The Corps of Discovery Trilogy Box Set: Books 1-3: A multiverse series of alternate history

by James S. Peet

  Karen ordered the others to maintain a close watch for any rapids because while they were in what appeared to be a relatively flat valley, the mountains still reared above them on all sides.

  The four ate a meal of unheated flight rations while drifting and poling. Bill decided he much preferred his flight rations heated, as he spooned the cool, gloppy food into his mouth. At least it’s not freezing, he thought. Just imagine how much fun it would be warming these up under armpits just to thaw and eat them.

  About two hours before sunset Karen gave the order to pull over to a gravel bar that had a small stream feeding into the river just below it. “Let’s get the rafts up on shore as fast as possible, and keep an eye out,” she hollered to the trailing raft.

  The four poled the two rafts until they bumped up against the gravel bar and the two men, holding the tow ropes, jumped out and pulled the rafts up as far as they could as fast as possible while Meri and Karen poled toward shore, assisting them. The two women then hopped off their rafts and help pull the rafts further up the gravel bar until they were completely ashore.

  “Let’s tie the tow ropes to trees just in case the water rises overnight,” Karen commanded, and immediately did as she said, tying her raft’s rope to a sturdy looking tree above the riverbank. Meri did the same for the raft she and Bill had ridden in.

  While Karen kept watch, the other three gathered firewood, strung a trip wire, and set up hammocks on the edge of the riverbank. Soon a fire was going and flight rations handed out to each. Karen had each Explorer fill their canteen cups with water from the river and set them by the fire to heat up to warm the flight rations.

  “Well, unless we take some time to hunt, we’re gonna go through these things pretty quick,” Karen commented, holding up a flight ration entree retort bag. “So, either tonight or tomorrow morning I’m gonna want one of you to kill some game. I don’t want us using any more rats until we absolutely have to. In the meantime, whenever we pull into a campsite, I’ll want you two to set out some snares,” she said to Bill and Meri “but one keep watch while the other sets them.” The two nodded their agreement.

  “I think I saw a spot just a bit upriver that looked like a game trail, so after you eat, stake it out. If you see anything, take it. If not…” she shrugged her shoulders. “Remember, save rifle ammo and use a peeder.”

  Karen then enforced the Corps of Discovery’s hygiene rule, requiring each explorer to take a quick shower using their bottle showers and to at least wash underclothing and socks, which were hung over branches to dry. Uniform shirts were washed in the small stream that fed into the Isère River and also hung over branches. By the time the four were clean the water in their cups was boiling, so they immersed their flight rations for five minutes to heat them up. Once heated, the pouches were open and the food eaten directly from them, as nobody wanted to take the effort to wash dirty dishes after the day they’d had.

  With an hour left until sunset, Meri and Bill headed upstream to stake out the game trail. Both had their rifles at the ready and were carrying all their primary survival equipment, including their packs, but Bill had the added weight of his PDW, which was slung over his shoulder. They soon came to a point where they could see the game trail but were far enough from it to not be obviously visible to any animal that might poke its head out. Bill verified that the wind was blowing downriver, so their scent wouldn’t give them away, and the two sat down on the gravel bar. Meri kept her rifle at the ready but Bill set his down and held onto his PDW. Bill’s PDW not only had iron sights, but it also had a small low power rifle scope mounted on it. As the effective range was considered 100 meters for game, it wasn’t a big scope, barely seven centimeters long, but it was good enough for what he needed it to do.

  The two sat quietly for some time, as the sun dipped over the mountains on the horizon and the long twilight of a northern latitude summer day commenced. Bill spotted motion in the forest near where the game trail came out to the river and readied his PDW, sighting down the scope with one eye, but keeping the other open in the event something outside the scope’s field of vision caught his eye.

  Soon a deer emerged from the underbrush, and just as Bill was about to take the shot, he was nudged by Meri. Looking over at her she used her chin to indicate he should look into the forest again. Doing so, he spied a tan color amidst the green of the forest. It took him several seconds before the outline of a lion appeared to materialize amongst the leaves. When Bill finally realized that he was staring at a Eurasian cave lion, he turned back to Meri with eyebrows raised. She indicated she would shoot the lion while he shot the deer.

