Chapter 182: Going with the Flow

Editor: nnpdad

The trip downriver was enjoyable in the summer heat. While the humidity and bugs were still annoying, it was far better than sweltering in the camp town near the fort without a breeze to cool things off even slightly.

I was happy to leave the stench behind as well. That invasive and nauseating smell of human and animal waste fermenting in the summer heat was soul sucking. Plumbing wasn’t a high priority at frontier camps and although it wasn’t bad in the winter, summer had no problem reminding you how nature dealt with such things. It reminded me why I don’t like cities: regardless of how modern and clean they were, you simply couldn’t eliminate the stench of so many mammals living close together.

The open clean air on the Missouri river had its own texture and odor, which was because the Mighty Mo moved slowly this time of year and was colored by the smell of vegetation rotting in the water. It was still refreshing after the odorous assault of camp town and the fort. It was cramped on the boat as it always was, but the ride downriver was as fast as ever once the afternoon winds started to kick in. We made Rulo Landing before suppertime and though we didn’t have a crowd to greet us again, we did have a nice dock to tie up to.

Rulo Landing had progressed nicely over the last week and the pier had grown even further. What had been skeletons when we left were now fully finished docks and buildings. These weren’t impressive gothic works by any means but they were definitely sturdy functional structures. Interestingly enough they had even built the harbor master’s hut into a floatable building as a preventative measure against the annual floods. It was a very small square log cabin that sat on level ground on a large raft of cut tree trunks. It was tethered by long ropes attached to trees up the bluff. The docks themselves were able to rise and fall with the constantly changing level of the river. It was a very ingenious setup and looked to be able to withstand everything but the most violent of floods. I was truly impressed.

The hut was a very simple one room setup to support a harbor master when the river was navigable. In other seasons a sentry would use it. It did have a small brazier but that would be ineffective against the Nebraska winter. In the dead of winter it would just be closed up. I learned later that the blacksmithing team was hard at work building chains to replace the rope, it being just a matter of time and materials. I was working on the time problem and we had sent a boat out after materials but the trip back from St. Louis would take a couple of weeks.

By the time I had processed all of this, Mouse was already prancing up the road like the proverbial Pied Piper with a line of children behind her. I was left with the parents with their possessions and questions; the boatmen all had their own tasks and were busy unloading onto the dock. Even Amos had disappeared and I found myself surveying the area alone - it wasn’t a bad thing but it was a bit disconcerting.