I have nothing to give him. Nothing left. I try to quiet my own sobs to ease his pain, but the thing that was loose inside my chest is now broken completely, and the pain is like nothing I’ve ever felt before.
“ka’a, Naomi. ka’a,” he whispers again and again, stroking my hair, and after a while my sobs slowly abate, leaving a gaping hole behind, one I’m afraid will never heal. As if he knows—or maybe he has the same pain in his chest—John presses his palm against my heart, his hand heavy and warm, and the tears seep from beneath my lids again. I press my hands over his, and he curls into me, pressing his cheek to my hair.
I can’t speak. I can’t tell him everything. I don’t know if I can tell him anything. There is too much to say, and some things . . . some pain . . . can’t be spoken.
I’ve been alone with my words since Pa said “Praise the Lord” and the Lord struck him down. Those words are crowding my throat and swarming in my head, and they shudder in my chest beneath John’s hand, but I don’t know how to let them out.
I don’t know how he found me. I want to ask. I want to hear it all. I want him to tell me why they let me go and what will happen to Wolfe. I need him to explain how I’m supposed to go on. But I cannot speak.
Beeya brought me to the clearing to sit among the women who gathered along the edges, too far from the center to hear what was being said or done. I didn’t know what was happening, didn’t understand the chatter or the excitement. Beeya wanted me to paint, and she set up torches all around me so I could see and be seen, and I did what was expected of me. Then Magwich came, striding through the crowd to retrieve me, his face hard and his grip harder, and I thought the bartering had begun again. Instead, he brought me to the center of the clearing, where twenty chiefs sat around the fire and another fifty sat behind them. A sea of faces gazing up at me. Then I saw John, so close and so impossible, standing beside a tall, imposing Indian chief in full headdress that hung to his knees, like something from a dream. None of it felt real. Not John, not the questions, not the words that were spoken, not Biagwi and Weda and Wolfe. And then it was over, and I was in John’s arms.
But Wolfe is not in mine.
And it is all real.
A sound rises behind us, the chuff of a horse and a soft tread. John pulls a gun from his boot, his arm tightening around me, but a reedy voice calls out from the darkness, saying his name, and he wilts. For a minute I think it is Beeya, come to drag me back, but the woman is older than Beeya, her hair so white it glows in the moonlight. She slides from her dappled pony and walks to us with hesitant steps. Her arms are filled with blankets, a waterskin, and a sack of dried berries, meat, and seeds. She sets her offering down and crouches beside us, her short legs tight against her chest, her white hair billowing. Her eyes are filled with compassion, and she brushes my cheek with a trembling hand. Then she rises and touches John’s head, speaking to him softly before she turns back to her pony and rides away, melding with the night.
“They call her Lost Woman,” John says. “She is Washakie’s mother. She followed us to make sure . . .” His voice breaks, and he doesn’t finish, but I think I know what he was going to say. She followed us to make sure we weren’t lost.
“But we are,” I say, my voice raw. Three words. I said three words. Maybe there will be more.
We are quiet after that. He pulls a blanket over me and makes me drink a little, but my stomach revolts after a few sips, and I push it away.
“I promised Wyatt and Webb and Will that I would find you,” he says.
Webb and Will. Their names make the hole swell and contract. Webb and Will. I had feared they were dead . . . and I had feared that they weren’t. Oh God. Oh, dear God, my poor brothers.
John lifts his head to look down at me, but I cannot meet his gaze and I close my eyes and turn my face into his shoulder.
“I found them, Naomi. And I put them in my goddamn wagon, with Wyatt leading the way, and I sent them ahead to find the train.” John thinks it is his fault. I can hear it in his voice. The agony, the guilt. But if he had been with us, he and Wyatt would most likely be dead too. John’s absence saved him. Saved Wyatt. And probably saved Will and Webb too. That much I know.
“We buried your ma and your pa and Warren. We buried Homer and Elsie. And Will sang a song. We looked after them, the best we could.” He says nothing about Elsie’s baby, and I cannot ask. I cannot speak of the cries and the screams and the burning wagon. I cannot.
“I promised those boys I would bring you back. And I promised them I would find them again, no matter what. They need you, Naomi. I need you. But I will do whatever you want me to do. For as long as it takes. I will stay with you until you’re ready to go. Until we find a way to get Wolfe back.”
JOHN
I want to pack my mules and go. I want to put Naomi on Samson’s back and leave, to get as far away from Pocatello and his band as I can, but when the morning comes, the eastern sky changing from black to smudges of gray and gold, I gather the blankets, the waterskin, and the food that Naomi wouldn’t eat, and we walk back to the city of strangers, to the boy she won’t leave. I have no plan. No course of action. But we return.
She is so quiet. She walks by herself, her arms wrapped around her stomach, her eyes forward, but when we reach the creek, she scans the clustered camps until she finds what she is seeking. Her shoulders relax a little, like she feared Pocatello and his people had fled in the night. When we reach Washakie’s camp, the women are already stirring. Hanabi and Lost Woman sit in front of Washakie’s lodge. Hanabi is braiding her hair. Lost Woman is stoking the fire. They see us coming and do not pause, but their eyes search our faces. My tent still squats like a small white flag among the skin-covered wickiups. My mules—two, four, six of them—still mill close by, grazing among the sea of ponies.
“Brother, Naomi . . . come. Sit,” Hanabi urges, pushing her braid over her shoulder as she rises, hands beckoning. “We will cook for you.”
Lost Woman takes the blankets from my arms, and I reach for Naomi. She flinches when my hand circles her arm, and I release her immediately.
“They want us to sit with them,” I say.
“Not now,” Naomi whispers. “Is that yours?” She points toward my tent. When I nod, she hurries toward it and crawls inside.
“Come, brother,” Hanabi says softly, her hand light on my shoulder, and I comply, sinking down beside the fire. My limbs ache with fatigue. I did not sleep. I held Naomi all night, yet she flinches when I take her arm.
“I thought you would be gone before I woke,” Hanabi says. “I am glad you are not.”
“She can’t leave him,” I confess, hoarse. Raw. Hopeless. “And I can’t make her go. If I do . . .”
“She will be lost forever,” Lost Woman says.
“She will be lost forever,” I whisper.
“Then you will stay,” Hanabi says. “You will stay with us.”
“But . . . I have nothing,” I say. It is a million times more complex than that, but she has taken me by surprise.
Hanabi frowns. “What is nothing? You have mules. You have your woman. We will build a wickiup. You will hunt. You have all things.”