by Harmon, Amy
ALSO BY AMY HARMON
Young Adult and Paranormal Romance
Slow Dance in Purgatory
Prom Night in Purgatory
Inspirational Romance
A Different Blue
Running Barefoot
Making Faces
Infinity + One
The Law of Moses
The Song of David
The Smallest Part
Historical Fiction
From Sand and Ash
What the Wind Knows
Romantic Fantasy
The Bird and the Sword
The Queen and the Cure
The First Girl Child
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2020 by Amy Sutorius Harmon
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542017961
ISBN-10: 1542017963
Cover design by Faceout Studio, Lindy Martin
For my husband, a direct descendant of the real John Lowry,
and for Chief Washakie, who predicted people would write books about him
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
MAY 1853
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
1858
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
NAOMI
The wheel is in pieces. It’s not the first time one of the wagons has lost an axle or broken a rim since our journey began in May, but it’s a long, dry stretch with no grazing, and it’s not a good place to stop. We didn’t have much choice. Pa and my brother Warren have been working on the wheel for hours, and Mr. Bingham is helping them. Will and Webb are supposed to be keeping watch for Wyatt and John, but the day is bright and still—warm too, and they’re playing among the black rocks and bristly sage, hiding and seeking and chasing each other, and I let them be, too weary to scold or find something better for them to do. Will has the bow John gave him. As I watch, Will rises and takes aim at an unknown foe, his arrow winging through the air and disappearing into the ravine below us. He lets a few more fly, straight and true, before ducking down behind another outcropping, Webb scrambling after him like a faithful pup, eager for his turn. Sunshine is something we’ve had plenty of the last few weeks. I wouldn’t mind a cool breeze or a handful of snowflakes on my tongue, though winter and wagon trains don’t mix.
Babies and wagons don’t mix either, and Homer Bingham’s wife, Elsie, is trying to deliver her baby in the Bingham wagon while the men fix the wheel on ours. The rest of the train has gone on, promising us they will wait at the springs they claim are only a day’s travel ahead if we just “follow the wheel ruts.” We’re a good mile away from the main ruts now. We veered off the road to find water and grass last night. That’s when Pa busted his wheel and Elsie Bingham said she couldn’t go another step.
She’ll have to. Not today. But certainly tomorrow. There will be another ridge to climb and another river to cross. When Ma gave birth to little Wolfe, she was walking again the next day.
I had prayed for a sister. I’d prayed hard. Ma already had four sons, and I wouldn’t be living in her house forever. I’m twenty years old, married and widowed once already, and I have my own plans once we reach California. Ma needed another daughter—one that lived longer than a day—to help her when I couldn’t. My prayers fell on deaf ears because the Lord gave Ma another son, and He gave me another brother. But my disappointment didn’t last long. I took one look at baby Wolfe, wriggling and wailing, fighting for life and breath, and I knew him. He was mine. Ours. He belonged.
“He looks just like you did, Naomi,” Ma cried. “Why, he looks like he could be your son.”
He felt like my son, right from the start, but with so many brothers to take care of and no husband, I haven’t thought much about my own babies. But Ma says she’s seen my children in her dreams for years.
Ma has vivid dreams.
Pa says her visions are like Joseph’s from the Bible, Joseph with the coat of many colors who was sold into Egypt. Pa even bought Ma a coat like Joseph’s—the sheep’s wool was dyed into varying shades and woven together—to wear out West. She reprimanded him, but she was pleased.
It’s been hot, but Ma is still wearing that coat. She can’t ever seem to get warm, and baby Wolfe is always hungry. Ma said her body was too old and tired for another baby, and she didn’t have enough milk. God thought different. God and Pa. I told Pa he needed to leave Ma be for good. I hadn’t meant to say it, but sometimes words just come out of my mouth when I think them. Pa hasn’t forgiven me yet, and Ma scolded me something fierce.
“Naomi May, if I want that man to let me be, I can surely speak for myself.”
“I know, Ma. You always speak your mind. That’s where I get it.”
She laughed at that.
I can hear Ma telling poor Elsie Bingham to get up on her knees, and I tuck my leather book and a lead pencil into my satchel and take Wolfe to find Gert, our goat, who is grazing with the unyoked oxen. Ma told me to take him and go. His cries were upsetting Elsie, and there’s not much room in the wagon. The grass is sparse along this stretch, and the little there is has been eaten down. A sluggish spring between a circle of rocks has provided us with a little water, and the animals are crowded around it.
I tweak Gert’s teats, and she doesn’t even raise her head from the shallow pool. I catch the stream of warm milk in my palm and wash her teat with it before moving Wolfie’s hungry cupid mouth beneath it. If I crouch down with him lying in my lap, I can milk her and feed him at the same time. I’ve gotten better at it, and Gert’s grown accustomed enough that she doesn’t bolt. She’s sweet tempered for a goat, unlike every other goat I’ve ever known, who bleat like the Israelites did when Moses destroyed their golden calf.
Gert whines, and her cry confuses me for a minute. I freeze, and the cry comes again. It isn’t Gert.
