Where the Lost Wander

by Harmon, Amy

  “Well . . . that might be a problem. But I can sell you some flour and bacon, some coffee and beans. Oil. I got oil. Some to cook with and some to grease your wheels.”

  “I don’t have any wheels.”

  “Yeah. Well. I got plenty of cornmeal left and a cookstove. A kettle. A pot. I got two tin cups, two plates, and one spoon too. Some lemon syrup. Odds and ends.”

  “And what about the other buildings?”

  “The blacksmith. He can sell you some riggings too. A harness. A saddle. There are some bunks in one and a mighty fine stove. That’s not for sale, though. You need a bunk?”

  Again the welling despair. I need more than a bunk.

  “Vasquez and his missus live there. That last one. Bridger has a room in the bunkhouse too. When he’s here. He ain’t. Don’t know that he’ll be back either. We got the Mormons here makin’ a fuss. Say Bridger’s been sellin’ firewater and gunpowder to the Indians. That is a violation of federal law, they say. Mostly, they just want to buy the place. I got a hundred of ’em camped out there, waiting for Bridger to show up so they can arrest him. Scarin’ all the traders off.”

  That explains the small tent city, but it doesn’t help my situation.

  “I got a supply wagon coming in the next day or two,” he says. “I’ll have more to sell then. If I was you, I’d get what you need right now before that next train comes in. There will likely be a few more before the season ends. Most of ’em are going to the Salt Lake Valley. Don’t know how many of the others we’ll see.”

  “You’ll have one rolling in tomorrow,” I say, grim. I turn away from the shelves and the old trader, looking out into the yard, where Wyatt is watering the animals. A few folks mill about—Indians, Mexicans, and whites alike—but the fort is quiet in the wake of the last train, and I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve got money, but not money to throw away. The prices of the goods on the shelves are ten times what they sell for in St. Joseph. The sad part is desperate folks will pay. I’ve got mules, but I think I’d rather starve than trade one for trail rations. But it’s not going to be just me.

  The man behind the bar walks out to stand beside me, wholly unconcerned with the lack on his shelves and my obvious displeasure. “Hey . . . you wantin’ to sell that jack? That is some kind of animal. I got a few mares I wouldn’t mind gettin’ a couple good mules out of. Those big mules bring big money round here. Fur traders and mountain men like the mules.”

  “I won’t sell him . . . but if you’ll give me what I need for a fair price—and when I say fair, I mean about a quarter of what you’re selling it for now—I’ll take a look at your mares. If one of them is agreeable to it, I’ll give you stud services for free.”

  The man tugs on his beard, his eyes narrowed. Then he shrugs.

  “I don’t know that I’ll see another jack like that come through here. I’ll set whatever you want aside. How’s that? Your jack does his thing, we’ll come to an agreement on price. That way it won’t get sold, and it’ll still be there if’n the animals don’t cooperate. I got a chest I can give ya. We can load it up. Got a fellow who follows the trains and just picks up what they toss out. Like pickin’ fruit off a tree. I got a room full of his finds.”

  I tell him what I want—the utensils and dishes, the skillet, hardtack, flour, and everything else I think I can afford if all goes well. I try not to think about the fact that I still don’t have a wagon to put it in, and there’s no obvious way to get one. The man keeps a running tally on a strip of paper, and my tension grows as I calculate the number. I help drag the chest from the other room, and we load everything into it, pushing it behind the counter and bolting it closed when we’re finished.

  “Teddy Bowles,” the man says, extending his hand.

  “John Lowry.”

  “John, there’s something happening out front,” Wyatt says, sticking his head through the doorway, his eyes shifting from me to Teddy Bowles. “Indians on one side and white folks on the other, and it don’t look good.”

  “Damnation!” Teddy wails, running for the door. “I better get Vasquez.”

  NAOMI

  The number of times we cross Blacks Fork reminds me of the winding Sweetwater River and John’s rejection. I was sure I was going to spend the rest of my days pining after a man who wouldn’t settle. He tied me in knots and walked away, all because he thinks too hard. I’ve never known a man who thinks so hard. I just hope he finds what he’s certain we need, because if he doesn’t, there won’t be a wedding. When I told him we could just share Warren’s wagon with Adam and Lydia, he looked at me like I had three eyes and a pair of horns.

