Here's the latest chapter!
I really meant to update yesterday, honestly I did, but I have been quite busy with other things as of late. Many apologies.
Thank you very much to JoyOfSoul, yue moon, WeAllFlyHigh, ShippudenFlower, and xxEu-chan for your reviews!
Thanks as well to Shiftyglob for my lone favorite!
Please enjoy! I disclaim, and own nothing.
Lewis and Clark, Alfred soon found out, could honestly care less about Jefferson's "declarations of sovereignty." Though both of them harbored a healthy sense of wariness, bordering on dislike, when it came to the Indians and a deal of American patriotism, they were more interested in the expedition as a means of scientific advancement.
It was with great reluctance that they accepted the men of Camp Dubois as part of their trip. Though they agreed that military men would be useful for protection, Lewis was always grumbling that he was a Captain in the army himself, and that being surrounded by incompetent fools would disrupt their scientific pursuits.
Alfred was under the impression that they'd be riding for longer, but when he voiced this opinion to the expedition leaders, they'd just laughed.
"Honestly, Jones, use your head," Lewis said. "The President sent us to find a water passage to the Pacific for commerce, not to prove we're stubborn enough to ride across a continent."
Alfred flushed, slightly embarrassed by his bout of stupidity. "So we're taking a boat? All of us?" he asked tentatively.
"A brilliant conclusion, Jones," came the snarky reply. "We'll be sailing as far as we can west on the rivers, mapping them along the way, and hopefully will eventually get somewhere worthwhile for our President's purposes."
Alfred sighed. It was going to be a long journey if he couldn't get along with Lewis. But such a thing seemed unlikely; after all, he considered it an affront to his competence as a politician and a scientist that Jefferson would send someone to monitor him.
It was a bit over week of day-long riding before the trio arrived in Pittsburgh, and Alfred had never been happier at the prospect of more company.
_V~-~-~V_
Pittsburgh was an interesting city, Alfred had to admit. It wasn't as large or urbanized as Philadelphia, but he supposed it was to be expected: Philadelphia had been around much longer. It did have its own charm though, with its rougher-round-the-edges mishmash of inhabitants, from ordinary citizens moving west to Canadian traders to men coming out of their backwoods farms to hear the latest news and purchase the occasional European cloth for the missus back home.
The city prospered on the banks of the Ohio River as a trading point, and grew by the day as more Americans sought refuge from the increasingly crowded eastern colonies. It was there that a large keelboat had been constructed for the expedition's use. They found it docked as promised, causing Lewis to smile genuinely for the first time since they'd left Washington.
"Beautiful!" he'd exclaimed, and no one had been faster to leave their horse at one of Pittsburgh's stables and climb aboard.
Alfred didn't think it was all that amazing. It was much smaller than all the massive ships with their great white sails he'd seen in Boston, clearly lacking their finery and impressive austerity. But it was a boat, it floated just fine (leak-free as well, a bonus in Alfred's opinion), and had enough sleeping room for the three of them and the soldier's they'd be picking up downriver.
Even so, he couldn't help being excited when he'd set foot on its wooden decks.
Clark caught sight of his gleeful expression. "Have you never sailed before, Jones?"
"No, sir," Alfred replied, still grinning.
"Jefferson mentioned that you'd lived in Boston, briefly. Did you not work in the dockyards?"
"Nah, I was a coffee shop assistant."
Clark looked briefly surprised. "Then how did you become involved in politics?"
Alfred shrugged. "I met Jefferson before he became President, when I was working as an aide of sorts at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. He liked me enough to invite me to work for him in Washington."
"You're a lucky man," Clark said, smiling.
"I know! I've always wanted to sail somewhere!" Clark looked like he was going to respond, but Lewis's voice rang across the deck at that moment.
"Are you going to help me set sail or not, you two?"
"That's what we've got dockhands for!" Clark shot back.
"What does that matter? Make yourselves useful!" Lewis replied. Clark just chuckled.
"He's always been like that," he said, flashing another quick smile at Alfred. "He thinks a man needs to use his hands to be useful. Heaven knows how he was convinced to be a politician; the Army was a much better fit for him."
