To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis (21 page)

FORTY-SIX

Tuesday, October 11, 1977. Bear Creek, Mississippi.

“And then s
he just walked away.
I think I heard a scream, Merry, but really, it was like a hole opened up in a painting, and she walked right through it. Do you think it was a dream?”

Emmaline fluttered around me. Her feet barely hit the ground.

“What do you think, Em?”

“I think she was real. Her name was Talisa. She was my friend.”

“Friends are good things to have, however we meet them.”

At the base of the mound, she bent to pick a faded wildflower, a ball of dusty pink petals. She waved it around in one hand while grasping my palm with the other. Our arms swung, linked together in the space between us. Connected, yet free.

I’d barely had a drink since we floated up the Mississippi, but my head was mushy with a sleepless hangover. Every car that passed on the road overnight was a possible danger. I crept to the rim of the cave to keep watch, every light and shadow threatening to undo us.

I always tried to be sensible, because I was the leader on our team. A burgeoning father figure. But with one snap of a branch in the dark, I reverted to what I was. Afraid. Bewildered. A failure.

I failed to find the Northwest Passage. Bungled my appointment as territorial governor. I couldn’t even make my expedition journals ready for publication. Clark probably finished that task for me. My light reached a pinnacle and fizzled. I never could reignite it.

Emmaline’s hyperactivity ran counter to my desolate exhaustion. I relished watching her renewed energy, but I shook my head, hoping to banish my familiar monsters that had lingered so long they were almost friends.

The ribbon of road snaked off to the northeast. To Tennessee.

My heart twisted. It was a haunted place. A desperate place. The last place I walked in life. Breathed my last breath. A neighborhood I never thought I’d be forced to walk again. What would happen if I stepped across my own grave? The exact spot where I expired? The shallow trench where they threw me? Hasty, like they wanted to blot out the evidence of what they did. What they made me do.

Emmaline cartwheeled across the field. Her Wonder Twin costume was hiked above her grass-stained knees, and it already sported a small rip in the seat. “Watch me, Merry! Can you do a cartwheel? I bet you can’t!”

“I’m hopeless with that stuff, Em. Always have been.”

“Well, I’m real good at it. See?” She took another tumble and landed on her bottom in a patch of tall grass.

“Look, you need to change out of that outfit. You’re going to ruin it.”

She stopped tumbling and stood still, her face pensive. While I watched, a layer of her childhood peeled away. Danced in the air and evaporated. Her carriage bent a little with the added burden. “You’re right, Merry. I need to wear something more mature for Daddy. Show him how grown-up I’ve become. He will be so proud of me.”

Sunlight sparkled in her hair, and as I watched her, another twinge hammered my chest. I realized my misgivings with a pristine clarity. I wasn’t afraid of running the gauntlet of Tennessee. It couldn’t do me any worse than it had already done. No, my ache arose from the thought of losing Em in the end. Without my noticing, she’d become my reason for being. I had many more things to show her, to teach her, a lifetime of hugs to give her. And less than a day’s worth of time.

I sighed and tried to memorize the feel of her miniature hand in mine as I reached to help her up from the grass. “All right, Em. We need to get back to the cave. I’m going to pack everything up, and we can wait for our ride, okay?”

“Okay.” Bounce-bounce. “I’ll help.”

We descended into the ravine and sorted our gear in the shade at the mouth of the cave. A car slowed down on the highway, approaching the entrance to Bear Creek Mound. My eyes followed the flash of morning light on window glass and dark paint as it sped up and disappeared over the rise into Alabama. I rubbed my face and noted the position of the sun. Around eight o’clock.

“Let’s hurry with this stuff, Em. We can leave it behind those rocks over there until Leslie arrives. Pretend like we came to see the sights along the Trace if anybody comes along. Don’t tell anyone we camped.”

“How long will we be here?” She stuffed wads of corduroy and cotton into her bag. Set out a clean outfit to change. I knelt beside her and helped her fold them neat.

“Pudge promised me he’d try to get our ride here early, but who knows? She might have been delayed again. We might have a while to wait. It’s about eight o’clock now.”

“How do you know that?”

“How do I know what?”

“How do you know what time it is by looking at the sun? Most people just wear a watch, but you don’t. You always know where we are and what time it is.”

I clutched her sleeping bag and rolled it up like a snail shell. “I guess my step-father taught me.”

“I don’t know any daddies who teach stuff like that.”

“Well, I am a lot older than you, remember? Anyway, it was a long time ago.”

