Where the Lost Wander(64)
The man tugs on his beard, his eyes narrowed. Then he shrugs.
“I don’t know that I’ll see another jack like that come through here. I’ll set whatever you want aside. How’s that? Your jack does his thing, we’ll come to an agreement on price. That way it won’t get sold, and it’ll still be there if’n the animals don’t cooperate. I got a chest I can give ya. We can load it up. Got a fellow who follows the trains and just picks up what they toss out. Like pickin’ fruit off a tree. I got a room full of his finds.”
I tell him what I want—the utensils and dishes, the skillet, hardtack, flour, and everything else I think I can afford if all goes well. I try not to think about the fact that I still don’t have a wagon to put it in, and there’s no obvious way to get one. The man keeps a running tally on a strip of paper, and my tension grows as I calculate the number. I help drag the chest from the other room, and we load everything into it, pushing it behind the counter and bolting it closed when we’re finished.
“Teddy Bowles,” the man says, extending his hand.
“John Lowry.”
“John, there’s something happening out front,” Wyatt says, sticking his head through the doorway, his eyes shifting from me to Teddy Bowles. “Indians on one side and white folks on the other, and it don’t look good.”
“Damnation!” Teddy wails, running for the door. “I better get Vasquez.”
NAOMI
The number of times we cross Blacks Fork reminds me of the winding Sweetwater River and John’s rejection. I was sure I was going to spend the rest of my days pining after a man who wouldn’t settle. He tied me in knots and walked away, all because he thinks too hard. I’ve never known a man who thinks so hard. I just hope he finds what he’s certain we need, because if he doesn’t, there won’t be a wedding. When I told him we could just share Warren’s wagon with Adam and Lydia, he looked at me like I had three eyes and a pair of horns.
When Daniel and I married, we had two bowls, two spoons, one trencher, a plate, and a new skillet with which to set up house. Ma and I made a quilt, and Daniel built me a chest as a wedding gift, but we spent our first night beneath his father’s roof, as well as our second night and our third and our forty-fifth. A month before Daniel died, we’d moved into a one-room cabin a few miles from his folks. It had a fireplace and a window, and it was just big enough to accommodate a bed, a cupboard, Daniel’s chest, a small table, and one chair. At supper, I would sit on the bed and give Daniel the seat at the table. When Daniel died, I couldn’t sit in that chair. It felt wrong. And I couldn’t sleep in the bed. In fact, I never slept in it again. I was afraid of being swallowed in sadness and loss. I slept on a pallet on Ma and Pa’s kitchen floor instead, and they never made me go back.
When we left Illinois, I sold everything in the cabin for a few dollars and closed the door on my life as a wife. There was no room in the wagon for my belongings, scant as they were, and that suited me fine. I have never had a room of my own or even a bed of my own. Most folks don’t. The only space I’ve ever had to myself is the quiet of my own thoughts and the blank page in front of me, so I don’t know why John is so insistent that we have a wagon of our own. I can spend two months in a tent. I can spend a year in a tent. But I can see it in the set of his mouth and the stiffness in his spine. He isn’t going to yield on it, and it’ll do me no good to try to convince him otherwise. John is proud, and he is private, and I suppose if I’d spent my life feeling like a stranger in my home, I would be more driven to have a place I could call my own.
John is driven . . . and I’m going to let him drive, wherever he needs to go and whatever he needs to do, just as long as he lets me ride beside him. Just as long as he’ll let Ma and Pa and my brothers tag along. They’ve all become quite attached.
When we stop to noon at yet another branch of Blacks Fork, Ma brings out the old family Bible. In the front is written a long line of names and dates, marriages, and births from generations past, meticulously recorded. Ma never reads from it; she has another Bible for reading. She keeps it wrapped in a cloth inside a wooden box, and it’s been stowed beneath the main bed since we began.
“I’ve let this go for too long. It’s been on my mind,” she says as she adds Wolfe’s name and his birth date to the long list of her children and records the day Abigail died.
To the right of my name she adds a connecting line and writes John Lowry, m. July 1853. A line to the left of my name says Daniel Lawrence Caldwell, b. Oct 1830, m. Oct 1851, d. Jan 1852. The b stands for born. The m stands for married. The d stands for died.
I don’t want to blot Daniel out, but I don’t like the way it looks, my name centered between the two men. I can’t imagine John will like it either and am glad Ma’s chosen to bring the Bible out while he’s away.
“Don’t you think you better wait until we’re married?” I ask.
“No. When was John born?” she answers serenely, her quill lifted, awaiting my response. She’s feeling better today. Hanabi’s generosity restored her.
“He doesn’t know. Winter of 1827 or ’28.”
“Winter?”
“His mother told him there were tracks in the snow, so it must have been winter.”
“What kind of tracks?” Ma stills, and a great black drop of ink splatters onto the page.