Crossing the Wide Forever Read online

  Lillie laughed. “Okay, I suppose I do need a break. My brain is tired and I feel as if I’m forgetting something important. I can probably use a rest.”

  “Come on, we can run through what you’ve packed as we walk.”

  Caroline followed Lillie down the wide staircase to the foyer on the first floor. Lillie reached for a small parasol from the pedestal near the front door. One of the household maids watched from the adjacent room. She suspected the staff was all atwitter about the drama that had unfolded in the Ellis family ever since news of Lillie’s departure was met with the pleas from her mother for her to stay.

  “Mary, if Mother asks, tell her Caroline and I went for a turn in the park.”

  “Yes, Miss Lillie.” Mary stood in the small sitting room with a duster poised midair. Her white apron was smudged all across the front. Lillie’s mother would likely have a comment about that. Mrs. Ellis was a stern matron of the house when it came to cleanliness and appearance, and she was an equally strong advocate for her three daughters when the need called for it.

  Lillie’s younger sisters, Emily and Sarah, were no doubt driving their mother to distraction at this very moment. They’d gone dress shopping as soon as the shops had opened. Lillie and Caroline would likely return from the park to find her mother propped up with tea and cake in an attempt to recover from the outing.

  Lillie pulled Caroline along by the hand down the front steps. They waited for a carriage to pass and then crossed the street from the stately row of brownstones into the grassy green haven of the park.

  Women in spring dresses with light shawls around their shoulders spoke softly to one another. They walked arm-in-arm as they crossed the manicured lawns between the brick paths swept clean of leaves or other debris. A gentleman clad in a dark suit tipped his hat as Lillie and Caroline passed.

  The park was awash in the bright yellow-green of spring, and flowers were just beginning to bloom. Clusters of daffodils lined the walkway. Lillie wondered if such lush sanctuaries existed in Kansas or if the frontier was nothing more than a dry straw grass prairie. She couldn’t quite picture it, although she’d read every newspaper story she could get her hands on about frontier settlements to the west. Ever since the moment she found out her uncle had deeded her his homestead.

  Her mother had been furious when the news of her inheritance arrived at their home in New York. Lillie’s uncle Winston, her mother’s brother, had for many years been maligned by his more conservative family as a reckless wanderer and dreamer. Winston Gage had taken the government at their word when they offered homesteads to settlers in Kansas and territories to the west. He’d left in search of destiny and a fortune on the frontier.

  Maybe it was that Lillie Winston Ellis was named after him, or maybe because she shared his love of adventure, but Winston obviously felt Lillie was a kindred spirit. So when he met with an untimely death from pneumonia he’d left his small Kansas homestead to Lillie.

  Even while she mourned the loss of her older brother, Lillie’s mother had cursed him for tempting Lillie away. Lillie’s father owned a shipping company and was currently detained in a port somewhere along the Virginia coast. He would not return for another three weeks. Lillie didn’t think it would be prudent to wait that long to leave. Everything she’d read cautioned against traveling across the prairies too late in the year. She’d penned a very long letter to her father, hoping that since they shared some of the same yearning for travel that he would understand her need to depart before his return.

  Lillie’s father had allowed her to nurture a spirit of independence not often granted to young women. He may even have encouraged it. As a man living in a house with four women, maybe he secretly enjoyed that Lillie sometimes shared his interest in travel, politics, and geography.

  Having turned twenty-one just three months prior to her uncle’s death, Lillie was of the age to make her own decisions. And against her mother’s persuasive arguments, she’d chosen to travel to the Kansas frontier.

  “Are you afraid?”

  “What?” Lillie had been lost in thought.

  “Afraid? Are you at all afraid to travel so far alone?” Caroline squeezed her arm and leaned into the shade of the parasol that Lillie carried. They neared the pond and took a bench seat to watch the ducks paddle about.

  “Maybe I should be more apprehensive, but the truth is I’m excited.”

