Where the Lost Wander: A Novel(93)

“They are ours now,” John says quietly. “We’ll need some skins for a wickiup and some buffalo robes to sleep on if we’re going to winter here. We can trade the horses for whatever we need.”

My head is spinning. Winter here? A wickiup? And why are the horses ours? “I don’t want anything that belonged to Magwich,” I stammer.

“That’s what I told Wahatehwe, but he said it’s not a horse’s fault who his master is. Who his master . . . was.”

“Who his master was?” I ask, still reeling.

John doesn’t answer. He busies himself with Magwich’s horses, pretending not to hear. But I know him too well. “Why did . . . Wahatehwe . . . give you the horses, John?”

“I won them . . . in a race. Dakotah won them.”

“Dakotah?”

“The dun. That’s his name.”

“Since when?”

“Since he won your satchel and five horses from Wahatehwe,” John says quietly.

“And who put a slash across your belly and a gash on your cheek and a knife in . . . Dakotah?”

“Magwich.” John says the name like it tastes bad.

“And what did you do to Magwich?” I whisper. The hole in my chest fills with something black.

He is silent for a heartbeat, and then he raises his eyes to mine, solemn and dark. “I killed him, Naomi.”

I am caught in a deluge of relief and loathing, and I grit my teeth, close my eyes, and sink my hands into the grass so I’m not washed away.

“Naomi?” John murmurs.

“Yes?”

“I need you to look at me.”

“I will. I will, John. I just can’t . . . quite yet,” I say, keeping my eyes shut tight. I hear him walk toward me and crouch down beside me, but he doesn’t touch me. I can feel the cold coming off his skin and the warmth of his familiar breath.

“I need you to look at me now,” he says gently. “Please.”

I open my eyes and lift my head. And I steel myself to hold his gaze. So many words. So many. And I feel like a liar when I look at him.

“I promised Washakie I wouldn’t seek revenge if he helped me find you. And I kept that promise. But Magwich thought he could kill me, and today he tried. I killed him instead.”

My words are rising and spilling from my eyes, and I want to look away.

“He deserved to die, and I’m not sorry. I’m not ashamed to admit it. I got nothing to be ashamed of. And neither do you. Nothing. You hear me?” John’s voice is fierce, but his lips are trembling, and I reach up and touch his mouth, comforting him even as I break down. He grips my wrist and kisses my palm, and for a moment we struggle together, fighting the grief and the guilt and the words that we don’t say.





20





WIND RIVER


JOHN


Washakie’s band was the last to arrive at the Gathering, and we are the last to go, but two days after I killed Magwich, Pocatello and his people are gone before the sun rises. Naomi is inconsolable. I hold her as close as she will let me, and when she finally sleeps, Lost Woman sits with her awhile, letting me escape to my mules and my horses. Washakie finds me there, tending to Dakotah’s wound.

“Pocatello is gone,” he says.

I nod once, brittle and beaten. “I know.”

“Nay-oh-mee cannot go home.” He uses her name, and I am grateful. She is not Many Faces or Face Woman. She is Naomi, and she needs to remember that.

“No, Naomi can’t go home . . . though I’m not sure where home is. Home is a wagon that I turned into a grave.”

“His people are not far,” Washakie says.

I grunt. “How far do you have to be to be gone?”

He doesn’t answer, but he appears to be thinking on it. He looks the horses over, running his hands across their backs and down their legs.

“I know where they winter. We will winter there too. So Naomi is close to her brother,” he says abruptly, rising to his feet, finished with his inspection.

I freeze, my eyes meeting his over the back of the spotted gray.

I don’t know what to say. I try to speak and end up shaking my head.

“We cannot live in the next valley forever. But for now . . . for now we can. Until Naomi is ready to go home,” he says. Then he nods like it is decided and turns away, leaving me to weep among the horses. When I tell Naomi we will follow Pocatello, she reacts much like I did, with awed gratitude and tears. It doesn’t solve the problem, but it eases the immediate agony.

I trade three of the horses for skins, robes, and clothes, along with tall moccasins lined in sheep’s wool for the cold. I build a wickiup with Hanabi and Lost Woman’s help, and I am pleased with the result. It’s a good sight warmer and more comfortable than a wagon, and there are no wheels to fix or axles to straighten. The thought shames me.

The Mays are never far from my mind. All of them, but especially Wyatt, Will, and Webb. In my head, I’m calculating distances, trying to figure out where they might be, looking at my maps and my guidebook, filled with all the things one might see on the journey west and none of the toil that accompanies it. By the end of August, when I found Naomi, they should have traveled over two hundred miles. Four hundred miles to go. Now it’s September, and they will need to cross the Sierra Nevada before the snow falls. Naomi and I would have needed to cross the Sierra Nevada before the snow falls too, but we don’t. We stay, sealing our fate, at least until spring.