Daria on the Trail:
Chapter 55 A Death in the High Country

Disclaimer: This crossover story is a western based on an idea by Ultimate Paladin. A Song of Ice and Fire was written by George RR Martin. Daria was created by Glen Eichler. I own neither property. A Song of Ice and Fire is the property of George RR Martin and Daria is owned by MTV Viacom. I seek no financial recompense for this story but I welcome reviews.

This story is based on my personal research regarding the Oregon Trail, not on the video game of the same name.

-(((O-O)))-

We resumed our journey after the other wagon got repaired. Our trail grew increasingly hilly the further west we got from the Green River. The oxen had a harder pull than they'd had on the flatter terrain east of the Continental Divide. They had less to pull than they did over by Fort Caspar: by now most of us had lightened our wagons by tossing non-essentials, although there was still some argument about what still might be essential and what might not. My cell phone and hand bag were still safe, as was my small collection of fire arms, but Susana thought we ought to ditch the shovel and pick Mr. Mudd had brought west from Missouri.

I argued against it. It wasn't that they'd be particularly useful on this part of the trail: while I knew there was at least one Wyoming mining boom, I thought it was back by South Pass. No, what I was holding out for were the salt deposits near Stump Creek.

Salt was a useful commodity out here. We'd been eating salty bacon for months, but salt was good for more than bacon, beef or venison. Salt would be useful for trout or whatever game we caught. But I wasn't thinking about us: I was thinking about the Indians. I'd heard that the Shoshone and some of the other peoples camping along the Snake this time of year fished for Salmon. Our supplies were beginning to run low but we weren't hungry yet. But if we could get enough salt we could trade it for salmon and for moccasins. And we needed them: a lot of us needed new shoes. So did I: my Doc Martens had outlasted a lot of the other Emigrants' shoes and boots but they were crapping out and needed replacement.

I was also learning more of the joys of child-raising. Ever since Captain Trout told me to help Susana, I found myself co-parenting Martin with her. The kid was coming out of his grief and to my relief, he was beginning to thrive. I'd managed to put pressure on the Thatches and Othar had cut back on bullying him—at least when I could see him.

This trip was definitely not Hollywood. It might not have been as difficult for children as it was for adults, but it was tough. Our company had some kids but not that many. Moreover, most of them were school-age or older, which I thought was a good thing for us, but not so good for our younger campers. Luckily for us, Captain Johnson's wagon train had a smattering of kids Martin's age and he could play with them.

The terrain and vegetation began to change as our wagons climbed from the flat, dry low country that covered so much of the West up to higher ground. The mountains were not only close enough to see trees but I began to see some near the trail. I found myself smiling: I hadn't seen any real trees for weeks. They were pine trees with long needles: I didn't know what type.

We were also seeing more bushes and shrubs, howbeit away from the trail or in places where cattle or mules couldn't graze on them. It would be August in a couple of days and we still had to cross what I thought of as Idaho and eastern Oregon before we reached the Willamette Valley. If Winter wasn't upon us here in the Rockies, the thought of it was with us even I thought I remembered reading or hearing that the first snowfall was weeks away. In spite of the season, some of the bushes still had their flowers. I enjoyed looking at them when and where I could: the oxen and mules had been grazing and had eaten a lot of them. Enjoy it while you can, Morgendorffer, I said to myself. This is the high country and in a week or two you'll be going back downhill.

Despite the pretty scenery, I soon found that there were two drawbacks to reaching the high country: first, the air was thinner up here and we tired more easily, second, the nights were colder. Despite the fact that I preferred to sleep alone, the first night's chill was such that I decided that it might be better off if I snuggled up with Susana and little Martin.

On our second day in the high country we went over a low divide. There was still grass away from the streams and trees and bushes away from the trail. I no longer had easy access to the maps and guidebooks I'd bought for Captain Trout, but I remembered that we had two passes we'd have to climb before we descended into what I remembered being called the Salt River Valley.

We passed a couple of graves along the way. One of them was an emigrant woman's: I read the marker. There was little more than a name, a date of birth, and her death date. She'd died the year before. What unnerved me was that she was just a year older than I was. I wondered who her folks were, whether she had sisters or brothers or a husband and children. The best her survivors were able to do was to carve a wooden marker over her grave. I wondered how long it would last. I wrote her name, date of birth and death date and put it in my notebook. Someone ought to remember: it was bad enough to be buried in a grave far from home, but I suspected that many of the names of the dead would be forgotten over the coming year. I wondered if I could do something. Maybe I could forward the information to some newspaper or county clerk when we got to Oregon.

