A/N: Since it would mean writing a chapter about fifteen times longer than anyone's attention span would allow, I'm not going to be able to introduce every original character at once. Everyone who replied to the CC is going to show up in the fic, some later than others, but the vast majority will come into focus in the next few chapters. And, of course, everyone's going to get a little action...even if it kills me. (Which it probably will.) Also, in one of the books on the Oregon Trail that I checked out from the library, I found a chapter on pioneer weddings that I'm definitely going to use. Let's just put it this way: you're in for your fair share of mushy stuff.

...And now, on to the fic!

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Chapter One—

If Wishes Were Horses

--

Racetrack Higgins lay flat on his back, stretched out on the field's hard- packed earth, his eyes to the heavens, looking up at the clear night sky. A cool spring breeze stirred the dry prairie grasses and brought to him the lingering scent of the burnt-out cooking fires down to their last glowing embers. Far away he could hear the sound of hoofbeats on the hardened ground, the gentle thunder of the dappled mares and geldings that some of the families had opted to bring along with them on the trail. Earlier that afternoon he had introduced himself around the camp, said a few quick helloes to the others that had the wagon train, and taken a few lingering glances at the animals, oxen and mules far outnumbering the people about to embark on the journey, not to mention ponies, a few milk cows, the odd family dog—and horses.

One person, a girl who had shyly introduced herself to him as Kathryne, had been saddling up her horse when he had come to talk to her. Even in the warm half-light of the late Missouri sunset he could see that she was lovely, maybe even beautiful with her soft eyes and ruddy hair half worked free of its crown of braids. But it was her horse that captivated him. It was a gorgeous chestnut stallion named Blaze, over sixteen hands high, and he had touched it gingerly at first, almost afraid that it would bite. The girl laughed, handing Racetrack an apple to feed to it, and the horse stretched its long neck gently towards him, and took the apple right from his palm, its warm mouth soft as velvet as it touched his skin.

Racetrack hadn't wanted to admit that that was the first time in his life he had ever gotten so close to a horse, come to a standstill and rested his hand on its neck, taking it all in—dark liquid eyes, body, fluid-galloping, strength apparent even when it stood motionless. The Sheepshead races had been his favorite place in the world ever since he was a child, and it was the horses that had drawn him there—he still remembered the autumn day when he had gone there the first time, no older than ten, watched the horses thunder along the track with his older sister Valentine, as her husband dove inside to place a bet. She, seventeen and the only person who had ever spoken a kind word to him, put her arms around his neck, hair in wild dark curls falling against his cheek, breathless. "Look at that," she had said. "Look at that—isn't that something? That's beautiful. That's life. Remember this for me, Anthony. Remember this forever."

And he had. He had. For the longest time that had been the only beauty he could find, beyond the smoke and the cinders and the tenement houses that had spelled out his very existence. But then the prairie winds had come and blown that all away. Suddenly, now, he was in love with the world. The animals, the trees, endless stretches of land long and wide as time itself, and mountains—mountains! Never in his life had he seen anything like them. Never. And each day, the skies got wider. He lay there that night, overwhelmed and close to tears as he stared up at the stars, shining, fixed and moving, each a bright point of light, undimmed. He hadn't even known that there had been so many. But there was so much else that he had been blind to...and this was only the beginning of the journey.

His thoughts slowed, and the lazy noises of the camp faded. He could hear his own heartbeat. He lay in the cooling fallow field, half-aware now of where he was, where his life was. Where he was going—that was something he could barely begin to understand. He could only go backwards. Stretched out flat that star-studded night he looked back over the last few days, and tried to see by which faint and circuitous route he had come to a field in the middle of Missouri, the jumping-off point for everything that was to come.

As usual, he could blame Jack for most of it.

It had been a little less that two weeks ago when Jack stepped in through the window to the bunkroom, into an ordinary night—card games, hushed conversation, the slow, loose evenings drummed up by boys too tired to do much of anything else. Jack had closed his eyes before he spoke, as if not trusting himself to look around—and when he began to talk he barely stopped, not even for breath.

It was all there. The wish for something more, to get away from years of living hand-to-mouth and forge new ground, to escape from the dread of living and dying and never being thought of again, never being cared for. They all knew it. But when Jack spoke of it that night it became more than nameless fears coming by night: he made it ambition, he made it true. They looked at him that night as he spoke, and were unable to look away.

