Trek To The West

Trek to the West

It is the year 1841. Only two years ago, we, my parents, my brother and I, came to the United States of America. We are originally from Glasgow, Scotland. I miss it a lot. “You will have more opportunities there”, my parents told me, when I asked them for us to stay in our homeland. “Maybe we will get rich!” my father said enthusiastic. “A better future awaits you, honey.”,was my mother’s attempt to calm me down.
I was twelve years old, when my parents bought the tickets for the long trip. I packed up my favorite clothes and hold tight to my beloved teddy bear, that grandma had given me when I turned five. I miss her, too. My brother Luc, two years younger than me, was excited about the new adventure we were heading into. He called me a coward, for not wanting toleave my old life behind. “I’m no coward!” I replied, angry at him. I actually was scared, but I did not want him to know. I didn’t want anyone to know, so I stood still when I saw the ship, that would take us to the New Land, to the Promised Land, as my father called it. With my head held high, pressing my teddy bear to my chest and holding my mom’s hand I started out for a new life.
Now weare facing a new problem and another decision has to be made. We were accepted successfully to the United States of America, but here in the East of the country, there is no space left for newcomers. We live in a cramped room along with a family from the United Kingdom, who arrived a week later than we did. For two years now we have managed to survive, but it has been nerve racking. Not only myfather, but also my mother had to look for a job to be able to pay the costs, and still sometimes our dinner consist of a slice of bread and a glass of water.
“This is worse than prison”, I heard my mom say in between tears to my father, once she thought Luc and I were asleep. The next morning our father told us, that we should pack our belongings. I was happy, thinking we were heading back home,but when I my brother told me our remaining money had not been invested in a ticket for home, but to buy provisions and an ox-drawn wagon, I petrified, while Luc went on telling cowboy stories and fantasizing about us going into the wild west and meeting red Indians
So here we go. Heading westwards, escaping into the wild, fleeing from a civilized life not worth to be called Life.
It’s beentwo months now since we left the city. Every day looks like the last one, with the only difference being, that each night brigs more fatigue and hunger. We are part of a small, lonely caravan of only 58 people. Near Soda Springs, half of the party followed the Bear River planning to cross the Great Salt Lake Desert and the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We continued to Ft. Hall aiming to at some pointreach Oregon.
But as it seems, God doesn’t want us to find grace. We left Scotland for a better future, that America seemed to promise. We left the eastern coast, because we couldn’t stand living eight people in one little room any longer, and then, the little hope that was left, we invested into the Trek to the West.
After a month my mother started to cough, and now that the winter iscoming, her illness is getting worse. I am sick of walking day after day and the ox seem to see it the same way as I do. Some of the other older people of the caravan have stopped somewhere along the way, to rest and to withstand the winter. At first we thought we would manage to reach Oregon before the winter begins, but it is already November and we are still crossing southern Idaho.
So now we arelooking for a dale where to stay the winter. Luc is not as enthusiastic about the trip as he was at first, but he is the only one who still enjoys the challenges the journey holds for us. He is also the one, who spots the still green valley at our right. Although it is hard work to get the wagon and the ox down the steep wall into the dale, once we are all at its bottom, each one of us seems to...