To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis (6 page)

THIRTEEN

Emmaline
screamed, and I steeled myself for the consequences of doing a belly flop into the Mississippi in a wooden rowboat. The impact knocked me sideways, and I launched over the side, force-fed river water. Like the time I surfed the falls of the Columbia River in a single canoe. My men stood on the shore and watched me. Ready to pull my drowned body from a watery tomb.

I showed them.

Me and my daredevil life.

When I breached the surface, I was turned around, disoriented. I kept my head low, only my eyes above the water, spinning my body with my legs and feet. Lights from the boat combed the river, but I dove when they shone close to me.

“Merry!”

Emmaline’s call ricocheted off the water. I ignored the voices yelling from the boat and pumped my arms through the current. Always was a good swimmer, but the Mississippi was fast-moving. My chest groaned by the time my hand knocked into the side of our boat. I dragged myself over the side and flopped onto a middle seat.

In back, Emmaline was hunched on the floor, trembling. With all the energy I could muster, I reached out and pulled her closer to me. A spotlight blinded me as I groped for the oars along the bottom, my fingers finally encountering a smooth piece of wood sticking out. Energized, I grabbed it.

People shouted for us to stop from the deck of the steamboat. One female voice pleaded for me to turn myself in, like I was the one who’d been shooting up the Quarter. Chasing innocent little girls. People were hypocrites. No justice to be had in New Orleans for either of us.

I rowed our boat as fast as I could through the wake of the steamboat in our creep downriver. Lights flashed behind us, scouring our wake. If I applied myself, I might out-maneuver a steamboat, especially going with the current.

“Emmaline, stay close. Sit in front of me and hold on, okay?”

Without a word, she obeyed. Her wet hands gripped the edge of the bench, and her jaw was firm. Stubborn. She turned her face downriver and closed her eyes.

I jerked the oars and our craft picked up speed, drifting away from the crowded steamboat. In another lifetime, I’d run a boat in the dark. Clark and me, we’d help the men pole up the Missouri after sunset when we ran behind. I could still feel the water grab at the muscles of my back through the end of my pole. I thought I could do anything.

Lack of opportunity robs us of every skill eventually. I gritted my teeth and hoped I hadn’t been away too long.

I dug into the water and tried to recall that place. Montana. Deserted. Unpredictable. The mournful cry of a coyote, off in the distant dark. I pushed New Orleans out of my mind and relaxed into my body’s memory, the graceful motion of back and forth.

Adrenaline. It was always a good drug in a tight place. It made my hands sure as I yanked the oars. The noise of the party boat faded, replaced by the click of paddles and spray of water. The lights dimmed behind us. When I looked back, no Wilkinson stooges were on our tail. I stopped rowing and pumped one hand over my head.

“Woo-hoo! We lost them, Em! I haven’t had this much fun in...well, a long time.”

I waited for her smile but instead Emmaline tugged my sleeve and pointed upriver, her face lit by a faint blue glow. “Lights, Merry. Behind us.” I studied them with her. “Police.”

“It’s one boat, looks like.”

“Do you think they’re looking for us?”

“Don’t know.”

Emmaline hugged herself, her eyes wide. “It’s the Judge. I know it. He’s going to catch us.”

I turned the boat a sharp left, shifting our path toward the northern shoreline. Light poured into the river from concrete piers and docks, but I kept us just beyond its reach. We scrolled by ocean-going vessels and the metallic snarl of industry. Everywhere, a mechanical hum.

I needed a dark place, somewhere I could ditch the boat. Maybe tie it up or sink it to keep it from being found for a little while. Long enough for us to identify another means of getting up the Mississippi.

The police lights loomed larger. Commotion. Shouted commands. Static.

I turned my attention back to shore. An abandoned factory site floated into view, at least one warehouse behind a rusted chain link fence.

I worked the boat behind a ruin of a dock, weaving through its broken piers until we were close enough to shore for me to pull in the oars. I turned Em to face me, motioning with my free hand. “You see that concrete platform?”

