By the time daylight came, both men were feeling the effects of only eight hours of sleep over the last forty-eight hours. Of course, with the schedule they had maintained during the Initial Survey, this wasn’t the worst they had felt. They had managed to keep busy during their watch tending both the fire and the meat-drying process, so that by the time the women climbed out of their hammocks the meat collected the day before had been turned into jerky. Of course, it helped that the women had already done most of the work the day and night before.
Bill made sure there was enough coffee made for everyone to have a cup. They all recognized their coffee habit was soon to come to a screeching halt, something none of them were looking forward to.
Meri said to Bill, “You must be exhausted.”
“Why do you say that?” he asked.
“Your eyes look like blazing emeralds. They only do that when you’re really tired. Usually, they’re a pretty nondescript hazel.”
As she sipped her coffee Karen announced to the group, “I’d like to head out this morning. Best way to do that is to catch the outgoing tide.” With a glance at the river, she added, “Looks like the tide’s almost in right now, so that doesn’t give us a whole lot of time to get ready. If need be, we can finish up the pemmican afloat.”
Ben told her that all the meat gathered was now dried into jerky, suitable for either eating or grinding into powder for pemmican. “We’ve also clarified all the fat.”
Using her best Captain’s voice, Karen said, “Make it so, Weaver.”
The three Earthlings got a chuckle out of that, but Meri just looked at them, confused.
“Old TV show,” Bill explained.
“Ahh. Gotcha.”
“Okay, Karen said. “The boat’s ready to go, so all we need to do to launch is load her, and take her out. If anything’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen once we’re out there.” Karen looked around at them expectantly, then sighed when nobody responded. “All right, finish your coffee and let’s get things rolling. Ben and Meri, you finish up the food stuff and get it packed. Bill, you and I’ll get the boat out on the water. If you’re hungry, snack on some jerky. We’ve only got a couple of hours.”
Bill finished his coffee, rinsed out the cup, and replaced it and the canteen on his belt. Grabbing a handful of jerky, he followed Karen to the outrigger canoe. The dried meat was palatable, but definitely not Oshiro’s Teriyaki flavor. It was tough, slightly salty, with a smoky oak flavor. Good thing I’ve got great teeth, he thought. No way I’d be able to handle this cardboard otherwise. As one hand was occupied with his rifle, everything was done one-handed.
As they approached the dugout canoe, Bill admired their handiwork. Not bad, considering all we used were axes, hatchets, and an adze. The dugout was an outrigger canoe, modeled on the Polynesian style from Earth. It had main body with a single mast and an outrigger for stabilization. It had been made from a small-leaved lime tree, using what Karen called linden wood. Apparently, it was the same type of wood used by neolithic Europeans to make canoes back on Earth. The main canoe was almost twenty meters long and about a meter and a half wide, wide enough for a single person to sit and lie down in. The hull speed, or the maximum speed they’d be able to get to under sail, was almost 11 knots, or about 20 klicks an hour. The sail was made from one of the parachutes from the S-1 Monarch survey plane, left behind in Grand Lac de Laffrey, in the western Alps. A small wooden seat with a wooden bucket under it served as a toilet. Bill wasn’t looking forward to using that.
It had taken a week to cut the tree, dig it out, and then struggle to get it to the campsite where they completed the work. Bill and everyone else hoped it would float. After all, they had quite an ocean voyage ahead of them. Nobody was excited about being cramped in the boat, which was why they had constructed a net across the span between the canoe and the outrigger. At least people would be able to safely leave the canoe for brief spells, if for nothing more than to stretch out on the net. They had also carved four rough paddles for near-shore use. They figured they would have time to finish carving them once underway.
The canoe sat on small logs that had been used to roll it from where they had cut it down. The plan was to continue to roll it until it was in the water. While Bill pushed the heavy canoe, Karen would take the log that it had just rolled off, walk to the front of the canoe, and set it down so the canoe would continue moving. As she did, she was constantly scanning for threats. They kept this up until the boat rested partially in the water and partially in the mud below the high tide mark. They had removed boots, shoes, and uniform pants for the last stretch to avoid getting mud all over everything, reasoning that it was far easier to clean skin than boots and clothing.
