Daria on the Trail
Meeting Earl Again
DISCLAIMER: Daria was created by Glen Eichler and is the property of MTV Viacom. Earl was created by Mike Judge and is also the property of MTV Viacom. A Song of Ice and Fire was created by George RR Martin and is the property of George RR Martin, HBO and others. I do not own them.
This story is based on my research on the real Oregon Trail, not the video game of the same name.
If you are enjoying this story, please write and post a review.
Daria on the Trail*Daria on the Trail*Daria on the Trail
Daria:
"Earl? What the Hell are you doing here?" I said. He tilted his head sheepishly. My God is he actually blushing?
"Traveling west," he said.
"Likewise," I said. "Where are you headed for?"
"California," he said.
"Oregon," I replied.
"I didn't expect to see you here," he said.
"I didn't expect to be here," I said. "It's been while since high school." I'd left Highland nine years ago.
"How long have you been here?" I asked. Earl might not have a college diploma, but he was smart enough to guess what I was really asking: how long had he been in the Nineteenth Century?
"Over two months," he said. "I fell asleep in my truck and when I woke up I was somewhere just east of Fort Kearny. And you?"
"Around a month," I said. "I went to sleep in my apartment and woke up at a wagon camp just east of Chimney Rock." I looked at Minti, then looked at Independence Rock's steep downward gradient. "I've got responsibilities," I said. "Let's resume our talk when we get back on level ground." I squatted down and checked Minti's shoelaces to make sure that they were tight, then checked my own.
Earl looked at Minti and said "Yours?"
"No, she's Kara Trout's daughter. Long story." I replied.
"Excuse me," I said, lifting up my index finger, a trick I'd learned from a grade-school teacher. It worked: Earl fell silent. I got back on my feet, then Minti and I carefully walked down the Rock. Earl followed us down.
When we reached flat, level ground, Earl looked at me and said "So who is Kara Trout?"
"Kara Trout is the wife of Orrick Trout," I replied. "Orrick Trout is the Captain of my Company. He's leading my wagon train to Oregon."
"Orrick?" Earl said quizzically. "That sounds like that guy who sold vacuum cleaners back in, back where we came from."
I actually grinned. It was nice to have someone else who could follow jokes from my time. "That's his given name," I replied. "He's Westerosi."
"Westerosi?" he said. "I heard there were a lot of those guys kicking around. Is Westeros some country in Europe?"
"Nope," I said. "It's someplace else. But before I can tell you, I've got to ask you something. What year was it before you were brought over here?"
"2006," said Earl.
"Same year," I replied. I made an inward sigh of relief. Very few people in the here-and-now knew that I had been dimensionally- and temporarly-displaced and even fewer of those knew what year I came from. If Earl had said something like 2032 or 2057 or 2083, I'd have known he was lying.
"To answer your question, Westeros is a continent on another planet. Apparently there's some sort of dimensional porthole west southwest of what we think of as Kansas City. One end's in Kansas, the other end is in Westeros. Westeros is a big continent and most of it considered of a realm called the Seven Kingdoms. It was ruled by a guy named Robert Baratheon, who was its King. He died not so long ago and Westeros is heading towards a civil war. A lot of people had already traveling back and forth and now the smart ones are crossing over to someplace where there isn't likely to be any fighting. The crazy—smart ones are heading west to put as much distance between them and the War Between the States as they can and remain in the US. There's a lot of risk getting there, but neither the Confederates nor Tywin Lannister are going to cross the Cascades and the Sierra Nevada."
"I can see you heading west, but why are you traveling with people from Westerosi?" said Earl.
"They were the guys who found me and I asked for Guest Right," I said. "Westerosi take Guest Right very seriously. They gave it to me and so I'm traveling with them."
"What was your Captain Trout doing before he decided to take the Overland Trail?" asked Earl.
"He was a landowner until he cleared out and went through the Arch, but he worked on some wagon trains back when he was younger, " I replied.
"Daria, so why are you going west with him?" said Earl. "There are Americans You could go with them."
"Because I owe him and his family," I said. "I owe them a lot: if they didn't take me in, I'd have been lost or starving out on the Plains. And I'm going to pay them back. Furthermore, he knows what he's doing. He did some work as a freighter back in Westeros when he was younger, which is more than I can say about a lot of the loudmouths heading west: a lot of them have never been west of the Missouri River and don't have the brains to know what they don't know."
Minti decided that it was time to join the conversation.
