Lilith
Copyright© 2025 by Megumi Kashuahara
Chapter 4: The Journey West
The morning they left Baltimore, the sky hung low and gray, heavy with the promise of rain that never came. Mary McDonald stood on the porch of the house—her house now—with Henry beside her, both of them wearing expressions that tried for cheerfulness but couldn’t quite hide the sorrow underneath.
“Ye’ll write to me, aye?” Mary called as Elias loaded the last trunk into Henry’s wagon for the trip to the station.
Lucy descended the porch steps, her throat tight. In the past three weeks, Mary had become more than a teacher—she’d become the closest thing to a mother Lucy had ever known. “Every month,” Lucy promised. “I’ll tell you everything about Kansas.”
Mary pulled her into a fierce embrace, her Scottish brogue thick with emotion. “Ye dinnae need me anymore, lass. Ye’re ready for this. Ye’re strong and capable, and ye’ll make a fine rancher’s wife.” She pulled back, gripping Lucy’s shoulders. “But if ye ever need anything—anything—ye write to me. This will always be yer home too.”
“I will,” Lucy whispered.
Elias approached, extending his hand to Mary. “Take good care of the place. It’s in excellent hands.”
Mary straightened, a flush of pride coloring her cheeks. “I’ll run it proper, Mr. Caine. Ye have my word.”
“I know you will. You’re not the housekeeper anymore, Mary. You’re the Mistress of this house. Act like it.” He smiled. “Hire whoever you need. Make it your own.”
Henry stepped forward, his weather-beaten face solemn as he shook Elias’s hand. “I won’t let you down, sir. The ranch will be here, prosperous and waiting, whenever you need it.”
“I’m counting on that. You’ve been with my family since I was a boy, Henry. I trust you completely.” Elias glanced at the house, at the land that had been his parents’ legacy. “This place will always matter. But Kansas ... Kansas is the future.”
“Then go build that future,” Henry said. “We’ll hold down the fort here.”
The ride to the station was quiet, each of them lost in their own thoughts. Lucy watched the familiar streets of Baltimore roll past, knowing she might never see them again. But when she looked at Elias beside her, his hand finding hers in the carriage, she felt no regret. Only anticipation.
The train journey from Baltimore to St. Joseph, Missouri took four days—four days of rattling tracks, coal smoke, and the steady westward progression that felt like destiny. They traveled as an engaged couple now, Lucy wearing her sapphire ring openly, and while there were still stares and whispers, Lucy found she cared less with each passing mile.
They were leaving the old world behind. Heading toward something new.
Elias spent the hours teaching her about homesteading—what to expect, what they’d need, how to build a life from scratch on the Kansas prairie. Lucy listened intently, asking questions, taking mental notes. She read to him from newspapers they bought at stations, her reading improving daily. They shared meals in the dining car, talked until the oil lamps dimmed, and slept sitting upright, her head sometimes finding its way to his shoulder.
The intimacy of travel—the forced proximity, the shared exhaustion, the quiet conversations in the dark—wove them together in ways that Baltimore’s careful courtship hadn’t quite achieved.
By the time they reached St. Joseph, Lucy felt like they’d already been married for years.
St. Joseph, Missouri was everything Baltimore wasn’t—raw, loud, chaotic, and utterly alive with the energy of the frontier. The streets teemed with prospectors, settlers, traders, and opportunists, all of them heading west with dreams as big as the prairie itself.
“This is where the real America begins,” Elias said as they stepped off the train into the dusty, bustling street. “Everything west of here is possibility.”
They found lodging at a modest hotel and spent the next two days outfitting themselves for the journey to Kansas. The general store was a revelation—walls lined with tools, seeds, fabric, weapons, everything a homesteader could possibly need.
Elias moved through the aisles with the efficiency of a man who’d planned this for months, selecting axes, saws, hammers, nails, rope, canvas, lanterns, oil. Lucy helped him choose seeds—corn, wheat, beans, squash—and practical supplies like flour, salt, sugar, coffee. She picked out cookware, dishes, medical supplies, fabric for sewing.