  “On three,” she mouthed. She had her rifle aimed at the lion, but was able to hold up three fingers of her right hand, then dropped one, indicating the count was on. Bill stopped watching Meri and did the count in his head while aiming at a point just under the deer’s left ear. On the silent count of three, he squeezed the trigger. At the same time, Meri fired, then ran the rifle’s bolt back and forward. Both stood and looked at their kills. The deer Bill had shot had dropped like a stone, the unblinking open eyes indicating its death.

  There was thrashing in the brush where the lion had been, and the two waited, weapons at the ready, while the thrashing died down. Only after there had been no more noise for several minutes did the two take the chance of approaching where the lion was last seen. Meri spotted it first, lying sprawled on the ground, still twitching. “Put a bullet in its brain,” she told Bill, “just to be safe.” Bill did so and the twitching stopped. The two still waited several more minutes to ensure the deadly creature was dead before approaching it. Bill, heart beating so fast he thought it was going to burst his rib cage, grabbed a stick and poked the lion in the eye to see if there would be a reaction while Meri kept her rifle aimed at it. The lion did not move. Bill looked over to Meri and noticed her hands were shaking. Glad I’m not the only one scared shitless, he thought.

  The two decided that dragging the kills back to camp would be the best option, but neither wanted to not have a guard, so Bill was elected to do the dragging while Meri kept guard. Both kills were back at the camp before it got too dark, and Karen and Ben took over cleaning the game.

  “Tomorrow, let’s see if we can gather some berries before taking off. I’d like to get some pemmican made before we start across the ocean,” Karen told the crew. Bill remembered the pemmican he’d made during survival training, a combination of dried meat pounded into a powder, rendered fat, and berries.

  “We should probably also keep an eye out for nuts, like acorns and such,” Meri suggested. “Great for flours and stews.”

  “Good point,” Karen agreed. “See to it,” she said to the crew. “In the meantime, let’s get what fat we can off these guys and dry the rest of the meat over the fire.”

  Since Bill had carried the game in Meri volunteered to gather sticks that would be hung over the fire, out of reach of the flames but close enough to drape the meat over and make jerky. “Y’know,” Bill said, “the word barbecue comes from the Arawak word barbacoa, which basically means a wooden framework for drying meat on.” Meri just looked at Bill as if he had lost his marbles.

  “Really?” she asked. “We’re out here struggling to survive and all you can do is lecture on the etymology of a word?” Shaking her head, she returned to her task with a wry look on her face.

  By the time the sticks were arranged over the fire full dark had fallen, and Ben had taken watch. Karen advised everyone to pay particular attention as the smell of cooking meat might draw some unwanted guests. Bill and the two women then began the task of slicing the meat into thin strips and separating what fat they could find on the lean animals. The fat went into a pot near the fire to be melted and eventually mixed with cold water to clarify it.

  The trio was finally done cutting and trimming by the time Ben’s shift was up, so Bill took over guard duty. Once all the meat strips were hung over the fire the three not on watch called it a day and climbed into the
ir hammocks. Bill continued to look around, knowing that the pre-impact planet that they appeared to be on harbored some predators that have never developed a fear of man, and might consider Bill a tasty treat.

  At the end of Bill’s watch, he awoke Meri who had the joy of the worst watch that night, the mid-watch. She muttered as she climbed out of her hammock and Bill, once stashing his rifle and grabbing his PDW, was grateful to climb into his.

  It seemed that Bill had just closed his eyes when he was rudely awakened by what sounded like several people cackling with laughter nearby. The sound sent chills up his spine, and he exited his hammock as fast as he could, PDW firmly grasped in his hands. He noticed that Ben and Karen had done the same, with both of them replacing their PDWs with rifles. Meri was just inside the ring of hammocks looking all around while the eerie sound continued.