“Let’s tie it up and start loading it,” Karen said.
Bill tied the boat off to a large tree near the river bank. The two then washed the mud off their feet and ankles and put their clothing and boots back on.
By the time they made the short walk back to the campfire, they saw that all the food was packed, and every container that could possibly hold food or water was doing so.
Karen put the two remaining tablets inside a waterproof bag that did double duty as a clothes washing machine. Inside were little knobbies that would agitate the clothing and do the cleaning. For now, though, they served to protect valuable items, such as the tablets, the small solar charger, the flashlights, and spare gunpowder. The rifles and PDWs would be wrapped in spare clothing and stashed in the backpacks once they were underway. The packs were somewhat waterproof, but not completely. The idea was to allow salt and moisture to do the least amount of damage possible.
Using some of the gear salvaged from the Monarch, they had placed several stanchions at various locations. The packs and survival belts were strapped to them. Survival vests would be worn at all times, and the life vests taken from the Monarch’s inflatable would be worn by all at night. Karen had told the crew that she expected that if anyone fell overboard during the day they’d be immediately missed, but probably not so at night. “No sense taking any unnecessary risks.”
During the week they had been food gathering, Karen had also told the crew to find makings for bows and arrows. “We’ll have plenty of time to make them, and I want us ready to start using them the minute we get off that boat,” she said. “Let’s save the ammo for when we really need it.”
Within a half-hour, everything was packed except the rifles, with all items either tied down, strapped to the boat, or set inside. The boat was ready to go before the high tide had fully come in. Following standard protocol, the fire was completely extinguished before they left.
Slipping out of boots, socks, and uniform pants, each Explorer entered the canoe, one at a time, passing their clothes and rifle over to the previous entrant. Each rifle was disassembled to reduce its length, wrapped in spare clothing and then secured in the owner’s backpack. The final one to board was Ben, and he did so only after releasing the rope holding the canoe to the tree and then pushing the vessel further into the river.
As he hopped into the canoe, it started downriver on the outgoing tide.
Within minutes the outrigger approached the Mediterranean Sea. Each Explorer had found a place to sit and was easing the canoe along with their rough-hewn paddles. Other than survival school, the only ones with any prior sailing experience were Meri and Ben, Meri because her family owned a small cabin on the Nisqually River of Cascadia, with access to the Salish Sea, and Ben who grew up regatta racing in the Chesapeake Bay. Bill had been on a few boats, but not for more than a couple of hours, and the same for Karen.
The vessel started bobbing in the water as the small waves of the sea made their way up the mouth of the Rhône River. Bill hoped he wouldn’t get seasick. Then he thought, I hope nobody else gets seasick. That’s all we need.
Soon the boat was past the mouth of the river and fully into the Mediterranean. As it was now afternoon, the winds were blowing from the sea onshore. Bill remembered learning that
the air above the land heated faster than that over the water, in his one physical geography class he took at the University of Washington.
Rather than head for the Strait of Gibraltar, Karen had decided on a mostly coastal route, explaining, “We’re gonna be at sea for probably a month straight. Before we’re forced to do so, though, I want to take advantage of the fresh water and food options available to us. So, the plan is to pull into rivers along the way and stay near shore for a full day. We’ll load up on fresh water, bathe, and try to get fresh food, other than fish, at every opportunity.”
Karen had had Bill plot out the possible rivers along the way, of which there were many. The first stop was to be one of a set of rivers on the south coast of France, approximately eleven hours sailing time away. Karen had explained that without navigation aids other than their chronographs and the sextant that came with the Monarch, they would have to plan for “close enough.” They would aim for a spot near where they hoped to land and then sail down the coast looking for the mouth of the river.
