Where the Lost Wander: A Novel(4)

Jennie could have turned me away. She could have turned my mother away. But she didn’t. I was not wanted. Not by my mother’s people. Not by my father’s people. But in Jennie’s home I wasn’t hated, I wasn’t harmed, and I was never hungry for long. Jennie took good care of us. Of him. She still does. The household is well run, and supper is always on the table, and I suppose my father looks after her too, providing food and shelter and a steady hand. He takes care of the mules and the mares in the same way, though, and I daresay he likes them more. My father wasn’t ever violent, and he has never raised his hand to me or to his family, but he is cold and quiet, and I used to fear him. When he was present, I would watch him so I could maintain plenty of space around him.

My father is alone in the shop—a rare occurrence. He would rather be out back with the animals. Leroy Perkins sells the riggings, and my father and I work the mules. He will need to hire another hand while I am gone. I will miss the shop. The corrals smell like chaos—sweat and horseflesh wrapped in dust and dung—and the shop smells like order, leather and oil and iron, and I breathe in the clean sterility and hold it in my chest. My question bubbles out on my exhale.

“Did you sell a team to a man named May?” I ask.

My father looks up at me, eyes blank. I know the look. He is thinking. He is blue eyed and ruddy cheeked, and when I was a child, he seemed enormous, though now I am as big as he. My body looks like his; I am tall, broad through my shoulders and narrow through my hips, with long legs, big feet, and strong hands. I don’t have his icy stare or his straw-colored—now white—hair, but I move the way he does. I walk the way he does. I even stand the way he does. I have learned his ways, or maybe they were always my ways too. I do not fear him now. I am simply weary of his shadow.

“He may have had his daughter with him?” I add and keep my face as devoid of expression as I am able. I don’t think my father is fooled.

My father’s face relaxes with memory. “William May. He had his whole family with him. Bunch of kids, some grown, some not, and his wife looking like she is expecting another.”

I say nothing, my thoughts on Naomi May, her yellow dress, her green eyes, and the spray of color across her fine nose.

“Why?” my father asks, the word clipped as though he expects to hear bad news.

“Was it a good team?” I press.

“It wasn’t one of ours. But well matched. Steady. Accustomed to people and wagons. The man has oxen to pull his wagons. He wanted the mules as a backup. Most of the time they’ll be ridden or they’ll be packing.”

I nod once, satisfied.

“I remember the daughter now. Bright eyed. Lots of questions.” He raises his eyes to mine again. “Pretty.”

I grunt, emotionless. My father and I do not discuss women or make small talk. We talk mules, and that is all. His willing commentary surprises me.

“They signed on with Abbott’s company, so you’ll be able to keep an eye on their . . . mules . . . if you’re concerned,” he adds.

I nod, stifling my reaction. Grant Abbott is Jennie’s brother—a man who fancies himself a mountain man, though he’s never spent much time trapping. He went all the way to California in ’49 and didn’t have much luck striking it rich. He’s been back and forth three times to the Oregon Territory and has finally decided the emigrant boom pays better than furs or panning for gold. Plus, the man just can’t keep still. He’s convinced me to travel with him as far as Fort Kearny; I’ve driven mules to Fort Kearny, just below the Platte, half a dozen times. Every time I make the trek, I think about continuing west, and every time, I return to St. Joe and my father’s house.

If I go with a train, I don’t need to hire a hand to help me with the mules, and Grant Abbott will pay me to carry a gun and assist where necessary; having a few mules at his disposal doesn’t hurt either. The numbers in the company provide safety and support, even though it’ll slow me down considerably. I’ve never had any trouble. I’m good with the animals; I keep to myself; I work hard. I’m just a mule skinner, and if I look a little different, no one has ever made a big issue of it. I was called a “filthy Injun” once by a man who never washed, but he died from cholera two days later, too lazy to walk upstream for clean water.

“You ready?” my father asks. He knows that I am. The mules Captain Dempsey requested have been corralled separately so they aren’t sold, and they’ve been fitted and fed, their packs—including my gear—readied for the journey.

I raise the packages in my arms. “I just have to stow these. Shirts and trousers. Good for trade.”

“Cloth’s a whole lot more comfortable than buckskin,” my father says. He is talkative today. I hardly know what to think. “Jennie wanted me to remind you to go home for a haircut,” he adds.

“I’ll go right now,” I say, agreeable. Jennie worries about things like that. When my hair grows long, I look more like a Pawnee than a Lowry, and I make people nervous. I keep it tamed and cut short. It hasn’t been long since I was a child. When I first came to live with my father, Jennie did her best to untangle my hair but ended up cutting it instead. The curls never came back. For a long time, I was convinced they followed my mother when I could not.

Jennie has asked me to call her Mother, but I can’t. I know it is not Jennie’s pride that seeks the title or even her shame. It is simply easier on us all for people to think I am hers because I am his. Jennie is fair, but her hair is a deep brown and her eyes too. People in St. Joe just assume I favor her instead of my father, though I am considerably darker than she is. That, or they don’t ask. The girls—my half sisters—have my father’s blue eyes, and their hair is several shades lighter than Jennie’s. I call Jennie by her name when no one is around. When others are near, I simply call her ma’am or nothing at all. To call her Mother would be to deny the Pawnee girl with the heavy hair and the crooked smile.