  “I’ve read there are lots of eligible young men on the frontier. The odds will be in your favor.” Caroline smiled mischievously. She was utterly distracted by the opposite sex. She attended every dance she was invited to, and her youthful beauty and grace assured that her dance card was always filled.

  Lillie didn’t want to dampen Caroline’s search for romance, but a husband was the last thing on Lillie’s mind. She could think of nothing worse than a man to tend to or make choices for her.

  In 1856, the sphere allotted to women was defined by the activities and functions that men thought appropriate for them. Those roles were typically subordinate to men. A young woman had few options in the East that didn’t revolve around marriage and motherhood, and at the moment, Lillie, much to her mother’s exasperation, was interested in neither.

  But maybe she’d find men on the frontier more intriguing. The eligible young men in New York seemed occupied only with the acquisition of money, and Lillie found all the bragging about their business acumen boring at best. Never did a young man ask what she planned to do with her life. Either they had no interest in finding out or they assumed she had no aspirations beyond wifedom and motherhood.

  “If the men are as dashing and roguishly handsome as I imagine then you must write to me straightaway and I’ll come join you.”

  “I think you’ve clearly been reading too many western novellas.” Pulp stories populated newsstands everywhere, but Lillie assumed that most of them were embellished for narrative effect.

  “And I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see your name on the cover of one. Lillie Winston Ellis and the tales of the wild frontier.” Caroline swept her hand through the air as if she were envisioning the title on a playbill poster.

  “I’ll be sure and keep a diary in case the opportunity to publish my memoir presents itself.”

  “You’d better.” Caroline bumped her shoulder lightly. “And don’t forget to write me and describe all the handsome men you meet along the way.”

  Chapter Three

  Cody stoked the campfire and sparks rose into the night sky like fireflies. Beside her, Ellen nibbled a wedge of cornbread and pulled the blanket more tightly around her narrow shoulders. Ellen’s face was smudged from dirt mixed with tears. Cody sank back against the saddle, propped on one elbow.

  It was only about twenty miles to Aunt Hannah’s place near Davidson, but they’d started late in the day and only made it about eight miles before dark overtook them.

  “Do you think Papa is gonna be mad when he wakes up?” Ellen sounded small and far away even though she was sitting right next to Cody.

  “I suppose so.” Cody stared at the fire.

  “Will he whip us?”

  “No, he’s not gonna whip you any more.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause we aren’t goin’ back there. And if we aren’t there, we can’t get no whippin’.”

  “Do you think Aunt Hannah’s farm is still nice?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How long will we stay there?”

  “Not sure yet. We’ll have to wait and see.” Cody was trying to say as little as possible to Ellen.

  Ellen looked waifish and downright forlorn with her smudged face and hollowed cheeks highlighted by the firelight. Her ragged dress hung loose around her tiny frame, and the sleeves drooped over her stick slim arms. Ellen had cried off and on all afternoon so Cody was trying to get her to settle down and not be afraid.

  A child ought not be afraid of her own father.

  Fathers should protect their children, raise them up, and cherish them.

/>   “Come here.” Cody motioned for Ellen to curl up next to her.

  The saddle was at her back, and she’d used her linen sack of clothing as a pillow. Cody was still feeling the licks her father had given her with the lash so she was gingerly settled onto her side, allowing the painful welts on her back to cool. Ellen sidled over and spooned in front of Cody, facing the ebbing fire. Cody pulled her close and kissed her hair.

  “Did you have enough to eat?”

  Ellen nodded and pressed her tiny body tightly against Cody’s. She let Ellen keep the blanket. The night was cool but pleasant, and Ellen’s body heat would keep her warm enough.

  Cody lay quietly. Ellen’s breathing slowed as she drifted asleep. Cody watched the pulsing coals of the near-dead fire.

  Where was she going?

