“Yum, eggs Benedict with fresh-squeezed orange juice and croissants!” he said when he saw what Meri had on the grill.
“Shut up and eat your breakfast,” she said, smiling as she handed him a warmed filet of leftover grouper. Bill took the offering, giving her a nod of thanks.
“Want some tea?” She held out a canteen cup of the heated beverage.
That got her a resounding negative nod of his head while he continued chewing.
Bill swallowed his first chunk of fish. “Should we wake Karen up?”
Karen announced from the boat, “I’m awake. How the hell do you expect anyone to sleep through all that chattering?” It was obvious to the two on the beach that she was joking.
Karen joined them for fish and tea, and, looking around at the flat, barren island, said, “As soon as we’re done, let’s get this show on the road.”
Once breakfast was done, the three released the ropes holding the canoe to the shrubs, climbed aboard the Guppy, and pushed off, paddling away from shore until Meri could raise the sail up the new mast.
Bill stowed his paddle and grabbed the tiller, turning the boat which had now caught the wind in a westerly direction away from the island. Soon they were passing the small island and cruising through the shallow waters.
“Look for any water that looks like it’s going over rocks, that’ll be a coral head,” Meri told Karen
Within an hour the Guppy had cleared the shallow water and was back at sea.
35
After four uneventful days, they finally approached Ti’icham. Passing through a gap in the Barrier Islands, they pulled into Pamlico Sound. No longer was worrying about their longitude an issue, but they still needed to get into Albermarle Sound and find the mouth of the Roanoke River.
Karen had them beach the canoe on the Pamlico Sound side of one of the low-lying sandy islands so Bill could get the most accurate sun shot possible. “Make it fast, ‘cause I don’t want to be out in this boat any longer than necessary,” she told him, as he scrambled out of the canoe, sextant in hand. In the meantime, Karen took out a tablet and activated it.
“Can’t take a shot until noon,” Bill said, holding up the sextant. So, the three waited.
At noon, it only took Bill a couple of minutes to determine their latitude.
“According to my calcs, we’re at about 35 degrees and 15 minutes north.”
Karen looked at the imagery on the tablet, with lines of latitude and longitude overlaying. “It looks like we’re just south of where we need to go. Another ninety klicks or so oughta put us there. We need to get to 36 north and 76 degrees 30 minutes west. That’ll put us right up the river. Let’s just get moving. We should be able to tell when we’re getting into the right sound, as the shoreline will go further east.”
Bill handed the sextant to Karen, then pushed the canoe back into the sound. As soon as the bow was fully afloat, he climbed aboard. On his way back to the tiller he gave Meri a quick kiss with a smile and a quiet, “Well, we made it.” Meri returned both the kiss and the smile.
It was approaching mid-afternoon before the land began visibly receding to the east. Karen had Bill turn the Guppy west into what they thought was Albermarle Sound. They passed a bay to their south, and then the land began closing in on either side. Another couple of hours and they came to the confluence of two river estuaries.
Karen ordered them to take the southern river, which had an east-west orientation.
“That’s it for the day,” she said, telling Bill to steer toward the northern shore. “We’ll crash here overnight and take a proper fix tomorrow.”
Once again, they beached the big outrigger, this time tying it to the low-hanging branch of an old cypress tree.
That evening marked their final day on the SS Guppy. The river had become too narrow to navigate the bulky outrigger, so it was beached for the final time.
“Let’s pull this bad boy up as far as possible,” Karen said, as they landed. “On the off chance we make it back, this thing’d be awesome in the Corps’ museum.” The museum on Sacajawea Base chronicled the history of the Corps of Discovery and contained numerous artifacts, including a smaller outrigger canoe, from prior trekkers’ journeys. Bill and Meri were glad to hear the old Karen return.
Karen ordered Meri to keep watch, so before the canoe was dragged ashore, Meri retrieved her rifle and took position on the beach.
