To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis (7 page)

FIFTEEN

I used to be
a soldier. A mili
tary man. Leader of the whole American army. I served the first five Presidents of the United States, in some capacity or another. How many other men could say that?

Certainly not Meriwether Lewis. He sucked up to Jefferson and ignored the rest. Never understood the value of playing every political angle. We eke out success when we remain true to ourselves, whatever the cost to others.

I learned that early in my military career.

We had been marching all night. The Ohio River Valley, back in the 1790s…….well, it was wilderness. Trees crowded along the ground, too thick to walk through, all spangled with vines that choked out the sun. I didn’t know what time it was when I smelled it, that first whiff of Death. It clogged up the air until I thought it would smite us all.

Seeing Death was worse.

We came upon the remains of another platoon. One of ours. I could still see ragged glimpses of the uniform in exposed bone and maggoty flesh. Heads void of scalps and mouths stuffed full of dirt.

The Natives were tenacious in defense of their land. And, it was theirs. We were the poachers, our true selves.

I vomited as I dragged mutilated body parts into a heap, especially when there was enough left to recognize someone. Would my Death be violent? I was young then, but I wondered. All the time.

When Death finally killed me, I remembered that scene from my youth. How the Natives fought to protect their turf. No act was unthinkable, no action undoable.

It’s how I made Nowhere my home. My kingdom. My turf, the place where I could always find Ann again, if I was willing to do whatever it took to defend my space.

I looked sideways at Nadine Cagney, huddled in the passenger seat. Her fine nose and charcoal hair. Her chin trembled as she hugged her knees to her chest.

She perked up when I smiled. When I said I wouldn’t take her to the station. We could go to my house instead.

SIXTEEN

Sun hit my f
ace, and I woke fro
m a creepy sleep of bulldogs and running and water. When I rolled over, I knew it was all real, not a dream. I was on a houseboat, on the way to find my daddy, with Merry and a man named Mister Jim, who sort of looked like Aunt Bertie as a man.

I slid my feet to the floor. It shook with the hum of engines. The rocking of the boat made it hard to stand, but I moved my weight back and forth between my legs until I got used to it. Muddy air wafted through the open door at the top of the ladder. A bird floated through the square of sky.

I sniffed the air. Pe-ew. My filthy dirty dress just plain stunk. I had to find something else to wear.

Under the bunk beds, I found a clean white t-shirt, big enough for a grown-up. It hung to my knees when I put it on over my nasty dress. My mother would die if she saw me. Or smelled me. She never allowed me to look disheveled. Her word. At every moment, I was required to be pretty. To be ready for a visit from one of her men. When I looked down at myself, I realized I wasn’t any man’s little beauty anymore.

Especially not the Judge’s. What did he mean when he said Merry killed his wife?

I called out his name, but it was lost in the hum of the engine and moving river. I opened and closed cabinets and turned on the water in the sink to see if it worked like the ones in real houses. The water that came out was river-brown. Yuck.

Still, my stomach rumbled, and I remembered I hadn’t eaten since last night. Aunt Bertie brought a peanut butter and jelly sandwich up to my room. She even cut off the crusts and mixed the peanut butter and jelly together, just the way I liked it. Would anybody else ever know what I liked without me telling them? The world was a lonely place without anybody who knew me like Bertie. I could still see the look on her face—strength and caring. It followed me when I ran. I missed Bertie already. So much.

I blinked back tears and focused on another cabinet. Daddy would know what I liked. When I found him, he would know everything.

A plate. A plastic Mardi Gras cup. A string of green beads. Peanut butter. Yum. It was warm and sticky on my finger. I pretended it was an ice cream cone and licked layers with my tongue.

Behind the ladder, a door hid a shower and potty. I tugged a rusty chain and squealed when water fell all over my head. I ripped off all my clothes and stepped under the water. It soaked into my nooks and crannies and washed off my old life: my mother and tea with her men; the Judge and his fake smile; even Aunt Bertie and New Orleans. The water ran until my skin was red, and I figured I was clean. Still, I used a little bit of soap.

