Snowbound and Eclipse

by Richard S. Wheeler

  Did they know? They must! The governor of Louisiana, the celebrated conqueror of a continent, the much-toasted contributor to botany and zoology and other branches of science, was losing his faculties, the victim of his own night of folly, his furtive dalliance with a dusky maiden far from prying eyes.

  They could not help knowing. They would know what the calomel meant. They would know what those thickenings about my face meant. They would know, they would not keep it secret, and my honor and reputation would be thinner than an eggshell.

  And in Washington they would casually suggest that I retire, and I would no longer hear from my learned colleagues at the American Philosophical Society, and the ruined man, Lewis, would vanish from sight, to the safe imprisonment of a cubicle at Locust Hill, a babbling idiot, kept by his aged mother and dutiful brother far from prying eyes and malicious tongues. Nothing had changed; and neither would my plans, though I would need to dissemble all the more.

  “Pernia!”

  My man jumped to his feet and approached me.

  “I’m not going to Washington by sea. We’ll take the Natchez Trace. I’ll get horses somehow for the trunks. Now, do you understand your duties to me?”

  He looked bewildered, so I enlightened him.

  “You are to take my journals to Monticello, no matter what happens to me. If I take ill again, it shall be your bounden and sacred duty to deliver those journals to Thomas Jefferson. You will keep them dry, wrapped in oilskin if need be, and take every precaution for their safety. And my effects to my mother at Ivy. Have I your word?”

  “Yes, sir, Governor, my word.”

  “Have I your oath, sworn before God?”

  “Governor, I do swear it before God Almighty.”

  I fell back on the pillow and closed my eyes.

  “Pernia, it all falls on you,” I said.

  I turned away from him. Not anyone, most especially my manservant, would I permit to see my face.

  46. LEWIS

  Captain Russell and Major Neelly have deemed me well enough to travel, and I have fostered their delusion. The Natchez Trace will be my route to wherever I am going. I have let them know that I won’t entrust myself to a barque while the British prowl the coasts, and would go overland to the City of Washington.

  That has taken some maneuvering. I’ve had to borrow a hundred dollars from Captain Russell to see me to Washington, which I secreted on my person, and also I have had to purchase two horses and tack from him, one to carry two of my trunks, the other to carry me. All of this came to nearly four hundred dollars. I’ve instructed Captain Russell to ship the other two trunks by sea. I will take the journals with me, plus a trunk of personal items, including my brace of revolvers and powder flask.

  With a Virginian’s eye I looked over the two horses, which seemed sound enough for my purposes, though neither was a handsome steed. I spotted no lameness or hoof rot or fistulas or other weaknesses, and believe that Captain Russell means to serve me well. Pernia will walk behind, being sound of back and foot, and will be my third beast of burden. The captain gave me a bill of sale, and I gave him a promissory note for $379.58 payable before next January 1.

  Toward repayment, I wrote Major Amos Stoddard, who commands Fort Adams downstream, and asked that he repay a two-hundred-dollar loan if possible, and to forward the sum to me in the City of Washington. I have little doubt it will end up at Ivy.

  I’ve had a chance to acquaint myself with Major Neelly, the Chickasaw Indian agent, these past two days. He is a smooth man, without a wrinkle of face or mind or soul, and his brow is innocent of all creases. I have little doubt that he smoothly extracts annuities from the War Department, and smoothly distributes some small portion of it to the Chickasaws who reside only a few leagues from here. But perhaps I am jaundiced. My brother Reuben, after all, is an agent, appointed by Will.

  I think Neelly will make a good traveling companion. He has shown genuine concern for me, and has expressed his admiration for my command of the Corps of Discovery.

  And so, this morning, September 29, we set forth: Neelly and his slave Tom, my manservant Pernia, and myself, as well as a few others heading for the Chickasaw reservation. Both the major and his slave are mounted. They have pack animals as well. The heat still oppresses, though much of our travel is along a trace arched over by oak and maple, so that we progress through a perpetual twilight.

