Lower Falls

From publisher blurb:

Lower Falls was established hundreds of years ago to protect the portage trail that leads up and around the cataract in the great river to Upper Falls. The King's Men built a bridge and watchtower, and—as often happens with such places—soon a village grew around the soldiers and stones like mushrooms on a cowpat.

Now few remember the tower and bridge's original purpose, and the village makes its living by catering to merchants and traders who traverse the river and the King's Road with their goods. Here, the caravaneers and bargemen can resupply from Lower Falls's many gardens and farms, as well as trans-ship their cargoes either up the portage to Upper Falls, from wagon to barge, or vice-versa...