Racetrack knew that he would be proud for the rest of his life that he had been the first to step forward and take Jack's invitation. Jack had looked over, almost startled when Race clapped his hand on his shoulder, smiling. "Don' think you can abandon us that fast, Jacky-boy. You can save a spot for me, too."

Jack smiled. "Think you'll be able to survive widout gambling, Race?"

"Ah, no problem. I'm sure the Indians got some kinda setup."

"Sure, Race, sure..."

After that, there was no stopping the others: they recognized a good idea when they saw one. In the end, their party had been expanded to no less than ten: Jack, Race, Blink, Mush, Specs, Dutchy, Skittery, Snoddy, Snitch, and (perhaps most surprisingly) Spot. After he opted to tag along, the motley crew decided to leave before Brooklyn erupted into a state of near-anarchy. Between collection of old debts, new loans of money from people who didn't know they would never see them again, life savings, Kloppman's generous contribution to the effort and the money that David's family wired to them, they figured they had just enough to get things done. They freeloaded to Independence, Missouri, and Racetrack was all for going the second leg of the journey the same way, but Jack had other ideas. He wanted to do things right, he said: buy supplies, animals, pack up two farm wagons and take to the trail. They would learn along the way what they needed to do, and by the time they reached Oregon they would be different people. Racetrack liked himself as he was, and was going to say it, too, but he saw that Jack had that gleam in his eye, the one he got whenever he got a letter from David, and decided to clam up. Besides, he didn't mind the idea all that much. He really almost liked it—out on the prairie, the horses, the wind. He could imagine himself out there, and he liked what he saw.

Once they got to Missouri they had found a wagon train departing in a few days, the perfect opportunity. Jack had gone into town that afternoon and come back with everything they needed—Racetrack couldn't quite see the use of seven pounds of lard, actually, even for six months on the trail, but Jack said that he had gotten good advice. Four days, two covered wagons, and eight oxen later, they were ready to take the plunge, and would depart, along with the rest of the wagon train, the very next day.

Letting out a happy sigh, Racetrack rested his head on his arms and closed his eyes. Breathing deeply of the scent of the wind, he smelled the grass and the sharp scent of wood, the wet-wool smell of the tents pitched in the field. And beyond that, even deeper, something else—something fertile, and green. It was the smell of rain, of beginnings, the smell of morning sun. It was something he had never known before. It was hope.

--

Unlike Racetrack, Snitch had never been overly fond of horses. They were big, lumbering creatures, and with their heavy steps and their rolling eyes they had always (almost, just a little bit) frightened him. Going out for a walk as darkness fell over the camp, he did his best to avoid them. But when he saw the girl currying the gray-dappled pony with attentive green eyes, he couldn't help but take a closer look.

The pony nickered softly as she worked him over with the curry comb, nuzzling her cheek affectionately. The girl smiled, ducking away and stroking him on the neck, so focused on her work that she didn't notice Snitch even as he was standing almost right beside her. She was turned away from him, brown hair mussed, fine hands resting in its mane. It was the pony that drew her attention to Snitch: it stared at him distrustfully, dead-on in a way that unnerved him. He was just beginning to slowly back off when the girl looked up and saw him standing there.

She smiled, startled a little, cheeks flushed in the half-light. "I don't think I've seen you around before."

"Well, we jus' got here a coupla days ago," Snitch said. From far off a snatch of some old song drifted across the field, a sweet, gritty melody plucked out on a banjo. "...I am a pilgrim and a stranger, traveling through this wearisome land..."

The girl cocked her head slightly, catching the unfamiliar cadence of his voice. "You're from that big group, aren't you?...All those boys who just arrived from New York?"

"That'd be me." Unsure of just what to do, he stepped forward for an awkward handshake. "I'm Snitch."

"Lute McDonaghey. And this is Prometheus," she added, gesturing to the pony.

Snitch nodded, not trusting himself to speak without stumbling over either name's pronunciation. As he edged slowly closer, wary of the green eyes fixed on him, Lute laughed out loud.

"What?" he said defensively.

"You're scared, aren't you?"

"No..."

"Yes, you are! Come on—"she reached out and took him warmly be the hand, leading him closer. "Prometheus wouldn't hurt a fly."

He stayed still, silent, looking at her distrustfully. Lute sighed. The fact that they had known each other for a grand total of a minute and were already getting along as if they had grown up together didn't seem to bother either of them.

"Come on," Lute said. "Pet him. He won't bite, I promise."

"No."

"Sooky baby."

"I ain't a sooky baby!"

"Oh yeah? then prove it."