  West was a vague notion, and she wasn’t completely sure exactly what a journey to California would involve. Her only thought so far had been to get herself to St. Louis and then find passage upriver to Independence. Her brother had told her that was the jumping off spot for trails heading west. Her older brother, Adam, had been to St. Louis and back once, so she had an idea of how far that was. It would take at least seven or eight days of steady riding. She’d need more food to make that trip.

  She’d stolen her father’s horse, which he’d be plenty sore about, probably angrier than he would be about their leaving. Cody’s early childhood had been a happy one. How had things gone so wrong? She could see now that her mother was what kept everything together. Her mother was the thing that mattered most. Not money or schooling or religion, but maternal love had been the thing that had truly created a family.

  She’d never been so inconsolable as the night her mother had passed. Cody was eleven, and she remembered the night as if it were yesterday: the temperature of the room, the candle flickering at the bedside, her brothers standing at the foot of the bed, the whimpering cries from Ellen, the aching hole in her chest, and the gaunt, empty expression on her father’s tear-stained face.

  At first, it was probably grief that overtook him, and Cody didn’t fault him for it. She’d granted him months to come to terms with it, waiting for the man she’d known as her father to return, but he never did. The grief turned to depression and the depression turned to anger, a deep insatiable rage that nothing could temper except whiskey. And even that was only temporary.

  Cody had been grieving too, but there was no time for it because she’d been the only one left to care for Ellen. Maybe that’s what saved her. Ellen was only four at the time of her mother’s death and mostly immune to the sadness that overshadowed the house like the dark cloud that precedes a tornado. Her father’s cloud of angry sadness was just as dangerous as a twister; it just took longer to feel the destructive effects of it.

  A tear trailed down Cody’s cheek, and she squeezed her eyes shut against it. She was free and could plot her own course now. She hoped the ghost of her father’s sadness wouldn’t follow her west.

  *

  Lillie leaned back in her chair as plates from the evening meal were cleared and tea served. Her mother had hardly taken a breath during dinner as she’d used every opportunity to dissuade Lillie from tomorrow’s early morning departure.

  “How can you torture your mother in this way?” Her mother patted at her lips with her cloth napkin as a floral print china teacup was settled onto a saucer in front of her. With her father away, her mother sat at the head of the table and held court over Lillie, her sisters, and her cousin. Her mother’s face was more round than Lillie’s more delicate features. She resembled her father, while her sisters took more after her mother’s side of the family.

  “Mother, I don’t wish to torment you, but I will not change my mind. No matter how persuasive your argument.” Lillie rested her hands in her lap. “Please, let’s just have a pleasant evening. It’s Caroline’s last night in New York.” Caroline would be taking the train with Lillie the next morning as far as Philadelphia.

  “I wish your father were here. He’d talk some sense into your prideful head.”

  “Or not.”

  “Don’t be fresh with me, young lady.”

  “Yes, Mother. Sorry.”

  A delicate lemon layered cake was served, and the table fell quiet under its sweet frosted spell. Then Lillie’s youngest sister broke the silence. At sixteen, Emily was easily spooked by anything residing farther than a block from their house. In her mind, dastardly villains lurked around every corner in the city that surrounded their brownstone.

  “Do you suppose you’ll see Indians?”

  “I suppose I might.” Lillie sipped her tea. She attempted to sound calm so as not to incite her sister’s active imagination further.

  “Will you take Father’s pistol along just in case you do?”

  “Heavens no! She will do no such thing. No daughter of mine is going to carry a pistol.” Emily sheepishly glanced in her mother’s direction.

  Actually, Lillie had thought of taking a pistol, but she knew her mother wouldn’t even discuss it, and she wouldn’t take one of her father’s guns without his permission. But she assumed that once she reached the edge of civilized society a gun might be a very necessary thing to have. She’d have a certain amount of cash from her uncle’s estate for the procurement of supplies once she reached Missouri. Lillie had decided to deal with the gun question once she arrived in Independence.

