Where the Lost Wander: A Novel(65)

“Footprints. Like a man wearing two different shoes,” I answer, but Ma is distracted by the blot.

“Oh no. Look what I’ve done,” Ma mourns, staring at the spot. It has completely obscured her name.

JOHN

A standoff is taking place. The men from the tent city have taken a position about twenty yards in front of the fort, barring the way to a mounted band of Indians, who are weighted down with meat and furs and have no doubt come to trade.

“We’re looking for Jim Bridger,” I hear someone shout. “Nobody’s getting in this fort until we find him.”

“We got in the fort,” Wyatt says, frowning. We’re stringing Kettle, the dun, and the mules behind us, and they’re not happy to be heading out again. I’m not happy to be heading out again. I have business to conduct and very little time to do it. We hug the outer walls just east of the entrance, keeping back from the fray.

Teddy Bowles and a man I assume is Vasquez stride out of the fort moments later. Vasquez looks about my father’s age, though his hair has not yet lost its color. It’s slicked back, and he’s clean shaven, an oddity among mountain men. He’s wearing a cloth shirt rolled at the elbows and a leather vest with a gold watch chain dripping from his pocket. He looks like a banker, but he has a rifle in his hands and a furrow on his well-tanned brow.

A woman emerges through the gate behind him, wearing a deep-blue dress striped in white and adorned with a little white collar. Her hair is perfectly coiled, her back is perfectly straight, and when Vasquez barks for her to go back inside, she ignores him completely. She reminds me of Naomi.

Vasquez and Bowles push through the Mormon militia to stand in front of the mounted braves, and the woman observes it all, only ten feet away from me and Wyatt.

“You are out of line, Captain Kelly,” Vasquez shouts, pushing his way toward the front. He speaks English with a slight French accent, and I’m confused by his name. Vasquez.

Suddenly, I know who he is.

“Louis Vasquez. Well, I’ll be damned,” I breathe.

A Missouri boy, born and raised, and the son of a Spanish father and a French-Canadian mother, Louis Vasquez is a fur trader who’s been back and forth across the plains and traipsed through the mountains enough to make a name for himself back home, where tales of the West have been on every tongue and part of the American consciousness for the last two decades. My father, who never talks about anything, sold him a mule once and was impressed enough to bring the story home. “Louis Vasquez purchased a Lowry mule today. Imagine that.” You’d have thought he’d seen George Washington—a renowned mule breeder himself.

“The Indians who shot and scalped two of our men were Shoshoni. I don’t want trouble. But I don’t want it to happen again, and Jim Bridger selling powder and spirits is only making things worse. Until I get some answers, I’m not budging,” the Mormon captain shouts.

“Isn’t your friend Hanabi a Shoshoni?” Wyatt asks. “You could probably talk to him, couldn’t you, John?”

Wyatt doesn’t wait for me to answer but calls to the woman, drawing attention to us both. “Mr. Lowry speaks Shoshoni, ma’am. Maybe he could help.”

The woman rewards us with a blinding smile. “I believe he could. Louis,” the woman calls, projecting her voice above the tense assembly. “We have someone here who can speak to Chief Washakie for Captain Kelly.”

Washakie. I have no doubt this is Hanabi’s chief.

When all heads swivel toward us, the woman smiles and inclines her head like she’s a queen greeting her subjects. She looks at me and extends her hand toward the conflict, indicating that I proceed.

“Mr. Lowry?” she prods.

“Stay here, Wyatt,” I say under my breath. “And next time, let me speak for myself.”

The Mormons part judiciously, clearing a path to their captain and Vasquez. The Shoshoni leader sits straight in the saddle, and he does not seem unnerved by the reception he is receiving, but he doesn’t like it either. He meets my gaze as I approach, and without thinking, I remove my hat. To leave it on my head would feel like an insult, though no one else has removed theirs. His buffalo robe is bunched at his waist, and a few feathers stream from his long hair. He is broad chested and fine looking, but I cannot tell how old he is. No gray streaks his hair, and his face is unlined, but he is old enough to be chief, which is not a young man’s position.

Teddy Bowles claps me on the back like we are old friends, but Captain Kelly eyes me suspiciously.

“You speak Shoshoni?” Vasquez asks.

“I do. Well enough.”

“We want to ask him what he knows about the attack. It is believed that the Indians were Shoshoni. Can you ask him about that?” Captain Kelly asks.

I try, stumbling a bit over my words.

The chief looks me over, his eyes lingering on my face before he dismisses me. He is angry, his shoulders tight, his gaze flat. He is insulted by the confrontation.

“I want to trade. Now,” he says.

“You’ve traded with this man before?” I ask Vasquez, uncomfortable in the corner I’ve been shoved into.

“Many times. Bridger considers him a friend,” Vasquez says.

“Every year,” Captain Kelly agrees. “He is highly regarded.”

“Then what’s the problem?” I protest.