Where the Lost Wander(95)

“But I’m bleeding now,” Naomi says, falsely chipper. “And that is good.”

I’m afraid to speak, so I nod, looping my arms around my bent knees, trying to control the rage that has nowhere to go.

We sit that way for a while, side by side, numbing ourselves in the shadowed creek. I don’t know how to fix what has been broken or ease a pain beyond my understanding.

“I didn’t fight, John,” she blurts, releasing the words in a rushed confession.

I wait, not breathing.

“I didn’t fight,” she says again, stronger. Louder, like she’s making herself face them. “I was afraid Magwich would trade me to another tribe, and I would never see my brother again. So I didn’t fight.”

I don’t touch her. Not for comfort or support. She’s not done.

“I didn’t fight.” Her voice shakes, and her eyes have filled and flooded over, but I hear anger, and I’m glad. “It hurt. And I wanted to scream. I wanted to run and keep on running. But I didn’t. I took it.” She takes a ragged breath. “I didn’t want it. I didn’t ask for it, and I’m not lesser for it. I know that.” She nods, reaffirming her words. “But I didn’t . . . fight, and that’s what I can’t get over.”

“You fought,” I say.

“No. I didn’t.” She shakes her head, adamant, and swipes at her angry tears with the back of her hand.

“There are many ways to fight, Naomi Lowry.”

My use of her name lifts her chin, and she looks at me, really looks at me, and she is listening.

“You were fighting for your brother. You were fighting for Wolfe. For your life. It would have been easier to scratch and kick and bite. Believe me, I know. I spent the first fifteen years of my life fighting everything and everyone. But . . . endurance . . . is a whole different kind of battle. It’s a hell of a lot harder. Don’t ever say you didn’t fight, because that’s never been true. Not one day of your whole life. You fought, Naomi. You’re still fighting.”

There are tears on her cheeks and tears on her lips, but she leans forward and presses them to mine. I taste salt and sadness, but I also taste hope. It is a kiss of gratitude, brief and sweet, and then she pulls away again.

“That is not the way I want to be kissed,” I say, hoping I’m not overplaying my hand.

She laughs, throwing her head back, and for a moment I see her, my Naomi, the one who barters with Black Paint and does her laundry in a deluge and tells me point-blank how she likes to be kissed.

“No?” she says, not missing a beat. “How do you want to be kissed?”

“Like you’ve been thinking about it from the moment we met.”

She laughs again, but there are tears in her throat, and it sounds more like a sob. She touches my lips with the tips of her fingers, her hand cold and wet from the water, but she does not kiss me again.

“I love you, Two Feet,” she says.

“And I love you, Naomi May Lowry.”





NAOMI


They spotted buffalo this morning, and the fervor in the camp was manic. The fire was stoked high, and the medicine man and the old warriors danced around it for hours, sweating and pleading with something—or someone—to bless the hunt to feed them through the winter. The women didn’t dance or pray. They kept vigil around the edges, keeping the fire burning and the men moving.

Two worlds exist in a Shoshoni tribe. A world of women and a world of men. The two worlds overlap, creating a slice of coexistence, a place of shared toil and trouble and dependence on one another, but there are still two worlds. Maybe it’s the same among all tribes, all Indians. All people. I don’t think the Dakotah near Fort Laramie were any different. I don’t think my own world is that dissimilar. Maybe with Ma and Pa, that overlap was just greater. Ma had her duties and Pa had his, but those things were on the edges, and they lived and loved in the middle.

The middle is narrow here.

The men eat first. Always. The women prepare the food, present the food, and then wait for the men to be done with the food before they gather and eat what’s left, sitting among the children, just enough apart from their men that the distance between the two worlds feels like an ocean to me. John always finds a space between—he too lives in the middle—talking with the men but waiting for the women. Hanabi clucks her tongue, and Lost Woman shows me how to serve him, but he will not eat until we do.

“Jennie,” Hanabi says to me, as if that one word is enough explanation of John’s peculiarities. I suppose it is. I know exactly what she means. John was not raised by a Shoshoni woman, and he will never be completely comfortable as a Shoshoni man.

In other ways, this life suits John. His hair has grown, and his skin has soaked up the sun, making him almost as brown as Washakie. He speaks with an ease and fluency that amazes me. He is well liked, and he likes in return, and I can’t help but wonder what his life would have been like had his mother not died, had he not been dropped into a white world and forced to adapt. I watch him the way I’ve always watched him, fascinated by him, awed by him, trying to find my way back to him.

He is excited for the hunt and lies beside me in the wickiup, a bundle of nervous energy, eager for the morning. He reminds me of Webb or Will, a little boy, unable to hold still or rest because something special is coming. He tries to damp down his enthusiasm for my sake, but I can feel it pouring from him, and it makes me glad.