"He seems quite serious about his work," Alfred answered, glancing up at the figure of Lewis standing by the ship's wheel.
"Very," Clark agreed. "Now come, we'd better get to work."
_V~-~-~V_
Going by boat was much faster than riding horseback, and it was a matter of days before they reached the site where they would pick up the soldiers from Camp Dubois. Lewis once again disregarded the need for soldiers on what was supposed to be a mission of peace and science, but Clark pointed out that not all the Indians would be open to peace.
Except he didn't call them Indians, or Injuns, or natives. Both Lewis and Clark referred to Nek's people as savages, in both their speech and their journals, something that irritated Alfred considerably, but was to be expected from two men who had both participated in the Indian wars in the western territories.
It was a fine summer's day when they met the soldiers. Most of them were fairly amicable, eager to be among the first to go west, and there weren't more than thirty of them total. Among them was a Sergeant Charles Floyd that Alfred found he had an instant liking for. Boisterous and friendly, he was among the liveliest of the soldiers, and beneath the loud surface was a collected and intelligent man. Though many of the others weren't interested in much more than exploration for bragging rights, fighting, and eventually returning to their families, Floyd saw the scientific merit behind the mission.
Shortly after they established their first stopping point, Camp Wood, just upstream of St Louis, he began constantly pestering Alfred with questions about the mission. Clark was usually mapping the area and Lewis would shoo him away with a pointed glare every time he got too close.
But when May 14th, 1804, rolled along, Camp Wood was left behind, and the expedition had officially begun. Even Lewis was smiling in a rather giddy fashion, though their progress was expectedly slow for the first few days until they got the hang of handling the keelboat.
Alfred found that he was most disappointed about the lack of a crow's nest on the boat, but it only had one sail and was certainly too small for something like that to be practical. But all his dreams of being a sailor had been on some immense boat with rigging, three masts, and a mermaid carved on the bow.
To rectify the situation, he decided that any pole in the middle of an empty deck on a dull river voyage was one begging to be climbed.
"JONES!"
Alfred glanced down, careful to make sure his hands didn't slip. "Yes, Lewis?"
"What in Heaven's name are you doing up there?"
"Just checking out the view, sir!"
With one final pull, Alfred hoisted himself onto the horizontal wooden pole that held the (currently furled) sail. Twisting quickly, he maneuvered himself into a seated position, his feet dangling out over the deck below. The view really was stunning: the river twisted before them, disappearing under the cover of trees only to reappear just beyond. Lush forest covered the ground as far as the eye could see, and the clear blue summer sky had only a few white puffs of cloud in the distance. A gentle warm breeze ruffled Alfred's hair, not possessing nearly enough force to make him worry for his safety.
"Get down from there this instant, Jones!"
Chancing another glance directly below, Alfred raised an eyebrow at Lewis, whose face appeared to be turning a lovely shade of puce. Of course, that was probably in part from the rather severe sunburn he'd gotten the third day after the voyage had set out, but Alfred laughed down at him all the same.
"But I only just got up here! It really is wonderful!" he exclaimed, turning his face toward the skies again. He heard a low chuckle from below, announcing Clark's arrival on deck.
"I say, Alfred, you really are quite high up!"
"None higher!" Alfred shouted back.
"The lad's goin' to get 'imself killed, mark me words."
"Aye, if it wasn't going up that got him, it'll be coming down."
"He looks pretty happy to me."
The number of soldiers abandoning their spots on the ship to marvel at Alfred's position atop the mast was growing, as was Lewis's anger.
"Fine, stay up there!" the expedition's commander shouted, "But I want no part of it when Jefferson asks why Jones doesn't survive his own idiocy, no part!"
"Certainly, you may forward all my medical bills to him," Alfred called back, grinning cheekily. Lewis, still incensed, spun around to go belowdecks.
A mix of laughter and muttering bubbled up from the crowd at Lewis's departure, but Clark just smiled up the mast, looking unperturbed at the sudden disappearance of his companion.
"You really ought to come down, Alfred," he said kindly, "or our friend Mr. Merriwether is bound to blow his top."
"I'd rather not, sir," Alfred replied. "If it's all the same by you, I think I'll stay up here for a bit."