  “I think Lillie would look just grand with a holster strapped to her hip like some lady outlaw.” Lillie frowned at Sarah, who at eighteen wasn’t afraid of anything. She knew Sarah was just joking to get more of a rise out of her mother, and it was working. Her mother swooned in the chair, the dark fabric of her long skirt spread out around her, and she fanned her plump red face with her napkin. She looked as if she might faint.

  “Will you be sure and keep a diary of sketches and send us a drawing of the first frontier savage you meet?” A grin spread across Sarah’s face as she watched her mother’s reaction to the request.

  “Oh Lord in heaven, deliver me!” Her mother howled, and Lillie was afraid she might actually slip from her chair as she slouched lower. Lillie stood quickly and stroked her mother’s wrist with her napkin that she’d just dipped in cool water.

  “Now, Mother, you must calm down. Sarah is only teasing.” Lillie glared at Sarah while her mother’s eyes were closed. “I’m sure I’ll keep a sketch diary of all the beautiful summer flowers on the prairie and no doubt the many lovely birds I’ll encounter.” She attempted to paint a much less frightening mental image for her excitable mother.

  Lillie loved to draw and paint. By age ten, she had decided to become an artist, and her father had arranged for her to receive private art instruction from a local watercolorist.

  Washington Square and Greenwich Village were the hubs of cultural life in New York City. Many of the artists of the Hudson River School had settled around Washington Square, and one of them, John Weathers, had been hired as Lillie’s painting tutor.

  The Hudson River School was an art movement, a group of landscape painters influenced by romanticism in Europe. The subjects for most of the paintings for which the movement was named depicted the Hudson River Valley and surrounding areas, including the Catskill, Adirondack, and the White Mountains.

  Initially, Lillie had been a diligent and ambitious student, but she’d abandoned the idea of pursuing a career as an artist several months earlier in frustration. She felt she could never distinguish herself as an artist within this derivative tradition that had formed the foundation of her art training. As a woman, she feared she would never be taken seriously as a painter and especially not doing work she considered unoriginal. She was willing to forsake the high-minded art scene in New York for room to breathe.

  Lillie reasoned that it was no wonder her work felt imitative. She’d never really been anywhere on her own. She’d never done anything that could be considered bold or courageous. Polite society fervently discouraged such behavior in young women.

>   Well-meaning critics had referred to her paintings as girlish and pretty. That description haunted her. On the frontier, might she find the opportunity to be both pretty and fearless? She hoped so.

  She’d carefully packed pigment and paper in the hopes that the western landscape would help her find her artistic voice.

  “Why don’t we move to the study and Sarah can read something?” Lillie was grateful to Caroline for the distraction.

  “Come along, Mother. We’ll get you settled in a more comfortable chair.”

  Chapter Four

  Cody saw a thin thread of smoke rising above the treetops before she actually laid eyes on Aunt Hannah’s cabin.

  They rode along the rutted dirt road for another half mile before the cabin came into view. The rustic structure was nestled in a grassy clearing, bordered on one side by thick woods and a small fenced enclosure on the other, between the dwelling and the barn.

  The cabin was built from oak logs and was about sixteen to eighteen feet square, its size likely being limited by the length of the log that could be carried by two men. The roof was made of split shingles, and pieces of shingle had been used to chink the spaces between the logs. A stone chimney was located at one of the gable ends, and a centered door stood at right angles to the ridgepole.

  There was a small animal enclosure that opened into the barn, a corncrib, and a smokehouse. But the thin trail of smoke Cody had seen was from the cabin’s chimney.

  Cody hadn’t seen her aunt since her cousin’s funeral, which had been nearly two years now. Cody’s cousin Charlie, who was born only three months ahead of her, had been taken with the fever. He was only sixteen when he passed.

  “Hello in the house,” Cody called from the saddle, keeping a respectable distance from the narrow, long porch.

  After a few minutes, the rough wooden door opened and Hannah peered out. “Who you be?”