Just in case.

I studied my skin in the cloudy mirror above the sink, and I combed my hair with my fingers before it dried in knots. Dirt was crusted on my dress, but could I wear just the t-shirt? Would I still be me? The dress and the t-shirt were the Wonder Twins, hanging from the ends of my fingers.

The t-shirt was soft on my skin. I pulled it over my head and wadded up the dress. Before I threw it in a white trash bag next to the ladder, I stopped and pulled off a square of lace. Just a little bit of my old life. Still me, but different. New.

Sunlight made me squint at Mister Jim behind the wheel of the boat. His dark eyes looked bruised around the edges, but he smiled with big white teeth. “Thought you were going to sleep the morning away.”

“Hi, Mister Jim. Where’s Merry?”

“I’m right here, Em.”

Merry stood in the pointy place at the front of the boat, his back to the wind, and watched Mister Jim steer the boat. Thick trees grew along the shore, all the way into the water. Mister Jim moved the boat into a spot behind an overgrown island near the shore. Everything went quiet, except for the slapping of water against the boat and the caw-caw of a black bird.

“Should be a good hiding place for the day. We’ll cast off again at dusk.” Mister Jim threw an anchor in the water. It splashed and made bubbles as it went down.

I pulled at the hem of my t-shirt, my mind racing with things to say. It was hard to believe all that had happened to me in one day. All the dreams about Daddy, and I really was on my way to find him. Even though we didn’t have his letters, my heart knew where he was. It beat to bursting every time I thought about him.

Still, I couldn’t erase the sound of my mother’s voice, begging not to be hurt. I missed my mother. I didn’t expect to miss her when I ran.

Embarrassed by the tears in my eyes, I turned away to study the black-ish water. The Mississippi always smelled funny around New Orleans, an oily smell. Away from the city, its brown surface was most of what I could see in every direction. Tree covered islands stuck up out of the water here and there, and the air smelled like dirt and leaves.

Merry’s hand warmed up my shoulder. “We’re still a night and a day from Natchez, by my calculations. If there’s anything to eat down below, we won’t have to stop.” Laughter tinkled in his voice. “But, you can always do some fishing for your dinner.

The sun made a halo around his head, and I squinted up at him. “Fishing? Me?”

Mister Jim hooted, a deep bass like one of Daddy’s band mates. “Got plenty of rods. Enough for all of us.”

Merry’s lips twitched. “There’s nothing like slinging a line in the water, watching it disappear all blank-like and coming up with a squirming, scaly hunk of dinner. Between all of us, we could likely gut eight or ten fishes in thirty minutes, tops.”

A yucky taste came up in the back of my throat. They were murderers, both of them. I crossed my arms and ground my feet into the sun-bleached deck. “I’m not killing a fish to eat. Yuck.”

It was Mister Jim who taunted me. “Suit yourself. You can probably rustle up some berries or swamp weed to gnaw on. Just make sure it’s not poisonous.”

“How will I know whether something is poisonous or not, Mister Jim?”

Merry smiled. “Well, the poisonous stuff does give you the runs, and—”

“Ew!” I plugged my ears. Maybe I wasn’t cut out to be a Wonder Twin tomboy, after all. I didn’t want to kill my dinner or worry about which plant was poisonous. My voice rang between my fingers, like I was talking underwater. “What’s wrong with going to the grocery store for food, huh?”

Merry picked up a pair of binoculars from the console and ran them over the skyline. “Not seeing any grocery stores out there, Em. Nope. Nary a one. It’s a big fat nothing. What do you think people did before they could buy food at the store?”

I swatted a bug away from my face. “They killed it and ate it. That’s what my history book says. But that was a million years ago, when they had to. We don’t do it that way anymore. Because there are grocery stores. And McDonalds.”

Merry and Mister Jim exchanged a look I didn’t understand, and Mister Jim’s voice was serious.

