To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis (12 page)

TWENTY-FIVE

Words remain behind. To glori
fy us. To betray us.
I understood why George Washington wanted his papers burned after his death. Words betray weakness. They illumine the soul.

Always, I tried to be careful with words. To write in cipher. My own private code.

Like this:

µ
∆
µ
¤ ∏

It didn’t help me in the end. The Spanish saved a record of payments to me, money I earned for selling my government’s secrets. Plans for expansion. Military outposts. Even the famed trek to the Pacific by Lewis and Clark. After I died, I feared their carelessness would betray me and smear my name across the pages of history.

In Nowhere, I was more circumspect. It’s how I managed to elude my assignment. To disappear into the ether. To recreate myself as the man I lived to be.

A man of reckoning.

Nadine, with all her cunning and trickery, she learned the manner of man I am.

I shook my head to banish images of her. It was time to focus. To find Lewis and my darling little beauty.

To delve into her and release my Ann. To make her mine again.

I sat down at my roll top desk and pushed the mechanism for the hidden compartment. My stash of parchment. I fingered its raw edges and picked up my fountain pen.

Brevity lent weight to orders. And, I had only one directive to send.

∆
╤
▄
∆

(Wait for me.)

TWENTY-SIX

Mister Jack swung his car door shut and stepped o
nto the dirt path that
led through the woods. If I walked behind him, he would smile and show new birds to me. A bald eagle perched at the top of a tree. The black-and-blue feathers of a blue jay.

Merry followed us, his steps so quiet I almost forgot he was there. The sun got dark behind the leaves and ropey vines and Spanish moss, and the trail became a deep ditch with sides higher than my head. Tree roots clung to the dirt like claws. I could even swing from some of them if I tried, but I didn’t, because that would make noise. I had to start acting like a grown-up.

I dug in my heels. I would do it. Somehow.

“The Sunken Trace.” Mister Jack opened his arms like ladies did on television game shows. He tiptoed ahead of us. The ditch was deep enough to feel like we were being buried alive. I shuddered and took Merry’s hand.

I remembered to whisper. “Why is it a ditch, Merry?”

Mister Jack looked into the trees and held up his hand, moving it back and forth through the air like he wanted me to be quiet. Merry squeezed my shoulder. I leaned my head into his solid stomach and thought about how brave he was. He was never afraid of anything, while I thought vines in the trees were snakes and the animals were monsters. He would never be that stupid. I wanted to be as brave as Merry, because Daddy would be super-proud of me.

I looked up the trail and saw Mister Jack freeze. He put his hand in a pocket on the side of his pants leg and pulled out a small camera. When he raised it to his face, the snap made me jump, and I let out a little yelp. Something moved through the branches and went further into the forest.

“
Merde!
” Mister Jack hopped from foot to foot, like I did during one of my tantrums. I didn’t realize adults threw tantrums, too. Maybe I was more grown-up than I thought. “
MerdeMerdeMerde!
Did you see it?”

“What?” Merry whispered.

Mister Jack got even more excited in a mad way. He bent over, his hands on his knees, breathing really fast.

“An ivory billed woodpecker. I’m sure of it. Rare-rare.”

I started to ask another question, but when I opened my mouth, Mister Jack threw up his hand. He wanted no more talking. He put an elegant finger over his lips, and his mustache twitched. After he caught my eye, he turned and continued down the trail. His steps made no sound.

I motioned for Merry to lean closer to my head. With my hand, I covered my mouth and asked my question close to his ear. “What is an ivory-whatever woodpecker?”

“Silence!” Mister Jack roared, causing both Merry and me to jump. He put his camera back in his pants pocket, and he charged down the path to find the ivory-whatever bird.

Merry just looked at me and smiled like he knew a secret. “Bird watchers are funny, Em. I’ve known a few. Wait here.”

I asked him where he met other bird watchers, but he didn’t answer. He just mouthed the words
wait here
again to make sure I understood. I was a little scared, but I nodded anyhow. The dead quiet of the forest wasn’t spooky.

It wasn’t.

