Where the Lost Wander

Where the Lost Wander (2020) is a historical romance by Amy Harmon set on the Oregon Trail in 1853. The novel is told in the alternating perspectives of Naomi May, a young widow embarking with her family on a perilous journey westward, and John Lowry, a half-Pawnee man with a troubled past. Along the way, Naomi and John develop a profound connection as they navigate the challenges and tragedies of the trail. A New York Times bestselling author, Harmon has also authored What the Wind Knows and A Girl Called Samson, among others.

This guide is based on the Kindle edition.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions of death, child death, animal death, rape, racism, and sexual content. The source text’s depiction of Indigenous characters may also be offensive to some readers.

Language note: This novel uses the term “Indians” and anti-Indigenous slurs to refer to Indigenous Americans. The study guide reproduces this language only in quotations; elsewhere, it refers to Indigenous people.

Plot Summary

The Prologue, set in 1853, introduces one of its two protagonists, newly married Naomi May Lowry, who is en route to California in a wagon train. Naomi is traveling with her parents and brothers as she waits for her new husband, John Lowry, and her brother Wyatt to catch up to the train in the wagon John has just purchased for himself and Naomi. 

When a wagon wheel breaks, the family must lag behind the rest of the train. Their friends the Binghams stop as well, since Mrs. Bingham is about to deliver a child. Naomi’s brother Will accidentally shoots a member of a Shoshoni band with a bow and arrow, bringing the wrath of the band’s warriors upon the two families. Two of her younger brothers are able to hide, but five adults, including Naomi’s parents and brother Warren, are murdered, and Naomi and her baby brother Wolfe are taken captive.

Chapter 1 goes back in time to May 1853, and the rest of the novel is told in alternating viewpoints by Naomi and John Lowry. A man in his mid-twenties of mixed white and Pawnee heritage, John was raised by his Pawnee mother. When he was eight, his dying mother brought him to live with his white father and stepmother. John meets Naomi, who was recently widowed at the age of 19, in May 1853 in St. Joseph, Missouri. The town is a popular jumping-off place for those traveling over the Oregon Trail to points west. Naomi’s father, William May, has purchased several of the mules that John breeds in the business he shares with his father. Through this connection, the Mays learn that John has been hired to travel with their wagon train and help with its animals until they reach Fort Kearny, Nebraska.

There are 40 families in 50 wagons in the train, which is led by Grant Abbott, the brother of John’s stepmother. The trip is uneventful at first, although the emigrants hear rumors of cholera along the trail. Naomi, who is impulsive and strong-willed, takes advantage of a rainstorm to do the family laundry. Intrigued with Naomi, John helps her. They continue talking and learning more about each other, and one night they kiss. John pushes her away afterward, and Naomi accuses him of seeing too much of a difference between them because of his mixed heritage. When he says cultures don’t mix, “like having fins but trying to live on land,” she retorts, “So be a turtle” (59).

A talented artist, Naomi shares some of the portraits she has done on the trail with John. Mrs. May gives birth to baby Wolfe, who is named by Naomi. Cholera catches up to the wagon train and several people die, including Warren’s wife. They reach Fort Kearny, and John tells Naomi he is going on to California with the train at Abbott’s request.

John falls ill with cholera, and Naomi nurses him. His animals get loose, likely set free by Naomi’s former father-in-law, who holds a grudge against John because of Naomi’s interest in him. He must negotiate with Pawnee men who have claimed the loose animals as their own, and he gives them his horse and mule as a reward. Naomi promises to find another horse for him somehow, and he teases her for being stubborn. Each admits they want to know the other better, and John begins to think seriously of asking Naomi to marry him.

The emigrants encounter a band of Dakotah Sioux, who want to trade their ponies for John’s male breeding donkey. He refuses, and Naomi, after asking for paint, paints a design on their chief’s shield. She says she will paint more shields in exchange for a horse, but the deal goes sour when the chief wants Naomi as part of the bargain. John again negotiates carefully, saving Naomi. She says she isn’t his to trade, but she is his.

At Fort Laramie, Naomi sets up a barter business with the Indigenous wives of the French fur traders who live just outside the fort’s walls. She paints for them, and they give her numerous gifts, including a goat. One of the wives turns out to be the sister of the Sioux chief, and with her help, Naomi trades all the gifts except the goat for two of the chief’s horses. She gives them to John.

The wagon train reaches the halfway point on the journey, and one night Naomi asks John to marry her. He tells her not to act impulsively, hurting her feelings. She avoids him after this until they reach South Pass in the Continental Divide. They apologize to each other, and John proposes marriage. He says they will marry at Fort Bridger, where he will buy a wagon for the two of them.

The train reaches a dividing point where about half the wagons leave Abbott’s group, heading for Oregon. As the remaining wagons camp by the Big Sandy River, John watches as a Shoshoni baby is swept away in the waters. He rescues the baby and learns that the mother is Hanabi, who was once a servant in his stepmother’s household and was like a sister to him. Her husband is the chief of her band.

John goes ahead to Fort Bridger to buy a wagon, but it must be slowly assembled from parts of abandoned wagons. They meet Hanabi’s husband, Chief Washakie, who is deeply grateful for the rescue of his baby. John and Naomi marry at the fort, helped by the wife of an influential fur trader who offers the couple her own room for their wedding night. They consummate the marriage blissfully.

Naomi’s brother Wyatt stays behind at the fort to help with John’s animals while the wagon is built, and the train goes on ahead. At this point, the story catches up with the Prologue. William May’s wagon wheel breaks and Mrs. Bingham goes into labor. The incensed Shoshoni attack the emigrants and take Naomi and baby Wolfe captive. John and Wyatt come upon the scene and find Webb and Will. John buries the bodies and sends the three boys off in his wagon to catch up with the train as he goes on horseback to find Naomi.

Naomi is dragged to a Shoshoni camp, where Wolfe is pried from her arms and given to a woman named Weda who recently lost a baby. Naomi is looked after by a woman who calls herself Beeya and her sullen son, Magwich. John stumbles upon Hanabi and Washakie’s village and asks for their help rescuing Naomi. Washakie says there is a gathering of all the Shoshoni coming up, and he is sure that Pocatello, the chief whose band took Naomi, will be there. Both groups of Shoshoni, one with Naomi and the other with John, head to the Gathering Place.

John learns that Naomi is now Magwich’s woman. At a council meeting, Washakie asks for Naomi and Wolfe’s return and explains that Naomi is John’s wife. Weda’s husband, however, demands to keep the baby in place of his brother, the man whom Will accidentally killed with his bow and arrow. Naomi is brought to the meeting for questioning, and the council decides Weda and her husband, Biagwi, should keep Wolfe but Naomi should be returned to John.

Naomi at first shrinks from John, ashamed because Magwich has raped her. He tells her neither of them has anything to be ashamed of. She cannot leave Wolfe, and she and John build a dwelling in Washakie’s camp for the winter so she can hear news of the baby occasionally. However, before winter is over, Weda and Biagwi bring Wolfe to Naomi. He is fatally ill and dies in her arms. Naomi is finally free to find her remaining brothers together with John.

An Epilogue tells how she and John find the three May boys living with Abbott in a California gold mining town. John starts a mule business, and Naomi delivers their first child.