Daria On the Trail Rifle Range

DISLAIMER: Daria Morgendorffer is the property of MTV Viacom. I do not own her. A Song of Ice and Fire and A Game of Thrones is the property of George RR Martin and HBO. I do not own either franchise.

This story is based on my research of the REAL Oregon Trail, not the computer game of the same name.

I am writing this story for my own amusement and for ego gratification, not for profit. Please write and post a review if you are enjoying what I've written.

This story is based on an idea by Ultimate Paladin used in his story The New World (Modern America and Westeros).

- Daria On the Trail- Daria On the Trail- Daria On the Trail-

We arrived back at our camp site after visiting the washer-women. Disreputable or not, I thought that my charges would enjoy seeing and perhaps talking to someone from the Old Country. The visit went well: the older washerwoman, Gerdwin, was a good storyteller and the girls were captivated while Othar was tired enough to take a nap. He sat down, leaned his back against the laundry building, and was out like a light in seconds. Gerdwin and Ruth told the Trout and Thatch girls about the trail ahead and warned them that it would be dangerous. I was told later on that Mr. and Mrs. Thatch were scandalized when they heard where I'd taken them, but Gerdwin and Ruth were touched by my bringing the kids by the laundry.

We returned to our camp site in good order. My first order of business was to check in with Kara. I did so and told her about our adventures on the walk to the Fort and about Othar meeting the Commandant and my meeting Mrs. Ashfield.

"This woman, you say that she was a forebear?" she said.

"She might have been in the world I came from," I replied. "But this," I said, waving my arms, "isn't the world I came from. Not only that but she and I would soon have words about slavery."

"Westeros doesn't have slavery, does it?" I said changing the topic.

"No, Aegon the Conqueror abolished it," said Kara.

"You saw slaves in Missouri, haven't you?" I said.

"Yes," said Kara. "I felt horrible seeing those people in bondage."

"Well, her family, like some of my forebears on my mother's side, were wealthy slave-owners," I said. "I don't like it. She may be the next best thing to my ancestress, but I really don't want anything to do with slavery."

"Do you think the Southerners would break up the Union," said Kara.

"Yes," I replied. "And from where I came from, the fighting would spread into Kansas and Missouri."

Kara looked at me strangely but said nothing.

-(((O-O)))—

Captain Trout returned in the late afternoon along with the Mathers and the male Wilsons. They'd managed to salvage enough of the Wilsons' wagon to make a cart and limp back to our campsite. I'm not sure as to how serviceable it was, but it got most of their gear and supplies back from Deep Rut Hill.

Captain Trout, our guys, and the Wilsons were hungry when they came in. Despite the fact that I was also well-worn from watching Othar, I pitched in to help with cooking dinner. Captain Trout asked me about my day and I told him about my walk to the Fort and my talk with the Colonel. Most of our dinner conversation was in English, some in Andal.

"I hope to leave in a couple of days," said Captain Trout, speaking in English. "Most of our wagons are fixed and we do need to get going."

"Surely not the day after tomorrow, I hope," I said.

"You want to stay here?" said Captain Trout.

"Not really," I said. "But the Colonel wants me to talk to the officers, the file leaders, the day after tomorrow."

"I think you can talk to the Colonel," he said. "I will try to leave the morning after."

"Something I want to do tomorrow," he said. "I want to find out how well we can fight. We might go to the rifle range and shoot."

"I'd like to come, if I may," I said.

"You don't have to," said Captain Trout. "I won't need you to translate."

"Actually I think I do," I said. "I think I ought to see how well I can shoor. I might have trouble loading, but I'm a good shot."

"If you can shoot, why would you have trouble loading?" asked Mr. Wilson.

"Because the guns I'm used to have use bullets with metal casings that incorporate bullets, charge, and percussion caps," I said.

"That sounds fancy," said Mr. Wilson.

"Believe me or not, but you'll be able to buy them at a store in ten to eleven years," I replied. "No later than twelve years hence. You can take that to the bank."

"Eleven years is a ways off," said Mr. Wilson. "I hope you can learn our way."

"I'm sure I can," I said, feeling a lot less confident than I sounded.

-(((O-O)))-

I actually had some experience with firearms. I'd picked up a little in Highland, where I'd snuck out of the house several times to go shooting with Earl. Earl and I had a strange friendship: we never necked or anything, but we did go out to the sticks several times where he taught me how to grip and aim a pistol. And shoot it. Despite the fact that I'd never held a real pistol before, I'd somehow managed to impress him with how well I could shoot. Of course that was with modern bullets, not with black powder.

My lessons abruptly ended after I got caught. Mom and Dad pitched fits, Mom threatened Earl, and I was grounded. That was one of the reasons Mom and Dad moved to Lawndale, to get me away from Earl and to prevent me from sliding into Highland's gang scene. Poor Earl. At least Mom and Dad didn't succeed in getting him jailed.

It was nearly a year before I went shooting again. That was the fall before Uncle Ben brought Rikka to live with us: one of Quinn's many discards was a gun nut named Gary who wanted to take her to the rifle range for target practice as a third date. Quinn dumped him, of course. Gary was surprised when I moved in for the kill right after I'd learned that he was available and even more surprised as to why I told him why: I was doing research for my Melody Powers stories.

We went to the range nearly a dozen times and I learned that I was a good shot. In fact, Gary was a little jealous. "Why would a lib be such a good shot?" he asked. I barely held back from telling him off: Gary was too clueless to realize that he'd hit a sore spot. I bit my tongue, shrugged and told him that it was the way things turned out.