  “That sounds just like hyenas!” Ben said, eyes wide open. Karen grabbed a flashlight from her pocket and flicked it on, shining it outside their small encampment. Sure enough, a couple of pairs of eyes reflected back at her. “Bill, shoot them!” she shouted. Bill took aim with his PDW and fired twice at one set of eyes and watched it drop. The loud sounds scared off the other, but Bill heard a crashing in the bush behind them and turned just as a large hyena came rushing into the campsite, headed straight toward Meri. With no time to give warning, Bill turned and fired several shots at the large canine, at the same time Ben did with his rifle. The animal flipped in the air, obviously hit by Ben’s larger bullet, while the two women turned to face the latest threat. Meri fired one round into the predator’s head, silencing it forever.

  Karen yelled at them all to turn out and keep an eye out. “Hyenas hunt in packs!” she warned, flashing her light in all directions.

  Noises of running animals were heard, but thankfully they were all heading away from the encampment. Only then did Bill start shaking. He wasn’t alone, and Meri came over to him and hugged him fiercely, practically sobbing.

  Karen toed the dead hyena in the middle of the camp and then ordered Ben to toss it into the river. “Let’s get that carcass out of here. No sense attracting any more critters.” Looking around the shocked group, she then told them that from now on, any time they were doing food preparation, there would always be two people on guard. “And keep your flashlights ready! I don’t want them used unless absolutely necessary, like tonight.”

  Bill helped Ben, as the hyena was much heavier than expected. Bill estimated that it must have weighed at least 100 kilograms.

  Sleep was out for the crew for the rest of the night, so they stayed up until the sun rose, at which time they ate some of the meat in a stew that Karen made. While Bill and Meri were hunting the day before Karen had gathered some edible plants she found in their camp, so for breakfast, she added them to the stew. All agreed, it was certainly better than eating just plain deer meat, and then the discussion promptly turned to their favorite breakfasts.

  The four took down and packed their hammocks after breakfast. They then stripped all the washed clothing from the branches, which they also packed. Karen deemed the jerky sufficiently dried for travel and had the crew pack it in resealable plastic bags that they carried in their survival pack for this exact reason.

  “The plan for today is just like yesterday’s, but without the chopping and hauling” Karen informed the other three with a slight smile. “We’ll drift downriver and stop a couple of hours before supper. If anyone sees some game worth taking, and it’s at a spot we can easily land, take it. We don’t necessarily need it for tonight, but I’m thinking long term, specifically when we try to get to Ti’icham.”

  The four then loaded up the rafts and set off downriver. They stopped occasionally along the way, usually for bathroom breaks, and once because Ben saw, and shot, a goat. Eventually, the Isère River connected with the Rhône River. When it did Karen had them pull over onto a sandbar for a lunch of dried jerky. Bill, looking at the Hayek map on his tablet, informed the group that they were only about 300 kilometers or so from the mouth. “At this rate, we should be on the shores of the Mediterranean in a couple of days” he announced.

  After lunch, the crew set off again. While the current was fast, it was not as clear a river as the Isère, which led Bill to complain to Meri about the missed fishing opportunities. She was sympathetic, but then told him not to worry, she was sure they’d have plenty of opportunities to fish over the next six to twelve months. That shut Bill up in a hurry.

  Two hours before sunset they pulled over onto a gravel bar on the east side of the river, where they grilled and ate the goat Ben had shot. Karen said she didn’t want a repeat of the night before, so after supper, they would move their camp to a spot downriver. Before taking off, Meri and Karen scrounged around in the bush for edible plants while Ben and Bill kept watch. It wasn’t long before the two women were finished, and the foursome once again boarded the two rafts and continued their journey downriver, stopping less than a kilometer later on a gravel bar on the west side of the river.

  The night passed uneventfully, and the next morning they were on the river again after a quick breakfast of, yet again, dried jerky. Bill was beginning to tell the difference between deer and lion, and he found that he actually preferred the taste of lion.

  29

  Two days later, the crew found themselves approaching the mouth of the Rhône. Karen had them pull ashore at a gravel bar where large oak trees reached their branches out over the river.