"Just don't fall," Clark answered, a resigned smile on his face. "I don't particularly feel like cleaning up after." He turned and followed Lewis as well, leaving the assembled soldiers to return to their posts, many throwing envious parting glances toward Alfred's lofty seat.
"Honestly, it's not all that high," Alfred muttered.
_V~-~-~V_
When the 4th of July arrived, the small expedition was west of the Mississippi and making good progress. For years now, the day had been celebrated as a national holiday to mark the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Of course, Alfred remembered it primarily as the day Ben had chosen for him as his birthday.
They had arrived at a secondary waterway on the river, and decided to stop there. It was a holiday after all, and everyone needed a day of rest once in a while.
Clark set off again by himself with his cartography equipment to make another map, Lewis trailing behind a few minutes later for a bit of exploration of the area. A couple of the men also left sight of the ship, but most just set up a makeshift camp on the shore, relaxing and playing poker with pebbles.
Alfred joined them, only to find himself broke after a mere three rounds. The soldiers around him laughed at his predicament while Alfred huffed (he certainly did not pout, that was for children).
"Jones, never play for real money," one advised him, grinning ear to ear.
"You guys must be cheating or something," Alfred replied grumpily.
"Us?" another asked, his face contorting into an exaggerated wounded expression. "We would never do such a thing, would we?"
"We wouldn't," the one next to him muttered, "but you certainly would."
The man to Alfred's left, who looked the oldest of the lot, leaned over to speak to Alfred. "It's because you're a terrible bluffer, laddie. Yer hand is always all over yer face."
"It's not my fault," Alfred grumbled.
"Nah, it's not. Yer just the natural type to always say what they feel. Not a bad thing, certainly, but ye'd best stay away from the cards," he said, as if he was imparting the wisdom of the world unto Alfred.
Alfred stood. "I'll be getting back on the boat then, I suppose, seeing as I have no more money." After shooting a pointed glance at the large pile of pebbles before the older-looking man, he turned and headed back toward the keelboat.
When he arrived on the deck, he found Lewis already there, standing by the cannon fastened to the boards on the port side.
"Enjoying your break, Jones?" the man asked, speaking in a kinder tone than Alfred had ever heard from him, especially when spoken in his direction.
"I guess, but the men on the shore just beat me to smithereens in poker."
"Too bad," Lewis replied. After a pause, he continued, "They all cheat, you know."
Alfred grimaced. "I got that," he muttered, then hastily changed the subject. "It's hard to believe that America's already getting close to thirty years old, isn't it?"
Lewis shot him a strange look. "Not really. I was born in '74, you know. America's always been America to me. And you, I should think." Alfred hit his wince. Leave it to Lewis to make him feel old.
"Well… we've gotten so far in that time."
"I suppose we have." Lewis smiled faintly. "Clark is thinking of naming that waterway Independence Creek."
"Really?" Alfred asked, a bit surprised.
"It's a fitting name. I gave my okay," Lewis continued. "What do you think?"
"Of course it's fitting," Alfred replied.
Later that evening, in honor of Independence Day, the ship of the Lewis and Clark expedition fired its single cannon, an event solemnly observed by all soldiers aboard. Alfred chose to watch from his position atop the ship's mast as the remaining cannon smoke curled into the glow of the evening sky, and wished himself a happy birthday.
_V~-~-~V_
It was a day short of a month after the expedition's 4th of July celebration when they met with the first Indian groups on their voyage.
They'd discovered the tribe a few days earlier, according to Lewis, but really the tribe had discovered them, floating in their bulky keelboat westward on the river. Alfred felt his eyes raking the crowd for a sign of a familiar woman with an eagle feather in her braid, but found no one.
At the same time, Charles Floyd was getting dangerously ill. He'd been suffering for the entire length of the journey thus far, though he rarely complained. As a result, he was confined to the keelboat while the rest of the expedition made land. Lewis and Clark decided to set off in search of the Indian tribe to make them their first native ally.
The tribe turned out to be two, the Otoe and the Missouri, and Lewis and Clark met with both, dragging Alfred along with them because Jefferson had instructed him to be present at all ambassadorial meetings.
