10 Pound Bag Ch. 195-199

Chapter 195 -- Whoosh, Chug, Chug, Chug

By: Emmeran, 17 November 2021

Editor: nnpdad 11 December 2021

That little boat was noisy and it was slow so this wasn't a luxury ride by any stretch of the imagination. Brin spent the first couple of hours whining about the noise until he finally settled down and slept on the cargo house roof between us.

Captain Svenson manned the steering rudder and three men were up on the bow playing spotter and using the push poles to avoid snags. Missing a log or snag and breaking the paddle wheel on a hidden obstacle would turn us back into a pole boat again and we all wanted to avoid that. It was pretty intense work and they shifted off frequently. We stayed out of the current but were able to maintain decent speed, maybe as much as eight mph. We did have a decent cargo in the hold and Svenson held forth that our speed was somewhat hampered because of that.

As we chugged upriver I privately wondered whether our engineers could make improvements on the speed and reliability of the machine. I was fairly sure they would do so, engineers can't help tinkering and they had plenty of data on hand. My main intention with this boat was high speed transport on the river, or what passed for high speed anyway. So mainly Mail and Passengers except in emergency since the propulsion system was simply too fragile and the cargo space was limited.

These were the thoughts that occupied my mind as we slowly trundled up river; it wasn't a flight of fancy or anything but it was still a good mental exercise. We got to know the crew fairly well on the trip and it did turn out that two of them were married. I took a full evening around the fire to explain to them how Rulo worked and its basic rules, all of which seemed to go over well with most of them. I wondered how many would stay. The truth is we only really needed the captain, the engineer and the mechanic because we had enough boatsmen to do those jobs.

We pulled into St. Louis just before dinner time on the fifth day. The pole boat was at least a week behind us. If we could get the manufacture of steam engines down, we'd need to build some tug boats to help tow these pole boats upriver. It would be a grand challenge yet one that would serve us well in the long term. I just hoped I had that research data in our library. I had spent an evening browsing those after seeing a few of those on the river when we visited Memphis to pick up Lunch. I'm a research nut, so sue me.

We drew a few of the curious when we docked and started to off-load. Amos agreed to show the crew around and take them to the barracks once all was secure. Reloading of fuel and maintenance still had to be performed as well as posting guard duty shifts. Svenson and I weren't really needed so we proceeded up to Main Street and I introduced him to Byrne's. The Captain very much appreciated Byrne's.

Amos showed up about forty-five minutes later and announced that all was well down at the barracks and the cook had even tapped a small barrel of beer for them and fed them dinner. We took our dinner with John Byrne while Amos ate out back, Brin was his constant companion. After he finished eating, which with Amos was almost never, he went over to the livery and collected some mounts for us to use later that day. He then sat down to eat some more with Rachel clucking over him and scolding me for starving the boy. That set Amos to grinning so I sent him off to let the Dr. Henthorn know that we were in town and needed to load or store their belongings tomorrow morning.

I hung out with John and Sven most of the afternoon. Amos and Brin went out to the Marine House to let them know we needed supper for two and two bedrooms for the night. Sven turned out to be quite funny and he kept both John and me chuckling while we nursed our beers at the bar; all we needed was a TV with a sports game on to complete the effect of one of my favorite pubs.

Five o'clock rolled around and it was getting towards supper so Sven and I headed over to the Marine House with me supplying a running background the entire way. I even ended up having to display my meager auctioneering talent as we rode along, causing him to laugh so hard he eventually got the hiccups.

Grace was waiting for us in the study when we came in. After proper introductions and small talk she invited Sven to take a tour of the facilities. Obviously the tour included a running dialog from the Widow Grace Langdon regarding the overall program, the construction of a new wing and the history of the house. I used the time available to glance over the books and enjoy a hot cup of coffee while I waited for supper to be called.

Grace was one of those ladies who enjoyed the fine dining experience, I've always found it a little bit stuffy and mind numbing. Sven kept the mind numbing part at bay and the food had improved to a level that truly made the meal a pleasure. I complimented her on the food and discovered that one of Mrs. Byrne's cooks was working here while her own cook got trained up at the restaurant.