The temperature quickly grew chilly after dusk. No surprise there, at least not for me, although it was definitely nippier than I remembered the nights I'd spent near the Hummingbird Canyon camp site a universe and over a thousand miles away. That evening Susana and I made a joint decision: it was too chilly to sleep alone. We decided that three was better than one and that we and Martin should share our bodily warmth. It was awkward. I snored, Susanna snored, and Martin squirmed.

Despite the altitude we maintained the same daily rhythm we'd developed weeks before I'd joined the Trout Company: we arose before dawn, repacked the wagon, and cooked breakfast while one or the other of us found the oxen and yoked them to the wagon. We then set off, pausing for a "nooner" meal, then resuming our trek. In the evening we circled the wagons, unhitched the oxen, unloaded the wagons, and cooked dinner. The oxen were let loose to graze and drink water. By now Susana's oxen were getting used to me. I don't think they liked me very much but they endured my presence and mostly did what I wanted them to.

Our journey paused the following day. One of the women in Johnson's California Company, Katy Harris, went into labor. Katy had set off on her journey five months pregnant. I think we all knew that she was likely to have her kid somewhere on the trail but those who knew her or cared hoped that she'd give birth somewhere where she'd be able to rest and perhaps resume her journey somewhere else. Perhaps she could have stuck to the main trail had Fort Bridger and given birth there had the fort still been a going concern. That wasn't possible: Fort Bridger had been burned and abandoned during the Mormon War and Katy would have to give birth literally out in the wilderness.

We paused and waited. I wondered if I should try to help. While we were waiting I had a horrid realization: while the Johnson Company had Mrs. Thompson, a capable older woman who'd served as a de facto midwife, our wagon train didn't. Moreover, we had four pregnant women, two of whom were over five months pregnant. At our rate of travel, they were likely to give birth somewhere out on the trail. Neither I nor Kara nor the other women had thought to buttonhole Captain Trout about getting a Midwife while we were regrouping back at Fort Laramie. That was something I should have thought of before we set out and the thought hadn't crossed my mind. How the hell could I have been so (censored) stupid? Blast it! I spent a minute or two silently cursing my stupidity and then made a decision: I'd go over to where Mrs. Thompson was working with Mrs. Harris to see if I could do anything to help and pointers.

The Johnson Company's came was a short distance away. Katie was giving birth behind a tarp set outside what I presumed was the Harris' wagon. Mrs. Thompson was helping her through the birthing process, along with several other older women. I edged in on the circle while Katie was having contractions. Katie had another contraction and Mrs. Thompson started giving orders like a non-com dealing with troops. I decided that this would not be a good time to introduce myself so I waited. There was another pause; a couple of the women asked her if she'd be all right and Mrs. Thompson replied that things were in God's hands. A couple of the women with Mrs. Harris noticed my presence. Mrs. Thompson didn't have to look up to know I was there; she could read the other women's body language. She briefly looked up from Mrs. Harris, looked me in the eye, then said "Get out. I'm busy."

That didn't go over very well, I thought. I turned around and walked away. I stopped to compose myself and collect my thoughts when I was a sufficient distance from the Johnsons' camp. I didn't know right then if I deserved what she said to me, but Mrs. Thompson's comment smarted. If this was the twenty first century, I probably would blown her off, then gone searching for somebody else. But these were the western Wyoming Rockies and there wasn't anyone else, at least as far as I knew. Barring a properly trained physician, Mrs. Thompson was the medical expert hereabouts and likely to be the only one for miles in either direction on the Trail. Despite her treatment of me, I was going to approach her again. One or the other us Fishes was going to have to help out with a childbirth somewhere west of here and either we'd find someone who knew about midwifing or we'd have to do without. Despite the fact that I was neither pregnant nor sexually active, I shuddered.

I walked back to our camp in a brown study. A greeting from Kara lifted me out of my thoughts. Then she asked me the big question: "How is it going?"

"With me, well enough, although I miss eating supper with you all," I replied in Andal.

"How do you find Mrs. Mudd and her boy?" asked Kara.

"She's OK," I said, mixing my Andal and English. "We don't have that much in common. I am learning things about young boys that I hadn't known before."

Kara laughed. I think we both knew what topic we were skirting around. Kara was the one to touch on it first.

"And that woman over in the Johnson's camp. How is she doing?" she said.

"She's still in labor," I replied. "The Johnson Company has a midwife, a woman named Mrs. Thompson. She's tending her."

"And how is it going?" she said.

"I don't know," I said. "Mrs. Thompson caught me looking in and told me to go away."

"What do you think her chances are?" said Kara.

