by Worm Miller
On July 11, Pvt. Alexander Willard fell asleep at his post. Clark gave him a hundred lashes each day for four days. An example had to be set. They had gotten off lucky in the river skirmish and Clark knew it. He had to make sure the men knew it too. Unfortunately, as time would go by he would realize the expedition’s greatest threat was coming from one of its two commanders.
Lewis, Down the Rabbit Hole
God mersy, I think we may have more to feer from
Cpn Lewis than all else.
—William Clark, journal entry, May 1805
On August 20, 1804 shortly after the expedition had treated with the Otos Indian tribe, it suffered its first casualty when Sgt. Charles Floyd died from acute appendicitis, or so today’s records state. According to Lewis’s journal, while the crew was celebrating Lewis’s thirtieth birthday two nights prior, Floyd had wandered out of the camp to relieve himself. A scream and gunshot were heard. Search was made for Floyd, who was found slumped over a rock, bleeding badly, with a de-animated zombie lying nearby.
Lewis had Floyd brought back to his tent, where he administered Dr. Benjamin Rush’s supposed “miracle.” Lewis, for whatever reason, did not wish to divulge the existence of Rush’s Miracle to the men. Possibly he just wanted to wait and see if it worked. To Lewis’s great satisfaction, and to the men’s great surprise, Floyd did not turn into a zombie. At least not right away. Floyd languished in pain, tied to his sickbed for two days, Lewis attending to him personally, until finally Floyd succumbed to the “Curse.” Lewis left the tent, distraught at his failure. Clark took on the solemn duty of “freing Floyd’s soul,” as Clark records.
Lewis writes in his journal:So tauntingly was the Man’s salvation within my reach! Dr. Rush’s cure can work; I feel it to my bones; Gods truth I do; the powder was not applied quickly enough; I’m sure if we had been able to locate Sgt Floyd with greater haste; maybe; Dr. Rush’s miracle will be on my breast hence forth from this night; the next time I must be faster.
By December, the expedition had reached the earth-log villages of the Mandans and the Hidatsas Indians along the Missouri, near what is today Washburn, North Dakota. The preceding months had not been without incident: Pvt. George Shannon, youngest member of the party, was lost for sixteen days and nearly died of starvation. They treated peacefully with the Yankton Sioux, had a near-violent encounter with the Teton Sioux, and weathered two minor zombie encounters with great success. Yet if looking solely at Lewis’s journal entries, one gets the impression that the journey was proving a disappointment. He was becoming lax and indifferent to his natural history and surveying duties, and increasingly preoccupied with getting another chance to test out the zombie cure, bemoaning the crew’s “blosoming competence” with zombie deterrence. At times he seems to be outright wishing for another crewmember to become attacked:One the men almst bit; He came off unharmed; I was on ready but to no end; no luck once more; God seems not on my side; C. Clark proving an incorigable marksman felling Dead oft before they near; dropping them as they hover riversedge hungrlly watching our boats.
With Clark’s suggestion, the captains had decided to erect a structure near the Mandan’s village, which they named Fort Mandan, in honor of their hosts. Here, wintering amongst the Mandans and Hidatsas, Lewis and Clark met the French-Canadian fur trapper Toussaint Charbonneau and the two Shoshone Indian wives he had won gambling with the Hidatsas, Little Otter and the now-famous Sacajawea, who was several months pregnant at this point. Charbonneau offered his services as a translator, which Lewis and Clark readily accepted, not so much for Charbonneau’s own merit, but because his wives spoke the language of the mountain tribe. Charbonneau selected Sacajawea to assist him, despite her pregnancy.
Like all Indian tribes, the Mandans and Hidatsas were long experienced at dealing with zombies. The Mandans lined their village with an intricate fence of sharpened stakes, which was easily navigated by even young children, but proved too complicated for the single-minded zomboids, who would become caught up or impaled in their attempts to climb over it.
