Daria On The Trail Part Seventeen: Reorganizing The Company Part One
DISCLAIMER: I do not own either A Song of Ice and Fire or A Game of Thrones. Nor do I own Daria Morgendorffer. The setting is the Oregon Trail in the summer of 1860 and is based on my research on the real Oregon Trail, not the computer game of the same name.
This story is written for my amusement and ego gratification, not for profit. If you are enjoying this story, please write and post a review.
Advisory: the opinions of the characters in this story are theirs, not mine.
Daria On The Trail*Daria On The Trail*Daria On The Trail
Orrick Trout POV:
I walked back to my wagon after the meeting broke up. There would be a lot to do: I would have to make a final accounting of our Company's trail expenses and refund the shares of the fund we'd set aside for emergencies, find and yoke a couple of oxen, then re-arrange our camp to allow those who would be leaving with Captain Ridge. I hoped that we could find some more families to replace the ones leaving with Ridge. Back in my youth I'd learned that while too many wagons in a caravan could be a nuisance, too few would be inviting danger, particularly in unfriendly country. From here the Trail was heading into more unfriendly country and possibly dangerous savages.
I took Willem and Kennard with me to round up and yoke a couple of our oxen. I wished Daria was here: she'd gone off to the fort to go book-buying and had not returned. Had she gotten into trouble, or had she gotten distracted? I hoped not. The girl should have been more careful. I surprised myself by just how angry I was: somehow the girl had become important to me, and not just as a traveler trying to make her way to this world's western ocean. Whatever the case, I resolved to have words with her when she returned.
The lads and I yoked the oxen and we began to move the wagons. I'd circled my wagon next to those of the Millers and the Wilsons, both of whom were supporters of Captain Ridge, and both of whom would be leaving Fort Laramie with him the day after tomorrow. I said little to Mr. Miller and his oldest son: if we were parting ways, I wanted to keep the parting neutral and not let it turn into a brawl. Things were different with Mr. Wilson, he was nervous, couldn't speak, and couldn't look me in the eye. He finally broke his silence and said something as he and I attached his ox yoke to his wagon tongue.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"For what?" I said.
"My vote," he said. "It isn't anything against you. I think you're a better Captain than Tom Ridge."
That was surprising, but I said nothing. I thought Wilson was foolish for staying with Ridge but I'd learned enough from staying around tetchy noblemen to watch my tongue.
"You heard my speech," I said with a shrug. "You know why I won't leave the Fort with Ridge. I don't think it's safe without repairing our wagons, re-arranging our outfits, and making sure that the oxen can pull our wagons. I don't wish to start a fight—I just don't want to leave until I think everyone is ready. "
"It isn't anything about you. I'm friends with Bill Mathers," he said. "I came West with the Mathers. We've been friends for a long time. We've done everything together since we were kids. He was for leaving with Captain Ridge. I wanted to stay with you."
"I see," I said. I still thought that Captain Ridge was a fool and that the people who were choosing to follow him were making a mistake. But I understood the power of the bonds of friendship and nothing I could say could gainsay the bonds of friendship. "It's nothing personal. I hope you make it."
We shook hands and I patted his shoulder. Sometimes the Gods watched over fools. I hoped that They would watch over the Wilsons.
The Wilsons and the Mathers weren't the only families leaving with Ridge. So were seven other families. Most chose to leave because they thought that traveling with Ridge would get them to the Willamette quicker, a couple because they were uneasy about my family's belief in the Seven, and the rest because of friendship with other families or loyalty to Captain Ridge. Thomas Ridge, I corrected myself. I was through calling him a Captain.
Daria came back about an hour after the boys and I had finished moving the wagons. She was not alone: a soldier accompanied her and I could tell by her body language that she did not look happy.
"Welcome back," I said. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
The girl flinched. "I found some of what I was looking for and other things I wasn't looking for," she said. "We now have guidebooks for the Oregon Trail and the Lander Road and Lieutenant Potter took me in front of the Colonel and they had questions for me."
"Such as?" I asked.
"It looks like I'm not the only one from the next hundred years present on the Trail," she replied. "Apparently there are others."
"But that's not why the Lieutenant came with me," she continued. "He has questions about Westeros."
"Does he speak Andal?" I asked her.
"I think he speaks some," said Daria. "A couple of the laundresses come from Westeros. They said some naughty things to him and I got to see him blush."
I turned my attention to the soldier. "I greet you in the name of the Old Gods and the New," I said in Andal. "I am Orrick Trout. How may I help you?"
"Greetings," the soldier replied. He spoke slowly and his accent was much worse than Daria's. "I am Cleon Potter. I am soldier in US Army. I asks questions about you and Westeros." His grammar was horrible.
"I am from the Riverlands," I replied, speaking slowly and carefully.
"Where you from in the Riverlands?" he asked.
"I am from Ser Goldwin's lands," I replied. "Ser Goldwin is a Bannerman of Lord Frey's."