  When Daniel and I married, we had two bowls, two spoons, one trencher, a plate, and a new skillet with which to set up house. Ma and I made a quilt, and Daniel built me a chest as a wedding gift, but we spent our first night beneath his father’s roof, as well as our second night and our third and our forty-fifth. A month before Daniel died, we’d moved into a one-room cabin a few miles from his folks. It had a fireplace and a window, and it was just big enough to accommodate a bed, a cupboard, Daniel’s chest, a small table, and one chair. At supper, I would sit on the bed and give Daniel the seat at the table. When Daniel died, I couldn’t sit in that chair. It felt wrong. And I couldn’t sleep in the bed. In fact, I never slept in it again. I was afraid of being swallowed in sadness and loss. I slept on a pallet on Ma and Pa’s kitchen floor instead, and they never made me go back.

  When we left Illinois, I sold everything in the cabin for a few dollars and closed the door on my life as a wife. There was no room in the wagon for my belongings, scant as they were, and that suited me fine. I have never had a room of my own or even a bed of my own. Most folks don’t. The only space I’ve ever had to myself is the quiet of my own thoughts and the blank page in front of me, so I don’t know why John is so insistent that we have a wagon of our own. I can spend two months in a tent. I can spend a year in a tent. But I can see it in the set of his mouth and the stiffness in his spine. He isn’t going to yield on it, and it’ll do me no good to try to convince him otherwise. John is proud, and he is private, and I suppose if I’d spent my life feeling like a stranger in my home, I would be more driven to have a place I could call my own.

  John is driven . . . and I’m going to let him drive, wherever he needs to go and whatever he needs to do, just as long as he lets me ride beside him. Just as long as he’ll let Ma and Pa and my brothers tag along. They’ve all become quite attached.

  When we stop to noon at yet another branch of Blacks Fork, Ma brings out the old family Bible. In the front is written a long line of names and dates, marriages, and births from generations past, meticulously recorded. Ma never reads from it; she has another Bible for reading. She keeps it wrapped in a cloth inside a wooden box, and it’s been stowed beneath the main bed since we began.

  “I’ve let this go for too long. It’s been on my mind,” she says as she adds Wolfe’s name and his birth date to the long list of her children and records the day Abigail died.

  To the right of my name she adds a connecting line and writes John Lowry, m. July 1853. A line to the left of my name says Daniel Lawrence Caldwell, b. Oct 1830, m. Oct 1851, d. Jan 1852. The b stands for born. The m stands for married. The d stands for died.

  I don’t want to blot Daniel out, but I don’t like the way it looks, my name centered between the two men. I can’t imagine John will like it either and am glad Ma’s chosen to bring the Bible out while he’s away.

  “Don’t you think you better wait until we’re married?” I ask.

  “No. When was John born?” she answers serenely, her quill lifted, awaiting my response. She’s feeling better today. Hanabi’s generosity restored her.

  “He doesn’t know. Winter of 1827 or ’28.”

  “Winter?”

  “His mother told him there were tracks in the snow, so it must have been winter.”

  “What kind of tracks?” Ma stills, and a great black drop of ink splatters o
nto the page.

  “Footprints. Like a man wearing two different shoes,” I answer, but Ma is distracted by the blot.

  “Oh no. Look what I’ve done,” Ma mourns, staring at the spot. It has completely obscured her name.

  JOHN

  A standoff is taking place. The men from the tent city have taken a position about twenty yards in front of the fort, barring the way to a mounted band of Indians, who are weighted down with meat and furs and have no doubt come to trade.

  “We’re looking for Jim Bridger,” I hear someone shout. “Nobody’s getting in this fort until we find him.”

  “We got in the fort,” Wyatt says, frowning. We’re stringing Kettle, the dun, and the mules behind us, and they’re not happy to be heading out again. I’m not happy to be heading out again. I have business to conduct and very little time to do it. We hug the outer walls just east of the entrance, keeping back from the fray.