"Daria, who is this man?" she said in Andal.
"Earl, I think I need to introduce you to Minti Trout," I said, replying in English. "Minti, this is Earl Henderson. Earl was a boy I went to school with in Highland. He taught me how to shoot a gun."
Minti looked over Earl and said "How do you do? I'm Minti Trout, daughter of Orrick and Kara."
"How do you do, Miss Trout?" said Earl.
Good move, Earl, I thought approvingly.
"Hi," Minti said suspiciously.
"Anyway, the Trouts took me in, and it's months of travel to the Willamette Valley," I said. "Since I don't have more than a few coins I found and since I don't have my own wagon and oxen, I'm traveling with them and following their rules."
"What does that mean?" said Earl. Good boy, I thought, you're asking the right kinds of questions. You might actually survive out here.
"You know about the old-fashioned Dads who keep their daughters on so short a leash that don't let their daughters go out on dates?" I said.
"Yeah?" said Earl.
"Mr. Trout's just about that old-fashioned," I said. "He thinks of me as something between a foster-daughter and a servant. His wagon, his rules. It's a man's world out here and since I don't have even Calamity Jane's survival skills, I'm going along with it."
By now we were close enough to our camp that I figured we'd see other people I knew. And wouldn't you know it, the first one I saw was Mr. Wilson.
"Evening, Fancy," he said. "Who's this fellow?"
Earl's eyes narrowed. Uh, oh, I thought.
"Earl, chill," I said. "The nickname doesn't mean what you think it does. Mr. Wilson, this is Earl Henderson, a man from my home town. Earl, this is Jonah Wilson, a man from our Company headed to Oregon. Earl and I found each other on top of Independence Rock."
"Howdy," said Earl. He extended his hand. Mr. Wilson took it and I suspected that they both squeezed. Oh, the scent of testosterone out on the prairie, I thought sardonically. It's a situation that Quinn would have loved back in high school but I couldn't afford.
"Howdy," said Mr. Wilson, looking him over. He didn't look that impressed with Earl.
"I'm taking Minti back to Mrs. Trout," I said. "Earl is escorting us. Shall we be off?" Together, the three of us set off for our campsite.
Nobody raised an eyebrow until we reached our wagon. Most of our Company were Americans and most of us had gotten accustomed to the sight of guys from other companies going in and out of our camp site.
The first person to raise eyebrows was Kara. She saw Earl with me and Minti and stared at him.
"Daria, who is this?" she said in Andal.
"Kara, this is Earl Henderson," I said. "He's a man I went to school with back when I was living in Highland. Earl, this is Mrs. Trout. She's Captain Trout's wife and Minti's mother."
"Pleased to meet you, ma'am," said Earl. He took off his hat and gave her a short bow.
"So how do you know Daria?" asked Kara.
"We were in the same high school, ma'am," said Earl. "We had the same teachers, we went to the same classes." He smiled. "For the first year or so she was the only girl willing to talk to me. Later on she asked me to teach her how to shoot a pistol. She'd sneak out of her parents' house and we'd go to the edge of town and shoot at some cans. She was pretty good," he finished with a grin.
"And how long did this go on?" said Kara.
"A few months," I said. "Then my parents found out and had a fit. They forbade me to see him and tried to get him in trouble with the sheriff. My Mom might have succeeded but she got an offer to move to Maryland so I hope nothing happened."
"Did anything else happen?" said Kara.
"No, ma'am," Earl and I chorused.
"That would really have gotten me in trouble with her folks," said Earl. "Besides, she's a lady. Out of my league."
I blushed.
I doubted that Kara had heard of baseball but she understood what I was saying. "All right," she said. "But I'd like you to meet my husband."
Captain Trout came by a few minutes later. Seeing Earl caused him to raise his eyebrows. "Daria, who is this?" he said.
"This is Earl Henderson," I said. "I knew him from school back in my home town." I then explained that we'd been friends in Highland, that he'd taught me how to shoot pistols and rifles, and that I hadn't seen him from the time I left Highland until I saw him on top of Independence Rock.
"Pleasure to meet you," he said.
Earl:
Finding Daria on top of Independence Rock had been a hell of a surprise. She was one of the last people I expected to out here. I was proud to see that she didn't roll over and die. She wasn't a pioneer girl, but she decided to deal instead of freaking out. Of course I already knew she was tougher than she looked.
She said she'd been out here three weeks. I'd been out here for seven.