“You’ll need warmer clothes,” Elias said, guiding her to the ready-made garments. “Kansas winters are brutal.”
They bought wool cloaks, heavy skirts, flannel shirts, sturdy boots. Elias added cartridge ammunition for their pistols and his Spencer rifle.
“Are we expecting trouble?” Lucy asked quietly.
“I’m expecting to be prepared,” Elias replied. “The trail can be dangerous. Outlaws, mostly. The war left a lot of desperate men with guns and no conscience.”
Lucy touched the Smith & Wesson at her hip, concealed beneath her cloak. “Then it’s good I know how to shoot.”
The wagon itself was a beauty—a sturdy prairie schooner with a canvas cover stretched over wooden bows, large enough to carry all their supplies and provide shelter at night. Elias inspected it carefully, checking the axles, the wheels, the tongue.
“She’ll do,” he said finally, paying the dealer in cash.
The oxen were next—a team of six, massive and placid, with the steady patience necessary for the long pull west. Lucy watched as Elias and the drover fit them with yokes and chains, learning the mechanics of it, understanding that she’d need to know how to manage them too.
“They’re slower than horses,” Elias explained as they led the team to the wagon, “but they’re stronger and more reliable. They can eat prairie grass and pull this load all the way to Kansas without complaint.”
On their final day in St. Joseph, they met the wagon master of a train heading to Oregon—a grizzled man named Samuel Morris who looked them over with shrewd, assessing eyes.
“You’re the couple wanting to join us?” he asked.
“We are,” Elias said evenly. “We’re headed to Junction City, Kansas. I know that’s not your final destination, but we’d appreciate the safety of numbers for the first stretch.”
Morris glanced at Lucy, then back at Elias. “I’ll be straight with you, Caine. Some of the families won’t take kindly to ... your situation.”
“Some people never do,” Elias replied, his voice cool. “But my wife and I can handle ourselves. We won’t cause trouble, and we’ll pull our weight. That should be enough.”
Morris studied them for a long moment, then nodded slowly. “Fair enough. We leave at dawn. Stay with the train, follow the rules, and we’ll get you to Kansas alive. Can’t promise much more than that.”
“That’s all we’re asking.”
The wagon train consisted of eleven families—forty-three people in total, ranging from infants to grandparents, all of them chasing some version of the American dream westward. Most were farmers, a few were tradesmen, one family ran a dry goods business and planned to open a store in Oregon.
And most of them looked at Lucy and Elias with varying degrees of suspicion.
The first few days, they kept to themselves. Lucy and Elias drove their wagon near the back of the train, made their own camp each night, ate their own meals. The other families formed clusters—sharing food, swapping stories, letting their children play together. But when Lucy approached, conversations would stall. Mothers would call their children back.
“Don’t let it bother you,” Elias said one night as they sat by their small fire, the vast prairie darkness pressing in around them. “They’ll come around. Or they won’t. Either way, we’re going to Kansas.”
Lucy nodded, stirring the beans cooking over the fire. “I’m used to people treating me like I don’t belong.”
“You belong with me,” Elias said firmly. “That’s all that matters.”
She looked up at him, firelight playing across his face, and felt a surge of gratitude so profound it nearly brought tears to her eyes. “I know.”
The days fell into a rhythm. Up before dawn, break camp, harness the oxen, join the line of wagons stretching west. Ten to twelve miles a day, sometimes more if the trail was good, sometimes less if the weather turned or the terrain grew difficult. The prairie unfolded endlessly—rolling grasslands that stretched to the horizon, interrupted occasionally by stands of cottonwood trees marking creek beds.
Lucy learned to drive the oxen, her voice growing confident as she called out commands. She learned to read the sky for weather, to scout for water, to cook over an open fire. Elias taught her how to repair a wagon wheel, how to treat a lame ox, how to navigate by the stars.
