Daria On The Trail:
To The Star Valley Floor

DISCLAIMER: This story is a Western based on an idea by Ultimate Paladin posted on another site. I changed the location of the interdimensional portal, backdated the time of the story to 1860, and went on from there. A Song of Ice and Fire was written by George RR Martin. Daria was created by Glen Eichler. I own neither property. George RR Martin owns A Song of Ice and Fire and MTV Viacom owns Daria. I seek no financial compensation for this story but I welcome reviews.

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

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Mr. Parkhurst and I decided not to talk about Mammoths until we completed our descent from the summit of Salt River Pass, which was a wise move on our part. The descent wasn't as steep as the one near Smith's Fork, but it was scary enough. We descended carefully. Despite the fact that both we and the Johnson Company took all the precautions: locking our wagons' wheel, getting the women and children dismounted and away from the wagons, it was a slow, nerve-wracking process.

If we'd done it before, that didn't mean it was easy. It wasn't. In fact it was difficult: we had to be careful with the animals and there were a couple of places where the wagons were on the verge of sliding downhill on their own and it was only with great difficulty that we kept them from tobogganing down to their destruction. Somehow, though, we and the Johnson Company managed to descend from the summit to lower ground without a crash or wipeout. We counted ourselves lucky when we finished our descent and could unlock the wheels again: other Emigrants hadn't been and we could see their wreckage shoved off to the side of the trail. It took several miles of nerve-wracking hard work, our hearts pounding, our wagons jolting, then paused. I saw some trees over to the side of the trail and something clicked: I remembered reading that in the early days of the transcontinental telegraph, buffalo used telegraph poles as scratching posts, rubbing against them to satisfy itches they couldn't take care of on the open prairie. Could mammoths do the same? I decided to go look.

I walked over to the foot of a medium-sized pine located about forty feet off the trail and started looking over the ground surrounding its base. The ground had been trampled and I saw signs that something, something big, had been rubbing against it and saw more footprints. I also saw several long strands of loose hair. I squatted down to pick them up, noting that they were far thicker and coarser than human hair. I scowled in this moment of triumph: if I'd had my druthers, there wouldn't have been any mammoths here at all.

Our wagon began rolling again shortly after I'd pocketed the evidence, and a couple of miles later, we finally managed to reach relatively level ground. I sighed with relief: so far as I knew, this was the roughest part of the Trail until we reached the Blue Mountains on the far side of what I thought of as Idaho.

We made camp a couple of miles further on. I was near exhaustion when Captain Trout told us that we'd be setting up camp, but I roused myself enough to help Susana unload the wagon and cook dinner. We dispensed with using animal dung for fuel: we'd loaded up with some twigs and branches and we'd have what I thought would be a real camp fire, not something using dung.

Susana asked the big question while I was baking flat bread in her skillet.

"Have you and Mr. Parkhurst talked to Captain Trout about the mammoths?" she asked.

"Not yet," I said, thinking I really need to find Mr. Parkhurst and tell him about the mammoths. "I'll look for him before I turn in."

It took me a little time to find where Mr. Parkhurst and Joss had set up their wagon. Both men had finished their suppers and Joss was washing their dishes.

Parkhurst was the one who noticed me. "Good evening," I said in Andal.

"Good evening, Miss Morgendorffer," Parkhurst replied in English. "And how are you this evening?"

"Tired but grateful that we successfully got downhill," I replied in English. "Seeing those wrecked wagons was worrysome."

"I gather this isn't a social visit," Parkhurst said in Andal.

"No" I replied in Andal. "I wanted to ask you if you've talked to Captain Trout about the large creatures we talked about earlier."

"Not yet," said Parkhurst. "I was thinking about discussing the matter in the morning. Have you?"

"Not yet," I replied, switching back to English. "I did find something interesting on the trail. Did you notice that a couple of the trees are off-kilter? I think that the you-know-whats are using them as scratching posts."

"Really?" said Parkhurst.

"And I found a couple of these," I added, reaching into my pocket and pulling out a couple of mammoth hairs.

I handed them to Parkhurst and watched his eyebrows raise.

"Mammoth hairs?" he said quietly.

"I believe so," I replied.

"Extraordinary," he said in English.

"I don't believe they've been that common hereabouts since well before the Arch opened," I replied.

Parkhurst smiled, then handed back my mammoth hairs. "I'd like to see those again in full light," he said. "Camp fire light doesn't do them justice."

"Point taken," I replied.

"I think we'd better talk to Captain Trout before we set out tomorrow," said Parkhurst.

I went to sleep shortly afterwards. I bundled together with Susana and Martin. We had descended from the heights we'd been on when we went over the summit of the Lander Road, but we were still over a mile above sea level and it was still cold.

The next morning I tried to awake earlier than usual to help Susana with loading our wagon, then scurried over to Mr. Parkhurst's wagon. He and Joss had already packed up and were almost ready to hit the trail.

