I nod and turn the page. There are many pictures of me. Left side, right side, straight on, and from behind, and I like my face the way she sees it. I am stunned by her skill. Green-eyed women with pink mouths and freckled noses who talk too much and can’t take no for an answer don’t draw like that. I don’t know anyone, man or woman, who draws like that.
“I wanted to draw you the first time I saw you. I couldn’t stop staring,” Naomi says. “I sent you running off, but I couldn’t help it. You have a . . . a beautiful . . .” She stops midsentence and changes words. “You have an unforgettable face.”
I am hot and cold, pleased and puzzled. When I say nothing, she continues as though she desperately wants me to understand. “I would rather draw faces than anything else. Pa says the landscapes would have a better chance of selling to the newspapers or maybe in a printed book someday, but most of the time, the world just can’t compete with the people in it.”
I don’t know what to say as I stare down at my eyes and my mouth and the set of my chin. I see my father. My mother. I even see Jennie, and I wonder how that can be.
“It’s the emotion, I think,” Naomi says, still trying to explain herself amid my silence. “The expressions. The wind can blow and the rains beat down, and a landscape can be transformed eventually, but a face is always changing. I can’t draw fast enough to keep up. And every face is different. Yours is the most different of all.”
I shove the book back toward her, and she takes it uncertainly.
“John?”
“You’re very skilled, Mrs. Caldwell,” I say, so wooden and stiff I could toss myself into the Little Blue and float down it like a raft. I spur Dame forward, leaving Naomi and her many faces behind.
I do more than my fair share of night watch, considering there are sixty-five men and twenty-five grown boys in the company, but I won’t sleep well until the mules are delivered. I worry about my animals. The men are sloppy and weary, and there are too many cattle to watch and horses to picket. I keep my animals as close as I can, but more often than not, I pitch my tent where they graze and sleep with my ears wide open. Catching a nap most nights after dinner has saved me from exhaustion. Two nights after we cross the Big Blue, Webb May is waiting for me in my tent at the end of my shift, curled up on my bedroll with his head on my saddle and my blanket over his shoulders. I shake him awake.
“Webb. It’s the middle of the night. You have to go back to your wagon, boy. Your folks will worry.”
He sits up in alarm, clearly upset that he fell asleep at all.
“Ma’s havin’ her baby. She’s crying. It hurts real bad to have a baby, Mr. Lowry. We didn’t want to hear her cry, so I came here.”
“Let’s go. Come on,” I say, my chest tight with worry.
We aren’t far from the wagons when a cry splits the air, like a wolf on the wind.
“Do you hear that, Mr. Lowry?” Webb crows, and his drowsy face blooms in wonder.
The babe fills its lungs with breath and lets out another howl, and though it’s nigh on two in the morning, the camp stirs and shifts in audible relief.
I wait with the boys, huddled by the campfire Wyatt has kept stoked, and when William May climbs from his wagon, tears streaming down his cheeks, announcing that all is well and he has another son, I bid the boys good night.
When I round the wagons, I see Naomi, washing from a bucket brought up from the creek, her sleeves pushed up and the buttons at her neck opened to expose the pale column of her throat. Her dress is smeared with dark blotches, and her hair has come unbound. It reaches past her narrow waist and dances in the moonlight.
“The baby is well? Your mother too?” I ask.
“Yes. They’re doing just fine.” Her voice is flat, lifeless, and I draw up short. She shakes her hands dry, turns the bucket over, and sinks down on it, using it for a stool.
“It’s another boy. A beautiful . . . little . . . boy.”
“You wanted a sister?”
“I did. Not for me . . . for Ma. But he’s . . . he’s . . .” She doesn’t finish her sentence, like she isn’t even sure how she feels. She tries again. “Ma wants me to name him. I can’t think of any names that begin with W. We’ve used them all up.” She looks up at me, her eyes weary and her mouth sad, and I don’t know what to say.
“Your name . . . is Naomi. Surely you . . . can pick a different letter.”
“They were going to name me Wilma, but Ma had a dream before I was born about Naomi from the Bible. She said it was a sign, so I’m the only one with a name that doesn’t start with W.”
“I like Naomi better than Wilma,” I confess softly.
“So do I. Thank you, Lord, for sending my ma a vision. Maybe you could send me one too? So I know what to do?” She doesn’t really sound like she’s praying, though she’s looking at the sky. She sounds exhausted, and I search for the words to give her comfort and come up empty.
“Why are you here, John? It’s the middle of the night,” she asks.
“I found Webb asleep in my tent. He didn’t want to hear your mother cry.”
Naomi’s chin wobbles, and her lips begin to tremble, and I curse my fool self. She looks down at her soiled dress and takes a deep, steadying breath before she speaks again.
“She didn’t cry but for a minute, when the pain got real bad. And she cried quietly. She is the strongest person I know. She hardly even needed me. She knew what to do, every step of the way. I was too young to help when Webb was born—twelve years old—but Ma had a bed and midwife. I thought Mrs. Caldwell would come assist, but she’s down with the sickness. So many are laid low.”
“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.”