Crossing the Wide Forever Read online

  Table of Contents

  Synopsis

  By the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  About the Author

  Books Available from Bold Strokes Books

  Crossing the Wide Forever

  Cody Walsh leaves Arkansas for California. Lured by stories of opportunity, even for women, Cody disguises herself as a man and prepares for the arduous journey west.

  Lillie Ellis leaves New York to accept a post as a schoolteacher on the frontier near a small homestead she just inherited from her uncle. Lillie’s ultimate desire is to become a painter, and she hopes the Kansas frontier will offer her the freedom to follow that dream. In the nineteenth century, a young woman has few options in the East that don’t revolve around marriage and motherhood. Lillie is interested in neither.

  Cody rescues Lillie after a chance encounter in Independence, Missouri. Their destinies and desires become entwined as they face the perils of the untamed West. Despite their differences, they discover that love’s uncharted frontier is not for the weak in spirit or the faint of heart.

  Crossing the Wide Forever

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  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

  Crossing the Wide Forever

  © 2017 By Missouri Vaun. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-852-8

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  First Edition: June 2017

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Cindy Cresap

  Production Design: Susan Ramundo

  Cover Illustration By Paige Braddock

  Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])

  By the Author

  All Things Rise

  The Time Before Now

  The Ground Beneath

  Whiskey Sunrise

  Valley of Fire

  Birthright

  Crossing the Wide Forever

  The Adventures of Nash Wiley

  Death by Cocktail Straw

  One More Reason to Leave Orlando

  Smothered and Covered

  Privacy Glass

  Writing as Paige Braddock

  Jane’s World: The Case of the Mail Order Bride

  Acknowledgments

  It was hard not to get lost in the research for this book once I started it. Not technical data or anything like that, but rather the personal stories of the individuals that migrated west during the mid 1800s. I hadn’t realized until I started this book how many first person diaries were available. Many of the story details that might seem farfetched, like the electrical storm on the plains, or the ghoulish skulls of long dead buffalo, are taken from first person accounts of similar events.

  When I first began writing, I didn’t realize how many women dressed as men to migrate west. There were lots of reasons women gave for disguising themselves as men. Some were fleeing abusive marriages or hoping to avoid an unwanted marriage arrangement. Some women found themselves in situations where they had to feed and care for their children alone. Women had two options—get married or resort to prostitution. The third, more radical option, was to dress as a man and find work. Only men had the luxury of finding decent paying jobs on the frontier.

  One of my sources for accounts of women who dressed as men was a book by Peter Boag titled Re-Dressing America’s Frontier Past. Boag’s book contains stories of both men and women who cross-dressed. I can only assume that some women cross-dressed so that they could marry the woman they loved, as many of them did. Sex was not viewed as binary at the time, and there was no real word for homosexuality, so newspaper stories about these cross-dressing women rarely make any mention of sexual orientation or the role that may have played in the woman’s decision to dress in masculine clothing. Sometimes the undertaker was the only one to discover the true identity of many of these women when he prepared their body for burial. It’s interesting to view these stories through the lens of that time.

  Winslow Homer’s work as a watercolorist during the mid 1800s provided some of the basis for Lillie’s path as a landscape painter. Lillie’s experiences as a woman in the male dominated field of art were inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe’s early life. O’Keeffe overcame many obstacles to succeed as a painter. Some of what she had to say about art critics and how they interpreted her work through the lens of her sex is heartening to read, especially if you’ve ever received a bad review.

  I’d like to thank my beta readers Alena, Vanessa, and my good pal, D. Jackson Leigh. It would be impossible to strengthen a narrative without the feedback and insights of first draft readers. I’d especially like to thank Jenny for pressing me to keep the story in the voice of the period. Words or concepts that seem too modern would inevitably have pulled readers out of the story. I appreciate all of Jenny’s attention to those details.

  Many thanks to the Bold Strokes Books team that brought this book to life, Radclyffe, Sandy, Ruth, Cindy, and Sheri. It’s great to work with all of you and I learn more with each book you shepherd through the process.

  Sincere gratitude to my wife, Evelyn, for letting me read sections of the manuscript aloud to her. Evelyn’s ear for subtlety strengthens the voice of every character. And finally, thanks to my great-great-grandmother, the original Missouri Vaun, for loaning me the best pen name ever.

  Dedication

  For Evelyn

  Chapter One

  The first strike of the whip across her back forced Cody to her knees. If pain had a color, this was glowing red—like grabbing a hot poker from the coals with your bare hand. And then a second strike came, and a third in rapid succession.

