hiding and seeking and chasing each other, and I let them be, too weary to scold or find something better for them to do. Will has the bow John gave him. As I watch, Will rises and takes aim at an unknown foe, his arrow winging through the air and disappearing into the ravine below us. He lets a few more fly, straight and true, before ducking down behind another outcropping, Webb scrambling after him like a faithful pup, eager for his turn. Sunshine is something we’ve had plenty of the last few weeks. I wouldn’t mind a cool breeze or a handful of snowflakes on my tongue, though winter and wagon trains don’t mix.
Babies and wagons don’t mix either, and Homer Bingham’s wife, Elsie, is trying to deliver her baby in the Bingham wagon while the men fix the wheel on ours. The rest of the train has gone on, promising us they will wait at the springs they claim are only a day’s travel ahead if we just “follow the wheel ruts.” We’re a good mile away from the main ruts now. We veered off the road to find water and grass last night. That’s when Pa busted his wheel and Elsie Bingham said she couldn’t go another step.
She’ll have to. Not today. But certainly tomorrow. There will be another ridge to climb and another river to cross. When Ma gave birth to little Wolfe, she was walking again the next day.
I had prayed for a sister. I’d prayed hard. Ma already had four sons, and I wouldn’t be living in her house forever. I’m twenty years old, married and widowed once already, and I have my own plans once we reach California. Ma needed another daughter—one that lived longer than a day—to help her when I couldn’t. My prayers fell on deaf ears because the Lord gave Ma another son, and He gave me another brother. But my disappointment didn’t last long. I took one look at baby Wolfe, wriggling and wailing, fighting for life and breath, and I knew him. He was mine. Ours. He belonged.
“He looks just like you did, Naomi,” Ma cried. “Why, he looks like he could be your son.”
He felt like my son, right from the start, but with so many brothers to take care of and no husband, I haven’t thought much about my own babies. But Ma says she’s seen my children in her dreams for years.
Ma has vivid dreams.
Pa says her visions are like Joseph’s from the Bible, Joseph with the coat of many colors who was sold into Egypt. Pa even bought Ma a coat like Joseph’s—the sheep’s wool was dyed into varying shades and woven together—to wear out West. She reprimanded him, but she was pleased.
It’s been hot, but Ma is still wearing that coat. She can’t ever seem to get warm, and baby Wolfe is always hungry. Ma said her body was too old and tired for another baby, and she didn’t have enough milk. God thought different. God and Pa. I told Pa he needed to leave Ma be for good. I hadn’t meant to say it, but sometimes words just come out of my mouth when I think them. Pa hasn’t forgiven me yet, and Ma scolded me something fierce.
“Naomi May, if I want that man to let me be, I can surely speak for myself.”
“I know, Ma. You always speak your mind. That’s where I get it.”
She laughed at that.
I can hear Ma telling poor Elsie Bingham to get up on her knees, and I tuck my leather book and a lead pencil into my satchel and take Wolfe to find Gert, our goat, who is grazing with the unyoked oxen. Ma told me to take him and go. His cries were upsetting Elsie, and there’s not much room in the wagon. The grass is sparse along this stretch, and the little there is has been eaten down. A sluggish spring between a circle of rocks has provided us with a little water, and the animals are crowded around it.
I tweak Gert’s teats, and she doesn’t even raise her head from the shallow pool. I catch the stream of warm milk in my palm and wash her teat with it before moving Wolfie’s hungry cupid mouth beneath it. If I crouch down with him lying in my lap, I can milk her and feed him at the same time. I’ve gotten better at it, and Gert’s grown accustomed enough that she doesn’t bolt. She’s sweet tempered for a goat, unlike every other goat I’ve ever known, who bleat like the Israelites did when Moses destroyed their golden calf.
Gert whines, and her cry confuses me for a minute. I freeze, and the cry comes again. It isn’t Gert.
“Elsie’s had her baby,” I say to little Wolfe, who gazes up at me with eyes that Ma says will someday be as green as my own. “Praise the Lord,” I breathe, and Mr. Bingham repeats my sentiments.
“Praise the Lord,” he bellows, and the wheel is forgotten and the men stand. Pa pounds Mr. Bingham on the back, whooping, clearly relieved for him, relieved for poor Elsie. Someone else whoops, and I am not alarmed, rapt as I am in the wriggling babe in my lap and thoughts of the babe just come into the world. I assume it’s Webb or Will celebrating too. As quickly as my thoughts provide an explanation, my eyes swing, discarding it. My brothers don’t sound like that. The land rolls and the rocks jut, creating a thousand places to hide, and from the nearest rise, horses and Indians, speared and feathered, spill down upon us. One is clutching an arrow buried in his belly, his hands crimson with blood, and I wonder in dazed disbelief if Will accidentally shot him.