“Elsie’s had her baby,” I say to little Wolfe, who gazes up at me with eyes that Ma says will someday be as green as my own. “Praise the Lord,” I breathe, and Mr. Bingham repeats my sentiments.
“Praise the Lord,” he bellows, and the wheel is forgotten and the men stand. Pa pounds Mr. Bingham on the back, whooping, clearly relieved for him, relieved for poor Elsie. Someone else whoops, and I am not alarmed, rapt as I am in the wriggling babe in my lap and thoughts of the babe just come into the world. I assume it’s Webb or Will celebrating too. As quickly as my thoughts provide an explanation, my eyes swing, discarding it. My brothers don’t sound like that. The land rolls and the rocks jut, creating a thousand places to hide, and from the nearest rise, horses and Indians, speared and feathered, spill down upon us. One is clutching an arrow buried in his belly, his hands crimson with blood, and I wonder in dazed disbelief if Will accidentally shot him.
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br /> Gert pulls away, and I note the way her teat streams, watering the dry earth as she flees. The oxen bolt too, and I am frozen, watching the Indians fall upon Pa, Warren, and Mr. Bingham, who stare at them in rumpled confusion, their sleeves rolled and their faces slicked with sweat and grime. Pa falls without even crying out, and Warren staggers back, his arms outstretched in protest. Mr. Bingham swings his arms but doesn’t succeed in shielding his head. The club against his face makes an odd plunk, and his knees buckle, tipping him face-first into the brush.
I clutch Wolfe to my chest, frozen and gaping, and I am confronted by a warrior, his hair streaming, his torso bare, and a club in his hand. I want to close my eyes and cover my ears, but the cold in my limbs and lids prevents it. I can only stare at him. He shrieks and raises his club, and I hear my mother scream my name. Naomi. NAY OH ME. But the final syllable is cut short.
I am ice, but my ears are fire, and every scream of pain and triumph finds the soft drums in my head, echoing over and over. The warrior tries to take Wolfe from my arms, and it is not my strength but my horror that locks my grip. I cannot look away from him. He says something to me, but the sounds are gibberish, and my gaze does not fall. He swings his club at my head, and I turn my face into Wolfe’s curls as the blow connects, a dull, painless thud that stuns and blinds.
Time rushes and slows. I hear my breath in my ears and feel Wolfe against my chest, but I am floating above myself, seeing the slaughter below. Pa and Warren. Mr. Bingham. The Indian with the arrow in his belly is dead too. The colorful bits of feather wave at the placid blue sky. It is Will’s arrow. I am sure of it now, but I do not see Will or Webb.
The dead Indian is hoisted onto his horse, and his companions’ faces are grim and streaked with outrage at the loss. They do not take anything from the wagons. No flour or sugar or bacon. They don’t take the oxen, who are as docile in war as they were in peace. But they take the rest of the animals. And they take me. They take me and baby Wolfe.
And they burn the wagons.
I will myself higher, far away, up to the heaven that awaits me with Ma and Pa and Warren, and for a time I am blessedly unaware, wrapped in gauzy delirium.
But I am not dead; I am walking, and Wolfe is still in my arms. A tugging, distant and weak, narrows the distance between the me who floats and the me who walks. The pull grows stronger, and I register the rope around my neck that tightens and releases as I stumble and straighten, my wooden legs marching along behind a paint pony, the spots on his rump like the blood that seeped through the cover on the Binghams’ wagon. There was so much blood. And screaming. Screaming, screaming, and then nothing.
It is silent now, and I have no idea how long I have been walking, wrapped in odd unconsciousness, seeing but not seeing, knowing but not knowing. I am suddenly sick, and the violence of my stomach’s upending catches me unaware. I fall to my knees, and the mush I ate for breakfast hours ago splashes over the clumps of grass, the longest strands tickling my cheeks as I bow above them, retching. Wolfe wails, and the rope at my throat tightens, and my vision swims. There’s a hand on my braid, and I am jerked up from my knees. The Indians are arguing among themselves, blades wielded, and Wolfe screams and screams. I turn his face into my chest to muffle his cries and tuck my spattered cheek against his, my lips at his tiny ear.
“Be still, Wolfe,” I say, and my voice is a shock to both of us.
I don’t know why I am still alive. I don’t know why Wolfe is still alive, and my skin is suddenly raw and ready, prickled with the expectation of a blade against my brow. It doesn’t come, and I lift my eyes to the Indian nearest me, and he hisses and touches the tip of his blade below my right eye. I feel a pinch, and blood wells and trickles down my cheek, heavy and slow. His companions hoot, and Wolfe’s cries are drowned by their hollering. I leap to my feet and try to run, but the rope around my neck yanks me back, and I fall into my own vomit.
The man who cut me climbs back on his horse. And we move again. Now it is only my fear that floats above me, watching, and I’m left blessedly numb. No thoughts, no pain, my brother in my arms, and my life wafting up into the sky behind me with the smoke from our wagons.