“Something about those folks before, though. They caught it themselves. They killed it themselves. They skinned it themselves. And they grew it themselves. Not a bad skill to have, scrounging your own vittles. You can always take care of yourself, wherever you’re stranded.”

I stomped my foot on the top of the ladder. “Well. I know I can find our not-breathing, not-swimming, not-poisonous breakfast from a not-scary box.”

I huffed down the ladder into the broken light below, their laughter chasing me with each rung. Stupid men. Making fun of me. I’d show them I could find something good to eat.

In the cooler, I found some milk. Cans toppled out of a cabinet and pinged around the floor, but I forgot to pick them up when I saw the box of Boo-Berry Cereal. My very favorite.

I pulled out the cereal and three glasses. Cereal always tasted best in a glass, not a bowl. I could pour more milk on it and drink the sugary purple liquid at the end. Plus, I didn’t need a spoon to eat the cereal. It was what Aunt Bertie called “efficient.”

Boo-Berry mounded in my glass all the way to the rim, because I loved it most. I triangled all three glasses in my hands and wobbled back up the ladder.

“Your breakfast.” I gave them each a blue-ish glass.

“What is this stuff?” Merry closed one eye and stared at it with a doubtful expression.

“It’s Boo-Berry, my favorite cereal in the whole world.”

Mister Jim tipped the glass into his mouth. “Yeah. I love the ghost, too. My one weakness in life is a kiddie cereal.”

Merry rolled his eyes. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

“All the same, don’t tell anybody.”

Merry dumped his glass into the river. “I can’t believe you two would rather eat this sugary slop over a fresh piece of fish.”

“It’s good.” Mister Jim and I said it together.

“My tongue is already turning blue. See?” I stuck out my tongue and crossed my eyes trying to see if it really was, but I couldn’t tell.

“Jim, maybe we can get her to try some just-caught fish for dinner.”

Cereal crunched in Mister Jim’s mouth. “Poles are in that compartment, if you want to get started.”

Merry looked back and forth over the top of the water. He started to reach for the place Mister Jim showed him, but instead he walked up to me. His tone was weird. “Um. Emmaline?”

“Uh-huh?” I crunched through my reply.

“We’re going to find your daddy. You don’t have to worry, all right?”

My eyes got all swimmy again, and I looked away to keep them from seeing. Since Daddy, I’d never met men who were so nice to me. At least, not without wanting to watch me serve them tea with my dress unbuttoned.

Another sound rippled across the water. A boat. It was going slow, like it was looking for something.

For me.

It was looking for me. It had to be. It turned and puttered our way. My glass crashed to the floor, splattering blue milk all over my legs.

“Get down below. Both of you.” Mister Jim took a fishing rod from Merry and shooed us down the ladder. “You hide down there and don’t come back ’til I say.”

Sugar stuck my legs together when I snuggled up next to Merry on one of the beds. Merry hugged me to his side. I tried not to breathe loud, but my heart hurt my ribs from beating so fast. “I’m scared, Merry. Why would the Judge come this far?”

“This may have nothing to do with him. Just be still and stay quiet.”

“But how did you know him? The Judge said he knew you, but—”

“Ssh. Not now.”

A motor powered up beside us, and a smoky voice called out a greeting to Mister Jim. I listened as best I could over the splashing of water as our boat rocked from side to side.

“You all alone?”

Mister Jim grunted. “Yep. Don’t like company when I fish.”

“That’s an awful big boat for one person.”

“I like space. Obviously.”

“Uh-huh. Well, you seen any other boats out today? Coming from New Orleans way?”

Mister Jim paused, and I held my breath. I counted ten bounces on waves before he spoke again. “A few. Natural on one of the busiest rivers in the country.”

“Specifically, I’m looking for one with special cargo. A man and a little girl. Blonde. Almost ten. Wearing a blue dress.”

Mister Jim splashed the rod into the water. It clinked along the side of the boat. It sounded like someone was knocking underwater. I held my breath and waited for Mister Jim’s answer, but everything was lapping waves and birdsong. I squirmed against Merry, but he held me next to him and wouldn’t let me move. I almost cheered when I heard Mister Jim’s voice again.