"I guess it's time to talk to the Captain," I said.

"Better we do it now before we encounter shaggy friends," said Parkhurst.

Together we walked over to Captain Trout's wagon. A wave of nostalgia filled me as I looked at it: part of me still thought of it as shelter and home, even if I never rode or slept in it. Kara was shooing Minti into the wagon.

"Good morning, Kara," I said in Andal.

"Good morning, Daria, Mr. Parkhurst," she replied in Andal.

"Is Captain Trout nearby?" I said.

"So formal," she said playfully. "I remember you calling him Orreck,"

"I'm only formal when discussing Company business," I said. "I found something on the trail that I think he needs to know about."

"Yes, he's over there," she said, gesturing.

Parkhurst and I walked over to where Captain Trout was talking with Captain Johnson and a couple of other men.

Parkhurst and I looked at each other. You do it, he said with his facial expression.

"Good morning, Captain, I said.

"Good morning, Daria," he replied. "What brings you by this morning?"

Short and businesslike, I noted. He'd grown into the job. I'd better get straight to the point.

"Trouble," I replied. "I saw some very disturbing trail signs while we were coming down from the mountains yesterday and we thought you should know."

"What sort of trouble?" he said in a tone of voice that said that this had better be important.

"I think there are mammoths or elephants up ahead," I said.

"Young woman, this is not the time for a joke," said one of Johnson's lieutenants, a guy whose name I kept forgetting.

"Would to God it was," I said. "I found spoor, tracks, and big hairs yesterday. Then I talked it over with Mr. Parkhurst so we could both look over what we've found."

"Why did you think it was mammoth?" said Captain Johnson.

"Well after a couple of your kids fell in some mammoth dung, I went looking for tracks," I replied. "I found some, too. Big round footprints. Later on I found a couple of leaning trees near the trail and some big hairs and more footprints on the ground. I'm pretty sure that they weren't somebody's big, shaggy dog."

"Mammoths?" said another one of Johnson's people. "That's a stretcher!"

"Do you think she's right?" said Captain Johnson.

"Quite likely," Captain Trout replied. "Mr. Parkhurst?"

"I believe she's right," he replied. "She's careful. She made a compelling case before she sought me out."

"She is careful," said Captain Trout. "I suspect she might be right. We should keep an eye out for these beasts."

"What should we do if we see any?" said Captain Johnson. He hadn't expected to see any mammoths on this trip. Well, I didn't either.

"Keep our distance," I replied. "Circle the wagons if they get too close. If they want to cross our path, give them the right-of-way. Let them pass by. And we'd better not shoot at them either."

"Why not?" said one of Johnson's people.

"I've heard that it takes a pretty big gun to put down a mammoth," I said. "We could wound them but we might not kill it. Mr. Parkhurst, you know, don't you?"

"The lady is right," said Parkhurst. "We use elephant rifles in India. They're a lot bigger than anything I brought with me."

"And mammoths are even bigger than elephants," I said. "Even if we only kill or wound a couple of them, the rest of them might take it out on us instead of just running away. Of course with luck, the closest they'd come would be at least half a mile away."

"Interesting," said Captain Trout. He looked at Captain Johnson. I could see that they'd come to have a rapport with each other.

"We keep our distance, let them pass, and circle the wagons if they get too close," he said. Captain Johnson gave a nod of agreement.

"But hides might be worth something," said the Johnson man who'd spoke earlier.

"They might be, if Fort Hall was still open and the traders were still doing business there," said Captain Johnson.

"How about Fort Boise?" said the Johnson man.

"They're closed, too," said Captain Johnson. "And they're out of our way."

I couldn't help but smile at his words. While I wished that the Hudson's Bay Company traders were still at Fort Hall, I was pleased to see that Captain Johnson had been doing his homework. Maybe his people would get to California after all.

"All right, then," said Captain Trout. "We've learned that we might see mammoths hereabouts and we have plans for dealing with them if we do see them. We've got a long day ahead of us and we need to get moving."

"Let's get back to our wagons," said Captain Johnson. "We need to get going."

And with that, the informal meeting was over. I walked back to Susana's wagon.

Susana was understandably curious about my meeting with Captain Trout. I told her that Parkhurst and I met with Captain Trout and told him about the Mammoths.

"And what did he say?" Susana asked.

"He thanked me and Parkhurst for the information," I said. "He also said that if we see any Mammoths, we let them pass by. If they get too close, we circle the wagons and hope that they don't get too close."

"Would they?" asked Susana.

"I don't know," I said. "I'd guess they've probably learned to keep their distance from wagon trains but they might decide to cross the trail if they want some water from the river."

"Mammoths?" asked Martin.

"Big hairy animals," I said. "They look and act like elephants. Nobody's seen them in these parts for thousands of years."

"Wow!" said Martin. "Can we see them?"

I hope we don't, I thought. But I was afraid that I could be wrong.