Chapter 200: Confrontation

Like acne on a teenager’s face that festering situation was bound to come to a head soon and it had to be expunged and properly cleansed to prevent re-occurrence. Well come to a head it did on a chilly, wet early autumn morning. It was a nasty, miserable bit of weather to tell the truth, the sort of wet cold which sneaks into every crevice of your clothing and being. A silver-grey fog bank that rolled down the river valley gently raining on everything inside its cloud; cold and clammy would be the appropriate description.

It wasn’t a dense fog however and visibility was adequate for our slow passage up-river so everyone shook it off, grabbed some leftover bread and proceeded to break camp to get moving for the day. Amos packed our gear while I got the brazier and coffee going on the boat, the crew were making their morning ablutions and everything was proceeding in quiet misery. We all knew that the sooner we were underway the sooner this miserable morning would end. Even Brin knew the program, he made his ablutions, grabbed his current chew bone and occupied his favorite spot on the cargo house roof – promptly going right back to sleep.

Brin had our travelling routine down to a canine art form. When we stirred in the morning he got moving with us, he knew exactly what was going to happen. When I grabbed his blanket he would grab his current bone and followed along, he knew that where-ever that blanket landed he was supposed to be. I found that him following me around strange towns with a big bone in his mouth made people much more comfortable with the big dog. So when I moved his blanket to his spot on the cargo house roof, Brin simply followed along, bone in mouth until I put the blanket in his ‘spot’. He stayed there until we were fully underway, pretty smart dog all things considered.

Sadly enough we weren’t destined for a standard clammy morning on that day, we had the Wicked Witch of New England along for the ride – accent included. The steam boats boiler was just starting to come up to pressure and I had just put the coffee on the brazier, breakfast would be as soon as Amos got our gear stashed. It was Amos’s turn to cook breakfast, we alternated days for cooking on the road – whoever cooked dinner the night before made breakfast the next morning. I always made the coffee however, because Amos really sucked at cooking coffee.

As it turned out my breakfast and coffee were going to be delayed today, not something that lifted my already soggy and sour mood. A ruckus arose from the campsite, a high pitched ruckus with a snotty Boston accent. The fog muffled the sound so I couldn’t quite make out what was being said but it didn’t sound pleasant, I decided to cook coffee and smoke a cigarette hoping beyond hope that the situation would quickly and peacefully resolve itself. Sadly this turned out to be the volcanic eruption the last few days had foreshadowed and the coffee wasn’t even close to ready yet.