Merry tip-toed along the trail up ahead, making no sound. It was almost like he wasn’t even there. I had to keep looking to remember I wasn’t alone.

Breath blew my hair, and I looked up to see faces in the tree trunks and snakes wrapped around the limbs, so long they almost reached the ground. In the bark, kinky grey hair blew around witches’ snarling, toothless mouths. I took a step back, but everything closed in on me. Taunting. When I closed my eyes, the witches and snakes crashed in my mind. They were all around me. On top of me. Suffocating me. One witch licked her lips and eyed my arm. Hungry for a piece of dead little girl.

“It’s not real. It’s my hyperactive imagination. Wonder Twin powers. Activate.” I whispered it, over the heavy breathing and hissing and—

I couldn’t help it. It was hard to be a grown-up. I screamed.

“
Merde!
” Jack shouted from around a bend in the deep gouge. Feet pounded into the dirt, and Merry appeared around the curve of the trail.

“What is it, Em? What did you see?”

He pulled me to his chest, but I was so embarrassed. I buried my head and wouldn’t look at him. Stupid Wonder Twins. No matter how much I thought I wasn’t scared, their powers didn’t work to make me not scared for real. I was such a fraidy-cat girl. I couldn’t even be left alone in the woods. I was never going to find Daddy if I was afraid of everything.

Merry held the back of my head and ran his fingers through my tangled hair. “Really, Em. It’s okay. The first time I encountered an unknown wilderness, I was mighty scared, too.”

Merry? Scared? Like me? I looked up at him and spoke through shaky breath. “Where was that?”

He smiled, but his eyes were sad. “In a lot of ways, it was a place just like this.”

“This very place?”

“Not exactly here, no. But it was close to a river not unlike the Mississippi. You know, the stuff that scares us is all the same in the end. It doesn’t matter where it is.”

He gave me a squeeze and set me on my feet. I stood as tall as I could, to make him proud of me. “Cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die. I’m going to be more grown-up from now on.”

“Aw, Em. It’s okay if you’re scared. This whole adventure is a lot for a kid, especially one who’s always lived in a city. Never been anywhere.”

“Well, I’m going to be a brave. It will make Daddy proud when he sees me.”

He patted my head. “I want you to crawl up on my back, all right? I think I can track with you there, and it will keep you close to me.”

He turned, and I felt his muscles strain when I climbed onto his back. I crossed my legs around his waist and locked my fingers around the front of his neck. He stood, and everything in the forest got smaller: the trees were thinner, the vines not so snakey, the Trace even looked peaceful. Kind of pretty.

I clung to Merry while he snuck around the bend to join Mister Jack, who sat along the side of the path. Merry made a hand signal to him, and Mister Jack shrugged, frowning. Merry shook me higher on his back and crouched on the ground. He moved ahead slow, the sound of his feet lost in the old dirt.

Quick, he stood and studied a thick tree that rose up tall beside us. Rough bark became high branches with long green needles. Merry tapped two fingers to his eyes before he pointed up. I followed the line from the end of his fingers up the side of the tree.

Plockplockplockplock.

A black-and-white bird with a white blotch on the side of its head was pecking its beak into the bark. I bit my tongue to keep from shrieking with excitement. Merry found Jack’s bird. It drilled into the wood, its feathers moving with its head. It made a lot of noise for such a small thing.

Mister Jack came up beside us, a sketch pad in his hand. His handlebar mustache twitched as he worked a pencil in graceful strokes across heavy cream paper and made the bird appear right before my eyes. In no time, he finished and held it out at arm’s length. His picture of the bird looked real enough to fly off the page. With big swirlies, he signed it, tore it from the pad, handed it to me and bowed.

An ivory-billed woodpecker of my very own.

I took it from his hand and showed it to Merry. He held it for me while I slid down from his back. When I took it from him, I fingered its edges, afraid I would tear it. The bird watched us from the tree for a second before flying into the woods.

“A treat to see one these days, so I’m told.” Merry kneeled to admire Mister Jack’s artwork.

“
Oui.
They are rarer than they used to be.”

Merry sighed. “Many things are.”