  We bade Captain Russell goodbye at about ten o’clock, thanked him for his courtesies, and proceeded east by means of a cutoff from Chickasaw Heights to the trace, a considerable distance, I am told, barely settled, and buzzing with insects. We will have to have our horses and party ferried over the Tennessee River, which will cost my beleaguered purse considerable, but I no longer have choices.

  In one of my trunks is my stash of medicines, and once free of the worthy captain, I swallowed some powders intended to release me from the pain that afflicts my mortal coil. I was at once set free. I recovered my flask from my trunk, and slipped it into my coat. I was now armed against misery and fever on the trail.

  Major Neelly spurred his fine bay horse forward until he could keep pace with me, where the trace was wide enough to permit it.

  “How are you faring, Governor?” he asked.

  “I am making progress. It is a terrible thing, having to go clear to the City of Washington to settle accounts. Why will they not accept my word? Am I not an honorable man, Major?”

  “I’m sure it’s all a misunderstanding. I have the devil’s own time getting my affairs straight with them.”

  “Will is following, you know,” I said.

  “Will?”

  “General Clark. He’s coming also. We’ve left the whole of Upper Louisiana in Bates’s hands.”

  “Bates?”

  “Secretary Bates. Acting governor, who this very moment is penning letters to Secretary Gallatin, President Madison, and Secretary Eustis about my neglect, and my failure to imbibe his wisdom.”

  “Sir?”

  “Ah, you wouldn’t know about that, Major. No, not here, across the river. We are coming, Will and I, to set Washington right.”

  “You say General Clark is following?”

  I nodded. “Right along,” I said.

  Neelly looked back, half expecting to see the general cantering up behind.

  “Major,” I said, “within those trunks rest my journals of the expedition, the ledgers kept by Will and me. Sir, I have instructed my servant to make sure those reach Mr. Jefferson at all cost. No matter what happens to me, those journals must go east.”

  “I’m sure you’ll soon be fine, Governor.”

  “Will you promise it?”

  “Governor, your manservant is as faithful as any on earth. He’ll see to it.”

  “No, Major, will you see to it?”

  The major nodded. “I promise.”

  “Good. You are a patriot and a benefactor of science. In that trunk, sir, is a nation’s claim to the territory it purchased, but also its claim to the Oregon country, the whole northwest. In that trunk, sir, are a few hundred descriptions of plants, birds, animals new to science. In that trunk, sir, is the defeat of the British fur traders. It contains priceless information, gathered by myself, about each tribe we met; information that will seal the hold of our fur traders on those tribes; information that will keep the grasping British out of the northwest. So I want more than a nod, sir; I want your pledge, your most solemn affirmation—”

  “Governor, you have it. But what’s this about Clark?”

  “He’s on his way, sir, and we’ll deal with scoundrels and knaves and clerks, which are all one and the same.”

  “You made no mention to Captain Russell that General Clark would be coming.”

  “Ah! But he is coming, I assure you.”

  Neelly stared smoothly at me, his smooth smile concealing his true self and private thoughts. He could only be an excellent Indian agent, professing smooth affection for his Chickasaw charges.

  I am sure Will
is coming. He said he would come. He must be right behind now. Odd how it is that I don’t see him. I need him to straighten things out. I am weary of sitting this horse. It may be sound, but it has a rough gait that doesn’t improve my health. Horseflies attack us, big black flies that bite man and horse alike. I hear slaps behind me.

  “What takes you east, Major?”

  “Nashville. Business there. I will be picking up some items to distribute to the tribe.”

  “Will is coming soon,” I said. “Then we will settle the protested vouchers. A great injustice, sir. I would be solvent now. I would be a landowner now. I would be laying the foundations for my mother and brother. Bates is a most difficult man, you know. Bates, can you imagine a man like Bates?”

  He eyed me. “Would you like to stop and rest, Governor? There’s a creek a mile ahead.”

  I closed my eyes against the sun and nausea. “Carry on, Major,” I said.