Using ropes, Bill and Karen managed to get the vessel completely out of the water. It was a tight fit between the large trees, the majority of which were cypress.
“Here’s the plan,” Karen began, once the boat was grounded and life preservers tossed into it. “We’re gonna make another dugout, only this one’ll be smaller. As far as I can tell, other than the life preservers, and maybe one of the smaller desalinizers, there’s nothing from the life raft we’ll need anymore. So, while one of us works on the dugout, the other two will go through the equipment and eliminate anything we don’t need.
“First things first, though. Let’s get camp set up, and then we’ll find a good tree for the dugout.”
The three unloaded all the equipment from the Guppy. Again, thought Bill. The first things they unloaded were their rifles, survival vests, belts, and packs. The belts and vests were donned immediately, while the packs were left on the ground. Rifles were held at the ready. A campfire site was chosen and the hammocks hung around it. Karen then strung the trip-wires around the camp while Bill collected firewood and Meri kept watch.
After establishing the camp, Karen ordered all to shower and clean their salt encrusted uniforms.
“No swimming, though. I don’t know if we’re far enough inland for sharks, and who knows if ‘gators range this far north here.”
Collapsible bottles were filled and left in the sun to warm up. Salty uniforms were stripped off and rinsed in the river water, always with an eye toward the river and shoreline for any predators. An armed person remained on watch at all times.
A fire was started after clothes were clean and hung to dry. Each person then used a couple of the collapsible bottles with the shower attachment to wash off a week’s worth of salt and sweat which was a great relief. No more sticky feeling for a while, at least, Bill thought, not even noticing that he was stark naked, as were the two women, other than the rifle each held while on watch.
Once the camp was established, the three began a circuit around it looking for a suitable tree. They were fortunate, finding one less than 30 meters away. It was a cottonwood tree that had been crowded out by surrounding cypress, and, as such, was stunted. Its diameter was only a meter, which was more than adequate for what they needed.
Looking up at the branches intertwined with the larger cypress, Bill asked, “So, how we gonna cut this thing down if it’s being held up?”
Karen looked at him with a grin. “Looks like we get to play monkey woodcutter.”
“Huh?”
“We’re gonna have to climb up and cut the branches before we cut the tree down,” she replied. “But, ain’t no sense in starting now, especially after getting nice and clean. So, we’ll come back tomorrow and take it down. In the meantime, let’s mark it so we won’t have a problem identifying it tomorrow.” Karen took her hatchet from her belt and began hacking at the tree, creating a half-meter-long white blaze down its side. “There. Easy to spot from a distance.”
The three returned to the campsite, where Bill ‘volunteered’ to try and catch supper.
“Yeah, volunteer my ass,” his bride said with a grin. “You just want somebody else watching while you fish.”
“Any harm in that?” he asked her, grinning himself. He pulled out his fly-fishing gear, something he hadn’t done since leaving Eurasia, and got back into the Guppy. Standing in the stern of the canoe, he cast upriver and watched the dry fly float downriver, making sure to mend his line as it got close to the boat. Soon he saw a ripple around the floating fly, and then the fly disappeared into the river with a splash. Pulling back h
ard, he set the hook. For the next couple of minutes, he fought the fish, eventually landing it.
“Okay, that’s enough playing,” Meri said fifteen minutes later, after his third fish. “You caught ‘em, you clean ‘em.”
The night passed uneventfully, and after a quick breakfast of pemmican, Karen had the trio return to the chosen tree to cut it down.
Meri was given the task of removing the intertwined limbs. Wrapping a length of rope around her waist and the trunk of the tree, she shimmied her way up, just like a power utility lineman would.
As she came to a limb, she used her hatchet to cut a V into the bottom of it. Then she shimmied her way above the limb, and, still being supported by the rope, used her ax to cut the top portion of limb above the bottom cut, until the limb eventually bent and cracked from gravity and the loss of wood.