"And where is this Lord Frey's lands?" asked Lieutenant Potter.
"Lord Frey's lands are in the center-north of the Riverlands, south of the Neck," Seven Above, how much does this fool know about the Seven Kingdoms? Next to nothing, or so it seemed.
The Lieutenant looked puzzled. " So do you owe allegiance to this Ser Goldwin or to this Lord Frey?" he asked.
"Excuse me," said Daria. She then had a conversation with Potter.
"Oh, you have a feudal system," he said. "I didn't know. You had oath to Set Goldwin who had oath to Lord Frey." I never heard the English word "feudal" before, but Potter looked satisfied. I resolved to ask Daria what it meant.
Potter had more questions for me: where Ser Goldwin lived, how many men-at-arms were in Ser Goldwin's holdfast, how many other Bannermen Lord Frey possessed. I felt a brief twinge of guilt answering his questions, then remembered that I no longer had any allegiances to the Freys or to the Tullys or even to the King: I'd already cast them aside when our Company left Westport and I wouldn't see either Ser Goldwin or any of the Freys until the next world. I told him about the road to the Green Fork, the Ferry, then taking the train through the Arch and getting off at Westport. I was surprised at Potter's questions about my old home: didn't he know that there were other ways across the Green Fork besides the Frey's bridge?
He then asked me about why I chose to leave the Riverlands. I gave him honest, truthful answers: I told him that I left because I'd thought that war was coming and, just as it did during Robert's Rebellion and so many others before it, the wars would ravish the Riverlands. I told him that coming through the Arch would be safer for me and my family. He then asked me why I chose to travel to Oregon. I replied that I thought that Oregon was healthier than the Mississippi Valley and that even if Tywin Lannister chose to send an army through the Arch, they'd be hard-pressed to bother us once they crossed the sea of grass and the mountains that lay between Westeros and the Western Ocean.
"Miss Morgendorffer say you drove wagons during King Robert's War," he said.
"I did," I replied. "When I was young, I traveled with a caravan all the way down to Dorne. Several years later, I was in the militia and helped lead and guard wagons during King Robert's Rebellion."
"Did you?" said Lieutenant Potter. He sounded fascinated.
"Surely there have been other travelers from the Riverlands and the other six kingdoms seeking to travel to the Western Ocean," I said.
"More than a few," said Lieutenant Potter. "But few of them spoke English very well, and you have been to places they haven't. I hope to talk with you some more. And now I have duties and I must go. I bid you good day." And with that, he turned around and walked away.
I turned to Daria. "So you talked to this place's Castellan," I said. I had been talking to Potter in Andal and I saw no reason to start speaking English.
"Yes, I talked to the Colonel. He's the current commandant," she replied , using the English words.
"What did he want?" I asked.
"The Colonel spent the first part of the conversation asking Potter whether he'd found a woman from the future, then examining a couple of my name-cards, what money I had on my person," Daria replied. "I told him that I was no Maester and wasn't able to build aircraft or rockets but was able to confirm the existence of the germ theory of disease. He then sent me off with Lieutenant Potter to talk to the Fort's laundresses to prove that I could speak Andal. After they got through making him blush, he escorted me back to our camp."
I smiled in recollection. Some of the camp-followers traveling behind King Robert's armies had been laundresses and were more than able to make pages and even young squires blush.
"These laundresses," I said, "they are from Westeros?"
"They say they are," Daria replied. "I'm not good at telling just where people come from, but they definitely speak Andal. We didn't speak that long. I learned that they were the wife and daughter of smallfolk who'd come through the Arch after it open. Their father or husbands had died from diseases and accidents and since they lacked money or close kin, they took up work as washer-women. They have been here a couple of years and one of them has married a soldier here."
"And how did this Lieutenant Potter react to your talking to them?" I said.
"I think it embarrassed him," the girl replied. "He does not believe that the laundresses are respectable women and seems to think that I demean myself by talking to them."
Her expression changed. "I don't care," she continued. "Talking to them helps me speak more Andal, they know things about the Fort, and any embarrassment"—she waved her fingers—"I get for talking to washer-women will be left behind us by the time we reach Independence Rock."
I then remembered why I'd sent her off to the Sutler's Store. "So did you buy any guidebooks?" I asked.
"Yes," she replied. "I think we might have some good ones. I also found a guidebook for the Lander Road."
"Good work," I said. "I want you to start reading those books while we have good light. Then you can tell me what you've learned about the trail between here and the next Army post. In the meantime, I need to write a letter."
-(((O-O)))-
Author's Notes: Cleon Potter is based on Harry Turtledove's alternate-history Clarence Potter, not the kid with the scar on his forehead. I would remind readers that Cleon Potter is neither Harry nor Clarence Potter.
Also, I intentionally added Lieutenant Potter's grammatical mistakes to show that he doesn't speak Andal that well.
So there.