Food enjoyed, after-dinner drinks consumed and a long day behind us, I started to drift a little. It quickly became time for sleep so I politely took my leave and went outside to enjoy the evening while I smoked the day's last cigarette. My thoughts were drifting home to the beautiful woman who awaited me there so I cleaned up and took myself off to bed.

Chapter 196 -- Heading Home

By: Emmeran, 22 November 2021

Editor:

It was a moving day for a very important family for our survival, having a qualified doctor in town would seriously increase our chances of success. Getting him to work with the Pawnee and African healers would go even further. Home remedies such as willow bark are basically the same thing as what you find lining the shelves of the modern drug store. Yet Bayer, with their Aspirin product, built a pharmaceutical empire that in the future modern day was busy poisoning all of the crop fields. Meanwhile extract of willow bark provided the same relief for free to knowledgeable people around the world. Willow bark has been in use since long before baby Jesus pissed off the cow by shitting in her food that Christmas morn; the Sumerians documented it's uses quite extensively. The list of effective remedies growing in the wild is stunning yet people in the modern world continue to ignore them and purchase a derived and shrunk wrapped version of the same thing. Quite amazing over all.

Another important discovery was inoculation against disease, smallpox was the culprit easiest to address. Inoculation simply required you to sniff a tiny bit of powder up your nose, you then got slightly ill for a day or two and after that remained immune for the rest of your life. The powder was easy to make, it was simply smallpox scabs ground up finely with a mortar and pestle. So easy and effective was this that Gen. George Washington required that all volunteers be inoculated before they were allowed to serve. The fact that this joyful disease had a mortality rate of between twenty and thirty-five percent made it an easy decision, not to mention just how horrific and painful the disease itself was. But still, sniffing dried pox scabs is a pretty nasty concept.

Cholera should be manageable for us with good sanitation and care of our drinking water, the odds of us copying the vaccine itself were pretty damn low. However I was quite sure that 'Death by Diarrhea' which is what cholera offered was not high on anyone's list of preferred exit scenarios and our sanitation work would be well received by all.

The diseases were in my mind as I rode into town after breakfast, mostly because one of our new Marine House residents was badly scarred by the pox. The early morning sight of his ruined visage rattled home the significance of not having vaccinations around in this era, all of the twitchers were well vaccinated but nobody from this era was. We would definitely suffer through several nasty epidemics over the coming decades and the best we could hope was to alleviate symptoms and prevent the preventable.

Rather moribund thoughts to start a busy day and definitely not the mood I wanted to be in while welcoming our new doctor recruit and his family. Like anyone else shifting my mood from a mentally stubborn subject like disease and other misfortune wasn't easy to do. It took concentrated effort and a lot of focus to keep myself from sliding back into the 'What could go wrong' mentality. The human mind seemed to be hard-wired to expect the worst and if you let it run wild it could really get you down.

By the time I made it down to the docks my mood had lifted considerably. It was a heck of a nice day and I had a steam boat to ride north, things were actually improving quickly -- regardless of what my doomsayer side was trying to tell me. Perhaps having a full belly helped my mood, maybe it was the idea that I was almost done travelling for the season but it assuredly had a lot to do with that boat sitting down their dockside with smoke coming out of it's stack pipe.

I was the late comer to the casting off, my lollygagging riding in had put us slightly behind schedule. True, it was my schedule. Regardless, if I do set a schedule I should keep to it. I had to set the example and be mindful of others that were waiting on me. I had always hated it in the Marine Corps when the commanding officer was late for a formation he had called -- nothing like standing around in formation for a half hour or so while some terminal O-3 discusses dinner plans with his wife. We'd be out there in the weather, sweltering or freezing, waiting out his little chit-chat session. It didn't help that we'd be dressed all in green camouflage uniforms and when formed up we looked like gigantic green hedges; granted that in the desert we wore brown and simply looked like hedges that were way over due for a good watering.