At night, they slept in the wagon, the canvas cover offering some privacy. They lay side by side on blankets spread over their supplies, talking quietly until exhaustion pulled them under. Sometimes Elias would reach for her hand in the darkness, and Lucy would hold on tight, feeling safer than she’d ever felt in her life.
On the seventh day, they had their first encounter with the Arapaho.
The wagon train had stopped for the midday rest when the scouts rode back with news: a small band of Indians approaching from the north.
Panic rippled through the families. Mothers grabbed their children, men reached for rifles. Morris called for calm, but the tension was palpable.
“Stay in the wagons,” he ordered. “Let me talk to them first.”
Lucy watched from the driver’s seat as six Arapaho riders approached—dignified men on painted horses, their expressions neither hostile nor friendly, simply watchful. Morris rode out to meet them, and they spoke in a mixture of English and sign language.
After a few minutes, Morris rode back. “They want to trade. Steel goods—pots, knives, tools—for jerky, furs, and information about the trail ahead.”
“Is it safe?” one of the farmers called out.
“Safe as anything else out here,” Morris replied. “Arapaho are traders, not raiders. Anyone wants to trade, bring your goods forward.”
Elias glanced at Lucy. “Want to see what they have?”
“Yes,” Lucy said immediately.
They climbed down from the wagon, Elias carrying a small bundle of steel utensils and a hunting knife. As they approached, Lucy felt the weight of stares—both from the Arapaho and from the other settlers.
One of the Arapaho men, older and clearly a leader, assessed them with intelligent eyes. He spoke in halting English. “Good steel?”
“Very good,” Elias replied, laying out the items.
The man examined them, nodded approval, and gestured to his companions. They brought forward strips of dried buffalo jerky, a beautifully tanned deerskin, and a small parfleche bag of pemmican.
“Trail ahead,” the man said, pointing west. “Kansas River high. Use ferry at crossing. Two days.” He glanced at Lucy with what might have been curiosity or respect—it was hard to tell. “Woman shoots?”
Lucy’s hand instinctively moved toward her concealed pistol, then stopped. Elias glanced at her, a question in his eyes. She nodded slightly.
“Yes,” Elias said. “She shoots very well.”
The Arapaho man smiled faintly. “Good. Dangerous time. Bad men on trail.” He tapped his chest. “We trade. Not fight. But others...” He made a gesture that clearly meant violence.
“We’ll be careful,” Elias said. “Thank you.”
The trade completed, the Arapaho rode off as calmly as they’d arrived. The wagon train watched them go in tense silence.
“See?” Morris called out. “Just traders. Now let’s move on.”
But as Lucy and Elias returned to their wagon, she noticed a few of the families looking at them differently—not with hostility, but with something like grudging interest.
That night, one of the women—a sturdy farmer’s wife named Mrs. Patterson—approached their fire.
“Your jerky,” she said, nodding at the strips Elias was roasting. “From the Indians?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lucy replied carefully.
Mrs. Patterson hesitated, then said, “I’ve heard buffalo jerky is the best there is. Keeps longer than beef.”
“Would you like to try some?” Lucy offered, surprising herself.
Mrs. Patterson blinked, then a small smile crossed her weathered face. “I would, thank you.”
It was a small thing. But as the woman sat down by their fire and accepted the food, Lucy felt something shift—just slightly, but enough to notice.
The outlaws came on the tenth day.
The wagon train had just crossed a shallow creek and was reorganizing on the far bank when the riders appeared—eight men, rough and hard-looking, with the unmistakable air of violence about them.
“Bushwhackers,” Morris muttered, signaling the wagons to circle. “Everyone stay calm. Let me handle this.”
The outlaws rode forward, their leader—a scarred man with dead eyes—surveying the train like a wolf assessing sheep.
“Afternoon,” he called out, his voice mocking. “Fine day for traveling. Dangerous, though. Lot of trouble on these trails. Be a shame if something happened to good folks like yourselves.”
“We don’t want trouble,” Morris replied evenly.