“I see it.” She fingered her stack of letters and chewed her lip.

“Good. That’s where we’re headed. If we get separated, can you swim?”

Emmaline nodded. Hesitant. Fearful, but willing. In my experience, willingness is usually the best part of bravery.

“Okay. You jump in ahead of me. Swim to that platform. Straight to it. I’ll be right beside you. We’re both going to make it in one piece.”

She held out her father’s letters. “What about these, Merry? They can’t get wet.”

I grabbed them from her and put them under my leather hat. Best I could do.

Emmaline took one deep breath and splashed into the river. I dove in after her. When I came up for air, she bobbed beside me. Arms like propellers, we cut through the current. She gasped and sputtered, but never sank. That little wisp of a girl fought her way to the concrete edge without any help from me.

My hand grazed slime. I grabbed the back of Em’s dress and flung her, coughing, onto the platform. I lifted myself out of the river and stretched my shaky limbs out beside her. Numb, I vomited water from my lungs and listened to the night. Our abandoned craft nodded, still sheltered behind the broken pier. A scold. I should’ve tied it up to keep the current from dragging it to open water.

We wasted get-away time, lying there.

I rolled over and shook Emmaline’s shoulder. She spewed a little of the river and lay on her back, staring up at the sky. Her pale face glowed in the waning moonlight. She shifted her eyes to me.

“When I was little, I used to crawl out on the roof with Daddy and look at the stars. These stars. Do you think he sees the same sky in Nashville, Merry?”

“I’m sure he does. It isn’t that far.”

A whisper. “Do you really think we’ll find him?”

I sat up to block the sky, to make her look at me. Like the power behind her eyes could make me succeed. Could a scrap of girl redeem me? I touched her hand. “Em, we’ll find him. I know it.”

She scrabbled at my hat. “At least, we have his letters. They can tell us where he— aaaahhhh!” She keened. Shrill. Piercing.

The river wreaked watery havoc with the stack of paper. Bits of it had already torn away, and when she tugged at the red string, the ink bled in her hands. Stuck to her fingers, stained black with globs of ink where her father’s words once were. Her face crumpled in disbelief as she covered it with her papery hands and sobbed. “You ruined Daddy’s letters. You ruined them.”

Sodden bits of paper swirled through my hands. The few scraps that stuck to my skin were blank. Erased. Just like my journal in this infernal place. How would we find her father now?

I dragged a hand over my face. Tried to think. What could I ever say to make her glad she ran?

“Em, I’m sorry. Look at me. I did the best I could, but we didn’t have anything to keep them dry. My hat was our best shot.”

“Now, we’ll never be able to find him. We don’t even know his address. You messed up everything.” Her slender body heaved.

“Em, stop crying and look at me. Please.”

She dragged her hands away from her face. Her eyes were almost swollen shut.

“I promise you, Em. We will find your daddy. Even without the letters, we’ll find him. We know he’s in Nashville, and we’ll figure out the rest when we get there. Everything will be all right. Don’t you worry.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have run away from home, especially with somebody who can’t even keep Daddy’s letters safe. I—”

Blue lights strobed closer. Lit up the edge of our perch. “Em, we can’t stay here any longer. I know you’re tired and upset. I’m walloped, too. But we have to keep moving. That means getting out of New Orleans.”

“But where can we hide?” She picked flecks of paper from her fingers. Squinted at their blankness and swatted them away.

“We have to get out of here. Now. If those guys are looking for us, they’re going to realize we jumped ship. They’ll swarm both sides of the river. We’ve got to get out of the open.” I sat back to study our surroundings. “If we push upriver on land, we can get further, maybe in a way they won’t expect. Find another boat to swipe.”

Emmaline closed her eyes. A tear slid into her mouth. “I’m so tired, Merry. The Judge is never going to give up, and I think my mother will help him. He isn’t used to not having his way. He will chase me until he finds me. Maybe even until I die.

