Where the Lost Wander: A Novel(31)

NAOMI


John often sleeps in a little tent that he breaks down and packs up each day, but when it storms or the wind blows, he finds shelter beneath Mr. Abbott’s wagon. He is among the first to wake and is usually packed and ready before the rest of us, often helping others gather their stock and yoke their teams.

I know all his habits and patterns; I have been shameless in my interest. So when I see his tent, still pitched and standing off to the side, though the camp has been stirring for hours, I know something is wrong. I stand abruptly, my duties forgotten, and stride toward it, trying not to run, to draw unwanted attention.

Crossing the distance between where I was and the little opening of his tent feels like walking another mile in the Platte, my feet on shifting silt, my legs heavy and bogged down by fear, and when I call his name, it is a shrill bleat that hurts my throat. He doesn’t answer, and I do not hesitate, parting the canvas sides and crawling inside.

It is just as I feared, and he is already vomiting, the final stages for Abigail. She didn’t last an hour after she began retching. But John has enough strength to insist I leave, enough fire to push me away, and I take heart in that.

I spend the remainder of the day at his side, leaving only to gather medicine and tell my family they will have to leave me behind until John is improved. Ma understands, Pa too, though he grouses about the impropriety of my care.

“Surely Mr. Abbott can see to his needs. After all, they are family,” he protests, but Grant Abbott keeps his distance, worried that he too will find himself ailing, and Pa says nothing more. Arguments about indecency ring hollow when death comes to call.

It ends up that the entire wagon train remains at Elm Creek, only eight miles from where we crossed the Platte two days earlier. John is not the only one stricken down by cholera. Several others, including Lucy Caldwell Hines, Daniel’s sister, have succumbed to the deadly plague. Lucy dies just before sunset.

Ma sends Webb to tell me—for some reason the children have more resistance to the disease—and I leave John’s side to stand beside a hole in the earth, watching as my sister-in-law is put in the ground by poor Adam Hines, who has the same stunned expression that Warren still wears about his eyes. She is clothed in her wedding dress, blue silk with lace collar and cuffs, and rolled in a rug instead of a winding cloth. The rug once graced Elmeda’s parlor, but there is nothing else, unless we want to start tearing apart their wagons.

Lucy said she would wear the dress again when we reached California and attended Sunday meetings. It is Sunday today, and I suppose a funeral is a sort of worship. Deacon Clarke, who is not well himself, says something akin to the words he said for Abigail, and everyone hitches out a wobbly rendition of “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” Ma’s the only one who knows every word. Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down, darkness be over me, my rest a stone, yet in my dreams I’d be nearer, my God, to thee.

I don’t sing. My voice has all the beauty of a honking goose, and the words of the hymn weaken my control. I don’t cry either; I can’t. I cared for Lucy, cared for Abigail, but grief is draining. I am hoarding my strength and my stamina for life, and I will not spend it on death. Gotta get your mind right, Naomi May. If all I have is my will, then I must use it well. For Ma. For Wolfe. For my brothers. And for John Lowry, who is still very much alive.

And so I turn away from the shallow grave when the words are spoken and the song is sung, my teeth clenched and my spine straight.

“How can you be so cold, Naomi?” Elmeda Caldwell wails at my back. “You tend to a man who isn’t family when my Lucy lay dying?”

I say nothing. I do not defend myself because it is the truth. But Lucy had her mother. Lucy had her husband. And John has no one but me. I know whose death will break my spirit, and it isn’t Lucy Caldwell’s. But I turn back to embrace Elmeda, preparing myself for her clinging sadness, girding myself against her need. I am tired. I washed my hands and face, straightened my hair, and changed my apron before joining the others by the grave, but I know I look as depleted as I feel. Elmeda pushes me away, her hands on my shoulders like gnarled claws, and I immediately step back, oddly relieved by her rebuff. Anger is good. Anger is better than fear; anger is better than grief. I let Ma console her. Mr. Caldwell sputters his condemnation at my back, but I return to John and to the hope that still lingers.



I wake to darkness but sense the dawn. The camp will soon wake too, and we have to move on, whether or not death has further winnowed our numbers. I have slept three hours, maybe four, but it is all I can afford. John is breathing deeply beside me, his hand still wrapped around mine. I want to weep with relief. With joy. His condition is much improved. He is going to be okay.

I ease myself up, careful to not disturb him. His skin is cool, his limbs relaxed. I whisper a grateful prayer to the God of my mother, to the power she swears is present in all things, and I leave John’s side, convinced that I have done what I can do, and he will not slip away. He won’t leave me. He promised he wouldn’t, and John Lowry strikes me as a man who keeps his promises.

When breakfast is done and the sun is pressing us onward, I send Webb to keep watch over him with firm instructions to tell me when he wakes. The entire camp is in a state of weary dishabille, children crying, animals braying, entire families brought low by disease and discomfort. Abbott is making the rounds, assessing who can move on and who cannot and putting out the word that the train will move out by noon, regardless. Homer Bingham needs someone to drive his team, another family has decided to return to Fort Kearny and wait for another group, and Lawrence Caldwell is demanding we leave immediately or we’ll all be stricken down. Elmeda has not left her bed in the back of their wagon, but she is not racked with cholera; she has simply given up.