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.”
“What about stealing? Or setting another man’s stock loose?” Wyatt asks, but Pa sends him off to fill the water barrels, and his question goes unanswered. My brothers are almost as defensive of John as I am, and they all believe Lawrence Caldwell got away with a crime. They also blame him for the loss of Dame.
Wyatt told us the story of the trade as best he could without knowing all that was said, telling us about the bloodied warriors and the hostility he felt, the certainty that he and John were going to be stripped of their animals or their lives.
John does not talk about it at all, but it bothers me greatly.
“I’m going to get you another horse,” I promise him one night, bringing him a bowl of beans and a loaf of bread, then lingering by his fire while he eats it.
“You are?” he asks, smiling a little. “Are you going to draw me one?”
“No. I don’t know when, and I don’t know how, but I’m going to get you another horse, just as good as Dame.”
“That might be hard to do. She was a good horse,” he says softly, his eyes searching the stars too. “It was Caldwell who ran my animals off. Abbott warned me about him. He doesn’t want me here.”
“I know. And that’s my fault. So I’m going to find a way to replace her.”
“How was it your fault?” John asks.
“He was trying to hurt me by getting rid of you.”
“Mr. Caldwell?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Getting rid of me . . . that would hurt you?” he asks.
“It would hurt me.”
He is silent for several heartbeats, thinking that over, finishing off his supper.
“You are like Jennie,” he says, his voice odd.
“I am?” I gasp. “The white woman who raised you?”
“Yes.”
“How am I like Jennie?” I’m not sure the comparison pleases me.
“You are very stubborn.”
“Says the man who loves mules.” I shrug.
He laughs, startled. I seem to startle him a lot. “I do love mules.”
“Do you love Jennie?” I ask. I don’t want to remind him of someone he dislikes.
“Yes. But I don’t understand her.”
“What is it you don’t understand?”
“She loves my father.”
“Your father didn’t seem all that hard to love.”
“He is cold. I am afraid I am like him.” John sounds as if he is warning me away. “Why would Mr. Caldwell want to hurt you?” he asks, changing the subject. His eyes cling to the darkness beyond the wagons as though he is not intent on my answer, but I am not fooled.
“I haven’t grieved enough,” I say, my voice flat.
His eyes swing back and hold mine for several breaths.
“Was he like his father?” he asks, and it takes me a moment to catch up.
“Who?”
“Your husband. Daniel. Was he like his father?” He is not looking at me again.
“I would say no . . . but I’m not sure if that is true. Maybe he would have become like his father. I don’t think we knew each other very well. Not deep down. We were children together, but we weren’t . . . grown . . . together. Then he was gone, and the growing and learning ended.”
“It’s hard to truly know someone,” John whispers.
“Yes. It is.” I nod. I feel like I hardly even know myself.
“But still . . . you married Daniel.”
“We were friends. We were fond of each other. And there was no one else. It was a very . . . obvious thing to do.” I want to defend myself further, but I stop. John knows what kind of world we live in. Women and men marry. It is survival. It is life. I have no doubt Warren will marry again. Adam Hines too. It is simply the way of things.
“You do not know me either, Naomi,” he says, challenging me, using my words against me. “Not deep down.”
“But I want to,” I say, enunciating each word. “I want to know you. Deep down. How many people do you truly want to know?”
“I can’t think of any,” he admits, reluctant to concede the point. And I can’t help but laugh.
“I can’t either,” I say. “It’s too hard. I’d rather draw faces than know what’s going on behind them. But I don’t feel that way about you. I want to know you.”
He begins to nod, and I’m encouraged to ask, “Do you want to know me, John?”
“Yes, Naomi,” he murmurs. “I want to know you.”
And that is enough for me.
We settle into a weary acceptance of life on the trail; I call it the daze of endless days, but death has fallen behind us, perhaps wearied by our plodding steps, and we pass two merciful weeks without digging a grave or counting a loss.
I am happy.
It is a peculiar thing, being happy when life is so hard and dirty and tiresome that every day feels like a war and every night I sleep on a bed so hard my skin is as bruised as my face is freckled. I have never known such utter and complete exhaustion, and yet . . . I am happy. Ma gave Wolfe life, but he is mine in a way that I can’t put into words. Maybe it is all the time I spend caring for him or the responsibility I feel for him. Maybe it’s a continuation of the love I have for Ma, who is too weak and tired to mother him alone, but he is mine, and my arms feel empty when he’s not in them.
The boys mother him too; it’s like he’s always been ours, waiting eagerly on the other side of transcendence for his turn to be a May, and now that he’s here, none of us can remember life without him. He smiles—Ma says I was a smiler early on, just like him—and he’s so aware and bright eyed, kicking his legs and moving his mouth when we talk to him, like he’s trying to talk back. Webb hovers only inches above his face and has long one-sided conversations with him, telling him about the mules and the horses and California, and Wolfe just seems to soak it all in.