  The leaves along the trace had not yet colored and fallen, and so we traversed a green tunnel through a sweltering day. I was grateful for the shade.

  I explained my grievances to the major, but I am not sure he grasped any of it. When we did pause to rest the horses or ourselves, he concerned himself anxiously with my care, and advised me that once we get to the Chickasaw reservation, we should pause to allow me to recover.

  “I am well enough,” I protested.

  He did not reply, and I took it for disagreement.

  We rode this whole day, and covered much ground, and scarcely met a soul. I have not made up my mind about this Indian agent. He is, by turns, solicitous of my health and eager to know what matters are much upon my mind. He calls my affliction the ague, and I wonder whether he means it, or if he and the others have agreed not to say what they must know.

  Twilight approaches, and I know not whether we will find a stand where we might rest for the night. Such places are only a shade better than camping, mostly because we have a roof to turn the rain. But Neelly knows this road, and I leave the arrangements to him.

  “Your Excellency, tonight we must make camp, but the skies are clear and I do not expect a soaking. From now on, though, we will find shelter. The day after tomorrow, we will arrive at my Chickasaw agency, and there you can take your rest until we’re ready to travel again.”

  “Major, there is no need.”

  “There is a need, Governor. I am charged with looking after you, and I will keep my purposes before me.”

  “And what are those, Major?”

  He looked at me gently, and I expected the smoothest from him. “Governor, I am taking it upon myself to deliver you safely and in the best health that can be managed. I do this because I want to, as well as from duty. You are a man I admire, the sort this republic elevates to positions of honor. Who is this man who is with me but a conqueror of a continent? And that is enough. I am pledged to bring you safely home. And I will be looking after you, along with your excellent servant Pernia. I’ll do everything in my power to bring you safely to the capital, because I am honored to be in your company and honored to do you any small service I am capable of rendering.”

  I nodded. I found sincerity in every word. So Neelly would stick like a burr. I would have to think of something else.

  47. LEWIS

  We travel without Major Neelly now. Just my manservant Pernia, Neelly’s slave Tom. Neelly stayed behind to catch two strayed horses at Dogwood Mudhole, where we camped for the want of a settlement.

  The horses had been well picketed on good grass, but were freed in the night by parties unknown. They were nowhere in sight at dawn. Major Neelly was greatly puzzled by the disappearance.

  “I could have sworn I hobbled them,” Neelly said, upon discovering his hobbles resting beside his gear. “I must have imagined it.”

  In the night, I had untied those pickets and pulled off the hobbles, so that I could travel alone, save for the servants. We would leave the Indian agent behind.

  This morning I proposed a plan: “Major, I’ll proceed toward Nashville while you hunt down the animals, and I’ll pause at the first stand I come to.”

  “Are you sure you’re up to it?”

  “I have Pernia,” I said.

  He nodded. I had been doing a little better for several days. We had stopped at his agency for two days, while I overcame the delirium that afflicted me. It was not my choice: as long as I was in his care, he decided these matters. But he did not take from me my necessaries, the snuff and the powders, by which I dulled the fever of soul and body. It was lying there abed in his Chickasaw agency that I decided what to do, and how to do it.

  By the sixth instant I was, in Neelly’s estimation, sufficiently recovered to proceed, and we continued west toward the trace, and were ferried across the Tennessee River in a flatboat, by an avaricious ferryman this morning. My horses and Pernia and my person cost me dearly.

  This morning, then, my fate has changed. I travel alone, sovereign at long last, east toward my sunset. Later we struck the trace, which burrowed like a tunnel through the golden forest, the air pleasant upon the cheeks, chill in the shade, but warm where the low sun struck my ravaged face.

  I have been arguing with myself. Sometimes Pernia glances at me, because my debate rages even to his ears, as he trudges behind us. I go east against my will. Far better to go west, toward the future, toward the setting sun, than east, to Washington and exposure. I will not be the old uncle up in the garret of the family home at Ivy. I will not be that Lewis. I will be only the other Lewis.

  The censor in me mocks me: you will defame yourself all the worse, he says.