  “This looks as likely a place to build the boat as any,” she announced one they were grounded. “Here’s the plan: we’re gonna construct a standard dugout outrigger canoe. I want it to be as close as possible to those used by the Polynesians, so it’s gonna have to be fairly big, at least eighteen to twenty meters. I’d prefer we use linden wood, but if we don’t find any small leaved-lime trees nearby we’ll have to use oak. Whatever tree we use, though, I want a minimum width of one meter. It’ll be tight, but if we string a net between the canoe and the outrigger, we’ll have a little more room to relax in. We’ve all built smaller boats in survival school, so any questions?”

  The three shook their heads in the negative, and Ben said, “Just tell us what you want done, when, and how, and we’ll get it done.”

  Karen nodded her appreciation and then started giving orders. The first order was to set up camp, string the hammocks, and set out the trip wires. She also had the crew gather plenty of firewood. “Once we’ve got the camp set, then we’ll get cracking on the canoe and food supplies.”

  It didn’t take long for the crew to set up camp. Karen didn’t like leaving the camp alone, so she ordered Bill and Meri to remain behind while she and Ben conducted a quick search around the area for a small-leaved lime tree, or, if they couldn’t find one, another suitable tree. “Try catching some fish for supper,” she said as the two headed out to find a suitable tree.

  Meri took sympathy upon Bill and offered to keep watch while he fished. Thanking her, he retrieved his fly rod from his pack and soon had the line and dry fly laying on the water, drifting. Within minutes there was a strike, and Bill could feel the fish struggle as he reeled him in. After catching a second fish he offered to trade places with Meri. She was glad to do so, and after he had put his fishing gear away, she got hers and was soon fishing. As was becoming the case every time they went fishing, she wound up reeling in the bigger fish. By the time she had reeled in a second fish Karen and Ben had returned.

  “We found one,” Karen stated without preamble. “It’s about a hundred meters downriver. We’ll drop it tomorrow and begin digging it out. Fish for supper?” she finished.

  Meri held up the four large fish and said, “One for each. If you’re hungry for more I can catch them.”

  Supper consisted of the fresh fish grilled over the fire and some dandelion greens that served as a salad.

  As they ate Karen outline the plan. “It’s gonna take several days to build the boat, and before we launch, I’d like to have more food on hand
, especially pemmican. I’m sure we’ll be eating enough fish as we cross the ocean, that we’ll probably be sick of them. So, let’s see about getting some game and finding as much green stuff as we can carry. That’ll mean weaving baskets for storage, along with doing some serious hunting.”

  Looking around at the three crew members eating their supper, she continued, “Bill and Meri, you two work together. Ben and I’ll be a team. When one team is working on the boat, the other should be either working on baskets or out hunting. Everyone’s got their survival book?” she asked.

  Bill patted his vest pocket where the waterproof book, the size of a deck of cards, resided. Feeling its outline, he nodded to her. The book was modeled on the British Special Air Service’s survival book but adapted for Corps needs. Along with showing how to navigate, make boats, traps, baskets, survive on land and sea, and other items that would help a lost Explorer, it also gave primitive methods of food production, such as pemmican, jerky, and other foods that could be made from foraging.

  The evening passed without incident. When Bill was on watch, though, he could hear the howl of wolves in the background. After the hyena attack the other night, he was justifiably nervous on watch, and even when he wasn’t on watch. He seldom put his rifle or PDW down, even when emptying his bowels.

  The first priority was building the boats and baskets, so while one team worked on the boat, the other worked on the baskets. Felling and limbing the tree took a full day, as did flattening the bottom and molding the front prow and the stern. Other than survival training, none of them had ever used an adze, so it took a while to get fully comfortable with it. The canoe took shape. First, the outline was completed, followed by the hollowing of the interior, with a center block left in place for the mast. They then constructed the outrigger and attached it, along with a tiller. The mast they cut and trimmed from a tall sapling, and finally, they used a parachute to make the sail.