The morning coffee was good, even if it was made Turkish style. That means made with just a measure of ground coffee tossed into hot water and boiled. It was tasty. I still had sugar with my coffee also; I liked a pinch of sweetness in the first mug of the day. I wasn’t big on sweet foods outside of that. Most days, I only ate a small amount of sweets to be polite and still personally felt it was the greatest drug push of the modern world. Hell, in the modern world, you could even find pickles with sugar added in which really contradicts everything about pickling. Sugar made a lot of people rich and a lot of people sick or dead so I classified it as a drug.

I packed up camp and headed out to find a good fording spot on the Platte. The Platte has some pitfalls to it. The greatest are quicksand and shifting, fast-moving channels. The general plan was to ride the riverbank until I found a spot with an island or two to shorten my risk exposure. It’s best if they are in a vertical row so you didn’t have to fight the current on the way across.

From my slightly elevated view coming down to the river, I could see a section that looked promising, with three islands each located slightly east and down river from the next. The downside was that the current would be faster, the upside was that exposure to quicksand would be limited. I hoped to swim the horses across those sections but we’d swim with the current and not try to fight it. It was time to get wet again.

We followed the game trail down to the river bank. We ended up about a hundred feet upstream of the first island with a small sand beach to walk out on from the bank. The plan was to build a raft to carry the tack and packs, tether the horses to it and then after I crossed, I’d pull the raft over with horses following behind it. While horses swim pretty well, they don’t swim with anything on their back so I needed the raft. I tethered the horses, grabbed my ax and went looking for raft-making logs.

It took me a while, but I eventually found and cut enough dry fall to build a small raft that would float all of my gear. I bound it together with rope. This was modern light-weight rope and wouldn’t pass the time test whatsoever. Had I known I was traveling time, I would have only purchased hand-twisted hemp rope. But hell, if I had known I was traveling time I would have done many things differently. However, if you're outfitting for camping and packing, you take rope. I had it and I was going to use it; it’s not like there were people around to comment on my strange rope.

I long-tethered the horses to the raft, which was loaded with my gear and had my rope attached to it. Then I took my boots and shirt off and waded out into the water, aiming for the upstream tip of the first island. I walked straight out knowing I would be upstream of the island if the current didn’t grab me. I trailed the rope behind me and kept my feet in constant motion. Brin followed me.

The water was cold. Nuts-relocating-to-your-stomach cold. It was only May, after all, and cold water did mean no snakes or leeches; I tried to take that part as a blessing. I was within yards of the island shore when the river bed fell out from under me and I swam for my life. It was less than ten yards to the island bank, but it seemed like a mile. Brin ended up all the way down on the second island. I was on the downstream end of the first. The current was that powerful.

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I commanded Brin to Stay; I didn’t need to lose him to loyalty. I then worked my way back up to the tip island to bring across my packs and horses. When I got to the upstream tip of this island, I reeled in all of the slack in the rope and tied it off to a tree. I waded up the sand bar a little bit, slowly pulling the raft out into the slow part of the river. As soon as the raft was coming my way, the horses had to follow.

I knew where the current was now, and as the horses plunged ahead to get across, I reeled the raft in as quickly as possible. Surprisingly, the horses did better than Brin or I had. They made it to the shallow water near the shore, about halfway down the first island. They were standing in the sand, snorting their indignation at the entire scenario, when I caught up to them. The good news was that my raft had held and all of our gear was mostly dry, the bad news was that we weren’t done yet.

I rewound up the rope and climbed back into the water. I pulled the raft down to the end so we could transit to the second island. I was already tired and wanted to set up camp for the night, but this needed to be done and over with. The spring weather could change at any moment and I wanted to be off the river if that happened.

Transition to the second island was difficult, but not nearly as bad. The channel here wasn’t as deep or fast, and I could touch my feet to the bottom, if necessary. I still had to swim, but the distance was shorter and it was far less dramatic. The raft and the horses came over without issue and Brin was happy to see us. Crossing to the third island was even easier, I simply waded across, watching for quicksand as I went.

We were all on the third island in no time, and all I had to do was make to make it to the far river bank and this ordeal was over. I looked at the final channel and almost threw up in my mouth. I couldn’t tell how deep it was, but it was fast and angry looking. I truly had my doubts about this one. I’d be lucky if we all made it intact.

Well there weren’t a lot of choices so I got up to push on. As I coiled my rope for my next attempt, I heard a man yell. Fuck…that was all that I needed.

I looked across the channel and there, on the other side, was a group of natives looking at me. I had no idea what to do and was about to look for cover on that tiny island, when one of them yelled in very bad. English, “Throw rope.”

I was flummoxed at first and simply stood there staring at them. Finally, I decided, 'What the hell,' and found a suitably heavy stick to attach to the end of the rope. I spun it around a few times and flung it to them. Well, a couple of them grabbed that rope and started reeling it in, I decided to go for broke, and, taking Brin by the collar, got a firm grip on the rope and let them pull me and my belongings across.

The current was vicious but, with strong men on the end of the rope, we came across quickly. The raft followed and the horses, as well. Damn horses made it look easy, until they staggered up on the shore and just stood there blowing. I pulled my raft up on the beach and turned to thank or fear these guys; after all who knew what kind of mess I was in now.

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