"I don't know," I replied. "I'm not a healer, I never married, and I saw no need to learn that much about childbirth. Those were matters for doctors and nurses." Perforce I used the English word for doctor: there was no Andal word. "I have heard that Mrs. Thompson knows what she's doing. I hope that's enough."

Kara said nothing. I realized that that was another gap in my knowledge of Westeros. What did Westerosi women do about childbirth? I had heard about Maesters, but I suspected that most women either used midwives or older friends and family who knew at least something about childbirth. "We should pray for her," she said.

"It certainly wouldn't hurt," I replied.

We both prayed aloud, Kara to the Mother and the Crone, me to God. Kara prayed in Andal, me in a mix of English and Hebrew. I didn't know if it would do Katy Harris any good, but Kara and I both felt better.

"This reminds me of something," I said, "something I should have thought about back at Fort Laramie."

"What?" said Kara.

"We should have gone looking for someone who was either a midwife or helped other women have babies," I said.

Kara was silent for a while, then said "Yes, we should have."

"Damnit," I said, momentarily swearing in English. "I should have thought of that."

"Don't blame yourself, Daria," Kara replied. "We all should have thought of it: me, the Thatches, Mrs. Staufer, the Wilsons, and the rest of us."

"What the hell do we do now?" I said.

"Can we persuade Mrs. Thompson to stay with us?" said Kara.

"Not likely," I said. "I think she'll still want to go to California."

"Maybe someone will turn up along the way," said Kara. "Some of these other Companies break up and maybe some midwife will want to travel with us."

I wish, I thought, but said nothing.

"Maybe we can find a stray Maester?" I said.

Kara laughed. "One with a silver link?" she said. "Now there's a thought."

"What's so special about a silver link?" I asked. I knew that Maesters were something like the wise men of Westeros, even if they weren't like the Mentats from Dune.

"The silver links mean they know about medicine and healing," said Kara.

"Oh," I said. "Now how do we lure him into traveling with us?"

"I don't know," said Kara.

"Bake him a pie? Rub his feet?" I said.

We both laughed. Kara and I knew that the odds of finding a Maester out here were pretty slim.

We got some good news a little later. Katy Harris had given birth: a boy. This was immediately followed by some bad news: she'd started bleeding after she passed the afterbirth. My heart sank: I had a good idea as to what that meant: nothing good. Katy was a pioneer woman like the rest of us, malnourished, underweight, and bleeding miles and decades from proper medical care. Despite Mrs. Thompson's best efforts and the services of Doctor Struthers, Katy was in very big trouble. It didn't take long for my worst fears to materialize: she died.

-(((O-O)))—

Katy Harris was buried a little over a day later. The women of her company washed her body and wrapped it in a white sheet while grave-diggers from the rest of Johnson's Company laid her to rest well off the trail. We all went to her service: people from the Johnson Company, our Company, Christians, Seven-believers, our one Jew, even Joss, who I suspect worshipped the Old Gods of the Northern Kingson. Someone else from the Johnson Company carved a grave marker and set it over her grave, which was set well away from the trail. Her husband talked hopefully about returning here someday and bringing her home. I didn't think he'd be likely to return. I did hope and pray that her marker would last and that that her grave would lie undisturbed long enough for the Forest Service or the Interior Department to give it a proper marker.

-(((O-O)))—

Author's notes: Sentences written with italics inside quotation marks are spoken Andal, the common language of Westeros, not in English. I am not one of those people who believe that the Westerosi spoken language either sounds like or is intelligible to English-speakers.

The combined Wilson/Trout Company is now near or past Thompson Pass (southwestern Wyoming) near the Snyder Guard Station (Which I haven't visited). The pioneers will have to cross two more passes before they descend to Wyoming's Star Valley and begin their northward trek towards Stump Creek and the salt deposits.

I admit that this chapter ended on a sad note, but there were a lot of deaths along the Oregon Trail, even on the Lander Road, which only opened in 1859. The Google maps I used to trace the route of the Lander Road near Wyoming Peak have at least two marked, and I'm certain that there were others, unmarked and lost to time. If women and men didn't risk death by Cholera this far west of the Continental Divide, there were still the risks of disease, starvation, exhaustion, accidents, and other perils.

Note that I haven't mentioned Indians. Despite the rising tensions between Native Americans and westward-bound Emigrants in 1860, there weren't that many battles between Indians and pioneers. There already was one in southwestern Idaho (the so-called Ward Massacre) and the attack near Massacre Rocks near American Falls, but the Massacre Rocks attack didn't happen until 1862 and Captain Trout has no intention of provoking the Bannock and Shoshone while he leads his wagon train through their territory.

Moreover, we