Where the Lost Wander(22)

“Joe Duggan, one of Mr. Hastings’s hired men, died tonight. Did you hear?” I ask, reluctant to share the news. The man succumbed to the disease quickly. He’d been fine at noonday.

“How many deaths does that make?”

“Five.”

“Good Lord.”

“Abbott says we’ll move out tomorrow, away from the cholera, if that’s what it is.”

“Oh no,” she moans. “I wanted Ma to have a day of rest.”

“It’s best we continue on to better water. People are getting their water in the puddles and along the banks.”

“It’s hard to get down to the creek. The mud is like a bog, and it sucks you deep. Will lost a boot trying to fill the buckets this evening.”

“I know.”

“Can we run from it? If people are sick, can we really run from it?”

“Running is all we can do,” I say. Naomi nods. She does not look like she could outrun a turtle at the moment. The word turtle makes me smile, despite myself.

“Is someone with your mother and the baby now?” I ask, hoping I can persuade her to retire. Dawn is not far off, and she needs to rest.

“Abigail is with her. The baby suckled, just the way he should, and he and Ma are sleeping. He is a sweet, precious little thing. He’s gonna be easy to love. In fact . . . I already do.” She presses a hand to her mouth like she’s holding back tears but doesn’t break down. She stiffens her back instead.

“You should sleep too; you try to do too much.”

“I don’t want to sleep. Not yet. I need to think of a name for my brother. He needs a name. He deserves a name. But I think best when I’m moving, so I’m going to walk a bit. Will you walk with me?”

I groan. We walk all day, yet she wants to walk.

“I won’t ask you to kiss me again,” she says, rueful. “I promise.”

I extend my hand to help her rise. “Five minutes. We will walk for five minutes. You are weary. I am weary.”

She sighs but nods her head in agreement.

“Do you have another name, John Lowry?” she asks.

I am silent a moment, considering. Is she asking for my Pawnee name?

“Just John Lowry? No middle name?” she presses, and maybe it is the darkness and her plaintive tone, but I find myself telling her something I have never told a soul.

“My mother called me Pítku ásu’.”

“Say it again,” she whispers, and I do. She tries to copy the sounds and does a fair job of it. “What does it mean?”

“Two Feet.”

“And how do you say turtle?” she says, teasing.

“ícas.”

“I like it. But it doesn’t start with a W,” she says.

I smile, and she wilts, the steel in her spine bowing under her fatigue.

“He sounds like a wolf pup. It is the first thing I thought of when I heard his cry,” I offer.

She raises her eyes, studying me in the darkness. “My great-grandmother’s name was Wolfe. Jane Wolfe.”

“Wolfe May,” I say, testing it.

“Wolfe May,” she murmurs, nodding. “I like it. Lord knows he’s gonna need a strong name.”

“And it starts with W,” I add. She laughs softly, and my heart quickens at the glad sound.

“You should sleep now, Naomi.” Her name is sweet on my tongue, and I know I have revealed something I did not want her to see.

“I think I will, John. Thank you for helping me. Someday my brother will want to know how he got his name. I’ll tell him about you and about this journey.” She sighs and smiles faintly. “Wolfe May. Little wolf. It’s a good name.” She sounds at peace, and my heart swells at her words. I fold my arms so I’m not tempted to touch her, to comfort her further.

I do not say good night this time, but it is all I can do to walk away. I want to be near her. I duck inside the tent, where I found Webb only an hour earlier, but I do not stay there. Instead, I strip off my shirt and use a bit of soap and a bucket of water from Abbott’s barrel, scrubbing at my skin, trying to wash Naomi May from my thoughts. When we reach Fort Kearny, I will go back to Missouri, and she will continue to California. I will never see her again, and the knowledge sits like hunger in my belly, churning away at me the remainder of the night.





NAOMI


Ma resumes walking in the morning, baby Wolfe wrapped in a cloth bunting and secured to her chest. She and Pa don’t balk at the name I have chosen. In fact, they nod approvingly, recalling Grandma Wolfe, as I knew they would. I don’t tell them that it was John’s suggestion; it is a secret between the two of us. I do my best to absorb Ma’s duties for the first few days, allowing her to rest as soon as the train stops, preparing food, washing clothing, and looking after the family.

The sickness along the trail is making everyone jumpy. One family in the company loses their father and mother within hours of each other, leaving their four children, all under the age of ten, orphaned. An uncle takes them all in, only to lose his own wife the following day. The whole family—two wagons, eight children, one man, three sheep, and two teams of oxen—turns back for Missouri, a boy of fourteen at the helm of one team, and we all watch them go, stunned at the sudden wrath of death. If we were under any illusions about the difficulty and suffering we would all endure, those illusions have vanished, though I’m convinced the mind whispers little lies to us all. You’ll be fine. You’re stronger. You’re smarter. You’re better. You’ll be spared.