”The Judge is not going to get you. Not as long as I’m around.” I hugged her to me and willed her to believe.

In me.

“Now, stop all this claptrap and get a move on. There’s an opening in the fence. Just there. We can both slip through and find another way out before they realize we’ve been here.”

With one last glance at our boat, I pushed myself to stand and dragged Emmaline up beside me. The concrete platform gave way to an uneven shoreline strung with a ribbon of fence. Beyond a tear in chain link, an asphalt parking lot yawned toward four warehouse buildings. Their bulk sprawled all the way to the water.

I pushed Emmaline up the slick surface ahead of me and made sure she had a firm foothold before advancing another step. We shimmied through the fence and gained the parking lot inside the barrier. I pointed to the last warehouse. “There. See? A door. Looks like it’s open. We need to make for it, Em.”

“How?”

“Run across the lot. We’ll be exposed, but it’s dark here.”

A voice crackled through a bull horn. It was distorted by distance and lapping water, but it meant one thing: the police found our boat. I nudged Emmaline. “Hurry, Em.”

“But what if we can’t find a boat with a motor? You can’t row a boat all the way upriver. I may be a girl, but even I know the current is too strong.”

Exasperated, I tugged her arm and started across the macadam. “Why does that matter?”

“Well, you said couldn’t drive a car, so does that mean you can’t drive a motorboat?”

Smart girl.

“Let’s just say I’m better with boats. I understand them. I—”

“Sure. Right.”

“You just leave that to me to figure out when we get there.”

We huffed to the shadow of the warehouse in a couple of minutes. Light guided us to a door open just enough for us to slip through. I dragged it shut as another horn blew. Police lights floated into my sight lines, out on the water. A whoop split the air.

The door thudded like a marble slab on top of a tomb. Encased in gloom, I whispered, “They found our boat. We’ve got no time, Em. Let’s move.”

FOURTEEN

When Merry p
ushed me into the
warehouse, my lungs burned, and my eyes blurred. I slid through the crack in the sliding door and waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The warehouse was one ginormous room. My voice talked back to me even when I whispered.

Merry shut the door, but I still saw blue lights in my mind. They were close, so close I could almost see that bulldog chin and smell cigar smoke. The Judge. He was out there, and I was trapped here with a man who destroyed my only connection to Daddy. How could he get me all the way to Nashville when he couldn’t even keep Daddy’s letters safe?

I felt with my hand for a place to hide. Sheets hovered over everything. I tugged a corner, and a whole piece pulled away in my hands.

A tall clown head with a pointy hat smiled down at me. Purple and green and gold sparkled everywhere. Bells tinkled from the ends of the clown’s hat. Mardi Gras floats. I wanted to jump up on the platform and bat them with my hands. When I heard Merry’s voice, I realized I had.

“Em, get down from there.”

“But I remember this one. I saw it last year with Aunt Bertie. Ladies danced on it, and they threw candy and plastic beads but mostly candy, chocolate bars that were gooey inside, and I crawled in the street to get as many of them as I could, and—”

Merry’s hands were firm under my arms when he lifted me off the float and set me on the ground. “I’m not negotiating with you, Em. Let’s move.”

A siren ripped the air outside. It made me jump, but Merry steadied me with his hand and steered me along a sheet-covered row. The warehouse was lit by two overhead lights, high up on the ceiling, making Mardi Gras float shadows on the floor and up the walls. I ran my fingers along the row, feeling plastic flowers and shiny streamers and round beads up close.

We wandered down an open path through more tall, sheet-covered blobs. The whole room smelled like the white stuff Aunt Bertie threw around the bottom of her roses and hand-mixed into the dirt. It cracked on her dark hands in rings.

Less than a night, and I missed Bertie so much. I closed my eyes. Would she hear me if I used my Wonder Twin power to tell her I loved her?

A shadow moved in front of us and planted its hands on its hips. “What’re you doing here?” A deep voice. I screamed at the black hulk of man that stood in the walkway. He had to be a Saints football player, he was so big.