  But I rebuke my censor: one can choose a living death, or one can choose a more honorable one that preserves the name of Meriwether Lewis for posterity. One death is tragic; the other is vile. I prefer tragedy.

  But this ghastly judge residing within me will not be stilled. “Ah, they will count it a coward’s death, a shameful death, your weak character and melancholia forever on public display.”

  “Hush! You are wrong! What I must do requires all the courage I possess. I will preserve my name. I will not disillusion Mr. Jefferson. I will not disappoint my friends in the American Philosophical Society; I will not tarnish my honor; I will not mortify my family. I will not blacken the reputation of my Corps of Discovery. Let them call me a coward if they must, though what I intend is a sacrifice to honor. But I will spare my family, spare my friend Tom Jefferson, spare Will Clark, spare the corps. A good officer looks after his men; this is how I look after mine.”

  I heard laughter from that corner of my soul.

  “You would not know what honor is,” I said. “I will suffer shame, but preserve honor!”

  Who was I arguing with? A phantasm, a nightmare, without flesh.

  “You would not know what courage is, either,” I continued. “You would not even know what pain is, pain of soul, pain of body.”

  Pernia said, “Are you all right, master?”

  I smiled. “I am debating with myself,” I said.

  My manservant stared.

  That grim judge occupying my heart would not be still. “You, sir, are a coward, deathly afraid of pain.”

  I acknowledged it. “Yes, I am.”

  “You won’t succeed. You cannot inflict pain upon yourself. You will botch it. You cannot point a loaded piece at your bosom and pull the trigger.”

  He was nettling me. “I will do what I must do,” I retorted.

  This specter in my bosom laughed, and it sounded like a flight of honking geese late in the fall.

  I turned inward. We proceeded through an autumnal mid-October day, with iron-belly clouds scudding low. I looked back, half expecting that Neelly would ride up with the two strays, but he didn’t. Pernia and the slave followed behind my packhorse. I could not remember the name of the slave; only that Neelly owned him. My memory was flagging. I didn’t doubt that someday I would not remember my own name. I suffered lapses constantly. I spent half an afternoon trying to remember the name
of the officer at Fort Pickering, the man who would not let me have my medicines.

  We were two or three days out of Nashville, but this country had yet to be settled. The dense oak and maple woods discouraged farming. I prefer open country, not this cloistering canopy. I pulled my flask and drank the harsh whiskey to settle my soul again.

  Late this afternoon I espied a clearing ahead in a broad swale set in the oak-covered hills. It had been painfully hacked out of the dense forest, and at the far end of it stood a dogtrot cabin, that is to say, two cabins connected by roof in the manner of frontier dwellings across the South. And far beyond that, a log barn. And I discerned a yellowed corn crop rising among the black stumps that toothed the field.

  Whatever the place, it would no doubt provide comforts for travelers such as ourselves. The trace ran along the very edge of the settlement, no doubt drawing trade.

  I urged my horse forward, leaving my entourage behind.

  At my arrival, a work-worn young woman in brown checked gingham emerged from one of the water-stained log cabins, and she was swiftly surrounded by urchins of stairstep ages.

  I halted. “Madam, do you provide lodging?”

  “Yes. Not fancy, but a roof. In there.” She pointed at the other cabin. “That’s where the children sleep, but I’ll move them in here tonight. Are you alone?”

  “My servants follow, with packhorses.”

  She nodded and pointed at the log barn. We negotiated a price for myself, the servants, and the horses. A dollar and two bits in all, grain for the horses extra.

  “I’m Mr. Lewis. And you?”

  “Mrs. Grinder,” she said. “My man’s up at the other place … but he’ll be back soon enough. Very well, Mr. Lewis, I’ll shake out the tick and get ready. I’ll have some supper in a little bit.”

  Grinder’s stand, then. As I dismounted she vanished into the log cabin that would house me. The children shrank into the other cabin, which was redolent of stewing meat. Pernia and the slave walked up, and I steered them toward the barn.