Regardless, I was the delay that morning and while nobody said a word out-loud I personally felt like a numbskull showing up late. I would have called ahead but cell coverage was spotty at best in that era of existence.

I grabbed my gear and handed off my rent-a-horse to a waiting dock hand, shortly after that we had pushed off and where on our way to St. Charles to pick up our new Doctor and family. We were really running light that morning without overly much in the way of cargo. I expected the good doctor to have need of space for his families belongings even if they already knew not to try and bring too much right away.

Even with a light load getting away and headed north bound and then dealing with the confluence took a while. This boat might have had the little engine that could but it was still the little engine that would take a while doing so. We ended up crossing to the far bank and headed up the Mississippi until we were well past the confluence. Sven then swung the boat around and recrossed the current so we came down river on the inside of the fork and skipped the worst of the confluence altogether.

There was still heavy work to be done by both pole and paddle-wheel and while we avoided a lot of traffic this way there was still plenty of risk to be had. For Amos, Brin and I there was mostly a lot of holding on tight and keeping an eye out for snags and waving to other boats.

The little steam engine chugged on and half a day later we were gliding up to dock in St. Charles. Not great time but a whole lot faster than by poling or walking.

Of course in the future that would be a half hour commute if traffic was light.

Chapter 197 -- Joe Cool

By: Emmeran, 26 January 2022

Editor:

That waiting moment.

We grow up being conditioned to wait and to expect some sort of reward afterwards. So we have that waiting moment; we wait to blow out the candles so we can have a piece of cake and open our birthday presents. We wait Christmas morning to see what Santa brought. We wait for the seat belt sign to go off so we can finally exit the plane.

I was standing and waiting for our steam boat to dock. Not that any reward awaited me but I still felt that conditioned excitement and apprehension that we were taught from childhood. Of course this was a simple and low tech paddle wheel steamer, fancy maneuvers with twin screws and bow thrusters were replaced by the curses of the captain and grunting strains of the boatmen on poles.

My responsibility during all of this? To wait and stay out of the way. So much for the graceful and regal entry scene; red carpet and marching bands were never a personal goal of mine anyhow. Thus our arrival at the small but bustling port of St. Charles was low key and relaxed; boring is a good term. Bustling referred to the couple of boys fishing, a dog sleeping in the sun and three laze-abouts looking at our steam boat in curiosity. Steam boats still being somewhat of an oddity and St. Charles being a very small town which was not yet feeling the effects of the economic recovery. St. Louis was already starting to bounce back from the Panic however that recovery was yet to be seen in St. Charles which was a full day's travel away. The growth and economic health of the city was very dependent on traffic on the Missouri river and until the cities upstream began to grow it would remain a small town. Which is why I preferred to set up shop here rather than deal with the hassles of St. Louis.

Amos and Brin were familiar with this town and were the first off the boat once we were tied up. Brin because he knew of several pilings and fence posts which required his professional attention and teenaged Amos was just being a teenager. He was off the boat and on his way to Mick's before I had even moved from my 'waiting' spot. It may have just been excess energy of youth but my bet was an urgent desire to visit the outhouse. I followed along at a sedate pace more fitting of my advanced age and station. Mick's was the closest destination promising food & drink and while I wouldn't call it 'making a bee line', I meandered in that general direction.

Meandering with a purpose is kind of an art form, anyone can take their time going somewhere but to truly be cool you have to mix a little saunter into that step while you meander. Think of 'Joe Cool' as portrayed by Snoopy in the Peanuts comic strip, the epitome of suave and very aware of it. That was me, I was the cool guy with the fancy new ride; you could hear me and see me coming 'cuz I had a Steam Boat on a river full of oars and push poles. I hadn't felt this cool since my young fourteen year old self had pulled up to my new school in my pickup truck. Of course it was a seventh thru ninth grade Middle School in the city, but I was a transplanted farm boy with a 'School License' from out of state and a '64 Chevy Pickup Truck. So I drove to school that first day which neither the school administrators nor the police resource officer found too amusing. The trouble all started when I couldn't find the student parking section, so I parked in a guest spot and went inside to ask. Things went downhill fast from there.

