Chapter Text
April 1868
Springtime in Missouri was actually quite lovely, Rey thought as she looked west across the green meadow that was just beginning to glow with the rising sun. Too bad they weren’t staying. She took a deep breath of the chilly air, then turned back toward the group of wagons behind her, narrowing her eyes as the sun blinded her for a moment. There were nine wagons with canvas covers total, each with six to eight oxen corralled nearby grazing on the new spring grass. In twenty-four hours, those oxen would be hitched to those wagons, and they would all be crossing that grassy field, heading west toward the Pacific Ocean.
It really hadn’t been Rey’s choice to travel all the way across the United States. She had actually been quite content in Philadelphia, the only place she’d ever called home. But Father Luke had wanted to leave the city of his birth and travel west to join his sister and her family in Oregon. Leia had left Pennsylvania over twenty years ago, and she and her husband Han Solo had made a good life for themselves on the 500 acres they had acquired in the fertile Willamette Valley. Last year, their neighbor, who had traveled with them years earlier on their journey west, had passed away, leaving them his 500 acres. Leia had written her brother and asked him to join her in Oregon; she gifted him with those 500 acres. “It’s time you retire,” she wrote. “Bring some of those children you spoil, too!”
So, Father Luke Skywalker, a priest from the diocese of Philadelphia, retired and made plans to travel by wagon train to Oregon the following spring. He asked Rey, one of those ‘spoiled children’ he had officially adopted from the orphanage he sponsored, to come with him, as well as Finn and Rose. Finn, the son of a runaway slave who died giving birth to him, had also been adopted by Father Luke at a young age. He was like a brother to Rey. Rose had come into their lives a few years ago. The daughter of a Chinese prostitute and an unknown white man, she had come to the orphanage when her mother passed away when Rose was sixteen. She and Rey had become friends almost immediately, and when she turned eighteen, she began working as a housekeeper for Father Luke. Unlike Rey, she and Finn were excited about leaving the city that had never shown them much love.
Then, just after Christmas, Father Luke had a heart attack.
He lingered for three days before finally going home to God, and during that time he not only made sure Rey was officially documented as his heir, but he made her promise to go ahead with their plans to travel to Oregon. “Start a new life,” he told her. “Away from this wretched city.” Rey could not refuse.
Though younger than both Finn and Rose by a couple of years, Rey took over what little there was in Father Luke’s estate and continued on with the arrangements to travel west. The wagon and oxen had been purchased already and were waiting for them in Independence, and when the time came the three young people traveled by train from Philly to Missouri.
They had arrived last week, but they had not been greeted with much warmth from the man who was in charge of this particular train. Kylo Ren was a first-generation Oregon native who now made a living by taking people back and forth from Missouri to the west coast. He had grudgingly accepted that Rey would be traveling in the wagon purchased by Father Luke Skywalker with two others now that the priest was deceased, but that had been before he realized Rey’s companions were a black man and a Chinese woman.
“The others won’t like it,” he had grumbled when Rey argued that they had already paid for the wagon, supplies, and the fee that would allow them to be a part of the train, which would offer them protection along the route. “You’ll have to stay at the back.” Rey didn’t like the decision, but she didn’t argue. After all, she was just a woman; she didn’t have much more standing in this world than her two friends.
It didn’t help that she was uncomfortable around Ren, his scrutiny of her being far too forward for her liking. She decided that staying at the back of the train and avoiding the other families traveling would not be a hardship.
Taking a deep breath, Rey moved toward the wagon that would be her home for the next several months. Rose and Finn were already getting the morning fire going, getting used to a routine they would be able to maintain while on the road. Finn had gotten a pot of water from the nearby well and as he placed it over the fire said something that made Rose laugh. Rey smiled to herself; she had known Finn was smitten with Rose for a while now, but she wasn’t sure how Rose felt about him. Seeing her laugh now, though, her cheeks rosy in the chill morning air and her eyes bright, Rey thought that maybe the feeling was mutual.
Movement off to her right caught her attention and she looked over to see a horse and rider making their way out of the camp. With his back to her, she couldn’t see his face, but she recognized the horse immediately. The beautiful buckskin stallion had caught her eye on the day of their arrival, and she had been told he was owned by one of the guides for their train. There were three guides, all men who had made the journey across the continent more than once. Two were older, gruff men who had been original settlers in Oregon years earlier. The other…
The other guide was the rider of the beautiful stallion, and he was more than a bit mysterious. Ren called him ‘Dameron,’ and said he was from Mexico and didn’t speak much English, but Rey had caught the man smiling a couple of different times, even shaking his head once, while listening to others talk, and his reactions matched what was being said. When one of the other guides said something about ‘that greaser,’ Dameron had rolled his eyes. He had turned away, but not before noticing Rey watching him. He had winked at her before leaving. She was quite convinced he knew exactly what was being said but was perfectly okay with the other men thinking otherwise. He obviously wasn’t worried about Rey spilling his secret, either.
As Rey watched the man ride out toward town, she couldn’t help but think that his winking at her, as forward as it was, didn’t leave her with the same feeling of distaste that Ren’s leers did. There was something about the guide that made her feel safe and comfortable. Maybe it was her upbringing around so many children of different ethnicities, not to mention being raised by a man that never saw the color of skin, but Rey trusted this Dameron far more than she did Ren or the other two guides, and she was curious to learn more about him.
With a six-month journey ahead of them, she hoped she would get the chance to do so.
******