Where the Lost Wander: A Novel(3)

She appears surprised when I hold her gaze. And she smiles. I look away, disconcerted by her pretty mouth and welcoming grin. I cringe when I realize what I’ve done. I’ve let her unnerve me and cause me to shy like Kettle, my big Mammoth Jack. I immediately look back, my neck hot and my chest tight. She pushes away from the barrel and strides toward me. I watch her approach, liking the way she moves and the set of her chin, knowing it’s wasted admiration. I expect her to walk by, perhaps swishing her skirts and fluttering her eyelashes, intentional yet dismissive in the way of most beautiful women. Instead she stops directly in front of me and sticks out her hand, her mouth still curved and her eyes still steady. She isn’t skittish at all.

“Hello. I’m Naomi May. My father bought a team from your father, Mr. John Lowry. Or are you both called John Lowry? I think my father said something about that.”

Her palm is smudged, and the tips of her fingers are black, her nails as short as my own. Her dirty hand is at odds with her tidy appearance and pale skin. She sees me eyeing her fingers and winces slightly. She bites her lower lip as though she’s not happy I’ve noticed but keeps her hand outstretched.

I don’t take it. I don’t answer her questions either. Instead, I tip my hat with my free hand, acknowledging her without touching her. “Ma’am.”

Her smile doesn’t falter, but she lowers her arm. Her eyes are a startling shade of green, and brown freckles dot her cheeks and dust her nose. It is a fine nose, straight and well shaped. Every part of her is well shaped. I want to slide a finger along the bridge of my own nose, along the bump that makes it rise a little higher between my eyes, and feel foolish for comparing myself, in any way, to a slender white woman.

We study each other silently, and I realize I don’t remember what she asked or what she said. I’m not sure I even remember who I am.

“You are Mr. Lowry, aren’t you?” she says softly, hesitant, as if she can hear my thoughts. I realize she is simply repeating her question.

“Uh, yes, ma’am.”

I tip my hat again and step past her, excusing myself. Then I walk away.

I curse, the soft word a burr on my lips, but manage to swallow the sharp edges and keep moving. I am a man, and I notice pretty women. It is nothing to be ashamed of or think twice about. But she isn’t just pretty. She’s interesting. And I want to look back at her.

St. Joseph is bustling today. It’s spring, and the emigrant trains are readying for the journey west. My father has sold more teams in the last two weeks than he sold all last spring. People want Lowry mules, but we’ve sold everything we have, and the ones we’re selling now—mules we’ve traded for but never worked with—we don’t guarantee. My father is quick to tell people they aren’t Lowry mules, and he sells them for less. I wonder if my father sold her father a Lowry team or a couple of the green mules he took off someone’s hands. She knows who I am, but I’ve never seen her before. I would remember her.

I look back at her. I can’t stop myself. She is watching me, her bonnet-covered head tipped slightly to the side, her hands clasped in front of her, settled against the skirt of her faded yellow dress. She smiles again, seemingly unoffended by my dismissal. Why should she be? I am obviously interested. I feel like a fool.

She has not moved out of the street, and the people hurry around her, wagons and horses and men hoisting bags of flour and women herding children. She knows my name, and it bothers me, though I’ve been called John Lowry since I was a child. I am named after my father—John Lowry—though he is ashamed of me. Or maybe he is ashamed of himself. I can’t be sure. His wife, Jennie, calls me John Lowry—John Lowry, not John, not Johnny—to remind us both exactly who I am at all times. My mother’s people called me Two Feet. One white foot, one Pawnee foot, but I am not split down the middle, straddling two worlds. I am simply a stranger in both.

My mother pulls at the hair on my head, frantic, angry, and her sharp hands surprise me. I cry out, and she falls to her knees, her head bowed, the neat line between her braids pointing toward the floor. I touch it, that line, to remind her I am still here, and she begins to keen as though my touch pains her.

“John Lowry,” my mother says, her palms smacking the wooden slats for emphasis.

The white woman grasps her apron, and the man is silent in front of the fire.

“John Lowry. Son. John Lowry,” my mother insists, and I don’t know what it is she is trying to convey. I know some of the white man’s language. My mother takes me with her when she works in their homes and on their farms.

“Son live here,” my mother demands, firm.

“Mary,” the white woman gasps, reaching for my mother. I’ve heard others call my mother Mary.

My mother moans her Pawnee name, shaking her head. She stands again, reaching for me. She pulls at my hair again, the way the children in the village do. My hair curls, and it does not look Pawnee. I hate it, but my mother has never hurt me this way before.

“White boy,” my mother says. “John Lowry son.” She points at my father. “Son.”

I shake the memory away and open the door to my father’s store without looking back to see if the woman is still there. My father sells tack in the front—anything you need to yoke your team to a wagon—and mules in back. We have corrals that stretch behind the shop and stables beyond that. Jennie’s two-story clapboard house sits on the street behind. He’s done well, my father, since coming to St. Joe with nothing but a jack donkey, two mares, three children, and a wife who had no wish to be there.