The Mandans also harvested a root (now known as Mandan root), which they used as a zombie repellent. Clumps of the fresh root would be hung over the entrances of their homes, worn around their necks, and some of the Mandans believed eating the root made one unsavory to a zombie. After witnessing a zombie avoid a clump of the Mandan root, Lewis became duly fascinated by it. There was something in the root the zombies disliked, to be sure. Lewis theorized that some combination of the root with Rush’s Miracle might have an even stronger effect than Rush’s powder alone. Lewis purchased a great store of Mandan roots, and cooking down some roots in a pot, he made himself an elixir. Now he just needed to test it, but the safety of the winter camp did not offer him many possibilities.
“At last we leave the frustrating leesure of the winter camp. How I long to return to my studies.” So Lewis began his journal entry for April 7, 1805, when the permanent party of the Corps of Discovery left Fort Mandan to resume their way northeastward along the Missouri in the two pirogues and six newly acquired canoes. As planned, the keelboat was sent back to St. Louis with specimens Lewis had collected, including, among other items, the first prairie dog ever seen by men from the East, and several de-animated zombies that had found themselves stuck in the Mandan’s fence. The Corps were now entering country that no white man had ever seen. Or at least lived to report what he had seen.
Lewis and Clark’s relationship was starting to become strained, as Lewis was often suggesting needless and dangerous explorations into zombie-infested areas. Things came to a head on May 14, when a sudden storm upended the pirogue in which Lewis was riding. The accident was a mini-disaster, as supplies and important items were thrown into the river. It was here that Sacajawea first distinguished herself. Remaining collected and cool while others panicked, she went into the river and saved numerous items, including Lewis’s journal, which she returned to Clark. Whether it happened naturally or whether Clark was intentionally prying, we do not know, but Clark read enough of Lewis’s journal to glean what the captain had been up to. As Clark records:I confrunted Capn Lewis about what I red. At firs he denyed it but soon did not resist. He went on with his siense talk, bout what this wuld meen for Man andlike &etc. I no the truth of it now. I asced him if he wuld let one of the Men be bit on perpos and the Capn ansered Yes. For his siense. I have mind to pitch him out but I wish no mutony.
By mutiny, Clark is referring to the fact that he was never formally given a captain’s commission. Technically, he was still Lt. Clark. Lewis had told Clark not divulge this to the crew. They would simply act as though both men had legitimate co-command. Clark was no doubt still thankful for this generosity, and wary that if push came to shove, Lewis may happily reveal the truth. They both had secrets to keep now, and they still had an expedition to complete, so they soldiered on—though now Clark was keeping a keen eye on Lewis. “Always he watches me,” Lewis records.
By mid-June they had reached the Great Falls of the Missouri River, which made proceeding in the boats impossible. A portage was therefore made, carrying the boats and supplies to acceptable waters past the falls. They also attempted to make an iron-framed boat to replace the two pirogues, but it was not seaworthy. Instead two more canoes were constructed. With the combined time of the portage and the boat-work, they were not again on their way until mid-July. This downtime would ultimately prove a devil’s playground for Lewis.
On June 28, Lewis caught a zombie in a trap he had built supposedly to catch a grizzly bear, though a zombie was his intention all along. The trap was a classic tiger-trap: a large hole covered with sticks and leaves to disguise it. When Lewis arrived at the trap he discovered Charbonneau taunting and goading the trapped zombie with a long stick. Charbonneau decided it would be comical to “water the Creature.” In other words, he urinated on it. In doing so, Charbonneau slipped into the hole with the zombie. Crying for help, Charbonneau was surely stunned when Lewis offered none. “A putrid sloths
ome fool,” Lewis classified him. Lewis saw this as the happy accident he had been waiting for. Though within moments, other men were summoned by Charbonneau’s cries, and they promptly de-animated the zombie with their guns.
Charbonneau told the men that Lewis had refused to help him, but Charbonneau was not a well-liked man amongst the crew, and none would believe their noble captain capable of such a thing. None but Clark. When the other men had left, Clark struck Lewis in the jaw, knocking him to the ground. Clark issued Lewis an ultimatum: either Lewis ceased with his “creetur trechery” or leave the expedition immediately. Lewis grabbed his rifle and went off for a hunt to clear his mind, promising an answer when he returned.
