Where the Lost Wander: A Novel(47)

Naomi sketches quickly—her audience is growing—and hands the piece of paper to the brown-cloaked squaw. The woman compares the picture to her face in the glass and nods and smiles once more. In exchange for the drawing—which Naomi has added a bit of paint to here and there—the woman gives Naomi a blanket, which Wyatt sets on the growing pile. Naomi bows her head slightly and makes the Indian sign for good, the way I did with the Dakotah braves, and the next person steps forward. The whole process repeats itself.

Wyatt sees me and waves, like it’s all a grand adventure. I tell myself she is fine and I can go. I should go. But I don’t. I simply watch, tucked back from the crowd. Naomi draws on her own paper more often than not, though a few hand her pieces of leather or shields like the ones she decorated for the Dakotah warriors; I wonder if word has spread to their encampment. It has definitely spread to the fort. Some of the emigrant women from other trains have straggled in, watching curiously and talking among themselves. A French fur trader, who seems to reside in the lodge Naomi sits in front of, gets a turn as well. He stands, solemn, holding his rifle and wearing a coonskin hat with a fat ringed tail that hangs between his fringed shoulders.

She doesn’t take much time with each person. Ten minutes at the most, but the people marvel and clap when she finishes each drawing, and her happy patrons walk away, carrying their prizes in careful hands. An Indian woman, her skirts wet like she’s crossed the Platte, brings Naomi a goat.

Naomi blanches for a moment, and the woman rushes to demonstrate the goat’s worth, squeezing its teats and squirting a stream of milk into a tin cup. She offers it to Naomi, adamant. Naomi takes it and gives it to Wyatt. He gulps it down without hesitation.

He smiles, wiping his mouth, and the goat’s owner claps. Naomi says something else to him, and they both begin to nod. Apparently, they have accepted the goat. The woman puts a picket pin in the goat’s lead rope and sinks down in front of Naomi to pose for her portrait.

There is no way there is room in the wagons, packed tight as they are, for all of Naomi’s trades. Nor does she need most of what she is being given. But she keeps painting away. Her left cheek is smudged with blue paint, her right cheek with red, and the tip of her nose has a black dot right on the tip, like she leaned too close to her work. Her yellow dress, the dress she was wearing when I first saw her in St. Joe, is splattered; I doubt she will be able to get it clean, no matter how hard the rain falls. Her hair is hanging down her back in a fat braid, long wisps clinging to the paint on her cheeks, but the crowd is looking at her like she’s descended from the clouds to walk among them.

Hours pass. I leave briefly to check on my animals and return to an even larger crowd. As far as I know, Naomi has not taken a break or tried to curtail the gathering, and her pile of trades is growing. The trapper’s squaw gathers her children and bundles them into the lodge only to come out a few minutes later with water and some kind of meat pie, which Wyatt and Naomi gobble up like they are starving. Naomi hands the woman a blanket from her stack, insisting she take it for the food, and the woman brings her another pie. Naomi points to me, and Wyatt stands, shaking out his cramped limbs, and brings me the pie.

“Naomi says if you’re going to wait for us, you are going to eat.”

I take the pie, hungry but hesitant, and Wyatt trots back to Naomi’s side. I can’t guess at what she’s trying to accomplish, beyond the obvious: she is painting, people are happy, she’s collecting loot. The sun is setting, the train will pull out in the morning, and just as I begin to think I am going to have to interrupt and put an end to the madness, for Naomi’s sake, the crowd begins to part and point, and the emigrant onlookers scatter like scared rabbits. Black Paint and the bangled brave approach on horseback. Three Indian women lead a mule pulling an empty travois. Black Paint is leading the dun and a sorrel, his reddish-brown coat the same color as Naomi’s hair.

Black Paint says something in Sioux—Go? Leave?—and the crowd obeys.

As the people disperse, I make my way to Naomi, standing behind her and Wyatt, who doesn’t seem surprised at all by the entrance of the Dakotah war chief. Naomi adds a few strokes to the picture she’s drawing for a cavalryman, who’s come over from the fort just to have his likeness painted on a bit of burlap. He takes it and scatters like the rest, leaving a pound of bacon in trade.

“Many Faces wants a horse,” Black Paint says, addressing me in Pawnee. “I will give her two.”

I look at Naomi, attempting to control my expression. She is biting her lip and looking from me to the dun.

“I told you I would get you a horse,” she says.

“He wants to give you two.”

Her eyebrows shoot up, but she stoops and, directing Wyatt to help her, begins to show the chief what she has collected for him in trade. He directs his squaws to gather it, inspecting every item and leaving what he does not want behind.

“Tell him I’m keeping the goat,” Naomi says, looking up at me. “Ma wanted a goat. We haven’t been getting any milk from the cows, and Ma is worried Wolfe isn’t getting enough. He’s hungry all the time.”

I do as I’m told, and Black Paint agrees to leave the goat. The women pack Naomi’s trades onto the travois, making quick work of the heap. When they are finished, Black Paint inclines his head toward the horses.

“You, Pawnee white man, take. Red pony is calm. Old. She will be a good one for Many Faces to ride so she does not run away from you. You ride the young one, so you catch her.” Black Paint’s lips twist slightly in mockery, and Wyatt and Naomi look at me for translation. I say nothing. Black Paint tosses me the ropes of the two horses and, with a final look at Naomi, rides away with the bangled brave, the squaws, and the travois trailing behind him.