Daria on the Trail Part Nine Meet the Shy Sisters
DISCLAIMER: I do not own either A Game of Thrones or A Song of Ice and Fire. Nor do I own Daria Morgendorffer. The former belongs to GRR Martin and Daria belongs to MTV Viacom. This story based on the real Oregon Trail and has little or nothing to do with the computer game of the same name. This work of fiction is written for my own amusement and ego gratification, not for profit.
Daria On The Trail*Daria On The Trail*Daria On The Trail
Daria had difficulty getting to sleep that evening. Despite her exhaustion, Daria found herself reviewing her encounter that afternoon. She should have handled it better. She reviewed Mrs. Trout's pointers and told herself that she'd use them if she encountered those women again. I screwed up, she thought, I'll try and do better next time.
Mrs. Trout roused her just before dawn and Daria joined the Trout women in packing up the wagon and preparing for another day on the trail. The day was mostly clear, with clouds making their way overhead without dropping any rain. That was good and bad in Daria's estimation: good because it didn't make mud and bog down the wagons, bad because it meant more heat, more dust, and more perspiration. Daria was coming to hate the way her clothing stank and hoped she could pick up something new along the way, even if it was third-hand 1850's homespun.
An impulse caused her to look across the Platte River. Despite the breadth of the Platte at this point in her journey, she could occasionally see other emigrant parties making their way west. Her eyes widened when she saw one group slowly trudging along. For them, trudging was real, not literary: they were pulling handcarts instead of walking beside their wagons. I thought I had it bad, she thought. Those guys must be a party of Mormon handcart pioneers. She wondered just how deferential she'd be if she and they went scavenging and found items they both wanted. To her shame and embarrassment, she realized that she probably wouldn't be, at least not until she got new clothing.
Her thoughts about scavenging made her review what she knew about Fort Laramie. In addition to having a smithy and a post office, the campgrounds near the fort had been noted for being one of the places where Overland Emigrants dumped a lot of stuff they considered to be excess weight: heirloom furniture, ploughs, mining equipment, books, and even firearms. In fact, Overland emigrants dumped so much stuff near the Fort that some of them nicknamed it "Camp Sacrifice." Daria hoped that someone dumped a couple of changes of clothes as a sacrifice to the Nekkid Morgendorffer.
That afternoon was spent looking for fuel, interrupted by occasional sight-seeing. The valley containing the Platte River and its banks was pretty flat, although Daria occasionally could and did see hills at a distance. She wondered how long it would be until she began to get her first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains. Probably a long while, she grumbled to herself.
That evening, the company camped about half a mile or so from the south bank of the North Platte. Another company had camped nearby. Not that it meant that much to Daria: she'd learned that while the guys might have a bit of leisure time to socialize with the neighbors, pioneer women were kept busy. Daria went down to the river to draw water and wondered who they were.
A couple of women from the other wagon train said Hello or nodded at her when they saw her. "And where are you from?" said one of them, a plain-faced brown-haired woman that Daria would have guessed that came from Ohio.
"Originally from thither, then from Carroll County, Maryland, and now out here," said Daria. One of the women stared at Daria a moment, then gave her companion a knowing look. Daria guessed its meaning as surely as she could read a book: Dodgy character, this Morgendorffer. In truth she had no choice but to live with the reputation of having a dodgy background: to declare herself a time traveler from an alternate dimension was an open invitation to be treated as a madwoman. She didn't like it, but being thrown in the nearest loony bin as a madwoman would be far worse.
Daria was on her way back to the Trouts' cookfires when she saw the Andal-speaking women she'd already nicknamed the "Shy Sisters." The Shy Sisters were complaining about the bugs along the Platte and their neighbors' rudeness. Daria set down the buckets she'd been carrying, grinned, and prepared to drop the bomb on them.
"Greetings," Daria said in the Common Tongue. "May the blessings of God the Father be upon you."