Merry picked me up, and I buried my face in his chest. The man shouted. “I said, what’re you doing here?”

Merry shifted his feet and stood a little taller. “Working on our float for Mardi Gras?”

The man crossed his arms and sort of snarled. “Nice try. Wrong time of year.”

“We’re lost.” Merry’s voice shook a little when he fibbed.

“Well, consider yourself found. By the police. You come with me and wait while I call them.”

I shrugged out of Merry’s arms and stepped forward. “I’m looking for my—”

Merry got in front of me. “Well, you see. It’s like this—”

“No. We just need to tell him about Daddy, Merry. He’ll help us. I know it.”

Merry’s eyes got real wide, but he didn’t shush me. I walked up to the muscley man. My neck ached when I looked all the way up to his eyes, but I knew that eye contact with a man was important. My mother always cleared her throat if I broke eye contact with one of her men, even when they looked at other parts of me. But this man’s eyes held mine. “I ran away from home, because there’s this bad man who’s after me. I just need to get to my daddy. In Nashville. Merry found me and offered to take me there, even though he lost Daddy’s letters.”

He uncrossed his arms and squatted to help me see him better. I thought maybe it was a good sign, so I rushed on.

“The bad people are outside on the river, and we came in here to hide from them. We need to get away. If you call the police, they’ll find me and give me to the bad man and I’ll never, ever see my daddy again.” I stepped closer to him. “Will you help us, Mister? Will you help me find my daddy?”

He scratched his bald-head and looked at Merry. “How do I know you aren’t some kidnapper?”

I tugged at his pants leg. “I’m a little girl. Little girls are supposed to be afraid of kidnappers, but I’m not afraid of Merry. I told you. He’s helping me find my daddy. Please
please
, help us.”

He sucked in air until his cheeks were balloons and blew it out with a long pop, his eyes moving from Merry to me and back. When he talked again, I realized I was holding my breath. “Where you need to go?”

Merry stepped behind me and covered my shoulders with his hands. “Upriver. To Natchez, Mississippi.”

He stood up, his massive hands on his hips. “What the hell you want to go there for? There’s nothing in Natchez.”

“Well. See, I think the Natchez Trace will be the safest way to get to Nashville. The folks after us will most likely focus on the river. But a forgotten roadway? I doubt they’ll think to look for us there.”

“I know the place you mean. Nothing there but ghosts.” The man waved his beefy hand at the floats. “You like ghosts, little girl?”

“I don’t know. I never met one.”

He looked at the ceiling and laughed. His straight white teeth stood out against the rest of him. “Well, I reckon that’s getting ready to change.”

Merry took a couple of steps toward him. “Look—what’s your name?”

“Jim. Jim Watson.”

I couldn’t hold my question anymore. “Are you a football player, Mister Jim?”

His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Nah. Never was much for all that. I’m retired. Used to run boats on the river. Now, what’s your name?”

“I’m Emmaline, and this is Merry.”

My hand was swallowed when he shook it. “I’m charmed, Miss Emmaline.”

Merry put his hand on my head. “Jim, we need to get to Natchez. By water, if possible. Do you know anybody who might take us? Tonight?”

I watched his eyes and counted the seconds until he spoke. “I might be able to take you. Can you pay for the trip?”

Merry took some money from inside his coat, pulled out a few twenties and held them out to Mister Jim. He counted it, then stuffed it all in his shirt pocket.

I decided it was settled. “Will you take us? Right now, Mister Jim?”

The light flashed off his bald head when he nodded. “Maybe. Got a house-boat tied up out there. Past the last of the buildings yonder.”

Merry held out his hand to shake Mister Jim’s. “We can only travel at night.”

“I don’t want to know about it.” He stopped and studied Merry’s outstretched hand. “Let’s just say I’ve done this sort of thing once before. Long time ago. Helped a boy run away from a bad papa. He turned out all right.” Mister Jim grabbed Merry’s hand and pumped it once. I put my palm on top of theirs to seal everything.