I looked up at Mister Jack. “It’s so pretty. May I really keep it?”

He touched my face with his long fingers. “But of course. It pleases me that she was present for you.” Looking at Merry, he continued. “Expert tracking. You’re sharp-sharp,
mon ami.
I know you’ll make it to Nashville. And, speaking of that city, we must return to the road. I can get you to Jackson by twilight, but only if we hurry.”

I squinted at Mister Jack’s signature again and recognized the name. “Mister Jack, is your last name Audubon? Like the park in New Orleans?”

But he was already halfway down the trail, his straight back weaving through the trees.

He never answered me.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Friday. October 7, 1977. Evening.
Jackson, Mississippi.

Doughnuts. Em’s eyes lit up with red neon and sugar. She looked through the window of the Peoples Cafe in Jackson, next to the bus station, where Jack left us.

Me, I watched Jack’s oblong tail lights fade down Main Street. I was sad to see him go. It was always hard to lose a friend. Connections were rare in Nowhere.

Jack’s spirit reminded me of someone I met in life. He was a bird lover, too. A Frenchman. The drawing he gave Em was so like the style of the man I knew. I wished my expedition drawings rose to his level of artistry. Instead, they were just doodles in the margins, crude images captured in a hurry. I still didn’t get them right.

Emmaline’s voice dragged me back to the present. “Can I have three cinnamon twists if they sell them, Merry? Please? I promise I can eat them all.”

I looked over at the brick bus station. “We need to get our tickets and head on, Em. We don’t know who may be after us.”

“We can get them to go, Merry. Like Aunt Bertie used to get her cocktails. Pretty please?”

Before I could answer, Emmaline took my hand and barreled through the heavy glass door. Sweetness mingled with hot grease and brewing coffee. She climbed up on a stool in front of a counter, and I sat beside her. The metal seats were bolted to the floor, and Em started turning around and around. She used her feet to push off the base of the counter with every twirl, her head thrown back and her eyes glazed.

So much for doughnuts to go.

“This is fun, Merry. You do it, too.”

“Nah. Might make me too dizzy to enjoy my—what am I having again?”

“A cinnamon twist doughnut.” She kept her eyes on the ceiling and grinned like she was on the back of a wild horse.

A woman in a tight green uniform appeared from the back, her chocolate hair peeking through a hair net. “Maxine” was printed in red letters on her name tag.

“Coffee?” She raised the pot in her hand.

“Em. That’s enough with the turning.” I winked at Maxine. “She doesn’t need any, clearly, but I could sure use a hot one.”

She sloshed some coffee into a mug and pushed the sugar and cream my way. “And what will you have, kid?”

“Three cinnamon twist doughnuts please.”

“Uh-huh. And to drink?”

Emmaline stopped spinning. She wobbled a little on the stool and held onto the edge of the counter. “Nothing.”

Maxine piled fried dough on a white plate. A shower of sugar and cinnamon littered the counter when she plopped it down in front of Emmaline and looked at me. “Anything else?”

“You got a paper?”

“Got several of them right there. End of the counter. Help yourself. Most of the news is old by now, though.” She swung through a door, into the back.

Emmaline crammed almost half a doughnut into her mouth. I lost a little piece of my heart to her puffy cheeks and cinnamon sugar smile. Her love of sweets almost made them palatable.

Amongst the newspapers, I found one from New Orleans, dated the previous morning.

“These are so good, Merry. Why aren’t you eating one?”

I mussed her hair and sat down beside her, paper in hand. “The way you’re tearing into that plate, I might lose a digit if I try.”

Sugar and spice rained all over me as she held out a doughnut with sticky fingers. Unappetizing presentation, but I took it from her and put it on a paper napkin. Licked my fingers and scanned the front page.

Under the fold, I saw it. A headline.

D
ecapitated Body Found in Mississippi River

N
ew Orleans - The headless body of a woman was dragged out of the Mississippi River above New Orleans early Tuesday. Two teens, Wilbur Pollack, 15, and Bubba Overton, also 15, were fishing in a small boat along a bend in the river near Montz, LA when a large object got caught in their net. It took both of them to pull it out of the water, revealing a grisly catch. They returned to shore and contacted local authorities, who notified New Orleans PD. The teens are not suspects in the case.