Our trips ended when Uncle Ben came home and never really picked up again. I learned that gunfire really freaked Rikka out, and for good reason: she flashed back to the day she came over to Westeros and the Gold Cloaks tried to murder her. I did manage to go out a couple of times after that, but I'd had to hire a babysitter to watch Rikka when I did. Our thing ended, I got busy with stuff as Rikka got busy with track and I got ready to go off to Raft. I hadn't done much shooting since.

-(((O-O)))-

The following morning I joined the troop that went to go shooting. My presence caused some controversy. "Why are you out here with the boys, Fancy?" said Mr. Wooley. Mr. Wilson's nickname seemed to be spreading, I thought grimly.

"Because I might not be much with a knife or a sword, but I can shoot," I replied.

"Shoot?" scoffed Mr. Bass, "You can't even load."

"But I can shoot," I replied, "and I can learn to load."

"You ought to leave the shooting to the men, Fancy," he said.

"Like the saying goes, "God created all men. Samuel Colt made them equal," I said.

"So what will you do when some big Sioux comes for you with his tomahawk?" he said.

"Shoot him before he clubs me," I said, although I didn't think we had to worry about the Sioux. Some guys in Idaho, I remembered. I'll ask at Fort Caspar, I told myself.

We found a place to go shooting, scouting ahead to make sure that there wouldn't be any people or grazing animals down-range. We set out several targets. They weren't the sort of things anyone would use at a rifle range, but they were cheap and available for the taking. We set out ruined chairs, a butter churn, a couple of chest drawers, and some clay jars that someone had brought all the way from home only to dump here a third of the way to the Willamette.

I'd picked up a muzzle-loader with bullets, cartridges, and percussion caps that someone had abandoned as excess weight. Mr. Wilson sportingly helped me load it, then offered to help me aim it. I thanked him, told him I was good, then took aim when Captain Trout commanded us to fire a volley. I pulled the trigger and felt the rifle's butt hit my shoulder.

Captain Trout then ordered us to stop and we walked up to look at our targets. Most of the adults were pretty good. Not surprising: they hunted for the pot and had years of practice.

"Fancy" Morgendorffer not so much. My first try was a miss: black powder doesn't have the same power as later propellants. The guys laughed. Mr. Wilson helped me load again, but I needed less help this time and put the cap on the nipple myself. We fired again.

Captain Trout then had us shoot individually. I learned that the men shot better than I did. But I also learned that not all the teenaged Yankees weren't as hot shots as they thought they were. By now I had the range and a better idea as to how to aim my free rifle. I stepped up and was able to blow a hole in one of the dresser drawers. Then Kennard and a twelvish-Carp boy took their turns: the older Westerosi kids did poorly with long arms.

Captain Trout sent us through our paces a third time and I was able to repeat my feat. I hoped to High Heaven that the Indians would stay peaceful. I was not confident about how quickly I could reload, but I felt safer than I did before.

-(((O-O)))-

We walked back to camp after we were done. I'd made sure that my rifle was empty: I'd heard of too many accounts of pioneers dying from accidental shootings when someone's gun went off, and I was determined that none of them would be my fault.

"So how did you do?" said Kara when the guys and I came back to the camp fire.

"Not as well as I'd like," said Mr. Trout. "I'd prefer my longbow."

"I did great!" said Kennard. I knew better but kept my mouth shut.

And you, Daria?" asked Kara.

"There's a chest and a butter churn out there that will never threaten anyone ever again," I said.

"You had a visitor while you were out," said Kara.

"I did?" I said.

Kara handed me something in brown wrapping paper and bound with twine. I wondered whose paper it was: paper was expensive out here. I opened it and it was a dress.

"Oh, my," I said.

I didn't try it on until after our noon meal and Kara had chased off the boys . It had been someone's emigrant dress: by the cut of it, it was for a girl, not an adult, but while it hung loose and one of the sleeves was too long, it would do. It would do.

I bottle things up. I admit it. And I've been bottling up a lot of stuff since I'd been dropped near the Trouts' camp site two weeks before. All my pent-up feelings about being the traveling freak on the Great Plains came out. I whooped with delight.

I then took it off and set it aside.

"Aren't you going to wear it?" said Kara, a puzzled look on her face.

"Not until after I take a bath," I said, covering it in my blanket

And then the miracle happened. One of the Mormon elders came to call on Captain Trout. He nodded to Kara and me.

"Good afternoon, ladies," he said.

"Good afternoon," said Kara.

"Good afternoon…Elder… is it?" I said.

He frowned at me.

"Captain Trout said that you ladies wanted to take a bath," he said.

"Definitely," he said.

"One of our wives is organizing a group of Saints to go bathing," he said.

"Up or downstream?" I asked.

"Upstream," he said.

I would have preferred to wash somewhere else. The water wasn't anywhere near what I'd consider safe. I was upstream from Fort Laramie but still downstream from whatever waste found its way south from camp sites for the next eighty-odd miles. Still, it was cleaner than the Thames or the Ganges in the here-and now.

"Deal," I said. "Does someone have soap?"

Author's notes

This story is set in the year 1860.

The dump sites I'd mentioned earlier were very real. Pioneers on the Overland Trail headed for either Oregon or California discarded articles as they crossed the continent in order to save weight and lessen the burden on their draft animals. Pioneers dropped a lot of different items along the way: ploughs, far tools, heirloom plates and furniture, books, clothing, even guns and even excess foodstuffs. The area around Fort Laramie was particularly noted as a dumping-ground: so much so that many pioneers nicknamed it Camp Sacrifice.

There was some trouble between the pioneers and the Native Americans. Much of the bloodshed could be laid at the feet of the pioneers, who might shoot at Native American men they suspected had bad intentions. Attacks on wagon trains were very rare, although there were reputably a few in what is now eastern Idaho in the early 1860's.

I hope to get Daria and the Trout wagon train out of Fort Laramie and back on the trail in a couple more chapters!