Lewis’s aimless walk led him past the falls, where he came upon an expansive herd of buffalo. Maybe returning with buffalo meat would lessen Clark’s rage.
I scelected a fat buffaloe and shot him very well, through the lungs; while I was gazeing attentively on the poor anamal discharging blood in streams from his mouth and nostrils, expecting him to fall every instant, and having entirely forgotten to reload my rifle, a large grey, or reather green Dead man, had perceived and crept on me within 20 steps before I discovered him; in the first moment I drew up my gun to shoot, but at the same instant recolected that she was not loaded and that he was too near for me to hope to perform this opperation before he reached me, as he was then briskly advancing on me; it was an open level plain, not a bush within miles nor a tree within less than three hundred yards of me; the river bank was sloping and not more than three feet above the level of the water; in short there was no place by means of which I could conceal myself from this monster until I could charge my rifle; ... I had no sooner terned myself about but he pitched at me, open mouthed and full speed, I ran about 80 yards and found he gained on me fast; accordingly I ran haistily into the water about waist deep; thoughts of my Father and the means from wich he perished came into my mind; then I faced about and presented the point of my espontoon; the Creture drove itself with abandon upon my point to find himself caught throo the neck; and I was able to drive him back to shore and fix him upon a tree; … now I was able to breathe; the monster lashed for me but was safely stuck. Looking upon the brute I saw what I must do; what had to be done; Cn Clark was in the corect; it was a sin what I had thought for Sharbono; no…I must be the one. I must let the beast curse me.
With the zombie safely fixed to the tree by Lewis’s espontoon (a long spear, not unlike a pike, which also served as a walking stick), Lewis removed all of his clothes to prevent bloodying them. Then Lewis calmly presented his left forearm to be bitten. “I knew not as what to expect from the bite; but it felt much like any common ingury.” After that, he wrenched the espontoon heavily to the side, effectively decapitating the zombie.
Lewis used his espontoon as a weapon against zombie attacks.
Now, within seconds, Lewis was applying Dr. Rush’s powder. The wound was relatively light, though “messier than would be desired.” Lewis was able to close it up without losing a significant amount of blood. He then swallowed several drops of the elixir he had made from the Mandan roots. Lewis cleaned up in the river and redressed. He removed several pounds of meat from his buffalo kill and packed it back to camp. He apologized to Clark, vowing to be a new man. “He asured me he was throo with the creetures,” Clark wrote.
By the time the Corps were ready to continue their progress on the river in July, Lewis’s wound was healing nicely and most importantly, he was still alive.
Joys beyond words! I have done it; I am cured! In more ways than dreamt this journey will impact History.
Lewis was right and wrong. His discovery would impact history, but he was not cured. He was something else now.
Lewis the Monster
William Clark December 3rd 1805. By land from the
U.States in 1804 & 1805
—Carved into a tree along the Columbia River
Meriwether Lewis I Am a Monster.
—Carved into a tree along the Columbia River
On December 25, Christmas Day, Fort Clatsop was completed on the Oregon side of the Columbia River, near what is today Astoria, Oregon. Much had occurred on the expedition. They had crossed the Rockies, treated with Sacajawea’s brother’s tribe, and finally, they had reached the Pacific Ocean—though unfortunately not by way of the Missouri. They had failed to discover a direct route to the ocean, yet spirits were high, for they had after all achieved their objective of reaching the Pacific. “Ocean in view! O! The Joy!” Clark had recorded in his journal when the sea was first sighted. Lewis does not mention the discovery. What little writing he did in his journal at this point was documenting his grave physical collapse.
Shortly after his thirty-first birthday in August, a year from Sergeant Floyd’s death, Lewis came to the devastating realization that his cure, in fact, may not have worked. At first his bite-wound had been healing with blessed speed, but eventually it plateaued, never fully healing. Lewis found that if he did not continue to ingest the root elixir, he became ill, cold, and his muscles began to tense. Lewis realized he had not cured himself so much as kept the curse at bay.
