Daria On The Trail
Independence Rock Day Two
DISCLAIMER: A Song of Ice and Fire was created by Geoge RR Martin. I do not own it. Nor do I own Daria Morgendorffer. Daria Morgendorffer is the property of MTV Viacom.
This story is based on my research on the REAL Oregon Trail, not the computer game of the same name. It is not a tale of swordplay, dark magic, and dragons. It's a western with Westerosi characters.
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:
We remained at Independence Rock another day. Despite Captain Trout's precautions and his requiring that our wagons should be in good running order, the Willards' wagon had a broken wheel rim that needed repair. Finding a replacement wheel rim proved time-consuming and expensive: it required a trip to the Devil's Gate stage coach station, some miles away. The manager of the Devil's Gate stage station had made it his business to strip parts off wrecked and abandoned wagons and, like a junk yard operator back in the Twenty first century, he charged people for spare parts. I was told that Mr. Willard returned that evening in a foul mood: he'd gotten a replacement wheel but he'd been gouged in the process.
In the meantime, we ladies set to doing women's work. In my case that meant doing the wash. It would have been nice to find tall bushes with strong limbs or trees on which to hang our laundry, but the area near the Rock had been stripped by the hundreds of wagon trains that had rolled through the area over the last twenty-plus years. By the time I'd finished my first load, my arms and shoulders and fingers were sore and I knew that I had another load.
Earl did not help. He came looking for me and saw me at work with Kara, Jilla and the other women and girls as we dunked our dirty clothes and bedding into the Sweetwater and did what we could to wash away the grunge. He was not alone: he'd brought his friends with him.
"Hey, Daria, what's up?" he said.
"Laundry," I replied. "I was hoping to use the laundromat but I don't have enough quarters and someone hid all the machines and soap packets."
Earl actually grinned. I smiled back at him. It was nice to have somebody who appreciated downtime jokes. I had wash to do, but I slowed down my tempo a little.
"I stopped by to say hello and because I wanted to introduce you to the guys I'm traveling with," said Earl. "Fellas, this is Daria Morgendorffer. She and I came from the same town in Texas."
One of Earl's buddies smiled at me and said "Hello, I'm Isaac Hawley and this here's Zachary Brooks."
Earl's new friends had wonderful southern Indiana accents. "How do you do?" I said politely. I gestured with my chin. "I'd extend my hand, but…"
"Did you really know Earl from before?" asked Isaac.
"I did," I replied. "We went to the same school and took some of the same classes."
"Did you drive one of those automobiles?" asked Zachary.
"Not until much later," I replied. "After my parents moved to Maryland."
I could feel some of the bedding slipping out of my control. Isaac reached a hand to help.
"Thanks," I said.
"And shoot a gun?" said Isaac.
OK Farm Boy, you get to ask another free question, I thought silently. I had no interest in him, although I would give him points for being cute and for his Indiana accent. "Yep," I said.
Luckily Kara announced that we were walking back to the wagon to hang up what we'd just washed. "OK," I said, then I turned my attention back to Earl and his buddies.
"This is going to have to be a moving conversation, fellas, it's wash day," I said.
"When's wash day?" said Zachary.
"Just about any day we stop," I said.
"Daria, Jilla, are you ready?" said Kara.
"Ready to go," I replied in Andal, and I fell in line with Kara and Jilla as we headed back to our camp so we could hang our stuff up to dry. I briefly wondered how many weeks we had to go before we reached the Lander Road and we could start using tree branches.
The guys followed behind, Isaac and Zachary trying to flirt with Jilla while Earl sensibly kept his distance from me and the older Trout women. Earl had a healthy respect for Captain Trout. We reached our camp and started hanging up our wash. The sunlight and the dry air would help it dry faster than it would have back east, but it would still take a while to get dry.
Once we got the bedding hung out to dry, Kara motioned to me, then asked me what she thought Earl and his friends wanted.
"I think Earl wants to talk, his friends want to flirt, and all three of them are trying to figure out how to get me to do their wash for them," I replied, causing Kara to chuckle in spite of her misgivings about Earl.
