The River Crossing: An Oregon Trail Historical Fiction Novel

Charles Vessey painted the family name on the wagon canvas so no one could mistake their outfit. By Oregon, it may be the only proof his wife was ever on the road at all.Hannah Vessey leaves Independence in the spring with four hundred other wagons, a husband certain of his own judgement, and two thousand miles of country that does not care what any of them intended. The trail takes stock, then oxen, then people. What it cannot take is the record, and Hannah begins to keep one.She writes down the names. The women buried under cairns with no marker, the ones entered in the ledgers only as wife of, the ones whose graves the next train will drive straight over. It starts as a small act of stubbornness and becomes the reason she survives the crossing.The first novel in The Overland Women, a historical fiction series about the women the Oregon Trail recorded as an afterthought.