Where the Lost Wander(102)

“And what did she say?” I whisper.

“She reminded me . . . gently . . . that this is not your home. And she told me you miss your mother.”

I swallow the lump in my throat and close my eyes, spent. I am drifting off when he begins speaking again, so softly that I’m not sure he’s talking to me at all.

“I miss my mother too,” he murmurs. “I am all that remains of her. My skin. My hair. My eyes. My language. This is not my home either, Naomi. But I remember her here. I feel close to her here. When these people are gone . . . when their world is gone . . . she will be gone too.”

I lie in silence for a long time, my heart aching but my eyes open.

“Forgive me, John,” I whisper, but he is already asleep.

I feel close to her here.

For a little while, walking and talking with Lost Woman, I felt close to Ma too, like she walked beside us, listening.

“Ma?” I whisper. “I don’t know what to do. Help me find my way home, wherever home is.”





22





WINTER


NAOMI


It snows while Washakie is away, and a two-day goodwill visit to Pocatello’s village becomes five days. When the small party returns, John and I go to Chief Washakie’s wickiup to eat and hear the news. Hanabi tells me that Wolfe is fat, and she puffs out her cheeks and hugs me tight. She is happy for me. Relieved. Her own daughter has grown since we first met at the Green, and she toddles around the wickiup, entertaining us while the men talk. Chief Washakie seems relieved too, even lighthearted, and he keeps us there for a long time.

When John and I are back in our wickiup, John tells me Washakie is confident there will be no trouble between the two bands during the winter.

“He says Biagwi and Weda might even bring Wolf Boy—isa tuineppe—for a visit so you can see him,” John says, hesitant, searching my face for my reaction. His eyes are dark with strain.

“They call him Wolf Boy?” I ask, stunned.

“That is what Washakie said.”

“Isa tuineppe,” I say. The sounds comfort me. “He is still Wolfe.”

“Yes. He is still Wolfe.”

It is good news, and I am grateful in spite of everything. I try to thank Washakie, stumbling over the Shoshoni words John has helped me practice.

He listens and grunts, nodding his head. “Naomi gahni,” he says. “John gahni.”

John says he is telling me that we have a home with him, for as long as we need. I wonder if that’s my answer. I begged Ma to help me find my way. Maybe home is with Washakie . . . forever.

The winter days are dark and long. John sets snares and takes long walks in the snow, unable to stay cooped up inside for any length of time. Sometimes at night he studies his emigrant map, tracing our journey from St. Joe.

“I hope Abbott will write to Jennie and my father,” he says. “Jennie says my father suffers when I go. I didn’t believe her. But I understand better now, and I don’t want him to suffer, wondering where I am. I don’t want your brothers to suffer either. When the spring comes . . . we . . . have to go find them. You know that, don’t you?”

I know that. And I don’t know how I will ever be able to ride away.

“We can come back. We can make a home with the tribe and watch over Wolfe . . .” His voice fades away, helpless. “Or maybe we should wait until Wolfe is old enough to make the journey . . . and take him.”

“By force?” I whisper. I can’t imagine the two of us riding into Pocatello’s camp, guns blazing. I picture John covered in blood the way he was after he killed Magwich. He has killed for me before. I am sickened at the thought, shaken, and we stop talking about it.

I’ve begun drawing again, painting faces on skins. I’ve drawn whole families on the walls of their wickiups. I don’t have any paper. My book never made it back into my satchel, and the pages inside it are full. Hanabi doesn’t want faces. She wants trees and animals, and I paint a pattern around the door and the floor, wolves and deer and horses and birds. Her daughter gets her hand in the paint, and I use her print to decorate too, including it in the pattern. Washakie watches me, and one day he asks John to translate for him so I can paint his dream. He brings me a huge elk skin and sits in our wickiup, his legs crossed, his eyes sober.

“He doesn’t want to upset his mother or Hanabi. Or his people. So you will paint”—John waits for Washakie to finish—“but it is only for him.”

I nod, and John reassures him, but Washakie seems torn, and after a short pause he speaks again.

“He doesn’t understand the vision. Not all of it. It is strange to him. He can’t describe some things that he saw,” John says.

“My mother had dreams,” I say, and John tells Washakie. “I don’t think she understood them all. She dreamed about John before she ever met him. And she dreamed about another woman—an Indian woman—feeding Wolfe. My mother knew about this.” I raise my hands, indicating my surroundings. My journey. “She knew something was coming . . . something . . . hard.”

Washakie is listening to John, but he is watching me speak.

“She did not run from it,” Washakie says.

I shake my head slowly. “No. She always . . . kept her mind right. Always found . . . transcendence.”