Tentatively, Snitch reached out and stroked Prometheus gently on the neck. Momentarily reassured, he stepped closer, burying his fingers in the thick gray mane, petting him down to the withers. He smiled at Lute, across the pony's head. "See? I—"

But he didn't get to finish. Annoyed by something, Prometheus gave his head an irritated toss, right up to Snitch's face, where it connected painfully with his nose. Crying out, he backed up, hand up to protect his bloody nose.

"Oh, Snitch I'm so sorry, I—"

"Don't touch it!" Snitch said, stepping farther away and instinctively beginning to suck on his thumb.

"Snitch," Lute said calmly, "if you don't let me look at it it'll only hurt more."

Reluctantly, Snitch took his hands away. Stepping forward, Lute reached up with a handkerchief she had found in her pocket and gently pressed it to his nose, waiting until the bleeding stopped. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"No," he admitted.

Lute smiled, looking up at the boy with his thumb jammed in his mouth and teeth like scrabble tiles, set almost to aching by his vulnerability. Rummaging in her pocket she held out her hand to him once again. Snitch looked down: in har palm, white crystalline cubes, the promise of something sweet, and in her hazel eyes the same. Her small hand brushed against his as she pressed them into his palm.

"Sugar lumps. I use them sometimes," she said, "on Prometheus."

"Oh no. No. I ain't goin' near him again."

"Sooky baby," Lute teased.

"I ain't a sooky baby!"

And so it began.

--

Sitting slumped against the side of the wagon, Jack surveyed for the thousandth time the carefully taken-down list of supplies he had bought, wondering once again how he had been persuaded into not only paying for but actually coming to own two cast-iron frying pans. And that wasn't the only thing. As of today he was the proud owner of a hunting knife, a pound of shot and a rifle to go with it, a ten-gallon washtub, horse blankets, saddle bags, eleven tents (waterproof), a tar bucket, a coil of hemp rope, and ten pounds of chamomile tea. Oh, and a pint of whiskey. (Indians loved whiskey, apparently. They loved it.)

The trouble was, Jack couldn't see the use of any of it. (Except maybe the whiskey, he thought, taking a small sip from the flask.) But, he had to follow whatever advice he could get; he had decided early on that his diverse knowledge of the west through a combination of penny dreadfuls and vaudeville shows wasn't to be relied on much. The wagon train leader, a weathered pioneer named Buck Mulligan, had been helping him out, with a combination of affection and disdain since they had all arrived. Telling him what he would need to look for at the general store, Jack had questioned him whether all of it was really necessary, and Buck had just laughed and said that even a city boy like himself would find use for a hunting knife. And Jack, who more than a little resented being called a city boy, had gone into town that day and done what he could.

Looking back, he could see the general store more clearly now than he could back when he was actually inside of it, the calmness of the darkening sky cooling, for the first time in days, the frantic adrenaline mix of apprehension and joy that had been running through his veins since he saw New York City disappear in his wake.

He had stepped past the barrels of salt pork and bacon, the sacks of cornmeal and coffee and the rifles polished and hung up on the racks, and went straight to the old man behind the counter. "Hi," he said, sticking out his hand (restraining himself from spitting into it) and smiling. "The name's Jack Kelly, and I'm heading west."

The man eyed him warily, cringing slightly. "You goin' as far as Oregon?" he asked him at last.

"Yep," Jack said.

"Gonna want a farm wagon or a conestoga? Oxen or mules? How many people? Gonna want tents? Extra blankets? How much coffee you think you're gonna need?"

"Uh...twenty...pounds? Or so?"

The man sighed. "Kid, with one person you're gonna need at least ten, however many people you're bringin' you're gonna need to figure that out. You goin' by yourself?"

"Actually, there are ten others," Jack said, happy that this, at least, was a question he could answer with some confidence.

"Lordy," the man whistled. "Look kid, this is gonna take some figurin'—you gotta get cornmeal, bacon, sugar, flour, lard, salt, beans, hardtack, shot—not to mention livestock, wagons—you're gonna need at least two—rope, spare tongue, spare axle, couple spare wheels too...be straight with me, kid. You got any idea what you're doin'?" Balefully, Jack shook his head.

The man sighed. "That's what I thought. Now, if you excuse me, I got better things to do." And before Jack could inquire just what he had to do that was more important, the man cupped his hands and hollered to somewhere in the back of the shop: "Gwen! You got a customer!"

A few moments passed, with no response. "GWEN!"

Still nothing.