As each limb began to break, Meri hollered, “Timber!”, alerting Bill and Karen to get out of the way. After a half hour of limbing, Karen ordered Meri down and took her place. Then it was Bill’s turn.
Eventually, enough limbs were cut that Karen was confident that the tree would fall without being snagged by another. She did the initial back-cut and then had Bill finish cutting the front. The tree came down with a crash and landed with its top near the river. They cut the tree into three parts and decided to use the center section as the canoe.
Once again, Bill got to wield the adze, cutting away the interior of the dugout while Karen and Meri took turns working on shaping the ends. While two chopped, the third kept watch.
Rather than take the old method of burning the interior to soften the wood, they elected to do the same as they had for the Guppy, directly cutting away the interior with the adze. While more difficult, it was actually faster, but still took several days of chopping. As the work was hard, and the weather hot and muggy, the three usually worked wearing only a minimum of clothing. Their portable showers got a daily workout at the end of the day, as did the portable clotheswasher: a lightweight dry bag with bumps inside to assist in agitating the water.
The canoe was designed to fit all three Explorers, along with their equipment. It differed from the Guppy by not having a sail nor an outrigger, and it was considerably shorter, barely seven meters long.
36
Before beginning the journey upriver, Karen ordered Bill to maintain watch over the equipment while she and Meri took the canoe upriver for a test run. Both women climbed into the canoe, which had been pushed into the river and tied to a cypress. They put their survival belts and rifles in the bottom of the canoe and donned life preservers.
Bill released the rope. The women, using paddles made during their journey from Eurasia, back paddled to move away from shore, and then moved upriver, cutting through the morning’s mist. Bill turned his attention to the forest, alert as always for threats.
Occasionally he would look upriver to check their progress. One minute they were in sight, the next around one of the many meanders the river offered. It was quite a few nervous minutes before the dugout reappeared, easily slicing through the water on its way downstream.
Before too much longer, the canoe approached the riverbank. Meri tossed Bill a rope which he grabbed in mid-air and pulled the canoe to shore. He quickly tied the rope to the cypress.
“It works!” Karen said with a grin. Meri had the same grin.
“Now that it’s ready,” Karen went on, “let’s sort through the gear and decide on what goes and what stays. We’ll put whatever remains in the Guppy and cover it with brush.”
The women took off their life preservers, replaced them with their survival belts, and took rifles in hand.
The first thing they went through was the Monarch’s life raft and its equipment. The only thing they decided to keep was one of the smaller desalinizors and the adze. Other than the one parachute sail used to cross the ocean, all the other parachutes were tossed on the “ain’t going with us” pile. Ben’s pack and survival gear were also rifled through. Other than ammunition, food, food gathering gear, and socks, all that remained of Ben’s existence was tossed on the pile. It was Bill’s suggestion to keep Ben’s socks, knowing full well that they would be one of the first clothing items to wear out.
The rifle ammunition was divvied up between Meri and Karen while Bill got all the PDW ammo. The rest of the equipment was split up evenly among the three. The remains of the pile were loaded in the Guppy. Bill and Meri cut brush and covered the abandoned boat.
“Now, let’s get it loaded and get going,” Karen said. “Meri, you’re the best with a bow, so I want you up front with yours. You see anything worth taking, do so. I’m tired of fish.
“We’ll sit on our packs. Until the river gets shallow enough to stand in I don’t want anyone wearing their belts — put ‘em on the floor in front of you.”
Once more the trio broke camp and loaded their equipment. Meri placed the bow, quiver, and arrows she had made on the ocean voyage near the front of the boat. Putting on their life preservers over their survival vests, they then slung rifles over shoulders. Bill kept his PDW in his hand and didn’t set it down until they had boarded the canoe.
Bill was ordered to the stern, once again, while Karen sat in the middle. This time Meri untied the rope from the cypress tree, while the other two maneuvered the boat to remain in place while she climbed into it.