Sources in the New Orleans Police Department have identified the woman as one Nadine Houghton Cagney, 36, formerly of the French Quarter. She was reported missing from her home late Tuesday night. Cagney ran a boardinghouse off Bourbon and St Philip and was reported missing by one of her lodgers.

A spokesman for the NOPD reports that the body had not been long in the river. Fingerprints were intact. Comparison with those on file for Nadine Houghton Cagney matched the prints of the victim. Cagney was divorced and had no immediate family in the area.

Authorities have no leads. The death has been ruled a homicide. If you have any information regarding this case, please contact the NOPD Tip Line at 800 735 3114.

My hands shook, knocking coffee all over the newspaper. I pulled a few thin paper napkins from the dispenser and blotted, trying to save the story to read it again, but it was no use.

Emmaline stopped eating and watched me, her mouth a ring of crusty brown. “What’s the matter, Merry?”

I wadded the paper into a ball and walked over to the trash can. After a quick shove, I turned to her. “Come on, Em. We have to go. Now.” I gestured with inky fingers, a blood-like stain.

“Aren’t you going to pay, Merry?” She slid off the stool and wiped her hands on her pants.

Maxine was still somewhere in back. No time.

I pushed Em through the door. The autumn air nipped us as we stepped onto the sidewalk. Around the corner, the bus station glowed with lights. Buses, coming and going. We crossed the street and pushed through the heavy wood doors into the sparse lobby.

Our footsteps echoed on the tiles. I imagined every eye in the place, following us. Questioning us.

Knowing us.

On the other side of the ticket window, a baggy-eyed man didn’t even look up when I tapped on the glass. “Where to?”

“You got a route to Nashville from here?”

He thumbed through dog-eared papers. “Yep. Leaves in ten minutes.”

“I’ll take one adult ticket and one child, please.” I counted out the money and shoved it through the slot.

“Boarding’s over there. In the far corner. Safe travels.” He punched my tickets and handed them through.

I grabbed Em’s hand and steered us toward the line of passengers, still holding my breath.

“Merry, you’re hurting my hand.”

“Sorry. Preoccupied.” I relaxed my grip, and she wiggled her fingers.

“What’s the matter, Merry?”

I stopped a few paces from the small group of people waiting for the Nashville bus. Bedraggled, most of them. A couple were asleep. Nobody paid us any attention. I unwound a little.

“Nothing is the matter, Em. We just need to be alert. Watchful.”

“In case the Judge is looking for me?”

“Yes.” Another sweep of the territory. New people, in and out.

“Do you think he would come this far?”

“Probably not. But he might have people looking for us. A network can help a person be in many places at once, if that makes sense.”

All aboard the Nashville bus. First call.
I threw our gear over my shoulder. The baggage holds were open along the side of the bus, but I skipped them. Better to keep our things with me. With a tap on her arm, I pointed Emmaline up the stairs and onto the bus. I guided her into a space two rows from the door.

She took the seat next to the window and turned her face away. I followed her gaze, sizing up the line of folks waiting to board. A woman with a baby. A man and his family. A couple of teenagers. They all filed on and squeezed past us.

The driver stood at the front. “Jackson bus to Nashville. All are aboard.” His dimpled hand moved to shut the door, but a latecomer stopped him with a rap on the window glass. A man. The driver hauled the door open again. Asked if he was headed to Nashville.

I didn’t hear the man’s reply, but as he handed the driver his ticket and climbed aboard, his eyes scanned the passengers. When they lit on mine, he smiled. Lopsided. He walked down the aisle and took the seat behind us. Before we moved, his foot hit the back of my seat. A mindless rhythm.

Or a threat.

I started to get up, but we were already moving. The lights of Main Street scrolled by the windows in time with the stranger’s tapping foot on my seat. When I caught a glimpse of his reflection in the window, he mouthed a few words. I couldn’t make them out, but I thought he said, “Gotcha.”