  Her father’s breathing was labored. During these fits, which had become more frequent, he looked as if he were fighting some demon she couldn’t see. Or maybe he was enraged that he’d been pulled out of his alcohol-induced haze and forced to acknowledge his sad life for a few minutes. Or possibly he was trying to strike a blow at God almighty. It was anyone’s guess, ’cause
he sure never talked about what had turned him against his own kin.

  Cody rose up just enough to let her younger sister, Ellen, crawl out from under the cover her body provided. She ran for the barn. By the fifth strike Cody was rigid with rage. There was a point when enough was enough. Every time he’d taken his riding crop to her she’d said to herself it was for the last time, but then she’d get scared to leave. She also didn’t want to leave her sister behind, and then she’d get lulled into thinking it wouldn’t happen again because he’d promise such things. She’d feel sorry for him, so she’d stay.

  But it did always happen again.

  Meanness had become her father’s stock-in-trade the past few years. She could no longer remember the man he used to be. And the liquor just made it worse.

  She’d seen him go to the rocking chair on the porch with his pint jar of corn whiskey a few hours earlier. She’d watched from across the skinned, hardened clay of the yard as Ellen had run out the door and knocked the jar over by accident. That was all it took to send him into a rabid frenzy, like a mad dog. Ellen made it only twenty feet from the porch before he was on her. He kicked her to the ground with a boot to her backside, ready to lay into her with his riding whip.

  Cody put herself between the old man and Ellen—like she’d done so many times before. He didn’t seem to care who was taking his licks. He’d probably already forgotten who kicked the jar over in the first place.

  As she felt the sting of the whip across her shoulders, something inside Cody snapped.

  This wasn’t the first time she’d thought of killing him.

  More than one night, she’d lain on her thin cot, looked up at the unfinished plank ceiling, and conjured plans for his demise. She’d considered slipping into his room and smothering him with his own pillow. She thought of sneaking up behind him with a shovel and bashing his head in. The solid thump of the steel meeting his thick skull was satisfying to imagine.

  She’d even considered letting loose a copperhead in his room at night, knowing the snake would likely seek out the warmth of his body. But she’d done none of it, and she wasn’t even sure why. Maybe because he was her father and the Good Book said to honor thy father. Maybe it was as simple and misguided as that, because she knew she didn’t love him, not in the way a daughter should love her father.

  Cody could see his shadowed silhouette on the ground. When he recoiled for another blow, with his arm high above his head, she lunged at him and caught him right in the gut with her shoulder. He fell backward and Cody with him. She’d hit him under his ribcage knocking the wind out of him as they hit the hard-packed dirt with a thump.

  She scrambled off him and started across the yard, but he didn’t follow as she’d expected. Cody turned and considered going back to check on him as he lay motionless, the braided rawhide whip dangling loosely from his limp hand.

  Ellen peeked out from one of the barn stalls, from behind the rough sided buckboard, but Cody signaled for her to stay back. Slowly, Cody approached her father, ready at any moment to take flight, but he was out cold. He’d fallen back and struck his head on a rock. She could see the red smear across the stone from three feet away. She watched him long enough to see his chest rise and fall as he took a breath. He wasn’t dead.

  Cody stood frozen and considered what to do next. She surveyed the place she’d called home. She knew it was now anything but.

  Her father had seen her mother laid into an early grave. He’d run off her two older brothers in a fit of angry shouts, leaving only Cody and Ellen. Cody had only stayed because of her sister.

  The unpainted plank boards of the three-room frame house hung slack and ashy, the vertical struts visible in the dark gaps between the wood siding. The worn porch boards rose and fell unevenly from long exposure to weather. The area around the house was mostly bare clay. The grass beat back from the decrepit building as if the earth itself had been scorched.

  The barn looked as sad and run-down as the house. Cody rotated as her father’s horse, Shadow, stomped in the heat, sending up a small dust cloud. Shadow was as tight against the railing of the enclosure as he could be, trying to wedge himself into the small bit of shade afforded by an overhanging oak just outside the fence.

  Cody decided right then to leave. There’d been a flyer on the corkboard outside the mercantile in Batesville advertising for wagon trains heading west from Missouri. Free land. That’s where her brothers, Adam and James, had headed off to, and she should’ve probably gone with them.