Fortunately, the wind was with them. It was a moist wind, and Bill could feel the increased humidity, but it was nothing like what he had experienced during survival training on the Yucatan Peninsula. He spent the day thinking about their chances of survival. Others had managed to make it back to the Initial Point after similar mishaps, whereupon they were given the moniker of “Trekker.” Bill couldn’t remember hearing about any Trekkers that made it back from this far away, though. Most Trekkers only had to cross Ti’icham, with a few stranded several hundred kilometers from the nearest base.
Bill asked the group, “What’s the longest distance you’ve ever heard anyone cross on a trek?”
The three thought about it. Then Meri, who grew up in the Corps, said, “There have only been a few who went down on an Initial Survey. Janice Goodland is the most famous, and she went down on the east coast of Ti’icham.” Janice Goodland was the head of the survival school for the Corps of Discovery and, despite being mauled by a Smilodon, managed to make the several-thousand-kilometer trek from the east coast to the Initial Point on the west coast. The Survival School was named after her.
“Wait a minute,” Bill said. “I remember an outrigger canoe in the museum on base. Anyone recall the story on that?”
“That was a crew that went down on one of the islands in the Caribbean during a secondary survey,” Meri said. “I don’t remember if that was on the fourth or fifth planet, but it was fairly early on in the Corps’ history. They only had to go a couple of hundred klicks.”
That bit of information sobered the group up, and they got quiet for quite some time.
As the day wore on, the crew quickly learned what worked and what didn’t. One of the things they discovered was that wood was a hard thing to sit on for hours, and it was worse if they didn’t have a way to lean back and relax their back muscles.
“We’ll probably have to use some of the cloth we have left, maybe a parachute or two, for our asses,” Karen said, “but we’re gonna have to go ashore and get some wood to make back supports. That doesn’t have to be tonight, but let’s make sure we’ve got them rigged up before we set sail again.”
Bill and Meri had arranged it so that the two of them could sit together - well, as together as they could be sitting single file. Rather than face the bow, Meri had elected to face Bill who was riding in the stern.
The two quietly discussed whatever possible future existed considering their situation. They had already espoused their love for each other, and Bill told her that he had been waiting for them to get through their probationary year with the Corps before he was willing to ask her formally to marry him.
“I just wanted to be sure that I’d be around more than a year,” he explained. “Now I’m not even sure if we’ll be around more than a month.”
Looking out over the wide sea, with gentle swells being pushed by the east wind, he had a thought.
“Listen, I don’t know if this’ll be legal in the eyes of the Corps and Hayek’s laws, but how about we get married tonight? I bet Karen or Ben can perform the ceremony as captain of this vessel. That way, if anything happens, at least we’ll have been married, even if for short while.”
Meri smiled. “I gotta say, you’re not the smoothest talker when it comes to marriage proposals. First the apartment, now this. No chivalry, no undying love, just an ‘it should be okay’ statement. Where’s the romance? Where’s that dashing guy who swept me off my feet?”
Bill was flabbergasted. He thought that everything he said was logical and made sense. Romance? She wanted romance on a trek in the middle of the ocean in a dugout canoe?
Fortunately, some deeper wisdom prevailed, and rather than voicing these thoughts, he got up and knelt in front of her. “Meriwether Lewis, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
Meri squealed and wrapped her arms fiercely around Bill, almost knocking the two of them into the water.
All Bill could hear through the thrumming in his ears was the word ‘yes’ repeated over and over, between the kisses she was showering on him.
Karen, hearing the commotion behind her and turned around. “What’s going on?”
Meri looked at her with a grin plastered across her face. “Bill just officially proposed”.
“I’m gonna bet you said yes,” Karen said dryly, getting a bobbing-head response in return.
“So, when’s the big date, lover boy?” Ben called to Bill.
“How about tonight, when we make landfall?” Bill asked. “Can one of you perform the ceremony?”
“Heck, both of us can, him as pilot and me as Survey Commander,” Karen said.