“Like I said. Don’t like company when I fish.”

“So, you haven’t seen anyone of that description?”

“Only seen you. All morning.”

A shadow passed our grimy window, and I squirmed on the bed, trying to get free of Merry and close the curtain. He grabbed the hem of my t-shirt and held me close, and I buried my face in his chest to keep from seeing the man’s eyes. His shadow rose and fell outside, right in front of the window. Blue and white and black pants. Any second, that man was going to shout that he saw us and come on board and take me away from Merry. Force me back to New Orleans and the sounds of my mother’s house.

Make me be with the Judge forever.

SEVENTEEN

Wednesday. Octobe
r 5, 1977. Somewhe
re along the Mississippi River, above New Orleans, Louisiana.

I held Emmaline next to me. Completely still. The man’s cold eyes grazed over the dirt and spray on the window before he stood up and floated on. Thanked Jim for the chat and offered him a telephone number on a card.

Jim took it.

The boat creaked, and I imagined Jim leaning over the side, considering the number. Water dripped in the sink. I counted to twenty before Jim spoke again.

“This little girl. She in trouble?”

“She ran away from home, Sir, and her mother is desperate to locate her.”

Emmaline squirmed beside me. As soon as she opened her mouth, I clamped my hand over it. Put a finger over my lips. Her cornflower eyes were etched with fear.

Still, Jim didn’t betray us.

The boat motor sputtered, and the boat rocked in its wake as it motored away. Its hum faded, but I kept Em glued next to me until I couldn’t hear it anymore. Steps sounded on the ladder, and Jim ducked through the doorway.

“All right. What have y’all gone and done?”

Emmaline bounced out of my arms and was in front of Jim before I could get a word out. “He was lying, Mister Jim. It’s the Judge who wants me, not my mother!”

Jim crossed his arms over his burly chest. “Most mammas I know would miss their little girls if they ran away from home. If you’ve gotten me involved in something messy—”

“Mister Jim, I
promise
, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die. My mother only loved what I could do for her. She never loved me, not like Daddy did. That’s why I’ve
got
to find him.”

Jim cut his eyes at me. “She always this persistent?”

“Yep. Always.”

I stood up, my mind spinning with alternate plans for escape, while she rocked her head back and forth between us. “What’s ‘persistent’?”

“I think it’s the definition of your name, Em.”

Jim smiled a little, but his chin was still rigid, his arms stiff. It never made it to his eyes. “Come on back up. Got a fish on the line during all that.” He stomped up the ladder, sweat glistening on the muscles of his back.

I trotted back into morning. Em wrinkled her nose and followed.

Able hands that kill. They’re good things to have. Would I have to use them if Jim turned on us?

I watched him from the corner of my eye. Staccato movements laced with anger, or maybe doubt. I didn’t know how to reassure him. It was easier to focus on fishing. Something I knew how to do. I was always better with animals. People were tricky.

It took me five minutes of casting to snare a catfish. I looked into its eyes before I thwacked the whiskered head along the side of the boat. When I skinned it, I freed two long strips of white meat, still wiggling.

Em took one look and screeched like an Injun. Practically fell down into the hold and slammed a door. Her muffled protests wafted up the ladder, but when I went down, her door was locked, and she was quiet.

Just to spite her, I fried up our meal on the electric ring in the galley. Not the same as a campfire. Nothing tasted better than when it was seared with flame. I remembered the sizzle of trout and fire under the infinite Montana sky. Somebody strummed a guitar, and we dug into that tender meat. It tasted clean. One of our last good meals before winter made everything scarce.

I still missed Clark sometimes. Still wondered about the rest of them.

I rubbed my face with one hand to dispel ghosts. Maybe we’d have a campfire tomorrow. Or the next day.

I fanned the smell toward Em’s closed door and chanted
smells so good.
With my ear against it, I couldn’t hear a sound. I left her alone and went above deck with two plates. We watched the sun move behind scattered clouds. It would be hours until dark, until we could move again.