  They’d talked of traveling to California for months out of their father’s earshot before they actually left. There was lots of work there, plenty to go around, or so their letter said. They’d ended up with a timber outfit north of San Francisco. Northeast Arkansas in 1856 had nothing to offer her. There’d have to be more opportunities in the West for women like her than there were here, women who’d rather ride and hunt than cook and clean. She could pass for a fella if she needed to, if safety called for it. She had no curves to speak of, and she was tall, at the high end of five feet. She’d always kept her hair short too, which had sorely disappointed her mother, God rest her soul.

  Her brothers had ridden west two years ago, and every other day she regretted her decision to stay. But she had Ellen to think of, and at the time, Cody had been only sixteen. She was eighteen now and figured she could take care of herself.

  She motioned for Ellen to follow her to the house. Ellen rushed to Cody and clung to her, glancing sideways to where their father lay.

  “Is he dead?”

  “No, he isn’t dead. He’s just sleepin’. Get your things. We’re going to Aunt Hannah’s.” Cody hustled Ellen toward the house. “Hurry.”

  “For how long?”

  “Forever. We’re not coming back here.” Beside her, Ellen let out a whimper.

  “Not ever?”

  “No, not ever. There’s nothing for us here. Now hurry, before he wakes up.” Cody pulled a worn flour sack from under her narrow bunk and shoved a few things into it, while Ellen piled her things on the bed on the other side of the small room.

  “Bring your stuff over here.” Cody spread a blanket on the bed, and when Ellen settled her things in the middle of it, Cody tied the four corners to bundle everything inside. Including Ellen’s threadbare rag doll.

  She reached for the pistol and belt that hung on a wooden peg next to the door. She’d already put a small box of ammunition from her daddy’s nightstand into the sack with her clothes and some dried meat and yesterday’s cornbread. She bent to lift the loose board inside his closet. There was a wooden box that contained money, letters, and other small family heirloom bits. She took two-thirds of the money from the box: a third for her and a third to leave with Aunt Hannah for Ellen. Twelve dollars split three ways wasn’t much, but it was all the inheritance she was ever going to get, so she was taking it now.

  She considered other items in the box. A silver brush that had belonged to her mother and her mother’s wedding ring—a simple gold band with a small ruby stone set into it. Cody held the ring in the palm of her hand for a minute then tucked it into her pocket. Then she reached for the letter from her brothers. If she made it to California, this would be her only chance of finding them. She got to her feet, leaving the board upturned so that he’d know what she’d done.

  They cut a wide path around her father as they went to the barn. Cody saddled Shadow while Ellen nervously fidgeted. She hung the gun belt over the saddle horn and was just about to climb up on Shadow, but there was one more thing she wanted to do.

  With tentative steps, she approached her father. He didn’t move, even when she nudged his leg with the dusty toe of her boot. Satisfied that he was still out, she reached over and took the whip from his hand.

  Shadow shook his mane as Cody settled into the saddle. She reached down and pulled Ellen up behind her. She tugged the reins, and Shadow turned and headed north toward the Missouri border.

  Chapter Two

  Lillie Wins
ton Ellis folded the quilt around the framed photo of her parents so that it would be protected from jostling inside the trunk. She’d had to be judicious with her packing, limiting herself to only two trunks and then two small suitcases. She turned slowly in the center of the room. Had she forgotten any items that she’d regret leaving behind when she reached Kansas? She assumed small reminders of her childhood would likely bring her great comfort once she was out west, far from home and family.

  As she shut the hinged lid of the velvet lined trunk, she heard a soft knock.

  “Come in.” Her cousin Caroline was just two years younger than Lillie and looked enough like her to pass for a sister. They both had auburn hair with hints of red when lit by the sun, and both had brown eyes. Lillie was a bit more slender than Caroline but probably only because she was a couple of inches taller. Caroline’s dress brushed the floor lightly as she crossed the room; the crinoline underneath caused the skirt to sweep in front of her as she moved.

  “You’ve been up here packing for hours. Let’s go for a walk in the park.” Caroline leaned against the high foot post of Lillie’s bed. She fingered the fabric draped around the polished mahogany bed frame. The drape reached from the canopy to the floor at all four corners of the bed.

  “It’s not easy to pack one’s entire life into two small trunks.”

  “You could always just come stay with me in Philadelphia instead. That would require a lot less preparation and would no doubt be much more fun.” Caroline smiled.

  “You are probably right, cousin. But where is your sense of adventure?”

  “My sense of adventure extends as far as a stroll through the park to the pond to feed the ducks. And maybe a stop for lemonade. Yes, my sense of adventure definitely involves lemonade.”