Where the Lost Wander

Chapter 9 continues in John’s point of view as he relates that Wyatt, while scouting for a good camping place, has seen a band of Dakotah Sioux already camped on the best grass around. The wagons pass by the Dakotah, who look on without fear, and break half a mile away. Soon they are approached by a handful of the men. Their chief, whom John calls Black Paint, wears war paint. Another speaks Pawnee and can interpret for John.

The visitors try to trade their ponies for John’s remaining donkey, but he refuses. Naomi asks Black Paint if he has any more war paint, and when he sets it in front of her, she draws a design on his shield. When the others want their shields decorated, Naomi says she will paint all of them in exchange for a horse. Knowing what she is up to, John gives them a knife as a gift and asks them to leave.

In the morning, the entire group arrives. They want Naomi to paint for them in exchange for a horse and present her with pots of paint in various colors. Then Black Paint tells John that, as part of the exchange, Naomi will also have to live with him.

Black Paint summons a Pawnee girl and offers her in exchange for Naomi, but John says Naomi is not his to trade and is too valuable to her father. Finally Black Paint says that white women are not good “squaws” and departs. John relates the exchange to Naomi, who says that she may not be his to trade, but she is his.

The Dakotah reach Fort Laramie before the wagon train, pitching their tipis close enough to its walls to conduct trading. It is on the south side of the Platte, and the emigrants don’t want to cross the river with their wagons again. The men, including John, cross alone to get supplies. He buys food, a new knife, and paper, then begins buying gifts for the Mays: Paper and pencils, a dress, and some moccasins for Naomi; a bow and arrows for Webb and Will, a cradleboard for Wolfe, a new hat for Wyatt, and candy to share with Warren and the others.

Back at camp, Naomi and Wyatt visit with the French traders’ Indigenous wives and children, whose lodges are also outside the fort’s walls. Naomi sketches for them in return for goods such as a blanket. One of the gifts is a goat.

Black Paint appears with one of his men, a mule, and two horses. He tells the crowd to leave and says the two horses are for Naomi. In turn, she gives him all the items she has collected in barter except the goat. After he leaves, she explains to John that Black Paint’s sister is one of the fur traders’ wives and that Naomi arranged the horse trade with her. She says she will give John the horses but would like to ride one of them occasionally.

The train continues on through the foothills of the Black Hills Mountains, John riding his new horse. Naomi names the other horse Red Paint and the goat, Gert.

The emigrants are happy to leave the Platte River behind, although the road ahead goes through 10 miles of desert. They see numerous possessions abandoned to lighten wagon loads and oxen that have died from the strain. One of Pa’s own oxen dies of alkali poisoning. They replace him with two of John’s mules and continue on until they reach a creek.

The monolithic Independence Rock, which they reach on July 10, is the halfway point on the journey. They reach the Sweetwater River, a chance to do laundry and wash. There, they celebrate the wedding between Adam Hines and the deacon’s daughter, Lydia. Homer Bingham fiddles, and Naomi dances with her brothers and the groom.

Naomi finds John in the shadows and goes to dance with him. He touches her face, and she presses against him and kisses him. She tells him she needs him to marry her, thinking of what a poor lover Daniel had been. He tells her to think, not rely on her feelings. When she asks him what he thinks about, he replies that he thinks about his “place in the world” and what will happen when they reach California and she decides she can “do a whole lot better than John Lowry” (159).

Naomi counters by saying there is nobody better, and John accuses her of acting impulsively. He says that “time thinks for us” (160) and will one day deliver a reality to them that is more powerful than feelings. He stayed with the wagon train because he wants Naomi, but he wants her to be sure about him and to know what her choices are before she commits to him. She retorts that she is too proud to beg him.

The perspective shifts to John, who reflects that he has only known Naomi for two months but he has never been more alive. She has been avoiding him, and he knows he hurt her.

Chapter 11 continues in John’s point of view as he reflects on all the languages he has picked up in his life from various people, some in the employ of his father and Jennie: not just English and Pawnee but also Omaha, Potawatomi, Kaw, Sioux, and Shoshoni. However, he can’t talk to Naomi, because she won’t talk to him.

The emigrants encounter their first snow as they walk through mountain canyons. As they go up one hill, the rope connected to Adam Hines’s wagon breaks and the wagon crashes. William offers them the use of Warren’s wagon. Adam yokes his oxen to the wagon, freeing John from driving his mules, which had been helping to pull it.

They reach South Pass, the lowest point of the Continental Divide. Oregon Territory lies beyond it, but they still have 800 miles to go. Naomi goes up a bluff to see the view, and Winifred May asks John if he is going to follow her and if he loves her. He says he wants to marry Naomi, but he doesn’t want to make her life harder.

Winifred says the hardest thing about life is “knowing what matters and what doesn’t” (169), for if nothing matters there is no point and if everything does then there is no purpose. She says to find the “firm ground” between these two ways of being. John again recalls Jennie’s words, that the pain of love is worth it. He goes up the bluff to find Naomi.

She rebuffs John at first, but after she allows him to kiss her, he knows he has been forgiven. She tells him that it has been too painful to look at him and then apologizes for her coldness. He proposes and says they will marry when they reach Fort Bridger. He plans to buy a wagon of their own for the rest of the journey. They kiss and declare their love for each other.

The point of view switches to Naomi. John has asked William May for Naomi’s hand in marriage, and after questioning his daughter, William agrees. The train reaches the Parting of the Ways, where one road leads to Oregon and the other to California. Twenty-two of the families, including the Mays, Caldwells, and Binghams, take a longer, safer route to Fort Bridger called the Bridger Loop, led by Abbott, and 18 take a shortcut.