Where the Lost Wander: A Novel(19)

Yet I reach for her again.

This time I am not gentle or timid, and her lips flatten beneath my mouth, but she does not pull back or push me away. She slides her fingers into my hair—my hat has fallen—and tugs so hard my teeth snap and my back bends. Her ribs are slim and dainty beneath my palms, and I encircle her, lifting her up and into me. For a moment I kiss her blindly, boldly, invading her mouth and suckling her lips, teaching us both a lesson.

But she is softer than I anticipated—softer lips and skin, softer swells and softer sighs. And she is sweet.

It stuns me, and I shove her away, ashamed of myself. She staggers and reaches for my arm, but I have stepped back, and she crumples, falling to her knees, catching herself with the palms of her hands.

I curse, long and low, a word Jennie would slap me for saying. My father says it all the time, but even he knows better than to say it in front of a woman. I step forward to help Naomi up, but she ignores my proffered hand and rises nimbly without my assistance. Fine. It is better that I don’t touch her again. My hands are shaking and my legs aren’t steady, and I wipe the kiss from my mouth with the back of my hand.

She brushes off her palms and shakes out her skirt. Even in the shadows her lips are crimson. I have kissed her too hard, and I desperately want to do it again. She avoids my gaze, and I am certain I have accomplished my aim; she is angry with me. That is good. That is best. But my heart is pounding with the need to redeem myself.

“I know why you are being unkind.” Her voice is gentle, stunning me all over again.

“Why?” I gasp.

“You don’t think we’re the same.”

“Good night, Mrs. Caldwell,” I say, dismissing her. I need her to go. To stay. To forgive me. To forsake me.

“The Andersons are from Norway. The McNeelys are Irish. Johann Gruber is from Germany. You’re part Indian, and I’m a widow.” She shrugs. “We all need each other. We can all live side by side peaceably, can’t we? We don’t all have to be exactly the same.”

“Some cultures do not mix. It is like having fins but trying to live on land,” I whisper.

She says something beneath her breath, and I duck my head trying to catch it.

“What?” I ask.

“So be a turtle,” she repeats, enunciating each word. She grins suddenly, her teeth flashing in her pretty face, and I laugh out loud. I laugh, disarmed in the face of her honesty, my discomfort and defensiveness melting into the moonlight.

“Good night, John,” she says, turning away. She walks from the clearing, leaving me smiling like a fool in the copse of cottonwoods, my horse the only witness to my undoing.

She is so different.

Most everyone I know is afraid. Including me.

But Naomi May—Naomi Caldwell, I correct myself—is not afraid.





4





CHOLERA


NAOMI


“Ma?” I ask. I don’t know if she’s still awake. Ma and I are bedded down in the wagon. The camp has been quiet for half an hour, yet my mind won’t settle, and my heart hasn’t slowed since I made John kiss me. I knew exactly what I was doing. I suspect he knew it too.

“Did you say something, Naomi?” Ma’s voice is wan, and I almost say never mind, but I need to talk.

“From the moment I saw John Lowry on the street in St. Joseph, I wanted him,” I confess in a whispered rush. “I don’t even know why.”

“I know,” Ma murmurs, and my heart finds its rhythm. Ma always has that effect on me.

“Is that the way it was with you and Pa?” I ask. “You just knew, right then and there?”

“No.” Typical Ma, no lies and no careful tread. “Me and Pa were more like you and Daniel.”

“Friends?”

“Yes. Friends. I liked him, though. And he really liked me. That’s always nice, when someone really likes you. And your pa, he let me know that he liked me.”

“I’ve let John know I like him.”

“I know you have.”

She is trying to tease, but I feel shame well up in my breast. I don’t want to chase John Lowry. I don’t especially like the way I want him so much. But I can’t help it.

“What if he’s a bad man . . . and he decides to let me catch him?” I worry.

“I’ve had dreams about Mr. Lowry. He’s not a bad man. But even so . . . I’m not sure he’ll let you catch him. He’s full of distrust and denial. It’s going to take patience, Naomi, patience and understanding. And I don’t know if he’s going to be around long enough for you to show him either of those things.”

I don’t know what to pounce on first, the dreams or the disappointing truth that I might be left wanting forever.

“Tell me about the dreams.”

She is silent for too long, and I sit up, bending my back with the curvature of the wagon top. I can’t see her expression in the darkness, but her eyes gleam, and I know that she is not sleeping but thinking.

“Have you ever seen a great bird come off the water?”

“Ma,” I groan, thinking her thoughts have wandered, but she continues, her voice sleepy.

“In my dreams, a big white bird lifts off the water in a great flapping of wings. As the bird rises, he sprouts the body of a man, and his wings are a feathered headdress. Like the one that Potawatomi chief was wearing in St. Joe that day. In my dream, the bird turned man walks on the water . . . like Jesus in the Bible . . . until he reaches the shore. The man has John Lowry’s face. I’m not sure what that means, Naomi, but I’ve been having that dream long before I ever met John Lowry.”