“We in pretty good shape here, I think.” Jim licked fish from his fingers.

“Jim, I’m really sorry we dragged you into this whole thing.”

“Merry—your name really is Merry, right?”

“It’s my nickname, yes. Only name I use these days.”

“Well, Merry. I don’t do anything I don’t want to do. Only wish you’d been straight up with me.”

“I know this makes me look bad, but I swear, the people after Em are dangerous. They tried to shoot me, and Lord knows what they would do to her. I should’ve explained it all at the beginning, but, with you threatening to call the police and all, there really wasn’t time.”

He chewed. Avoided my eyes. “Nothing for it now but to get you two to Natchez.”

My lips were a gloss of salty cornmeal and grease. I savored the sweet flavor of the fish on my tongue and studied a craft passing slow on the river. It moved along upstream but didn’t pause. I watched until it slipped around a bend.

“I know just where to drop you in Natchez. You can get to town easy.” Jim leaned back on his elbows and studied the sky. His chocolate face was smooth, but age was tricky with some people. Like me.

I wondered how he knew the Mississippi so well. Was it a recent thing, his world of water? Or, had he been running it his whole life?

Turns out, it was the latter. As a boy, Jim built rafts out of sticks, lashed together with twine, he said. A craft I understood. My fingers itched to pull into some cove, to build with him. Later on, his knowledge of the shoals of the river landed him a job with a shipping company. He worked the river from Memphis to the delta. Started his own business and sold it several years before. The muscles in his chest expanded when he talked about living the American Dream. I thought I was the explorer, the personification of the American Dream. Compared to him, my story had to be secondary. A fragment. I couldn’t believe anybody would care about it anymore.

He finished his biography. Shifted his weight on his elbows and looked at me. “So, you got one?”

“What?”

“A story?”

It wasn’t that I didn’t have a story. I had quite a life before Nowhere. A fine life, until it unraveled at the end. The trick with stories was how to seed them with flecks of truth without revealing anything. Knowing which bits to tell, what parts to conceal. I cleared my throat. My story was boring. The military. Some aimless wandering out West. Desk job in St. Louis for a while. Not nearly as interesting as his.

Or, maybe I projected how I knew history must see me.

Jim’s eyes bored through me. Plumbed the depths of a life lived deeper than I let on.

I tipped my head back and studied the sky to avoid his stare. “It’s going to be a long night. Mind if I take a nap?”

“I was thinking of taking one myself.”

We left the boat anchored and stretched our limbs along the warm deck, and I covered my face with my hat. Some sleep would do us both good.

It was a creak that woke me. The boat moved in a gentle rhythm. Not fast. I blinked to clear the sleep from my eyes, because I couldn’t see the shoreline, or even the front of the boat. When I was fully awake, I realized it wasn’t bleary eyes. The sky was a white-out, a breath that ducked and swirled. An eerie light penetrated through the mist here and there.

Fog, smoky and rolling.

I felt along the side and stuck my head into the hold. Emmaline’s door was still closed. Dinner dishes were strung around the kitchen where I’d left them. In the cockpit, I checked the time on the console. 6:22 PM. That much dead sleep would have to be enough.

I groped along the side of the boat, bumping into Jim on the way. The fog swirled over his skin, turning it lighter. He rubbed the nap from his eyes and blinked at me. Stirred. His muscles crippled with sleep.

When I leaned over to look at the river, fog was all I could see.

“Merry? Where are you?” Emmaline’s hoarse voice drifted from the cockpit doorway. Her outline materialized when I approached.

“I’m right here, Em.”

“I can’t see anything.”

Jim got up and lumbered to the controls, while I went over to Em and put an arm around her slight shoulders. She rested her tangled head on my waist. Her voice was raspy with exhaustion. “Did you eat all the fish?”

I had to smile, in spite of our circumstances. “Naw. I left you a little piece.”

“Where?”

“In the cooler. Go on down and get it out, and I’ll heat it up for you.”