The effect was everything she could hope for. The three Westerosi women stopped dead in their tracks and stared at Daria in astonishment. Two of them were so astonished that their jaws dropped.
"By the Gods, Bessie, she speaks Andal," said one of the women.
"A bit," Daria replied.
"Where are you from?" said the first one.
"I'm from Maryland," said Daria. "That's an American state east of the Great River." She used the Westerosi term: Mississippi was a tongue-twister for Andal-speakers and some of the Trouts' efforts made her laugh.
"We haven't seen you before," said the second one.
"Are you with our Company?" asked the third one.
"No, I'm with a different one," said Daria.
"Are you all Yankees?" asked the one called Bessie.
"Most of my company is, except for the Trouts," said Daria. "Mr. Trout is the Captain of our Company. I'm traveling with him and his family."
"Whither are you bound?" said the first one.
"Our Company is headed for Oregon," said Daria. "And I need to bring in the water for tonight's dinner." She picked up the buckets and started trudging back towards the camp.
The Shy Sisters followed her, asking questions. Daria told them that the Trouts had come through the Arch, wintered near Saint Louis, then set off for Oregon from Westport. They'd been on the trail for some weeks when they encountered Daria, and agreed to take her at least as far as Fort Laramie. She told them that Mr. Trout left the Riverlands because of the war and decided that Oregon was safer than Missouri or Kansas. Along the way she learned that the Shy Sisters were also refugees from the southern part of the Riverlands, but poorer than the Trouts had been. They came through the Arch several months later than the Trouts and had spent a miserable winter near Westport. They followed Daria all the way to the Trouts' cooking fire, where they greeted Mrs. Trout.
Daria watched in admiration as Mrs. Trout handled the Shy Sisters with aplomb. She picked up the hard, half-baked doughy bread left over from the day before, added a pinch of salt to it, and offered them Guest Right in the name of the Seven. The Shy Sisters responded with tears and thanks, then told them that they needed to draw water for their own families but that they hoped to see Mrs. Trout again at the Lacramaie Holdfast. They then left.
"The Lacramaie holdfast?" said Willem.
"I would guess that that woman meant Fort Laramie," said Daria. "Fort Laramie is the nearest post and I don't remember there being a fortress of tears along the trail."
"We'll see," said Mr. Trout.
"Daria, you were right," said Mrs. Trout. "Those women are our countrywomen. You did well to introduce us to them."
-(((O-O)))-
The following day was much like the day before: rise before sunrise, help Mrs. Trout light the cooking fire, then help the Trouts load their wagon. Mr. Trout told Daria that she could help Willem yoke the oxen to the other wagon the following morning, a prospect that Daria wasn't looking forward to. Their company was still rolling along westwards towards Fort Laramie. Daria was feeling optimistic enough to imagine herself holding highway map and noting that they were about to cross the state line and enter Wyoming. At this time in history, though, there was no State of Wyoming: there wasn't even a territory of Wyoming. The Nebraska Territory continued west at least as far as the distant Wasatch Mountains.
She wondered how far away they were from Fort Laramie. It couldn't be too far now. They'd either reach the Laramie River crossing until this evening or sometime tomorrow. The Fort lay not far beyond beyond it and she'd have to ask the Trouts to let her accompany them all the way to Oregon or find her own way of making her way west.
She spent much of the day with the Trout girls and some of the other women scouting for fuel. Previous trains in previous years had picked the areas closest to the trail pretty clean and she found herself ranging more than a mile from the trail and hoping that neither the Indians nor worse, white renegades, would attack her.
By mid afternoon, she and the Trout women had gathered enough fuel for this evening's and the following morning's campfire and she gratefully returned to the Trail, where the wagon train continued to plod westward. There was someone with a wagon going in the opposite direction. The wagon train slowed down to a stop and paused. Mr. Trout shouted that they'd stop to camp in about an hour. There was also another bit of good news that came with it: they'd reach the Laramie River crossing tomorrow around mid-day.