"GWENDOLYN O'LEARY, HAUL YOUR CARCASS OUT HERE BEFORE I DO IT FOR YOU!"

While Jack was wondering how anyone could ever manage to consume ten pounds of coffee, Gwen, precariously balanced on a turned-over bucket in the dim light of the storage room, trying very hard to concentrate on Edmond's escape from Chateau d'If, was beginning to wonder just how she had ended up in Independence in the first place. Of course, she reminded herself—she was waiting. By now she was an expert at it. After three years, anyone would be: waiting for word from her parents as she watched Independence grow around her from a little frontier town into a place not much better the city that she had tried to escape. She had dreamed of adventure: the open prairie and the wind in her hair, wild horses and mountains and rivers and space.

Instead, she was selling nails.

Not that there was anything wrong with that. There was a lot to be said for selling nails, actually. In fact it could be quite interesting sometimes.

All right. Fine. Never.

With a sigh, Gwen set down "The Count of Monte Cristo," stood up, brushed herself off, and went out to the front of the shop. More nails.

Jack was leaning casually against the counter when the girl came out, haphazard auburn curls held back ineffectually by a limp white ribbon, a black smudge on the ridge of her cheek. She sighed, pushing up her sleeves. "What's going on, then?"

"We got a customer, Gwen. This is--" the man waved his arm casually at Jack, currently inspecting a well-oiled shotgun behind the counter, wondering to himself if he would manage to take down any wild game with a slingshot.

"I'm Jack," he said, smiling, still trying to make a good impression.

"Right," the man said. "Jack's headed west. Oregon. Think you can help him out?"

"Sure," she said, looking Jack up and down. "Traveling alone?"

"No. There are, ah...eleven of us."

"Big family?"

"Kinda."

Taking out a slip of paper and flattening it against the counter, Gwen began to write out some calculations. "All right...eleven...you're probably going to need two wagons for that many, a conestoga would be ideal but if you can't afford that you can just buy a couple farm wagons and adapt them..."

"How much'll that be?"

"Conestoga? I'd say about seventy dollars apiece. Farm wagon would run you about thirty, not counting the cover, but I know a place where you can probably get it for twenty."

"Right. Farm wagons, then."

Gwen bent back over, and jack almost could have sworn he saw her faintly smiling as she wrote out a list for him in lightly-penciled shorthand, and Jack bent over to look at what she was writing, their heads bent over the countertop. She offered him a running commentary as she continued:

"Now...average person would need about a hundred and fifty pounds of flour for six months, fifty pounds of bacon, forty pounds fruit...oh, and you'll want rice and beans...so multiply that by eleven...carry the six...and then you'll figure for allt he other essentials...we've got a package you could get, hunting equipment, spare parts, kitchen things...and that comes to..." she raised her head up, smoothing her hair back. "Five hundred even. And of course you'll want oxen as well."

From the stricken look on Jack's face, she could tell that this would take some extra figuring.

In a little over an hour they had it all planned out. They pulled a few strings, skimped on some nonessential items, and in the end Jack still had a tidy sum left over that he could use once they arrived. He smiled appreciatively as they made the final deal. It was all coming together.

They didn't speak as they were planning it out, beyond conventional shoptalk, and when Jack broke the silence and attempted some charm, it came out awkwardly. "How d'you know all this?" he asked her, gesturing vaguely at the neatly ordered store, with its racks and shelves, not a thing out of place. "I mean...figurin' this all out. I never coulda done that."

"Let's just say I've had a lot of practice," Gwen said lightly, reaching up and taking down a box of nails.

"How long you been woikin' here?"

"Three years, I guess. You know. A while."

"Don't you ever wanna go further? You know—pack up an' see the country for yourself, instead a' just helpin' other people do it?"

She looked at him levelly. Faced head-on, he recognized a certain reticence about her, stronger than the girlish shyness he was used to encountering—she took a while to warm to people, and you needed to be careful if you wanted to gain her trust. But then she looked down, put the nails on the counted, and shrugged lightly, keeping her eyes from meeting his. "Not really," she said.

He kept quiet. Pursuing this any further would be a bad idea. Instead he looked back at her expectantly, waiting for her to speak.

She cleared her throat and looked up at him again. "Well," she said quietly. "You're going to want to buy some candles..."

And things had gone that way. Sitting late that night under the sky, shivering slightly from the Spring wind and taking an experimental sip from his bottle of whiskey, Jack went back once again in his thoughts and scolded himself about what he could have said. He was so deep in his thoughts that when he heard footsteps making their way towards him, and eventually saw Gwen, burrowed deep in her coat with a jar clamped under one arm, emerge from the darkness, it took him a moment to realize that she was here in real life.