I'd lucked out and adjusted. I'd been sleeping off a good time at a country bar, fell asleep in my truck and woke up out in the middle of nowhere. I drove about twelve miles up and down hills, fording a couple of creeks and cussing like hell because I couldn't find the highway and my cell phone didn't work. Around noon, I saw a long line of wagons headed west off in the distance like something from some old cowboy movie, I parked and walked over and then started asking questions. I didn't know where—when—I was at first: I thought it was a bunch of people with more money than brains out playing pioneer. A couple of guys said they'd take me west, so I packed up some gear and put it in their wagon. It took me a couple of days to realize what was happening, that this really was the Wild West and that my life had again been set on reset. No cops, no Todd, and no court records, but no Mom, no aunt, no cousins either.
By that time I was sharing a wagon with a couple of guys from Terre Haute. I'd spent most of what I had ack in 2006 and I learned that what I had left was now worthless. I brought my way in with some coffee and rice that I had in the truck and a promise to help them with the wagon as best I could. Jack and Jeff were town guys and knew as little about mules as I did. But they let me bunk with them and I started learning what it was like to be a pioneer. It was rough but I was getting used to it.
Seeing Daria with somebody else's kid made me wonder about the people she was traveling with. Just looking at Mrs. Trout and listening to her told me that she was definitely a foreigner. By now I'd heard a little bit about Westeros, but I thought it was someplace in Europe. I didn't know much about them and I didn't take the story about the Arch very seriously. But wherever they came from, a lot of them were leaving where they came from and moving to places like Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota to buy farms or to get away. And Daria had somehow managed to hook up with these Trout people and go west with them.
A couple of minutes later, Mrs. Trout introduced me to Mister Trout.
One look at the man and I could see why Daria might want to stay with him. Mr. Trout had the look of a leader, a real leader. He didn't look like a guy from a John Wayne movie, but he was large and muscular and looked like he knew what he was doing. We shook hands: he had a grip like iron. I decided right then and there that Orrick Trout was a guy I didn't want to mess with.
Daria introduced us, I shook his hand, and then he asked me the big question: "How do you know Daria?"
"We went to school together back in Texas," I said. "We were in a lot of the same classes."
"Did you court her back then?" he said. It took me a moment to figure out what he was saying. Then I realized that he was asking me if I had not only been fixing to ask her to be my girlfriend but also if she'd marry me.
"No, sir," I said. "Her parents would have killed me."
"Daria told me that you were the one who taught her how to shoot," he said.
"I did," I said. I grinned. "She's pretty good."
"I've seen better," said Mr. Trout.
I frowned, wondering what had happened. "I think she probably needs practice," I said. "I taught her how to shoot with a pistol using modern ammo. You all use black powder. That probably has something to do with it."
Mr. Trout stood looking at me, trying to make up his mind. I broke the silence.
"Sir, we're old friends," I said. "We haven't seen each other for nearly eight years. She's smart and I like her. We're on two different wagon trains and however long our wagons are going to be near each other, we are going to end up going off in different directions."
He continued to stare at me.
"No, I don't have any of those kinds of plans," I said. "I swear to God Almighty."
He stared at me some more. There weren't that many guys who scared me but he was one of them.
"You can stop by and visit, but only visit," he said.
This was not a man I wanted to cross.
"Sir, we're just old friends," I said. "Also, Daria said something about Guest Right."
"You're a Yankee and you need to know more about it," said Mr. Trout. "When a host and guest swear to abide by Guest Right, it not only means that I swear not to harm you, but you swear not to harm me or anyone under my protection. it is a sacred custom, like swearing on your Bible. We take it very seriously."
"And Daria is under your protection," I said.
Mr. Trout nodded at me as if he was a teacher who'd seen me figure out a hard puzzle. "Yes," he said.
"It looks like we want the same thing for Daria," I said. "I'll be good."
Author's notes:
Earl is a character from MTV's Beavis and Butthead. Since this story is set some years after Daria left Highland High, I aged him and tried to flesh him out.
I'm not one of those people who believes that Andal/The Common Tongue is written or spoken like English. Spoken dialogue with quotation marks and written in italics is spoken in Andal, not English.
I also borrowed historical ideas cycled through the 1632 discussion boards. While Orrick Trout had been a prosperous land-owner with tenant farmers, he was a commoner, not nobility. This was common, if not prevalent, in early-modern Britain and the Germanies.
