“Look at ’em go!” Webb crows, jumping up and down and waving his arms, cheering them on.
“He makes it look easy, doesn’t he?” Wyatt says, less exuberant but every bit as transfixed. “Everyone else fighting and pushing for a place in line, and he just goes into the water, easy as you please, and starts swimming.”
“Mr. Lowry didn’t even say goodbye to his pa,” Will says, his mouth turned down, his eyes fixed on John Lowry Sr., who watches his son’s progress across the river. The elder John Lowry doesn’t wave, and he doesn’t shout goodbyes. He stands silently, observing, unmoving, until his son and the skiff reach the opposite shore. Then he turns, puts his hat back on his head, and climbs the bank, back toward the main thoroughfare. I cannot see his expression from this distance, but his stride is slow and his back slightly bowed, and I am overcome with sudden sadness, though I’m not sure why.
“Why are you crying, Naomi?” Will asks, concern lacing his voice, and I realize with a start that I am. At twelve, Will is more sensitive than all the other May boys combined, and he notices things the others don’t. Maybe it’s being a middle son of many, but he’s the designated peacekeeper in the family and takes every rift and row personally.
“I’m not sure, Will. I just feel a little melancholy, I guess.”
“Do you miss Daniel?” Will asks, and I feel a flash of guilt that my tears are not for my dead husband but for a stranger I know nothing about.
“Are you scared of crossing the river?” Webb’s interjection saves me from answering Will, whose eyes are narrowed on my face, and I swipe at my cheeks and smile.
“No. Not scared. I just don’t like goodbyes,” I say.
“Pa says once we head out, we ain’t never comin’ back. So I been sayin’ goodbye to everything I see. But I sure am glad I’ll get to see Mr. Lowry’s mules and those jack donkeys a bit more,” Webb chortles.
“Do you want to go back to the camp, Naomi?” Will asks, his brow furrowed.
“No. I’d like to draw for a bit. Would you sit here with me?”
Will nods agreeably, and Wyatt and Webb are more than willing to linger as well. A barge is being filled with livestock that won’t stay put. One mule is herded aboard only to have another bail over the side into the drink, much to the delight of my brothers, who laugh so hard Webb almost wets his pants, and Wyatt has to take him to find a bush where he can relieve himself.
The landing dock is full of people to watch and adventures waiting to happen, but my mind is too full, and my eyes rest on my page while my hand recreates the myriad faces I’ve seen in St. Joe over the past three days, faces I don’t want to forget. I draw until the sun begins to sink, turning the sea of white-topped wagons a rosy pink, and my brothers and I make our way down the hill, back to our family, eager for the morrow.
We wake before dawn and are readied and clopping along toward Duncan’s Ferry before the sun begins to change the color of the sky. Pa has a wagon; my oldest brother, Warren, and his wife, Abigail, have one too. Pa thought about getting a third, there being so many of us, but he didn’t think Wyatt could handle a team every day on his own. Abigail and Warren don’t have any little ones yet, and we decided that between the two wagons, we would make do. The Caldwells have two wagons as well, along with a dozen head of cattle. I imagine there will never be a moment’s silence on the trail with all the bleating and bellowing.
It takes us a little more than an hour to reach the cutoff and the sign for Duncan’s Ferry that points us through a boggy forest so thick and deep we are cast in shadows almost as dark as the predawn. Pa stews and makes a comment about Mr. Lowry’s character and good sense. Mr. Caldwell almost turns back to St. Joe, and his son, Jeb, and my brothers have a dickens of a time keeping the livestock together as we navigate the trees and do our best to avoid the mud.
“We might never come outa these woods, Winifred,” Pa grumbles to Ma. “Perhaps they send unsuspecting travelers into these parts to get them lost and rob them blind.”
Ma doesn’t respond but walks calmly, her arms wrapped around her bulging belly; she was the one to tell Pa about Mr. Lowry’s advice to use the upper ferry, and if she is worried, she doesn’t let on. But within an hour we indeed find ourselves, if a little more weary and wary than when we set out, at Duncan’s Ferry with nary a wagon in front of us. We are able to board both wagons, eight oxen, two mules, two cows, and eight people in a single trip. The Caldwells cross immediately after us with all their cattle and wagons as well. Both crossings are uneventful, much to Webb’s disappointment, and Pa has to take back some of the things he said, though he mutters that he’d rather wait in line for a week than ford that path again. Ma just pats his hand, but we are the first wagons in our company to arrive at the designated clearing at the head of the trail.
We missed the window the previous spring. Daniel’s death took the wind out of all our sails. So we waited and planned. Then Ma got pregnant, and it seemed as if maybe the journey would have to be postponed once more. We hoped the baby would come before the trek began, but it hasn’t, and the wagon company won’t wait. The baby could come anytime—Ma thinks she still has a week or two—but Ma insists we stick to the plan. And Pa always listens to Ma.
We wait all day for the wagons in our company to assemble. John Lowry is at the meeting site, along with our wagon master, Mr. Grant Abbott, a man who has been back and forth across the prairie “more times than he can remember,” though I suspect he could recall exactly how many if he wanted to. He worked for the Hudson’s Bay Company in the Rocky Mountains for a season but says he prefers people to the fur trade, and he comes highly recommended as a guide. Forty families have signed on with him for this journey, paying him to see them through to California as painlessly as possible, and he seems very proud of that fact. He is amiable enough, with a woolly gray mustache and hair that skims his shoulders. His tunic and leggings are fringed like those of a mountain man, and he wears beaded moccasins on his feet and a rifle slung across his back. He seems to know John Lowry well and introduces him as his nephew.
“John’s mother, Jennie, is my little sister. John will be with us until we reach Fort Kearny on the Platte,” Mr. Abbott says. “He speaks Injun too, in case we have any trouble with the Pawnee. The area along the Platte is Pawnee country. It’s Kanzas country too, though we’ll see more Kanzas in the Blue River valley. I don’t suspect we’ll have any trouble with any of ’em. They usually just want to trade . . . or beg. They like tobacco and cloth and anything shiny.”
It doesn’t make much sense to me, John Lowry’s mother being Grant Abbott’s sister. Grant Abbott may wear buckskin, but he’s as white and ruddy as Pa. I’ve seen John Lowry Sr. He’s white too, but the resemblance between them is there. Still, a resemblance doesn’t account for the way John Lowry looks. He’s tall like his father, with rangy shoulders and a long gait, but his skin is sun colored, and his hair is the color of black coffee. He keeps it mostly hidden beneath the brim of his gray felt hat, but I can see the inky edges that hug his neck and touch the tops of his ears. His features are cut from stone, hard lips and an uneven nose, sharp cheekbones and a squared-off chin, granite eyes and the straightest black brows I’ve ever seen. I can’t tell how old he is. He has a worn look around his eyes, but it’s not time, I don’t think. He’s a few years—or a decade—older than I am. Impossible to know. But I like looking at him. He has a face I’m going to draw.