Lewis’s complexion was changing, his eyes sinking. Clark chalked it up to common sickness, as one or more members of the expedition had been sick with one ailment or another for most of the journey. Beyond this Clark makes no comment on Lewis’s situation during this period, which would seem to imply that Lewis was composing himself accordingly. None of the Corps seemed to suspect anything. None except Seaman, Lewis’s Newfoundland. As Lewis notes, “The dog has lost all love for me; it growels or barks when I near. Several times he has bit at me when I move to scratch his head.”
The dog was not the only one who could sense something wrong with Lewis. Fort Clatsop, which was to serve as the expedition’s final winter camp, had been named after the Clatsop Indians. The crew had hoped for another harmonious winter with this tribe, as they had the previous winter with the Mandans, but the Clatsops did not want a relationship with the Corps. Though the tribe never expressly said so, Lewis could tell from the nervous way they were eyeing him that he was the reason. Somehow they knew something was not right with him.
On February 7, 1806, something happened that surprised even Lewis. His heart stopped beating—for a full ten minutes. Lewis felt no pain. At first he thought he was failing to locate his pulse correctly. Eventually, and just as inexplicably, his heart began to beat once more. One can only guess at how alarming it must have been. Lewis records:Nither dead nor living; I am but become something new; something else. God have mercy; what have I done?
Lewis had been known to suffer bouts of depression in the past, so Clark presumed Lewis’s reclusion was simply “Winters blues.” Lewis was fast using up his store of Mandan root. He had accepted that he was not going to get better, but he rightly feared what would happen if the root ran out. Lewis was losing an appetite for regular food. He found himself lusting hungrily to bite into members of the Corps. His heart was beating slower and the periods in which it did not beat at all were growing longer. Fearing he may attack one of his own men, Lewis decided to end it all.
On March 21, 1806, he threw himself off a short bluff onto a sharpened wooden spear he had carefully positioned below. “Destroy this journal, William. Never tell them what I became,” was the only entry he made regarding his suicide, and he presumably left his journal somewhere for Clark to find. Clark never had a reason to search Lewis’s belongings though, for Lewis’s suicide did not succeed. That was the day that Lewis discovered he was already dead.Landed directly as I planned with the speer; drove into my guts out my back and I hit the ground hard; yet I felt nothing and continued to Be. My bleeding was limited.
Upon removing himself from the spear, Lewis found that he was being watched by an adolescent Clatsop boy. The boy was petrified with terror. When Lewis moved toward the boy, the young Indian ran. Lewis gave chase. He caught the boy, thinking that he would try and explain so the boy would not tell othe
rs. Then “some foul instink took over.” Lewis savaged the boy, ripping into him with his teeth and feasting on what he tore off. “O! Lord! No meal has ever tasted so sweet!”
Lewis does not say what became of the boy’s body, but he clearly did not want to stay around for the Clatsops to start to miss him. Upon Lewis’s orders, the Corps made a sudden exit from Fort Clatsop. That winter had been a particularly miserable one, so no one seemed to have a problem with their early departure, even though they ended up needing to make another camp in May because the snow in the Rockies had not yet melted enough to cross.
Since “going beast” and eating the Clatsop boy, Lewis was now fighting an inner battle. Clark noted that Lewis’s “blue fits are geting wors.” Lewis was spending as much time away from the camp as possible. He was trying to eat as much meat as possible, generally eating it raw, but animal meat was starting to disagree with him. By now his heart had completely stopped beating—never to return—and he had no need for the Mandan root. After very nearly attacking Clark’s slave, York, while York lay sleeping against a tree, Lewis knew he could not fight back the hunger any longer. “I have come to this; I will make hunt of Man.”
He had no intention of eating a member of his loyal Corps. He would take one of the Nez Perce Indians the crew had been trading with, like he would a buffalo, bear, or elk. In what is surely the first instance of an undead using a gun, Lewis shot and killed a Nez Perce woman who was washing herself in a stream. “I eate my fill then left the remains.” Lewis by now had realized no one would ever suspect him. He did not seem undead. On some level Lewis had now accepted that he was a monster. There was no looking back.