“Nobody ever does.” The leader smiled, showing broken teeth. “But trouble finds folks anyway. Unless, of course, they take precautions. We offer protection, for a reasonable fee.”
“We don’t need your protection.”
The smile vanished. “I think you do.”
The outlaws spread out, hands moving toward weapons. Morris’s men responded in kind, rifles appearing. The tension coiled tight as a spring.
“You’ve got ten seconds to ride out,” Morris said, his voice hard as iron. “After that, we start shooting.”
The outlaws exchanged glances. For a moment, it seemed like they might back down. Then the leader laughed—a harsh, ugly sound—and wheeled his horse around.
“We’ll be seeing you,” he called over his shoulder. “Soon.”
They rode off, but not far—just over the nearest rise, where they stopped, visible against the sky. Watching. Waiting.
“They’ll hit us tonight or tomorrow,” Morris said grimly. “Everyone on watch. Double the guards. Keep the children in the center.”
Lucy and Elias prepared carefully. He checked his Spencer rifle, making sure it was loaded and ready. Lucy cleaned her Smith & Wesson, her hands steady and sure. They barely spoke, both of them understanding what was coming.
That night passed without incident, but the tension kept everyone awake. In the morning, the outlaws were still visible on the horizon, shadows against the pale sky.
“They’re waiting for the right moment,” Elias said as they broke camp. “Probably when we’re strung out on the trail, harder to defend.”
He was right.
The attack came in mid-afternoon, when the wagons were spread out along a narrow section of trail with trees on one side and a creek on the other. The outlaws charged from the tree line, guns blazing, whooping like demons.
Chaos erupted instantly. Oxen bellowed, children screamed, men shouted and returned fire. Lucy felt Elias’s hand on her shoulder.
“Stay with the wagon!” he ordered, grabbing his rifle. “Keep down!”
He leapt off the seat and joined the other men forming a defensive line. Lucy crouched behind the wagon’s sideboard, her pistol drawn, heart hammering. The gunfire was deafening—sharp cracks and booms echoing across the prairie.
The outlaws wheeled and fired, trying to break through the line. One of them went down, then another. The defenders were holding, but barely.
And then, as suddenly as it started, the outlaws retreated, vanishing back into the trees.
“Reload!” Morris shouted. “They’ll come again!”
The men scrambled to reload, checking their weapons, repositioning. Women emerged from wagons, pale and shaken. A few men were wounded—nothing serious, but enough to show this wasn’t a game.
Elias climbed back onto the wagon, his face grim. “They’re testing us. Next time will be worse.”
Lucy nodded, checking her pistol. Six rounds. She had more ammunition in her pocket. She’d be ready.
The wagon train pressed on, nerves stretched tight, everyone watching the tree line. They made it another three miles before Morris called a halt for the night, choosing a defensible position with clear sightlines in all directions.
“Triple watch tonight,” he ordered. “They’ll hit us in the dark if they’re smart.”
But the outlaws didn’t wait for darkness.
They came at dusk, when the light was failing and exhaustion had dulled everyone’s edge. This time, they came harder—more organized, more determined. They hit the western side of the circle first, drawing the defenders there, and then swung around to attack from the east.
Lucy heard the gunfire and screams and knew immediately this was different. Worse. Elias grabbed his rifle and ran toward the fighting. Lucy stayed by the wagon as ordered, but her hands were shaking, her breath coming fast.
And then she saw him.
A raider on horseback, breaking through the defensive line, charging straight into the circle where the women and children huddled. He was heading for one of the center wagons, his gun raised, his intent unmistakable.
Near that wagon, a small boy—maybe six years old, with sandy hair and wide, terrified eyes—stood frozen, separated from his mother who was screaming his name.
The raider saw the boy. Saw an easy target. A way to cause maximum panic.
Lucy didn’t think.
She ran.
Her legs pumped, her lungs burned, and she reached the boy just as the raider bore down on them. She threw herself in front of the child, her body a shield, and raised her Smith & Wesson.
