Where the Lost Wander(39)

Just like I did with Elmeda, I leave the drawing on his blanket for him to find.





8





THE SANDY BLUFFS


NAOMI


The bluffs are soft with sand, and the travel is slow, but we have no trouble finding water, though we veer north one day to avoid a swamp, hugging the low bluffs that extend for miles, only to swing south again when the bluffs push us back toward the Platte. In some spots there is ample timber, which we need for our fires, but no water for our teams. In other spots there is good water but nothing but sage or willow bushes to burn.

We hoard kindling and branches when we can; I threw a felled branch into Warren’s wagon at Elm Creek when Mr. Abbott warned us about the difficulty of finding timber on the road ahead, but the branch was infested with tiny insects. By the time we stopped for the night, the bugs had burrowed into the bedrolls and blankets. The branch made a great fire, but I had to beat the bugs out of the bedding with the broom, and even then we all had bites for days after.

Maybe it was the bugs in the bedding, but John returned to riding, his mules strung out behind him, after only a couple of days in the wagon. By the time we reach the junction where the Platte forks into two, North and South, he shows no sign of having been laid low.

Elmeda Caldwell decides to rejoin the living as well and slinks into our camp, lonely without her Lucy. It’s not pleasant to be a lone woman among men, and Ma and I welcome her after supper one night. Elmeda holds baby Wolfe for the first time, swaying to soothe him as Ma mends a hole and I sketch the dense grove across the river. Some say it’s Ash Hollow, marked on the emigrant guide we bought in St. Joe, though none of us can tell what kind of trees they are from this distance. On the north side, where we are making our way, there is only a single solitary cedar, its branches thinned by earlier trains desperate for wood. It is the saddest-looking tree I’ve ever seen, standing all alone, with nothing but plains and sky and a lazy river winding beside it. There are initials scratched in the trunk, man’s unending need to mark our presence. I was here. I AM here. This is proof.

I’m surprised the tree has survived so long. Standing alone has made it a target, and eventually, all the attention will destroy it.

“Mr. Abbott tells us we won’t see another tree for two hundred miles,” Elmeda says, her eyes on my sketch.

“I’ve never seen such a lonely place,” I say, making conversation.

“It is that. It makes a soul feel lost,” Ma says on a long sigh.

“You and Adam are both alone, Naomi,” Elmeda says softly. “Maybe you could . . . help . . . each other. Marriages have been built on less.”

My hand stills, but I don’t raise my head.

“Adam might need a little time, Elmeda,” Ma says, leaving me out of it.

“But . . . time is the one thing we don’t have,” Elmeda says. “Lucy and Abigail proved that. Gone in the twinkling of an eye.” She swallows, trying to control her emotion.

“Well then, we best spend it with people of our choosing,” Ma replies. I say nothing, but I don’t need to. Elmeda knows full well that Adam is not my choice.

“He’s got his eye on the deacon’s daughter anyway,” Elmeda says, defensive at my silence. “Lydia Clarke.”

Lydia Clarke came sniffing around Warren too, but Warren was ill. He wouldn’t have noticed anyway. Warren’s body is on the mend, but his spirit keeps tripping back to the Big Blue, where Abigail lies.

“She’s as brazen as you are with Mr. Lowry, Naomi.” Elmeda sniffs. “Lucy wasn’t even in the ground one day when Lydia started offering to mend Adam’s socks and wash his clothes.”

“Mr. Lowry washes my clothes as well,” I say, my eyes on my page, drawing a coiled snake beneath the trees wearing Elmeda’s bonnet. “In fact, he washed all our clothes, didn’t he, Ma?”

Ma begins to laugh, the sound pealing like bells on the wind, and after a moment Elmeda laughs too, the resentment falling from her grief-lined face. I grin up at them both, squinting against the setting sun.

“Brazen,” Elmeda says again, but the judgment is gone, and I turn the snake into a rose.

We say nothing for a time, but when Elmeda lays a sleeping Wolfe into Ma’s arms and turns to go, she looks at me with a sad finality.

“I have been mourning you, Naomi. When Daniel died, we lost you too, and now Lucy is gone.”

I abandon my sketch to embrace her, not knowing what else to do, and she cries on my shoulder, her graying hair tickling my nose and brushing my cheeks.

“Thank you, Naomi,” she whispers, her chin wobbling as she finally pulls away.

“Come be with us whenever you need to, Elmeda,” Ma says, and Elmeda promises she will. She brings Adam and Jeb with her too, eating supper at our fire, but Mr. Caldwell keeps his distance. He watches John with suspicion, as if John is the one to fear.

One day, we noon at a creek called Raw Hide, named for a white man who was skinned alive after he killed a squaw with a babe in her arms.

Elmeda gasps as Abbott tells the tale, and Mr. Caldwell shakes his head. “Savages,” he says. “All of ’em.” And he looks at John.

“Who is the bigger savage?” Abbott asks. “The man who kills a young mother or the man who makes him suffer for it? Seems to me he got what he deserved. Justice is a little swifter out here, Mr. Caldwell. We might not skin folks alive, but plenty of trains have happily hung men in their companies accused of killing.”