She put one dainty foot backwards on the top rung of the ladder and almost fell when a horn blasted through the shroud of air. Close. The approaching roar of multiple engines crescendoed along the surface of the water.

Em teetered, and I pulled her off the ladder and set her on the deck beside me. Her thin arms went around my waist, and her eyes were wide awake when she looked at me. She settled into me, and I accepted her weight. Like I imagined a father cared for his daughter. I’d never know. But I tried.

I slammed into the cockpit and studied the bank of instruments, alien things to a man like me. I knew how to use the sun and stars. New-fangled technology whipped me. Jim worked a knob with sausage fingers, and I watched him, helpless.

“Any of those things tell them we’re here?”

“The radio, but it’s a crapshoot to divine which frequency.”

A horn sounded again, the strength of it vibrating our wooden deck.

“Can they see us, Merry?” Emmaline stood next to me. I never felt her slip her hand in mine, but I gripped it anyway. Empty reassurance: it was better than nothing from a leader, especially if it was swathed in a dose of honesty. My best, my only, answer.

Shouting wouldn’t work—no one would hear us over the drone of engines and parting water. Sounds trapped in a blanket of white that played tricks on me.

“Get below, Em. Jim, you got any kind of raft or life jackets? Something that will keep us afloat if we get hit?”

“Yep. Someplace in back. Go have a look, Emmaline.”

At least four separate engines rumbled through the mist, right on top of us. The wheel of our craft throbbed in Jim’s hands. Tobacco smoke and engine oil drifted through the air. Somebody shouted, and laughter answered, almost close enough to make out conversation. Individual voices.

Emmaline tugged at my sleeve. “Nothing below, except this.” She held a blown-up ring, pink on one side and clear on the other.

I looked at Jim. “Seriously? That’s all you have? No life jackets?”

Jim shook his hairless head.

A child’s doughnut wouldn’t save us if we got hit. If the boat sank, we’d never be able to share that flimsy thing and float long enough to find the shore. I imagined the three of us, snared on a tree branch, clinging to a toy. What a ridiculous sight we would be to whoever found us.

If anyone found us.

The boat lurched. Violent. Em grabbed onto me, while I wrapped one arm around the console and sunk to the floor. Jim kept to the wheel, his big hands fighting through the commotion. I locked my arm around Emmaline, just as the boat rolled sideways. We hung there, frozen above the river. Waiting for impact. Jim bent his knees into the waves, and I slid along the flooring and rammed into the side, my beat-up body between it and Emmaline.

Our craft righted itself and surfed the barge’s wake, tossing us around the floor. With another intense shift, I lost my grip and was sucked over the side. My feet toyed with the river, and I bit my tongue and gripped the railing. The barge drowned Em’s scream.

My body swung like a pendulum above the churning water. On the uptake, I wedged one foot over the edge and hung there until Jim’s hands steadied my foot. With traction, I was able to hoist up my other leg. When the boat leaned the other way, I fell into the cockpit beside him and Em.

I held Em to me while the boat continued to thrash. Glass rattled, and my teeth gnashed in my head. After a minute, the boat calmed down, and everything quieted. The water fell still. My breathing matched both Em and Jim, fast and spooked.

She pulled her head away from my stomach and looked up at me. “Are we okay, Merry? Did we make it?”

“Yep. We sure did. This time. That was some boat work, Jim.”

He nodded and blew out air. “A miracle is what it was.”

I watched as the fog swirled and parted to reveal a glimpse of water. Within the hour, it would be clear enough to use a compass and head upstream. Jim took his place behind the wheel. “Fog’s lifting a little. Let me check things out before we move along.”

“Do you think that boat was looking for me, Mister Jim?”

“Can’t say, Em. Whether it was or no, I got to get you off this river before sunup tomorrow.”

“Where will we be when we get there, Merry?”

“Natchez, Mississippi.”

I shuddered, an involuntary reaction. I wasn’t ready to walk through its gateway. To cover the miles that would carry me across my grave.

Not yet.

Perhaps not ever.