“Which way did you come from?” he asked. “Are we near a town?”
She shook her head.
“I was lost in the storm for some time before I found you,” she said.
That was heart-warming to him. The idea that, with him, she did not consider herself lost. He left it at that. He was eating no more than before, a little less, in fact, but he felt he was getting some of his old strength back. He felt he could last a little longer. That he wanted to last a little longer. He was curious what was in store for them. He imagined she would stay with him forever, seeing as it felt so right as it was.
She avoided locking eyes with the horizon. She kept her gaze on nearby things: her hands, the food he was providing, the water, the soles of her feet, the edges of the blanket. She was in no hurry to get anywhere, and that was more than fine to Brooke.
One night, he set a hand on the delicate tissue between her legs. She was on her back, her legs apart. He set his palm there, on the outside of her leggings. She did not react. He rotated his hand in a small circle, as he had done with Sugar, years before. She did not react. He kept it up, brought himself onto an elbow and leaned toward her. She was fixated on the clots of stars above them.
In the morning, he woke and she was gone. He was on the muddy blanket, alone and sweating in the sun. He heard voices, horses, active wood. He turned and discovered the wagon train, its carts and carriers still in a tight line, its travelers scattered across the landscape. Some were resting in the shadows of the wagons. Some were collecting water from the stream, passing around a cupped pan. There were four men and two women. The eldest of the group was of indeterminate age, a weathered old man sporting a beard and perched on a rock. They had a few mules and several horses, both harnessed and un-harnessed. He could not spot her. He gathered himself up and brought himself over to the older man sitting on a small rock beside several young men. Brooke tried to speak, but his voice was tired and unpracticed.
“I’ve been lost,” he said.
“We know,” said the older man. He put out his hand. “I’m the Pa here.”
“Hello, Pa.”
“My name is Wendell.”
“Hello, Wendell.”
“These are my boys: Jack, Marston, and Clay.”
Each of them had the man’s face at some previous stage. It was like standing before a row of daguerreotypes taken at ten-or twenty-year intervals. The youngest seemed about eighteen or so.
“Howdy,” said Brooke.
“Your wife’s in the wagon. She’s ill and needs to be cared for,” said Wendell.
“Which wagon?” said Brooke.
“That,” said Wendell.
Brooke shook the boys’ hands and nodded to Wendell and walked toward the far wagon containing the woman he’d met in the snow. He lifted himself on the wagon’s step and peered into the back.
An older woman and a child were at the woman’s side. The child was holding her hand and the older woman was mixing something in a small bowl.
“What’s she sick with?” asked Brooke.
“You must be John,” said the girl holding her hand.
Brooke nodded.
“Some kind of fever,” she said.
“She’ll be all right?” said Brooke.
They both nodded. The woman with the small bowl applied its contents to the sick woman’s lips. It was a red paste of some kind. From where Brooke stood, it had no smell.
“She’s just out of sorts,” said the woman applying the paste. “She needs to rest and eat. You can ride with us as far as you like. From what she’s told us, you can handle providing sustenance for the two of you.”
Brooke nodded. “As long as we stay by the stream. And as long as it doesn’t start snowing again.”
“Wasn’t that something?” said the girl holding her hand. She was younger, by fifty years or so. A granddaughter, maybe.
“It was not easy going,” said the woman applying the paste. “I imagine it was particularly difficult for the two of you, out here alone as you were.”
Brooke nodded.
“She says you’ve been wandering for some time?”
Brooke nodded.
“My guess is that you’re not opposed to joining up with us?”
“We could use your medical help. A few days off of our feet,” said Brooke.
“Most of us walk,” said the woman applying the paste. “Alongside or behind the wagons. The more the horses have to carry, the more often we have to stop, and the greater the risk of exhausting them or losing them to injury. She’ll have to rest here for a while, but you’ll have to do your part.”
Brooke nodded.
“I can manage that,” he said.
“It is a nice surprise to meet new people,” said the girl holding her hand. “We’ve been walking for so long, and my brothers really aren’t much for company.”
Brooke nodded.
“Do you and your wife have a family looking for you?” said the older woman. She set down the bowl and began to blow on the sick woman’s pasted lips.
“I have a brother,” he said. “But I have not seen him for some time. I do not know what’s become of him.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said the girl holding her hand.
Brooke nodded.
A shout from Wendell set the horses to a steady pace, and the other travelers fell in line alongside the wagon train. Brooke lowered himself from the wagon as it startled into motion, and told the women he would be back later to check on his wife.
Then they walked. The man introduced as Marston led three ponies at the rear of the wagon train. He was not skilled at moving them. They gave him great grief, and he tugged their reins and poked at their muzzles with a thin switch. Brooke took pace to the right of the third wagon, nearest the back. None in the party seemed concerned with him. None spoke to one another, or sang any songs.
When they stopped, for water or for rest, he checked on his wife. She was on the edge of sleep for nearly two days, never fully in or out. She spoke to him, but he could not make sense of it. She told him that the earth had begged her for the child. That the earth had told her it wasn’t hers and she could not care for it. She had wanted to help the child, she assured him. She had set out to perform good. She was losing her mind as his was slowly coming back to him. His memories faded, his reflections on all he had done before and how it had led him here. He was more and more simply there. He watched the female members of the wagon train. He had many ideas about them, but kept them all to himself. One was either slow-witted, or had a damaged speech capacity. She spoke at a slant, from the corner of her mouth. She did not say much, but when she did, it was about the wind, or about her clothing. She chased down a rag as it was drawn several hundred feet from the caravan by the wind. She clutched it to her body. So far off, she looked like a scraggly tree. Wendell fired a shot into the air, which startled her and brought her running back toward them. Another woman, her sister or cousin, wore muddy clothes and often spoke with Wendell privately, in hushed tones. It was Brooke’s assumption that these two had conspired to mobilize the family. They seemed to carry the weight of the trip. They made the decisions for when to stop and when to go, when to set up camp. Brooke’s best guess was that the woman was Wendell’s daughter. She seemed roughly twenty-five years his younger, and there was nothing in their body language to suggest they were intimate.
The woman caring for Brooke’s wife introduced herself as Wendell’s sister. They’d made camp after several hours of slowly working their way back in the direction from which Brooke had first started out. They were headed back to the corpses of the men who had captured him, the stagecoach that had once been his transport.