Landfall couldn’t come soon enough.
It was dusk as they finally found one of the rivers they had been aiming at. The voyage had, with the exception of the proposal, been uneventful. Nobody had gotten sick, water hadn’t come in over the gunwales, nothing went overboard, and nobody drowned. Life was good.
As they entered the river delta, Karen told the group that other than hammocks, survival belts, and rifles, everything else was to stay on board and that the canoe was to be beached and double tied. “I don’t want us losing everything to the tide.”
She then decided that rather than risk the canoe, Meri and Bill would stay aboard it overnight. “Call it a honeymoon,” she said with a grin.
Just before landing, they extracted their rifles from the packs, reassembled them, and loaded them. Ben, being on the bow, jumped to shore as they partially beached the canoe. Taking the bow rope he ran to a nearby tree and secured it. The other three watched the surroundings, rifles at the ready.
Once the boat was secure, the rest disembarked. Survival belts were passed around and secured on all. Bill and Meri set out trip wires and then collected firewood while Karen and Ben set up their hammocks. Night was approaching, but fortunately, the late June day was a long one, so they still had some time before full dark.
Meri had managed to find several varieties of wildflowers, so she gathered them together and created a bouquet. Karen ordered Ben to serve as a witness and to use one of the tablets to record the event. He retrieved it from the canoe while the other three made their way to a point on the beach that looked out over the Mediterranean. To the east, the full moon was just rising.
Ben returned to the group with the tablet, turned it on, and began recording. Karen stood with the sea behind her, keeping an eye on both the betrothed and the forest behind them. Before Karen stood Bill and Meri, with Meri holding the wildflower bouquet. All three had their rifles slung over their shoulders.
“Meri, Bill,” Karen said,“marriage is a solemn vow between two people, requiring each to devote themselves to the other. It’s not always about love, but that helps.” She smiled. “It’s about family. The family you will become, and the family you will raise. It won’t always be easy or fun, but it will always be something worth treasuring. Treasure that for as long as you can.”
“I guess I better get on
with the ceremony. Do you guys want the ‘dearly beloved’ part?”
Both shook their heads. Bill was so nervous, he was afraid his voice would have cracked if he tried to answer.
“Didn’t think so,” Karen said. She turned to Bill. “Bill, do you take this woman, Meriwether Lewis, to be your wife? To love, honor, and respect, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do you part?”
Bill looked at Meri and managed to get out, “I do,” thinking very hard about the ‘till death’ part.
Karen then turned to Meri. “Meri, do you take this man, William Clark, to be your husband? To love, honor, and respect, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do you part?”
Meri quietly said, “I do.”
“Then, by the power invested in me by the Corps of Discovery and the Canton of Yakama, I hereby pronounce you husband and wife.”
The two stood there in front of Karen with huge grins.
“This is where you kiss the bride,” Karen said pointedly to Bill.
Bill turned to Meri and gave her a rather chaste kiss, but she was having none of that. She grabbed him around the neck, pulled him in close, and gave him the kind of kiss that took his breath away. Karen clapped while Ben hooted with approval.
After the two separated, Karen said, “Ben and I’ll stay in our hammocks and take the first two watches. You guys can have the last two. Try to get at least a little sleep.” The last was said with a knowing grin.
The crew returned to the fire where a pot of jerky had been set to cook as a stew. Each dug their canteen cups from their belts and served themselves. After a quick meal, they cleaned their cups and sporks and put everything away.
Karen announced that since Ben had first watch, she was going to get some shut-eye. Looking pointedly at the newlyweds she said with a grin, “Try to keep it down — some of us need some sleep.”
“Yeah, I’m just gonna watch the forest. Why don’t you two kids get some ‘sleep’,” Ben added.
Bill and Meri just shrugged their shoulders. Holding hands, they practically ran back to the canoe.
The Corps of Discovery Trilogy Box Set: Books 1-3: A multiverse series of alternate history Page 33