"Heya," he said, sitting up a little straighter. "What're you doin' out here so late?"

With a smile, Gwen sat down next to him, and handed him the jar. "I just remembered, I forgot to give you something."

"Pickles?" Jack said incredulously, staring at the contents of the jar.

Gwen nodded. "You'll need them," she said. "For protein."

"How much?"

"On the house." Gwen leaned up against the wagon, resting her head on the side, looking at him sleepily.

"Well, thanks. I dunno what ta say. Y'know, it's not often a goil'll give me a jar a' pickles. Ta be honest I'm not quite sure what t' make of it."

"It means good luck," she said firmly.

He looked over at her. From where he was sitting he could see all too clearly the roots that she was sending deep into the ground, making attachments in a world that held to attachment for her. He should know. He had spent all his life doing the very same thing.

"How can you look at that?" he said. "How can you look out there and not want to see what's further off? Dontcha ever just wanna pick up an' leave this behind, go find a new life."

"Of course," she said. "Of course I do. All the time."

"Then why not give it a shot?" Jack asked. He had told her, early that afternoon, about how he had come to be the unofficial leader of the most motley crew ever to set off on the Oregon trail. Looking at her, he felt that even though he didn't know the specifics—left behind three years ago by her parents, waiting ever since for her ship to come in—he knew her story just as well as his own.

She stiffened. "Because. There's a difference between dreaming about something and...and actually doing it."

"No," Jack said. He reached out and tucked a loose curl that had fallen across her cheek back behind her ear. If anyone knew about dreaming, it was him. And looking into her dark eyes that night, he knew that she had waited long enough; he knew she was ready. She had been dreaming long enough. "No. There ain't no difference, Gwen. Ya just gotta know when th' time is right."

--

When the sun rose the next morning, all the newsies knew it was for them. It was a sunrise blazing and bright and full, a sunrise meant to greet eleven toughened, yearning boys who were about to depart from everything they had ever known. the sun and the wide blue sky, the dry grasses and the cool breeze. All of it was theirs.

The wagon train departed from Independence just after sunrise. Everything was taken care of, animals, supplies; Jack was up handling the oxen for the first wagon, with Skittery taking care of the second. Buck had shown him what he needed to do and he was confident that he would be fine for at least fifteen minutes or so. With the morning fresh and the open prairie stretched out in front of him he could almost forget how Gwen had left the night before, saying clumsy goodbye, stumbling with the awkwardness that always came when you trod on a broken dream. It was still there in the back of his mind, as it had been since waking. But he looked towards the horizon, tightened the reins in his hands, and closed his eyes.

...They were off. It was indescribably: the thunder of the oxen's hooves hitting the ground, those soft-eyed, baleful creatures suddenly seeming powerful enough to send vibration deep into his very core. He could feel the wind in his hair, see the sun in the sky—his western sky. It was hard to convince himself that he wasn't dreaming—and when he looked back over past the canvas-covered side of the wagon, it was even harder. Plunged forward, running along side, a carpetbag slung over her shoulder, was...

"Gwen!" Jack shouted, doing what was probably the most unsafe thing in the world and leaning out, extending a hand to her. With one final sprint, out of breath, cheeks burning, she grabbed hold, and he lifted her up next to him. Still disbelieving.

"That was unexpected," he managed.

Looking over, panting, laughing breathlessly, Gwen looked over, grinning, her carefully-constructed veneer gone. "I thought about what you said."

"Well, you're with us now. You ready for this?"

"I was born ready."

"That's what I thought." Jack grinned. He couldn't remember a time in his life when he had ever felt so free, so alive. looking out past the heads of the oxen and the other wagons, far in front, he could see Kathryn on her horse, galloping fierce and wind-fast in front of everything, kicking up dust, leaning far and low, close down to Blaze's neck, reveling in the beauty of it all. She was singing her heart out, voice rising in peals the fell far above the thunder of the hooves, drifted over everyone's heads and up into the violent blue zenith of the heavens.

Well, I was born with a dark cloud above me
A longing deep in my soul
I was raised up right and I know my mama loved me
But I begged her to let me go.
I said: the grass is greener on the other side
Somewhere there's a bluer sky
I won't stop runnin' till I'm satisfied
And if wishes were horses, I would ride, ride, ride.