Oregon Trail

I - April 6, 1841

We have never been a rich family, but the dealer promises riches. Selling the slave, as dangerous as it is, might bring us hope for the better. Once we sell the slave, gold, land, and goods will be ours. Or so the dealer says. Father came back from a long night, his brows furrowed and his face pale. He was shaking hysterically, with what emotion, I couldn't tell. His normally dark skin was flushed white.

The announcement came on the morrow.

"I've found a dealer," he explained. "He promises us gold, land, medicine, whatever we so desire. Yet he just asks for a simple trade." Tomas paused, relishing the silence. "I have decided to sell the slave to him across the country, in Oregon Territory."

"Oregon Territory?" Sanda questioned in that silky, sweet voice I knew so well. Her eyes were narrowed. Likely she had some doubts about the idea, but she knew not to oppose my father. "Nyila--"

"To hell with Nyila," my father brusquely replied.

"She's six!"

"And Chaestar's crippled," he continued. "Only one man in the family working? We're going to be in the Devil's pit before long."

Now tears were streaming down Mother's face. "Do all three of my beloved children have something so wrong with them that we have to leave our home?"
Tomas slammed a fist on the table, his face blossoming into a red, red rose. "It's for the better. Nyila has no education here, and she's well past five. Ever since Chae's arm came off in the accident--"

"Is this all about me?" Chaestar gruffly asked, fingering the stump where his arm used to be. His face was strong, muscled, lean, a handsome face for a man of eighteen.

"Going to Oregon is for the better, for all of us," Father repeated, malice creeping on tiptoes into his voice. "Nyila needs an education."

"And what does Chae need?"

"He needs to work--"

"And I'm never going to be able to do that, can I?" Chaestar replied, his face still, lips pursed, mouth silent.

"Then it's settled. We're going to Oregon." Tomas pushed himself away from the long trestle table and stalked off towards his workshop.

Chae was the next to move from the table, followed by Sanda and me. Nyila had only seen six years, though her seventh was quickly approaching. She wasn't at the table, likely in her room in bed. All of us knew she wouldn't truly understand what going to Oregon meant.

"Sometimes Tomas scares me," Chaestar roughly replied, walking off towards his small, compact room. Sanda, without saying a word, slowly drifted, like the angels from the family she was married to, across the cracked wooden floor towards the place we all called the 'library'. I followed her. Reading could always clear my thoughts.

"I think sometimes Tomas scares me as well," Sanda was murmuring as I fell in step with her. "And he's your namesake."

I quickly tried to gather my thoughts. Everything Father had just said was rushing through my mind on swift hooves. "I..."

"What do you think about it?"
"About moving to Oregon, you mean?"

Sanda stopped in her tracks, pulling out a thick, leafy book from the shelves nearby. The room was large and drafty, ravens squealing on the rafters above. The room was where Sanda slept, in truth, but she slept more with Nyila than not these days. Tomas slept in the grand bedroom, without the grand, while I slept in the library in the small, scuffed bed. When I slept, all I could hear was the chirps of crickets, the pounding of iron on wood from the workshop, the sound of ferries pushing off from the docks, the sound of...