He doesn’t do so immediately, and by the time he enters, my tears have dried, but my temper is hot, and I’m waiting cross-legged on our bed of buffalo robes.
“That was a fool thing to do, John Lowry,” I snap, not even waiting for the skin over the door to fall back into place.
He walks to our bed and sinks down on his haunches so his eyes are almost level with mine.
“Lost Woman was terrified,” I add.
“Her daughter was dragged from a horse. That’s how she died. I already got an earful.” He sounds sad for Lost Woman but not especially penitent.
“What took you so long?” I rage. I want to wrap my hands in his hair and shake him.
“Bungu ran until he was done. That took a while.”
“Bungu? You named your horse Horse?” I am so angry that I’m being mean.
He smiles at me like he’s proud. “You know that word.”
“I do. I know that word and a few others, like kutise. Crazy. That was crazy what you did, John.”
“Oh, Naomi.” He places his big hands on my hips and pulls me toward him. I flop back against the robes to get away and realize my miscalculation when he climbs on top of me, his elbows braced on either side of my head. I’m well and truly pinned, and I’m not done being mad. He smells like horse, leather, and pine sap. He smells like John, and I love that smell. I love him, and I don’t want to lose him. I try a different argument.
“What would happen to me if something happened to you, John?” I ask.
“I’ve been breaking mules since I was twelve years old, Naomi. That’s kinda what I do. And now I got us one more horse. Washakie said he’d give him to me if I rode him.”
I close my eyes, despairing. He isn’t sorry at all.
He kisses my closed lids and runs his mouth along my jaw. When he tugs my lower lip into his mouth, I relent and kiss him back, biting his tongue to show he’s not forgiven. He bites me back on the side of my neck, but when I think he’s bent on making me forgive him without even saying he’s sorry, he raises his head and takes a deep breath.
“I saw him, Naomi. I saw Wolfe.”
Pain knifes through my belly, and I hiss at the sharp yet familiar agony.
“They’re here. Just like Washakie said they would be. They’re close too. Bungu almost ran right through their village.”
“You saw W-Wolfe?” I stammer.
“He looks just fine. Just fine,” he whispers, reassuring me. He recounts going to the river to water the horse and seeing the children and the women upstream.
“I don’t think they saw me. No one ran or got scared, and no one followed me back here.”
“I want to see him,” I demand. “I want to go, right now.”
He nods slowly, as if he expected that, but he keeps me pinned beneath him. “I told Washakie. He’s going to go and bring Hanabi and Lost Woman and some of the chiefs with him for a visit. He doesn’t think you or I should go. He wants to let them know we’re here so they don’t get scared and run . . . or attack. It will be a visit of peace and goodwill.”
“Goodwill?” My chest is tight, and I push up against John, needing to breathe. He rolls to the side but stays propped up, looking down at me. “Goodwill, John? I don’t especially feel goodwill toward Pocatello and his people.”
John sits up, wrapping his arms around his legs, his head bowed, but he doesn’t respond. I don’t understand his silence.
“My family was massacred. I heard my mother’s screams. I saw my father and my brother lying in a pool of blood,” I whisper.
“I know you did,” he says softly. “I saw most of it too.”
“He’s not like Washakie, John. Pocatello is a bad man. Bad men hurt people. All kinds of people. He’ll keep hurting people. There is no place in this world for men like him, but no one seems to want to stop him.” My voice rings with accusation, and I wince. I don’t blame John. How could I? I don’t blame Washakie either. He has been a true friend. But I do blame Pocatello, and he and his men haven’t been held to account.
“There is no place in this world for any of these people,” John says, looking back at me, his eyes troubled. “Washakie’s war chiefs sit around the fire and talk of defending their lands and their way of life, but Washakie knows it’s just a matter of time.”
“What way of life is that? Scalps? Burned wagons? Selling and raping women?” I don’t understand him, and my chest is hot with indignation and suppressed emotion. John is silent beside me, and when he finally turns his head again, I see . . . disappointment. He looks hurt and disappointed. In me.
“Washakie told me a cow wandered away from an emigrant train into a Blackfoot village near Fort Hall. The Blackfeet killed it and ate it. They didn’t steal it, and they didn’t know who it belonged to. It was in their camp, so it belonged to them. Someone complained, the cavalry was sent out to ask questions, and half the village was wiped out in the confusion. There’s plenty of ugly on every side, Naomi. It isn’t fair to make a statement like that.”
I press my hands to my chest, trying to hold back my outrage, the injustice of his disapproval, but find that I can’t. I rise to my feet and stumble out of the wickiup, out into the pink-and-purple remains of the day. The sun is almost gone, and the mountains beyond us are black. I take a few deep breaths to ease the fire in my heart and stagger on. John doesn’t follow, and I am glad.
I climb up through the trees to the pool of hot water that reminds me of the springs where Adam Hines was bucked clean off his feet by the force of the water. That was just a few days before my whole family was taken from me. John’s worrying about preserving a way of life when my whole life is already gone. Oh, dear God, I need my mother. I need her to tell me what to do and how to feel. I gotta get my mind right.
“Ma?” I say, and her name is an audible cry. “Ma, if you can hear me, I need to talk. I need to say a few things, and no one here understands a word I say. Not even John. I need you so bad, Ma. I will never see you again. And I’m angry about that. I’m angry that you’re gone, and I’m angry about the way you were taken. It’s not right! It’s not right, Ma. And it’s never going to be right.”
“Naomi?”
I jerk, embarrassed, but I don’t look over my shoulder. I know who it is, but I’m embarrassed. I am babbling at the water like I’ve lost my mind. I keep my back turned and try to slow the tears that never seem to let up.
Lost Woman comes closer and stops at my side. She says something to me that I don’t understand, and the longing for my mother wells even deeper.
“I need my mother,” I tell her, and my voice breaks on a sob. “I don’t know what to do, and I need Ma. Sua beeya,” I beg. I don’t know if I’m using the right word for need. John has tried to teach me.
I can’t see her face; my eyes are too blurred with tears. I am foolish, and I groan in frustration.
“Naomi?” Lost Woman says.
I rub at my eyes, trying to control myself, trying to meet her gaze.
“Talk . . . Lost Woman,” she says softly.
She takes my hand and pulls me along beside her, but when we are down from the hill, she releases me, and we stroll through the darkness together, not touching, the wickiups at our backs, the fires leaching the orange from the night sky.