Well the end result was to issue me a written warning and ignore the issue for the day. To get to that point I had to escort the officer and the principal out to my truck and let them get a grip on things from there. It was just a beat-up old farm truck, nothing special and no spoiled rich kid here. I was sternly instructed regarding the shotgun on the rifle rack so behind the seat that went but the rest of it was pretty much 'old truck' and didn't scream out 'entitled brat' and all of my paperwork was in order. The upshot was that the officer followed me home that day and had a word with my mother; after that I was on the bus. It didn't matter much though because word spreads quickly in any school and I was instantly the new, cool guy who had his own truck at fourteen.

Meandering along in the sunlight while enjoying pleasant memories is a nice way to pass a bit of your day. The breeze off the river seemed perfect and the sun was less than brutal, generally speaking it was very nice out. Life was very good right up until the attack came.

The first hit came right in the center of my gut, it doubled me over and knocked the breath out of me. I had no idea what had just happened, there was no warning and no prior indication of trouble. I was just gathering myself when the second attack occurred. I wasn't sure what was happening but the ominous pressure from down below told me that finding a privy -- and very, very soon at that -- was now the most important thing in my life.

It is flat out impossible to saunter or meander whilst suffering a severe gastro-intestinal attack, the best I could manage was a half-stepping stilted walk. I must have looked like a drunken marionette as I tried to quick step it to the privy behind Mick's. What seemed like an impossible mission to a privy that now seemed miles away. I didn't bother to go through the pub, I took the side yard hoping to save critical seconds in the quest to avoid public soiling.

The cramps kept on coming and things were looking grim.

Chapter 198 -- The Gates of Hell

By: Emmeran, 26 January 2022

Editor: nnpdad 11 May 2022

I know it's just a simple mental twist but the urgency of the need always increases as the distance to safety decreases; my ruin nearly came when the first privy door was locked. A grumpy, straining voice instructed me to "Fuck off" while I was already on my way to door number two. At that point, the Pucker Factor was off the charts and I had broken out in a full-on, dripping sweat; I was truly afraid that I was doing permanent damage to my faithful rectum.

Were the second hole to be occupied, I knew that I'd be fertilizing the yard and cleaning it up later; it was a performance that I was quite sure that any and all passers-by would prefer to miss. Mercifully the second door opened and the hole was available - my trousers were at my ankles and my ass was planted over the hole faster than I would have thought possible.

So naturally as soon as I reached safety nothing happened.

Nothing at all.

Well until that bugle started up and with it came with a scrotum-shrinking cramp of pain.

Apparently someone had stuffed a bugle up my ass. When I began to relax the relief came as gas blowing out and it was blowing a tune on that invisible bugle which had somehow secreted itself in my sorry ass. That damn note was impressively long and loud, bringing a comment of accolade from my erstwhile shitter mate. That moment of grandeur quickly passed as the note got deeper in tone and ended in a loud 'Blatt!'.

Then the smell hit us. A double holed out-house means that you share a septic hole with two seats on top of it and there is no courtesy flush available, to top it off the only privacy was a loose hanging piece of burlap. The experience was definitely a shared one. The odor that my body shared was beyond description; it was worse than the smell of the rotting dead, it was pretty much other-worldly in description. As I sat there in my incredibly awful smell, I reflected back on a bad middle school joke calling it 'Marvin the Martian's Revenge' as opposed to 'Montezuma's Revenge'. Hey, we were in middle school; it was a stupid but acceptable pre-teen joke.

Regardless of the descriptor, the output of my nether regions was mind numbingly offensive and invasive. My unknown friend occupying the other hole cursed vividly and exited at extreme speed. Apparently the smell was nowhere near as funny as the sound that delivered that extremely noxious odor.

Then everything stopped. Just flat out stopped. The pain was gone, the pressure was gone and only the scent of the moment remained.