The Otoe village was a collection of earthen huts, each with its own cooking fire or tied horse. Though they were different from the Algonquin, Alfred's heart clenched at the sight of lithe little children in skins running through the camp and hiding about their mothers' legs. Though Alfred couldn't understand a word of the Chiwere dialect the Otoe spoke, he recognized the signs of the chief's hut when he saw them.
The Otoe men who had come to meet them directed Lewis and Clark in that general direction, where an old man with multiple bead strings hung around his neck stood. He said something none of them could understand, watching expectantly with deep brown eyes while a young man, most likely his son, studied the white men with interest.
When it became clear that none of them was a translator, the chief began signing, waving his hands in a manner almost universal to the native tribes. Thrilled that communication was actually possible, Alfred began signing back.
The chief looked at him with interest, and gave the sign for welcome.
"Do you understand that, Jones?" Lewis hissed in his ear, but Alfred just ignored him. It was rude to break contact with a chief once you had established it, and the last thing he wanted was to be disrespectful.
Signing quickly back, Alfred answered, thank you. We bring you many gifts. He gestured towards Clark, who carried the bags of presents, which instantly caught the chief's interest. Motioning for his son to come forward, he had the young man take the gifts from Clark. He immediately began sorting through them, pulling out the beads, tobacco, an American flag with its fifteen white stars, and mint leaves (what were those doing in there, Alfred wondered).
The chief nodded his approval and said something. The son took the bag into the hut, and the chief's attention was once again on the foreigners.
We be friends with you, Alfred hastily signed. Large canoe with white men, he gestured in the direction they'd come from. We go west. Alfred inwardly cursed the imprecision of sign as the chief looked at him in slight confusion.
Quickly, Alfred handed over the peace medal, and was astonished when the man actually took it, turning the silver over in his hand with avid interest.
Pointing to Jefferson's profile, Alfred signed, white man chief. We be friends with you, he repeated.
Comprehension seemed to dawn on the chief's face, and he smiled a yellow-toothed smile. Alfred fought to keep from wincing, for the first time thinking that perhaps the mint leaves would do someone some good.
They had little else to negotiate. A cordial relationship had been established, and the expedition was grateful to be resupplied with fresh food and animal skins before setting off again.
_V~-~-~V_
The first casualty of the trip came not from an Indian arrow as Lewis had long expected, but from an unanticipated illness.
Charles Floyd, the boisterous soldier Alfred had taken a liking to on the first day, fell extremely ill not long after they left the Otoe and Missouri. Within two weeks, it became clear he was going to die.
Alfred sat beside Floyd's bed, a makeshift structure they'd created on the hill they were camping on for his benefit. Clark was once again away mapping the area, but most of the soldiers were nearby, each contributing to the somber atmosphere of the camp, even if Floyd had made a most miraculous recovery in the past day.
Sitting upright, Floyd looked somewhat normal again (aside from the lost weight and sickly pallor). He managed to flash a weak grin at Alfred.
"It seems I've been spared this time, doesn't it?"
"I guess you have," Alfred conceded.
But the following day, Alfred woke with a sinking feeling and a twinge in his stomach. Floyd looked just as he had before the brief recovery, but his breathing was growing decidedly shallower by the minute. At the familiarity of the scene, Alfred's breath caught.
"I'll be going for a walk."
When he returned, the soldiers were burying Floyd at the top of the hill. Clark, in all his mapmaking wisdom, had named it Floyd's Bluff in honor of the man who fell to an unknown illness rather than dying a soldier's death. The least they could do was bury him with honor.
_V~-~-~V_
They'd moved on, one person less, and still hadn't seen anything but the endless grasslands that had surrounded them for weeks. A bit over two weeks since Floyd's untimely passing, one of the soldiers was exploring the surrounding area when he came running back to the camp, hollering something about an underground squirrel.
Lewis instantly followed him, and the rest of the expedition did the same shortly after, sprinting across the grassland in search of this elusive "underground squirrel".
"Here! It was here!" the soldier exclaimed, gesturing wildly at a hole in the ground, beside a small mound of dirt.