They began paddling upstream. Despite the relatively strong current, Bill was glad to see that the canoe moved easily through the water. He estimated they were moving about half as fast as they could walk, about one to two klicks an hour. At this rate, it’ll take us forever to get home. Then again, it’s still easier than having to carry everything. He still remembered hauling all the equipment from the Monarch to their first river rafting trip in Eurasia, and how even using a travois to haul the gear wasn’t easy.
Lunch was a short rest on a sandbar, consisting of pemmican and water. Bill wanted to fish but didn’t dare ask Karen. Her comment earlier in the day had pretty much put any kibosh on that, at least for the next couple of days.
While Bill and Karen paddled almost continuously, Meri would occasionally set her paddle down across the bow and look upriver and to the sides, hoping to spot a feeding deer or some other wild game she could take.
It was approaching late afternoon when Meri set her paddle down and slowly held up her hand. Bill followed her gaze and saw a lone tapir on the riverbank, getting a drink. It was Bill’s first time seeing a tapir outside of a picture. It was bigger than he expected. Meri motioned the two to paddle toward it, which they did,. slowly inching closer. Meri raised her bow, arrow nocked, then took her shot.
The tapir, surprised when the arrow struck it in the side, turned and ran into the forest.
“Keep paddling,” Meri whispered. “He’s not gonna go far. I know where that arrow went.”
Once they grounded the canoe, Karen ordered Bill to stay with it while she and Meri went after the tapir. They replaced their life preservers with their survival belts, donned their packs, and with rifles in hand began slowly tracking the animal.
Bill tied off the canoe to a nearby tree, then sat, trying not to worry too much, rifle in hand. Of course, being on a planet occupied by a variety of predators with no fear of humans didn’t make that too easy.
An hour later, the women returned, Meri first, with Karen in tow. Karen carried her rifle at the ready while Meri dragged a travois loaded with meat.
“We’ll overnight here,” Karen announced. “Bill, you continue to keep watch. Meri, get a fire going while I set out the tripwire.”
As Bill continued to stare into the forest, Meri scrounged up some dry wood and got a fire going. In the meantime, Karen had dug the trip wire lines from her pack and had set them out.
In less than a half hour, a fire was blazing, hammocks were strung, and a pot of tapir stew was started. The two women had managed to forage some greens and other edible plants on their way back from retrieving the tapir.
While waiting f
or the stew to cook, they sliced the remaining meat for jerking. The tapir strips were lain over a makeshift grill over the fire.
Dinner was a bit more animated than the previous days. Perhaps it was the act of moving upriver, fresh meat for the first time in a long time, or that they were becoming used to Ben’s death and the lack of his presence. Regardless, the small group definitely had a more upbeat feel, Bill noticed.
The next several days followed the same pattern. Rise early, break camp, canoe upriver at a snail’s pace, break for lunch, canoe some more, and stop for the evening. The group subsisted mainly on the tapir jerky and whatever animals they managed to snare during their overnights. Hunting was put on the back burner while they were paddling, mainly because all three were needed to get the canoe moving against the current.
As they traveled, the width of the river decreased, as did its depth and flow. They were able to move a bit faster the further upstream they got, probably because they weren’t fighting so much moving water.
It took almost two weeks of paddling before the trio made it to their first inland water obstacle: rapids formed by the division between the piedmont of the Appalachian Mountains and the coastal plain that they had been traveling through. They had an advance notice of the upcoming feature when they spotted several large rocks sticking out of the otherwise flat river. Passing the rocks, they arrived at a fork in the river. They took the wider fork, then paddled through a river meander. The sound of rapids became audible, and after coming out of the curve in the river they saw the first of the white water.
Paddling up to the rapids, Meri, still in the bow, called back to the others, “I don’t see an easy way through. There’s a beach up on the left. Should we beach the canoe there?”
Karen yelled over the sound of the rapids, “Yeah. We’ll portage over there.”
The Corps of Discovery Trilogy Box Set: Books 1-3: A multiverse series of alternate history Page 39