  Teddy Bowles and a man I assume is Vasquez stride out of the fort moments later. Vasquez looks about my father’s age, though his hair has not yet lost its color. It’s slicked back, and he’s clean shaven, an oddity among mountain men. He’s wearing a cloth shirt rolled at the elbows and a leather vest with a gold watch chain dripping from his pocket. He looks like a banker, but he has a rifle in his hands and a furrow on his well-tanned brow.

  A woman emerges through the gate behind him, wearing a deep-blue dress striped in white and adorned with a little white collar. Her hair is perfectly coiled, her back is perfectly straight, and when Vasquez barks for her to go back inside, she ignores him completely. She reminds me of Naomi.

  Vasquez and Bowles push through the Mormon militia to stand in front of the mounted braves, and the woman observes it all, only ten feet away from me and Wyatt.

  “You are out of line, Captain Kelly,” Vasquez shouts, pushing his way toward the front. He speaks English with a slight French accent, and I’m confused by his name. Vasquez.

  Suddenly, I know who he is.

  “Louis Vasquez. Well, I’ll be damned,” I breathe.

  A Missouri boy, born and raised, and the son of a Spanish father and a French-Canadian mother, Louis Vasquez is a fur trader who’s been back and forth across the plains and traipsed through the mountains enough to make a name for himself back home, where tales of the West have been on every tongue and part of the American consciousness for the last two decades. My father, who never talks about anything, sold him a mule once and was impressed enough to bring the story home. “Louis Vasquez purchased a Lowry mule today. Imagine that.” You’d have thought he’d seen George Washington—a renowned mule breeder himself.

  “The Indians who shot and scalped two of our men were Shoshoni. I don’t want trouble. But I don’t want it to happen again, and Jim Bridger selling powder and spirits is only making things worse. Until I get some answers, I’m not budging,” the Mormon captain shouts.

  “Isn’t your friend Hanabi a Shoshoni?” Wyatt asks. “You could probably talk to him, couldn’t you, John?”

  Wyatt doesn’t wait for me to answer but calls to the woman, drawing attention to us both. “Mr. Lowry speaks Shoshoni, ma’am. Maybe he could help.”

  The woman rewards us with a blinding smile. “I believe he could. Louis,” the woman calls, projecting her voice above the tense assembly. “We have someone here who can speak to Chief Washakie for Captain Kelly.”

  Washakie. I have no doubt this is Hanabi’s chief.

  When all heads swivel toward us, the woman smiles and inclines her head like she’s a queen greeting her subjects. She looks at me and extends her hand toward the conflict, indicating that I proceed.

  “Mr. Lowry?” she prods.

  “Stay here, Wyatt,” I say under my breath. “And next time, let me speak for myself.”

  The Mormons part judiciously, clearing a path to their captain and Vasquez. The Shoshoni leader sits straight in the saddle, and he does not seem unnerved by the reception he is receiving, but he doesn’t like it either. He meets my gaze as I approach, and without thinking, I remove my hat. To leave it on my head would feel like an insult, though no one else has removed theirs. His buffalo robe is bunched at his waist, and a few feathers stream from his long hair. He is broad chested and fine looking, but I cannot tell how old he is. No gray streaks his hair, and his face is unlined, but he is old enough to be chief, which is not a young man’s position.

  Teddy Bowles claps me on the back like we are old friends, but Captain Kelly eyes me suspiciously.

  “You speak Shoshoni?” Vasquez asks.

  “I do. Well enough.”

  “We want to ask him what he knows about the attack. It is believed that the Indians were Shoshoni. Can you ask him about that?” Captain Kelly asks.

  I try, stumbling a bit over my words.

  The chief looks me over, his eyes lingering on my face before he dismisses me. He is angry, his shoulders tight, his gaze flat. He is insulted by the confrontation.

  “I want to trade. Now,” he says.

  “You’ve traded with this man before?” I ask Vasquez, uncomfortable in the corner I’ve been shoved into.

  “Many times. Bridger considers him a friend,” Vasquez says.

  “Every year,” Captain Kelly agrees. “He is highly regarded.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” I protest.

  “The problem is two men are dead and Bridger’s been breaking laws. Ask him again,” Kelly insists.