She pulled herself up on the rocks at the cave’s entrance and balanced on both hands before sliding back to the ground. I kept one eye on her and started to fold the other sleeping bag as she climbed the rock again. “How old are you? I mean, I don’t think you’re really old, like fifty, are you?”

She hovered at the top, waiting.

“Fifty isn’t really that old, Em. But, no. I’m not fifty.”

“Well?”

Slip-slide down.

“Well, what?”

“How old are you, then?” She stopped in the midst of climbing to watch me. I avoided her nosy eyes and strapped the sleeping bags to the packs. Zips and snaps and the distant caw of a crow.

“I was,
am
thirty-five. Thirty-five years old.”

Her lips moved as she counted on her mud-caked fingers. “That’s my daddy’s age, Merry! You and him are the same exact age! Isn’t that amazing?”

I threw the packs up over the lip of ground. They landed with a puff in the dirt next to the trail from the parking lot. “Yeah.”

“Maybe you will be best friends because you’re the same age.”

“Em, come here a minute. Sit next to me, okay?”

I sat on a cool, flat rock and waited for her to come and stand in front of me. Almost eye to eye. She smelled like mouldering leaves and Tinkerbell.

My hands hovered over hers, but I pulled them back and looked away, into the nothingness of the cave. “You have got to understand something about me, Em. Promise me you’ll try.”

“What?”

“I won’t be staying with you in Nashville.”

“But—”

“It’s my job to take you to your father. If I complete that job, I’ll get another one. I think.”

“But you can get a job in Nashville. Daddy’ll help you.”

“My job’s kind of unique, Em. It takes me all over. You won’t see me anymore.”

Her lower lip trembled. “Don’t you love me, Merry? Because I sure do love you. Almost as much as my daddy.”

“Aw, Em. Come on. You’re tearing my guts out here. Of course, I love you.”

My heart lurched like I’d been shot. I took her in my arms and pulled her to me. While she cried, I spoke into her frizz of hair. “I’ll always love you, Em. No matter where I am. No matter what I’m doing. A part of me will always, always be with you. Even if you can’t see me.”

“But how will I know you’re there if I can’t see you?”

“You’ve loved your daddy all this time, Em, and you haven’t been able to see him, right?”

Her hair tickled my nose when she nodded.

“You’ll know I’m there. Somehow, you’ll know.”

“Do you promise?”

I turned watery eyes to the sky and uttered empty words to form what I hoped would not be a lie. “Yes. I promise.”

FORTY-SEVEN

An eighteen wheeler. I gauged the retreating sun as it pulled into the p
arking area. Almost s
unset.

Em and I spent most of the day at Bear Creek Mound, running up and down its dirt sides and wading in the creek, looking for a ghost. We even explored beyond where we slept at the entrance to the cave. She didn’t squirm when I hugged her more than my share of times. In my heart, I counted them all. One less time, and one less time.

Another day almost gone.

The truck pulled to a stop, and I studied our ride. A black hulker with a chrome grille pulling a refrigerated tank. A white-haired woman drove that monster. And yet, she was agile when she hopped down from the cab. Hands in the back pockets of her jeans, she walked over to us. Her gait was unguarded. Casual.

“You Merry?” Her voice boomed like a man.

I stood to greet her, pulling Emmaline up beside me.

“Yes. Nice of you to pick us up.” I stuck out my hand, and she shook it hard.

“Leslie Lynn, and it was no trouble a’tall. Sorry I’m so blasted late. Ain’t always easy to find enough fuel for that rig to drink these days.”

“It’s a problem everywhere, I hear.”

“Yep. Managed enough to get us to Nashville. I got another delivery up there tomorrow, so I can take you then. These beasts ain’t allowed on the Trace, but I make up my own rules and mostly, nobody cares in this back end of nowhere. That plan suit you? Going on in the morning?”

My throat dried up. I covered my mouth and coughed, trying to expel my growing dread. “I guess it will be fine.”

Leslie eyed me for a beat. Seer’s eyes. The kind that could read minds. She jabbed her thumb over her shoulder. “Throw your stuff in the back of the cab.” Turning to Emmaline, she knelt, and her gruff edges dissolved into grandmother-hood personified. “You ever ridden in one of these big trucks...what’s your name?”

“Emmaline. And I’ve never even seen a truck like yours up close.”

“Well. Are you in for a treat.”

“Can I ride in the front? Do you have a CB? What funny name do people call you on it? Can I talk on it? Will anybody answer me? Does—”

“Whoawhoawhoa. Slow down, girl. It ain’t wise to throw your skirt up in front of strangers.”

