Where the Lost Wander(18)

“How many women do you know?” Her voice is wry, and I recognize my own words turned back on me. She is not cowed by me. She is nosy . . . but I like her. And I do not want to like her.

“And how am I different?” she demands.

“You are here, talking to me.” She cannot argue with that, as everyone else—except her brothers—gives me plenty of space. I know it is more my fault than theirs. I am not friendly, and I cannot be Naomi’s friend. Time to run her off.

“You don’t seem to care what anyone thinks. Either you are stupid or you are arrogant, but I can’t afford to be either one,” I say.

She flinches like I have slapped her. It is exactly what I intended. Harsh words are not easily forgotten, and I need her to hear me.

Women are trouble. They have always been trouble; they always will be trouble, a truth I learned early. When I was still a boy, dangling my feet over the lake of manhood, a woman in St. Joseph, a friend of Jennie’s—Mrs. Conway—cornered me once in Jennie’s parlor and stuck her hand down my pants and her tongue down my throat. When I froze in stunned terror, she grew impatient and slapped me. A few weeks later she tried again, and I kissed her back, curious and conflicted, not knowing where to put my hands or my mouth. She showed me, and I enjoyed myself, though when Jennie caught us, the woman screamed and bolted, claiming I’d forced myself on her. I learned then that women couldn’t be trusted and I would not be believed; the woman’s husband came looking for me, and my father gave him his best mule colt from the spring stock to soften his ire.

I didn’t go to school with my sisters because the girls at school were afraid of me—the teacher too—and the boys always wanted to fight, though I usually started it. Fighting made me feel better, and I was good at it. The teacher asked my father to keep me away until I could behave. My father turned me over to Otaktay, a half-breed Sioux who worked for him for a while. Otaktay was good with knives, he knew how to grapple, and his rage was almost as big as mine. He wore me out and worked me over while Jennie taught me to read and write and do my figures. Language and numbers were never hard for me, and I had a good mind beneath my fine head of hair.

I “knew” some women at Fort Kearny—some Pawnee, one Blackfoot, and a handful of whores from Illinois—who set up in a row of lodges at the rear of the fort. Everyone knew who they were, and no one said a word. They just paid their visits and took their turns, and the women made their living. Captain Dempsey had a wife somewhere, but Dawn, the Blackfoot woman, was his personal favorite, and he didn’t like to share. When she smiled at me and touched my chest, it almost cost me my father’s spring contract. Captain Dempsey ordered me to take my attentions elsewhere, and I obliged him by heading back home. Women were trouble.

“You don’t think much of me, do you, John Lowry?” Naomi asks, pulling me out of my reverie.

“I don’t think about you at all, Mrs. Caldwell,” I lie, emphasizing her name for both our sakes. I don’t like it when she calls me John Lowry in that Jennie-like tone, and I am angry with her, though I have no real reason to be. “I’ve found that women can’t be trusted,” I say.

“And I’ve found that men are just frightened boys. God gave you stronger bodies to make up for your weaker spines.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” I lie again.

“You are terrified of me, John Lowry.”

“Go away, little girl. I will not be your fool.”

“I am many things. But I’m not a little girl, and I’ve never befriended a fool.”

I think of the woman who wanted me to kiss her and then screamed when I acquiesced. I wonder if Naomi will scream and make a scene if I kiss her too.

“What’s your game, Mrs. Caldwell?” I sigh.

She gazes at me steadily, blinking once, twice, the long sweep of her lashes drawing me in. Her wrist is narrow, and my fingers touch as I wrap my hand around her arm and pull her toward me. She lifts her chin, her nostrils flaring like a mare sensing danger, but she comes willingly. Her breath tickles my face, and when my mouth nears hers, it is all I can do not to crush the small bones beneath my fingers.

I decide I will be rough. Harsh. Then she will run off crying and leave me alone. Or her father will come with his big rifle and insist I go. Fine with me. I am weary of the slow pace of the wagon train and can make it to Fort Kearny by myself. I’ll get there in half the time. Better to be done with the train and teach Naomi Caldwell a lesson she should have learned long ago.

But at the last minute I cannot do it. I can’t be harsh, and I can’t kiss her.

I avoid her mouth altogether, even though she’s lifted it to me. Instead of passion and punishment, the peck I lay on her forehead is soft and sweet, a child’s kiss on a mother’s brow.

She pulls away and looks up at me expectantly.

“That is not the way I want to be kissed,” she says.

“No?”

“No,” she answers solemnly. She takes a deep breath, and her words bubble out in a nervous rush. “I want you to kiss me like you’ve been thinking about it from the moment we met.”

I laugh at her pretty words so that I don’t feel them. I see her swallow, her throat working in discomfort. I have embarrassed her. Her fingers curl in her skirt, gathering it as if she is about to flee. Good. That is what is best for her.