MAY 1853
1
ST. JOSEPH, MISSOURI
JOHN
She is perched on a barrel in the middle of the wide street, a yellow-frocked flower in a white bonnet, studying the crush of people moving past. Everyone is in a hurry, covered in dust and dissatisfaction, but she sits primly, her back straight and her hands still, watching it all as if she has nowhere to go. Perhaps she’s been assigned to guard the contents of the barrel; though come to think of it, the barrel was in the street yesterday and the day before, and I’m certain it’s empty.
I have a new hat on my head and a new pair of boots on my feet, and I’m carrying a stack of cloth shirts and trousers to shove in my saddlebags along with the coffee, tobacco, and beads that will come in handy on the journey to Fort Kearny. Maybe it’s the cheerful color of her dress or her womanly form; maybe it’s simply the fact that she is so still while everyone else is in motion, but I halt, intrigued, shifting my package from one arm to the other as I look at her.
After a moment, her eyes settle on me, and I don’t look away. It isn’t insolence or arrogance that makes me stare, though my father always bristles at my flat gaze. I stare because self-preservation is easiest if you know exactly who and what you are dealing with.
She appears surprised when I hold her gaze. And she smiles. I look away, disconcerted by her pretty mouth and welcoming grin. I cringe when I realize what I’ve done. I’ve let her unnerve me and cause me to shy like Kettle, my big Mammoth Jack. I immediately look back, my neck hot and my chest tight. She pushes away from the barrel and strides toward me. I watch her approach, liking the way she moves and the set of her chin, knowing it’s wasted admiration. I expect her to walk by, perhaps swishing her skirts and fluttering her eyelashes, intentional yet dismissive in the way of most beautiful women. Instead she stops directly in front of me and sticks out her hand, her mouth still curved and her eyes still steady. She isn’t skittish at all.
“Hello. I’m Naomi May. My father bought a team from your father, Mr. John Lowry. Or are you both called John Lowry? I think my father said something about that.”
Her palm is smudged, and the tips of her fingers are black, her nails as short as my own. Her dirty hand is at odds with her tidy appearance and pale skin. She sees me eyeing her fingers and winces slightly. She bites her lower lip as though she’s not happy I’ve noticed but keeps her hand outstretched.
I don’t take it. I don’t answer her questions either. Instead, I tip my hat with my free hand, acknowledging her without touching her. “Ma’am.”
Her smile doesn’t falter, but she lowers her arm. Her eyes are a startling shade of green, and brown freckles dot her cheeks and dust her nose. It is a fine nose, straight and well shaped. Every part of her is well shaped. I want to slide a finger along the bridge of my own nose, along the bump that makes it rise a little higher between my eyes, and feel foolish for comparing myself, in any way, to a slender white woman.
We study each other silently, and I realize I don’t remember what she asked or what she said. I’m not sure I even remember who I am.
“You are Mr. Lowry, aren’t you?” she says softly, hesitant, as if she can hear my thoughts. I realize she is simply repeating her question.
“Uh, yes, ma’am.”
I tip my hat again and step past her, excusing myself. Then I walk away.
I curse, the soft word a burr on my lips, but manage to swallow the sharp edges and keep moving. I am a man, and I notice pretty women. It is nothing to be ashamed of or think twice about. But she isn’t just pretty. She’s interesting. And I want to look back at her.
St. Joseph is bustling today. It’s spring, and the emigrant trains are readying for the journey west. My father has sold more teams in the last two weeks than he sold all last spring. People want Lowry mules, but we�
�ve sold everything we have, and the ones we’re selling now—mules we’ve traded for but never worked with—we don’t guarantee. My father is quick to tell people they aren’t Lowry mules, and he sells them for less. I wonder if my father sold her father a Lowry team or a couple of the green mules he took off someone’s hands. She knows who I am, but I’ve never seen her before. I would remember her.
I look back at her. I can’t stop myself. She is watching me, her bonnet-covered head tipped slightly to the side, her hands clasped in front of her, settled against the skirt of her faded yellow dress. She smiles again, seemingly unoffended by my dismissal. Why should she be? I am obviously interested. I feel like a fool.
She has not moved out of the street, and the people hurry around her, wagons and horses and men hoisting bags of flour and women herding children. She knows my name, and it bothers me, though I’ve been called John Lowry since I was a child. I am named after my father—John Lowry—though he is ashamed of me. Or maybe he is ashamed of himself. I can’t be sure. His wife, Jennie, calls me John Lowry—John Lowry, not John, not Johnny—to remind us both exactly who I am at all times. My mother’s people called me Two Feet. One white foot, one Pawnee foot, but I am not split down the middle, straddling two worlds. I am simply a stranger in both.
My mother pulls at the hair on my head, frantic, angry, and her sharp hands surprise me. I cry out, and she falls to her knees, her head bowed, the neat line between her braids pointing toward the floor. I touch it, that line, to remind her I am still here, and she begins to keen as though my touch pains her.
“John Lowry,” my mother says, her palms smacking the wooden slats for emphasis.
The white woman grasps her apron, and the man is silent in front of the fire.
“John Lowry. Son. John Lowry,” my mother insists, and I don’t know what it is she is trying to convey. I know some of the white man’s language. My mother takes me with her when she works in their homes and on their farms.
“Son live here,” my mother demands, firm.