Almost like the Wonder Twins. They touched hands to become something else. We needed to become something else if we were going to get away from the Judge and his men.

Mister Jim pointed with his head. “Go that way. I’ll get the lights and meet you at that door. Boat’s through there. We’ll have to walk a little ways.”

“Follow me, Em.” Merry picked our way through more Mardi Gras floats. More clowns. Dragons that spit fire. A woman with snakes for hair. Skeleton faces with big hats of flowers. A pirate with a patch over his eye.

I liked the pirate best, because he was like us. On the run. Hiding.

At the other end of the building, Mister Jim stood next to a switch. “Last one. I’ll open the door. You go on out there and wait for me.”

Merry nodded and led me through the slit in the door. It was darker than I remembered, cloudy again, and the wind was cold. Rain spattered onto the ground.

The door grinded shut and Mister Jim pointed toward the river. Next to the water, we found a ledge we could walk on. Merry picked me up and carried me to it. The river lapped against the sides as we stepped between it and another warehouse. Merry kept us close to the building as he inched along. Mister Jim’s deep breathing followed us.

Around another corner, the path dead-ended at a broken fence and black water. Behind us, lights helicoptered over the river. I saw the muddy water and thought about swimming away. How far could I go? I strained my eyes at everything: the river and the shore. “Merry! Look!”

A twisty walkway floated below us. It snaked around the edge of the water between the warehouses and a marina, with lots and lots of boats.

Lights came close to Merry’s head. I ran my hand around the edge of the building and pulled it back and shook it. “Around there, Merry. My hand hit something hard.”

“It’s a ladder, Em. It runs down to the walkway.”

Mister Jim snickered. “I told you this was the way.” He pushed past us and wrapped one leg around the corner of the building. When he got on top of a ladder, he reached out his hand to me. Lights lit up the wall next to where I stood. I stumbled a little, trying to get out of the way. “Come on, little lady. Climb on down with me. If you slip, I’ll catch you.”

A spotlight almost hit my toe when I slung it around the side of the building. I held my breath and waited for shouts from the water, for somebody to see me. Instead, the river lapped against the path. It masked our steps, maybe even helped us.

I put my feet on a slippery step and lowered myself to the dock, waiting for Merry to join Mister Jim and me. When the warmth from Merry’s hand moved up my arm, his strength flowed into me. I followed Merry’s fast steps and hoped the water and the sounds of the sirens would keep anyone from hearing us.

Mister Jim turned onto a ramp and climbed steps to another pier where the planks of wood snaked through boats: sailboats and motorboats and fancy boats. Which one was Mister Jim’s?

He ran toward the end, leaving Merry and me to catch up, and jumped onto a houseboat, rattling the wood-and-glass doorway in front. He motioned for us to hop on board, and we followed him into the captain’s wheel. A ladder went into a dark hole. I couldn’t see below.

Merry panted when he spoke. “We can’t risk turning on any lights, Jim. We don’t need to draw attention.”

“No problem. Been running this river in the dark as long as I can remember.”

When Merry took my hand, it wasn’t so scary to follow him down below. Everything sounded hollow inside the boat. Through a window, a smattering of stars winked above the water. No blue lights that far upriver.

“Merry, I think we tricked them.”

“Maybe we did.” He rubbed my head and pointed me toward a door. “There’s probably a bed through there. You go on. Try to get some sleep. I’ll keep Jim company until we get out of New Orleans.”

He went up the ladder and left me to pull back the musty sheets and tuck myself in. I sank onto the hard mattress in my damp dress just as the boat’s engine chugged to life. The reflection of the water made waves on the ceiling, and I wondered: what was the world like beyond New Orleans? I always dreamed of seeing other places, but would anywhere else ever feel like home? With its rowdy people. Its smell of mud and fertilizer. The perfume of Aunt Bertie’s roses through the whirring blades of a fan.

If the Judge let us get out of New Orleans, I hoped I could come back someday. With Daddy.