Where the Lost Wander: A Novel(2)

Gert pulls away, and I note the way her teat streams, watering the dry earth as she flees. The oxen bolt too, and I am frozen, watching the Indians fall upon Pa, Warren, and Mr. Bingham, who stare at them in rumpled confusion, their sleeves rolled and their faces slicked with sweat and grime. Pa falls without even crying out, and Warren staggers back, his arms outstretched in protest. Mr. Bingham swings his arms but doesn’t succeed in shielding his head. The club against his face makes an odd plunk, and his knees buckle, tipping him face-first into the brush.

I clutch Wolfe to my chest, frozen and gaping, and I am confronted by a warrior, his hair streaming, his torso bare, and a club in his hand. I want to close my eyes and cover my ears, but the cold in my limbs and lids prevents it. I can only stare at him. He shrieks and raises his club, and I hear my mother scream my name. Naomi. NAY OH ME. But the final syllable is cut short.

I am ice, but my ears are fire, and every scream of pain and triumph finds the soft drums in my head, echoing over and over. The warrior tries to take Wolfe from my arms, and it is not my strength but my horror that locks my grip. I cannot look away from him. He says something to me, but the sounds are gibberish, and my gaze does not fall. He swings his club at my head, and I turn my face into Wolfe’s curls as the blow connects, a dull, painless thud that stuns and blinds.

Time rushes and slows. I hear my breath in my ears and feel Wolfe against my chest, but I am floating above myself, seeing the slaughter below. Pa and Warren. Mr. Bingham. The Indian with the arrow in his belly is dead too. The colorful bits of feather wave at the placid blue sky. It is Will’s arrow. I am sure of it now, but I do not see Will or Webb.

The dead Indian is hoisted onto his horse, and his companions’ faces are grim and streaked with outrage at the loss. They do not take anything from the wagons. No flour or sugar or bacon. They don’t take the oxen, who are as docile in war as they were in peace. But they take the rest of the animals. And they take me. They take me and baby Wolfe.

And they burn the wagons.

I will myself higher, far away, up to the heaven that awaits me with Ma and Pa and Warren, and for a time I am blessedly unaware, wrapped in gauzy delirium.

But I am not dead; I am walking, and Wolfe is still in my arms. A tugging, distant and weak, narrows the distance between the me who floats and the me who walks. The pull grows stronger, and I register the rope around my neck that tightens and releases as I stumble and straighten, my wooden legs marching along behind a paint pony, the spots on his rump like the blood that seeped through the cover on the Binghams’ wagon. There was so much blood. And screaming. Screaming, screaming, and then nothing.

It is silent now, and I have no idea how long I have been walking, wrapped in odd unconsciousness, seeing but not seeing, knowing but not knowing. I am suddenly sick, and the violence of my stomach’s upending catches me unaware. I fall to my knees, and the mush I ate for breakfast hours ago splashes over the clumps of grass, the longest strands tickling my cheeks as I bow above them, retching. Wolfe wails, and the rope at my throat tightens, and my vision swims. There’s a hand on my braid, and I am jerked up from my knees. The Indians are arguing among themselves, blades wielded, and Wolfe screams and screams. I turn his face into my chest to muffle his cries and tuck my spattered cheek against his, my lips at his tiny ear.

“Be still, Wolfe,” I say, and my voice is a shock to both of us.

I don’t know why I am still alive. I don’t know why Wolfe is still alive, and my skin is suddenly raw and ready, prickled with the expectation of a blade against my brow. It doesn’t come, and I lift my eyes to the Indian nearest me, and he hisses and touches the tip of his blade below my right eye. I feel a pinch, and blood wells and trickles down my cheek, heavy and slow. His companions hoot, and Wolfe’s cries are drowned by their hollering. I leap to my feet and try to run, but the rope around my neck yanks me back, and I fall into my own vomit.

The man who cut me climbs back on his horse. And we move again. Now it is only my fear that floats above me, watching, and I’m left blessedly numb. No thoughts, no pain, my brother in my arms, and my life wafting up into the sky behind me with the smoke from our wagons.





MAY 1853





1

ST. JOSEPH, MISSOURI





JOHN


She is perched on a barrel in the middle of the wide street, a yellow-frocked flower in a white bonnet, studying the crush of people moving past. Everyone is in a hurry, covered in dust and dissatisfaction, but she sits primly, her back straight and her hands still, watching it all as if she has nowhere to go. Perhaps she’s been assigned to guard the contents of the barrel; though come to think of it, the barrel was in the street yesterday and the day before, and I’m certain it’s empty.

I have a new hat on my head and a new pair of boots on my feet, and I’m carrying a stack of cloth shirts and trousers to shove in my saddlebags along with the coffee, tobacco, and beads that will come in handy on the journey to Fort Kearny. Maybe it’s the cheerful color of her dress or her womanly form; maybe it’s simply the fact that she is so still while everyone else is in motion, but I halt, intrigued, shifting my package from one arm to the other as I look at her.

After a moment, her eyes settle on me, and I don’t look away. It isn’t insolence or arrogance that makes me stare, though my father always bristles at my flat gaze. I stare because self-preservation is easiest if you know exactly who and what you are dealing with.