Another soldier eyed the hole skeptically. "Looks like a snake hole to me."
"Snakes don't build mounds," Lewis said absently, studying the hole with an intense expression on his face.
"Perhaps it is a new species," Clark pointed out, joining his partner closest to the hole.
"Nah, I'm certain it was an burrowing squirrel!" the soldier who'd led them there declared.
"Well, it won't come out if we're all shouting at it, now will it?" Alfred snapped at the assembled men. Lewis nodded in agreement, and held up a hand for silence.
The tense atmosphere built for several minutes. Alfred could see that the men were about to snap from impatience, but just then, a nose poked out of the hole.
"There he is!" the original soldier cried, and instantly the nose disappeared again.
"Silence!" Lewis hissed angrily.
Shortly after, the animal reappeared, this time its whole head appearing, eyeing the group with frightened black eyes.
"Looks more like a dog than a squirrel to me," someone muttered. The tiny dog reentered its hole, but Lewis was nearly jumping with excitement.
"I've never seen such a remarkable creature before! We have to capture it, and study it, and write about it…"
He rambled on while Clark looked at the hole with a thoughtful expression. "We should send it back to Jefferson. There are scientists in the states who can study it. We have to keep moving, after all."
Lewis looked a bit disappointed that his project was being taken away, but then another thought seemed to strike him. "How are we going to get it out of that hole?"
"Bait it with food!" one of the soldiers exclaimed.
"We don't know what it eats, you great idiot," another replied, but this didn't deter suggestions.
"Break its burrow!"
"Burn it out!"
"Put a trap at the entrance!"
Clark just kept shaking his head. "We can't have it injured if it's to be studied. A trap is possible, but again, we don't know what it eats…"
"What if we drowned it out?" Alfred suggested. "If it's got water coming at it, it should leave."
A soldier scoffed. "Don't be stupid. It'd just get stuck in its hole that way."
Lewis shook his head. "No, all burrowing animals always have a back way into their holes. If we found the back way, we could easily capture it by scaring it out."
In a few minutes, Lewis had half the men running back to the ship for buckets of water, while the other half combed the grassland in search of the elusive back entrance.
"I've got it!"
Alfred, who was stationed at the original hole to keep watch, glanced up and saw a man some fifty feet away waving his hands.
"It does seem to be of similar construction," Clark said, looking down at the new hole.
"Bring the water!" Lewis called.
The men with buckets circled around the new hole, while the others joined Alfred.
"Put the bag over the entrance," Lewis instructed, and one of the men covered the hole with a burlap sack brought from the ship, formerly used to hold potatoes.
"On my mark… pour!"
In rapid succession, the soldiers poured their buckets down the hole while Alfred prayed that they'd gotten the right one. The last thing he wanted was for some venomous snake or rabid bunny to start attacking them.
The man beside him cried out, and Alfred quickly looked back down to see him clutching a squirming burlap bag, trying to get his arms wrapped around it.
"I've got it! I've got it!"
The cheer that went up from the men echoed across the emptiness of the grassland as the newly-named prairie dog was successfully tied up and carried back to the ship.
That evening, Alfred went down into the hold and unwrapped the little creature, sure it was absolutely terrified and expecting to be bitten, but the tiny thing just poked him with its nose.
"Hey there," he whispered, patting its head.
He was still sitting with it when Clark came down, and looked up to see the man wearing an awfully surprised expression on his face.
"Look, I've made friends with the prairie dog!" Alfred said cheerfully, smiling brightly at the shocked-looking Clark.
"That you have, Alfred," the man replied, whipping out his notebook. "Unusually docile after containment…" he muttered, scribbling on the page. Seemingly in response, the prairie dog hissed at the man, who raised his eyebrows.
"… or not."
V/~-~-~\V
Complete!
I tried to keep close to historical events for this chapter. Charles Floyd really existed and did die, of appendicitis. They did get the entire expedition out to try and drown a never-before-seen prairie dog out of its hole, and they did meet with the Otoe and the Missouri. Look forward to the secondary part of the expedition next chapter!
As usual, thank you for taking the time to read this chapter! If you would like, I would appreciate hearing any thoughts or reviews you have!