Mmmk. Irish immigrant travels as hired hand in wagon train west to Oregon. During the journey he loses his employer to cholera, but gains a ward — wife, maybe? — when one young woman’s father or husband dies of it too. Out of this wagon train there’s only a handful of survivors. Maybe this includes a young woman and her newborn who need a lot of help getting across with all that stuff. Maybe this is the ward/woman he meets — by the way, I’m saying ward only because initially he’s not looking to get married or have a family or any of that crap. He’s only interested in getting somewhere close to California — he wants gold and opportunity, and clearing massive forests to grow vegetables in the rain isn’t his idea of a good time.
But he’s a man of honor and decency, even if he hates that about himself, and so he sticks it out all the way to Oregon City. Maybe he does this because he’s one of only two or three men left; maybe everyone else is women and children. Maybe some of the other men died from mishaps, which were frequent (and often operator error LOL). On the way it dawns on him that if he can pass himself off as the husband of one of these women, he can actually own land for the first time in his life, and make something of his life that way. He’s the son of tenant farmers and laborers, who’ve been lucky just to own a suit of clothes. And then to own his own land?! Might be tempting.
Or maybe not. I don’t know him well enough yet. Maybe he leaps in thinking this is the sensible thing to do, and then when it comes time to make it happen he realizes he’s betrayed not only himself, but the woman he conned into lying for him. So what does he do? Does he bloom where he’s planted or does he take off and look for something more to his temperament? Maybe he’s never farmed because at heart, he’s no farmer.
So let’s say he gives in to his wanderlust and takes off. Does he abandon the woman or does he drag her and any children along with him, because while he can’t sit still he can’t quite be an abandoning ass either? I don’t know. If he goes by himself, then he’s got to think about what he’s done at least a little. Maybe he lies to himself that he’s earning money to bring back to the people he’s abandoned, just to keep the guilt at bay.
Maybe he earns a truckload of money and gets completely mugged, seriously brutalized. Maybe this makes him realize that he’s been using other people. Maybe he doesn’t care. But if he does, then he goes back to her to apologize and we find out whether she can forgive him, or if she’s moved on. What if she has, and he has to leave again? Maybe this is the point, that this journey has taught him to bloom where he’s planted, or at least care enough to include those who care about him in his plans. Maybe the point here is to learn that no man is an island, or that his actions have consequences, or even more basically, it’s not all about him.
Or maybe this is just a pile of hooey. I’d have work on it more. :)
Text ©22 August 2010 Margit Marselas.
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