  “Do you know who killed the patrol and took the horses?” I ask Washakie, careful not to accuse.

  “I know they probably deserved to die,” Washakie says. I don’t tell Captain Kelly what he’s said but wait for him to continue. He changes the subject instead.

  “Are you a white man?” Washakie asks.

  “My father is a white man.”

  “Where is your tribe?”

  “I have no tribe.”

  “You are not Pawnee?”

  He has caught me off guard. I wonder if he can hear the Pawnee in my speech.

  “My mother was Pawnee,” I say.

  “Not you?”

  I am silent for a minute, considering. I don’t know how to answer. In the end, I just introduce myself. “I’m John Lowry.”

  “John Lowry,” he repeats. “I know that name.”

  “Hanabi lived with my family.” I say her name with trepidation. I don’t know if it is ever wise to claim familiarity with another man’s wife.

  He shows no expression when I mention Hanabi, but after a weighty pause he answers my question, and his voice has lost all hostility.

  “It wasn’t my people who killed the soldiers. We don’t kill white men. We kill the Crow. Sometimes we kill each other. But we don’t kill white men,” the chief says.

  “Why?” I am genuinely curious.

  “They keep coming. It won’t do any good.” He shrugs.

  I tell Captain Kelly and Vasquez what he has said, and the chief waits until I look at him again.

  “It was probably Pocatello,” he concedes.

  “Shoshoni?” I ask.

  He nods once. “He doesn’t like white men. He likes scalps. He has white scalps of every color and size.”

  “Are you his chief?”

  “No. He leads his own people. He would like my scalp most of all. I am not his chief, but he worries his people will follow me.” Washakie shrugs again as if it makes no difference to him.

  I repeat what Washakie has told me, filtering out the details that might ignite tensions.

  “Ask him if Bridger’s been selling him any firewater,” Captain Kelly demands.

  Washakie understands the word, and he sneers at the captain. He turns and barks an order to his men, who have been guarding their wares. A flurry of motion ensues, an indication that they are leaving.

  Vasquez protests, obviously wanting what Washakie has brought to trade.

  “Stay, Washakie. Please,” Vasquez begs, his hands upraised in supplication. “Tell him I will give him whatever he wants,�
�� he says, turning to me. “No more questions.”

  Captain Kelly sighs, but he doesn’t object, and I tell Washakie that Vasquez wants to trade now.

  Washakie folds his arms and rattles off a list of demands—sugar, paint, guns, beads. He wants more because he has been made to wait and treated poorly. Vasquez is quick to fill the order, sending Teddy Bowles scrambling, and Vasquez and a handful of other traders, who have emerged from the fort now that the trouble seems to have passed, commence with trading. I marvel at Washakie’s carriage and demeanor. He is not intimidated or even accommodating, but he is also not overtly aggressive, which reassures the people around him. His warriors reflect his confidence. They are a handsome people, arrayed in a manner that demands respect.

  Kelly’s men relax, and some disperse, though just as many step forward to engage in some trading of their own. A few ask me to interpret for them, and I do, easing the negotiations back and forth. I motion for Wyatt to bring me my packs, but when I try to conduct an exchange for myself, Washakie shakes his head. He points at the furs and the buffalo meat I have set aside. The meat is enough to feed the May boys for a month.

  “For Hanabi,” Washakie says. “No trade, John Lowry. Gift.” And he will not even look at what I try to give him in return.

  When he rides away, his ponies and packs laden with new provisions, Vasquez is still beside me, though Captain Kelly has withdrawn with his men.

  “Louis Vasquez,” he says, sticking out his hand, since we have not been formally introduced.

  “So I heard,” I say. “You are a bit of a legend where I come from.” He laughs, but he’s enough of a dandy that he is pleased.

  “My father sold you a mule a decade ago. He never let me forget it,” I add. “And my father isn’t impressed by much.”

  “John Lowry,” he says, nodding. “I remember it well. I thought there might be a connection when I heard your name. I still have that mule your father sold me. Ten years now. Never given me a moment’s grief, never quit on me.”

  “When I write home, I’ll tell him. He’ll be happy to hear it.”