They probably guessed right. Our next load was probably going to be Captain Trout's, Willem's, and Kennard's stuff.
I decided to change lighten my load. "Uh, guys," I said. "Not you, Earl; you two Hoosiers."
"What is it, Ma'am?" said Isaac. I wondered if handling Rikka and undergraduates had taught me to be bossy.
"Have you tried fishing?" I said. "You might want to if you've got hooks and line. There might be trout in the river. I don't know what route your Company is taking over South Pass, but there isn't going to be much creek the closer you get to the Pass itself."
Isaac and Zachary looked at each other, said their goodbyes and left.
I turned to Earl. "Earl, if you've got some Twenty-first Century stuff, I think I could handle it," I said.
"Why not some of the stuff I picked up here?" he said.
"I don't want to confuse the Captain," I replied. "If it says Wrangler or Dockers, he'll know it isn't his."
That sent Earl back to his wagon. Kara looked at me strangely.
"I gave in to Earl," I said. "I said that I'd help with his wash. The other two guys are going fishing."
Earl appeared at the riverside with a load while I was scrubbing Willem's dirty clothes. Willem had picked up some American-style clothing from other people's discards along the trail. I told Earl I could wash his stuff, but he'd have to hang it up himself. That gave him an excuse to be there and we used the opportunity to do some more chatting. Despite the fact that he was the more taciturn of us, he had to do most of the talking.
Earl was talking about his plans for the gold fields when I interrupted him.
"Earl, these are Levis, aren't they?" I said.
"Un-hmm," said Earl. Earl was a traditionalist when it came to trousers.
"I think Levi Strauss is in business in San Francisco," I said. "You might want to give him a call and show off your trousers and see if he's making them yet. It'll give him a leg up if he's not."
"I'll think about it," he said.
After scrubbing Kennard's clothes, I handed Earl's clothing back to him, gathered up my share of the wash, and followed Kara back to the wagon.
"What were you two talking about?" she asked in Andal.
"At the end?" I said. "A chance to get Earl into the clothing business. Or not."
-(((O-O)))—
Kara and I stayed busy. The clothes dried in the sunlight and dry air. We then started preparing dinner and served it before sunset. Mr. Willard returned with a replacement wagon wheel after dusk.
By the time I'd finished helping Kara put away the cookware, I was dead tired. It was now going on full dusk. Despite my fatigue, that didn't stop me from looking at the bright stars that seemed to glow even more brightly under the gibbous moon.
The next morning, Mr. Willard, along with some help from the other guys, was able to mount a new wheel on his wagon. A couple of them gave a round of applause after the job was done, then the crowd of onlookers broke up to help yoke their oxen so they could depart. Shortly after Mr. Willard and his family re-loaded their wagon, Captain Trout gave the word and we set off. We didn't get very far that day, just to Devil's Gate. But we were inching closer to the Ninth Crossing of the Sweetwater River and the turn-off for the Lander Road.
Author's Notes:
The current date in the story is July 12th, 1860. The events in this chapter occur near Independence Rock, Wyoming. There is no Wyoming at the present time; it is considered to be part of Idaho Territory.
I cooked the history books when it came to stagecoach service along the Overland Trail. There was a transcontinental stagecoach service in operation in 1860, but it took a southerly route across Texas, southern New Mexico, and southern Arizona to southern California, then ran north to San Francisco. That route was abandoned in 1861 and was replaced by a route crossing the central Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas.
Many westward-bound wagon trains arrived at or near Independence Rock on July 4th. Those companies often stopped, celebrated Independence Day, and often carved their names onto Independence Rock. The Trout Company arrived a week later after pausing at Fort Laramie and making needed repairs to their equipment.
One of the forgotten details of westward emigration by wagon train was that the women who accompanied those wagons were usually very busy. They were not sitting passively under the canvas watching their men drive the mules and oxen across the plains and mountains. They were on the ground and active. They helped load and unload the wagons at the start and end of each day, gathered fuel for campfires, cooked meals, tended children, mended clothing, and did laundry. According to researchers, Daria's description of wash day being any day they stopped was dead-on accurate.
And not a single packet of detergent to be had!
