“I can’t,” she moans.
“I know.” I laugh. “So now what are you going to say?”
“We need a wagon of our own,” she says, making me laugh again.
“We need a wagon of our own,” I repeat, pressing my face into the crook of her neck, nuzzling, tasting, my mouth opened against the sweetness of her. Her pulse quickens, and the hand that cradled my face is now at my heart . . . and at my hip . . . and at the small of my back, urging me to her. She is ready again.
Then her lips are beneath my lips, and her body is beneath my body, flesh and bone and beautiful indentations, and we both forget all the things we didn’t say.
I post a letter with Teddy Bowles the next morning, worried that I will forget in the days ahead. He promises someone will be going east before long. He’s got two canvas satchels packed to the brim with emigrant letters. I do not write two this time. I don’t have the patience or the paper. I scrawl out a few lines letting Jennie and my father know I am well, the mules are fine, and by the way, I just got hitched. There is no way to break the news more artfully in a very small space, so I don’t even try. I sound stiff and cold, maybe a little simple too, and I wince at the inadequate lines. But my gift for language does not extend to the written word, and I finish with this:
Her name is Naomi May. You met her once, Father. Her family is traveling with the train, and we will remain with them until the journey is through. Jennie will be happy to know we were married by a deacon and scripture was read and a hymn sung. Naomi is a fine woman, and I love her. I found Ana. She is the wife of a Shoshoni chief and has a beautiful baby girl. She is grateful for you both. As am I. I will write again when I reach California.
Your son,
John Lowry
15
SHEEP ROCK
JOHN
More than one wagon lies at the bottom of the hill, all in various states of decay and destruction: missing wheels, tattered canvas tops, rotted tongues, and bent axles. I can only stare, my hands on my hips, feeling the same wash of despair I felt when I saw the fort.
“Don’t worry, Lowry. I don’t get my mule if you don’t get your wagon. We take the best and leave the rest,” Jefferson says, starting down the incline, his boot heels digging into the shale-covered climb.
I have never built a wagon, and I don’t know if I’ll recognize what’s good and what’s not, but I slide to the bottom of the ravine with a willingness to learn. Jefferson begins to dig through the tired remains, grunting and discarding before he declares one wagon a “gold mine.”
“The box is intact, and there’s no rot. Looks like everything’s here underneath too: pins and plates . . . the hound is in good shape. Looks to me like the brake beam snapped. I can fix that, put on some new brake shoes.” He has crawled underneath the wagon to survey its underpinnings. “We need bows for the top and a new piece of canvas—Teddy can help us with that.”
I search the wreckage and find a dozen bows to support the cover, and before long Jefferson has selected two wheels from other wagons that aren’t warped or cracked.
“They’ve seen wear, but we’ll grease ’em good. Maybe replace some of those spokes. The hubs are here, axles too, and this one even has one of them tickers that records the miles. Never used one myself, but it might be handy to have.”
Jefferson enjoys the hunt, and he picks around at the bottom of the ravine for another hour, muttering about tar buckets and feed boxes, before he calls it good. With my mules and a set of chains, we drag the wagon up the hill, Wyatt at the top, Jefferson and me scrambling up beside it. Halfway up, the chain slips, and Jefferson’s gold mine slides back down the hill, snapping off another wheel.
“No problem at all,” Jefferson bellows. “I can fix that.”
An hour later, we manage to pull the wagon all the way to the top, but Jefferson decides it’ll be easier to repair the wheels and reinforce the snapped brake line right here rather than taking it apart to haul it back to the fort.
“If I do that, it’ll save us some time.”
He gets started before realizing he doesn’t have all the tools he needs, and we end up pulling it apart after all, unscrewing wheels, removing the wagon box from the undercarriage, and loading everything into Jefferson’s wagon.
It takes all day. We roll into Fort Bridger an hour after sunset, a full fifteen hours after Abbott and the train pulled out. Jefferson said it would take a day to retrieve it, so we’re not behind schedule, but my confidence in him is shaken. I expect I’ll have snakes in my belly until I’m with Naomi again. I’m becoming used to the sensation, but the snakes are heavier and rattle harder when I’m at the mercy of someone else, and I am at the mercy of Jefferson Jones.
“We will work all day tomorrow. Don’t worry,” Wyatt says when we roll out our beds for a few hours of sleep. “We’ll be able to move a lot faster than the train with your mules. If we’re three days back, we’ll still catch up before they reach the turnoff. You heard Abbott. Northwest to Soda Springs, then left at Sheep Rock to the cutoff, and the road is tolerable all the way. We’ll catch up to ’em by then.”
NAOMI
When we reach Smiths Fork, two days out of Fort Bridger, we’re able to cross a bridge completed only the year before by some industrious travelers. It is a good deal easier than unloading the wagons and wading through hip-deep water, but Trick and Tumble don’t like it at all and have to be coaxed, along with every other mule in the company. Webb has learned a thing or two from John and shows them how it’s done, his little arms spread wide, trekking back and forth until he can convince them to follow. The grass is green and plentiful at the fork, but the mosquitoes are so thick the animals can’t eat. None of us can, and Abbott presses us to move on.
“There’s only one road he can take, Miss Naomi. He’ll catch us before long. But we do ourselves no good to camp here. No one will rest,” Abbott explains, and the consensus is to move on.
I rip a long strip off the bottom of my tattered, stained yellow dress and wrap it around a tree near the heaviest ruts and leave a message nailed beneath it.
John and Wyatt,
We’ve gone on. We are all well. Mosquitoes bad. Heading to Soda Springs.
Love,
Naomi
We forge on, walking much of the night by the light of the moon, and reach Thomas Fork the next day, eager for sleep and grass and water without mosquitoes floating on the top. We’re moving north along the Bear River, and the valley is lush and green, but the bugs plague us continually. A swarm of grasshoppers descends on us just past Thomas Fork, and we walk with blankets slung over our heads, shrieking and striking at our clothes as they land. The mules like the grasshoppers even less than they liked the bridge, and they kick and shimmy, trying to be free of the horde. The oxen just bow their heads and plod on, their tails swishing like the pendulum on a clock.
Elsie Hines is afraid to ride in the wagon. Her baby could come any day, and she doesn’t want her waters to break. She’s been riding Tumble, who has the smoothest gait, but with the grasshoppers making the mules skittish, she waddles along, even more miserable than the rest of us.
Six days have passed since we left the fort. Six days of praying and looking over my shoulder. We reach Soda Springs, where the water gurgles and spouts like it’s boiling even though it’s cold. In one place, the water shoots straight up into the air with a great rumbling and whistle, and we can hear it and see it from a good ways off. A few of the men experiment a little, setting items of varying weight and size over the opening to see whether the pressure is enough to propel them into the air. Jeb Caldwell puts his saddle over the opening, thinking he’ll ride the stream, and gets flipped like a coin. He doesn’t get hurt, but Elmeda isn’t amused. The water tastes odd but not entirely unpleasant. It bites and bubbles, and Abbott says we can drink it.