Emmaline’s brow crinkled. “Huh?”

With a hand on Em’s shoulder, Leslie led her to the truck. I picked up our gear and followed their tracks, a few steps behind, fighting to get my gnawing funk under control.

“Always best for a girl to maintain some mystery.”

“My mother always said that, but she never explained what it meant.”

Leslie took her hand. “So, she wanted to keep things a mystery to you.”

“Oh. I get it. It means holding some things back, right? But how can I have mystery, Miss Leslie?”

“Watch folks before you ask a bunch of questions. Sometimes, they’ll tell you what you want to know without you ever having to say you wanted to know it in the first place.”

I studied Leslie’s close-cropped grey hair and tried to imagine her younger, charming the britches off men. Her lean figure and ready smile made that vision no stretch.

She lifted Emmaline into the cab. I went around the other side and climbed the chrome steps into the passenger seat. Emmaline twitched beside me, but she didn’t touch anything. I could almost see her thinking that she had to act grown-up.

I rubbed my temple to block out the tell-tale starburst that flashed at the corner of my left eye.

I tossed our things behind me, into an alcove with a narrow bed. The proportions, the sheer size of the cab, made me dizzy. I slumped against the glass of the window, cooling my forehead against it. A solitary crow circled, up high.

Leslie pulled herself into the driver’s seat and started the engine. It sputtered deep music, a mechanical rumble. I watched her feet work the pedals as she shifted gears. Almost like synchronized rowing. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. Tried to breathe through the panic that was overtaking me.

When we took a left turn along the main highway, a wave of nausea assaulted me. Foreboding. I swallowed and squeezed my lids together. A stab at sleep. I shut my eyes against the familiar things that flashed outside. The flat, swampy stretch of Alabama. The Tennessee River. That wandering ridge line that rose and fell all the way to Nashville, broken by one hideous spot. My spot. A roadside attraction for the few who remembered it.

“Where did you say your place is again, Leslie?”

“Near old Grinder’s Stand. Ever heard of it?”

My eyes fluttered open. I swallowed and flicked a trickle of cold sweat from my forehead. “Yeah. I have.”

“You can walk there if you want. Along the Old Trace. They keep it maintained pretty well.”

Emmaline reached out and held my hand, but I could barely feel it in mine. The fireworks were coming faster behind the whites of my eyes. I shielded them with one hand and sighed into the pain.

“Grinder’s is famous. Or infamous.” Leslie’s hands were steady on the huge wheel.

“Why?” Emmaline leaned her head on my arm and kept her eyes on the road scrolling through the glass.

I forced myself to answer, to talk about the damned place. Maybe describing it in advance would dull its edge, mute its power.

“Lots of people were robbed there. Stands were big places for thieves. Some travelers were killed, and others...well, they just died.”

“The stand burned to the ground a while ago. All that’s left is the old stone doorstep.” Leslie downshifted and motored the rig uphill. “Pretty quiet there, most of the time.”

“Will we see it, Merry? On the way to Daddy?”

“No. We won’t have time to stop, Em.”

Leslie ruffled Em’s hair with one hand. “I’ll take you over there. Merry don’t look like he feels too good. We can let him rest while we go exploring. How does that sound?”

I slumped further in my seat, my pounding head against the headrest, facing out the window. Mountain trees whizzed by in the light of dusk. Faded reds and yellows and oranges, a hardwood kaleidoscope of autumn. The air was crisper, the chill of higher elevation.

Or, perhaps the cold emanated from inside me. My breath froze on the back of my hand, and my toes were numb. Whatever would be, my end was close. I concentrated to keep my teeth from chattering.

“You can stretch out in back if you want, Merry. You look like you could use some rest.”

“You wouldn’t mind?”

“Nah. I got to clean up back there before I go on another run, but it’ll serve for a nap.”

I nodded and flung a shaky leg over the seat, dragging the other one behind me. The bed was too short, leaving me to curl up like an unborn babe, face to the trembling back wall.

Starbursts pulsed behind my eyelids, regular. Maybe Leslie would forget about me when we got there, leave me in the truck the whole time. Wake me after breakfast, when it was time to leave for Nashville. Maybe I would sleep through the whole thing.

I hovered above the road. Feverish. The ghost-like imprint of my surroundings invaded my dreams. Everywhere, they breathed their chilly, shimmering breath. I saw the winding wagon ruts. The leaning boughs of trees. The play of sunlight and shadow on the worn ground beneath my horse’s feet. A crude fence and a grazing cow. The inside of a rustic room.

Two bursts of gunfire on a lonesome autumn night.