Time slowed.
She saw the raider’s face—twisted with violence and greed. Saw his finger on the trigger. Saw death coming.
And she fired first.
The pistol kicked in her hand. The raider jerked, his chest blooming red. He gasped, dropping his gun, swaying in the saddle. Lucy fired again, the second shot catching him in the side. He screamed—a high, horrible sound—and toppled from his horse, hitting the ground hard.
Two more raiders were charging toward her. Lucy pivoted, her arms steady, and fired twice more. One shot went wide, but the other clipped a raider’s shoulder. He shouted in pain and yanked his horse around. The other raider saw Lucy standing there—calm, armed, deadly—and decided he wanted no part of it.
They retreated, joining the others who were already fleeing under the defenders’ concentrated fire.
And then it was over.
Silence fell—broken only by the moans of wounded men and the crying of frightened children.
Lucy stood there, pistol still raised, her heart hammering so hard she thought it might break her ribs. Behind her, the boy was crying. Around her, people were staring.
The raider she’d shot lay on the ground, blood spreading beneath him, his breathing wet and labored. He wasn’t dead yet. But he would be soon.
Lucy lowered her pistol slowly. Her hands were steady. She felt no remorse. No horror. Just cold, hard certainty.
He tried to hurt a child. I stopped him.
A woman’s scream broke the silence—the boy’s mother, running toward them. She grabbed her son, pulling him into her arms, sobbing his name over and over. Then she looked up at Lucy, her face wet with tears.
“You saved him,” she gasped. “You saved my boy.”
Lucy opened her mouth, but no words came. She just nodded.
Elias appeared at her side, his face pale, his eyes scanning her for injuries. “Lucy—”
“I’m fine,” she said, her voice surprisingly calm. “I’m fine.”
Other families were gathering now, staring at the fallen raider, at Lucy, at the small boy clinging to his mother. Samuel Morris pushed through the crowd, his expression grim. He looked at the raider, then at Lucy.
“You did this?”
“Yes,” Lucy said simply.
Morris studied her for a long moment. Then he turned to the crowd. “This woman just saved the Patterson boy’s life. Anyone have a problem with that?”
Silence. Then, slowly, one by one, heads shook.
Mrs. Patterson—the same woman who’d shared jerky by their fire—stepped forward. Her son was still in her arms, his face buried in her shoulder. “Miss Lucy,” she said, her voice shaking. “I don’t ... I can’t...” Tears spilled over. “Thank you. Thank you for my boy.”
Lucy felt her own throat tighten. “I couldn’t let him be hurt.”
Mrs. Patterson reached out, and before Lucy quite realized what was happening, the woman pulled her into a one-armed embrace, her son between them. “You’re a blessing,” she whispered. “A true blessing.”
Other women approached—hesitant at first, then with more confidence. They offered quiet thanks, tentative smiles. The men nodded with respect. The children—freed from their mothers’ restraining hands—began to swarm around, their fear forgotten in the excitement of survival.
The Patterson boy—his name was Thomas, Lucy learned—peeked out from his mother’s arms and looked at Lucy with huge, solemn eyes. “You saved me,” he said.
“Yes,” Lucy replied gently.
“Are you an angel?”
Lucy’s breath caught. Mrs. Patterson made a small, choked sound. And Lucy, feeling tears threaten for the first time, shook her head. “No, sweetheart. Just someone who didn’t want you to get hurt.”
“Thank you,” Thomas whispered.
That night, everything changed.
The families insisted Lucy and Elias eat with them, sharing food and conversation around the communal fires. Mrs. Patterson wouldn’t let Lucy out of her sight, treating her with a fierce, protective gratitude. The other women asked about her life, her plans for Kansas, her hopes for the future. The men spoke to Elias with newfound respect, and several of them made a point of thanking Lucy personally for her courage.
“You’ve got more sand than most men I know,” one grizzled farmer said, tipping his hat. “Kansas is lucky to have you.”
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