Seaman barked and whimpered, pawing at Meriwether, but he failed to wake the captain. As he slept in the wilderness, Meriwether was in a dream where he traveled a land he’d never seen. It was quite different from the rugged wilds of Virginia or even the lands of the frontier’s edge he had traversed for eleven days now since the departure of the expedition. Instead, his dream landscape was wild in its own way, an expanse of low green hills and modest homes. He recalled the wizard Franklin’s words, the idea of terrain where the past was submerged as deep as water, where the land remembered peoples long vanished and ways of life no longer recalled by anyone living.
In his ethereal state, Meriwether traveled the land from above, somehow flying smoothly over it, his nostrils filled with the acrid smoke of burning peat. Yet he felt right and proper, as though he’d done this many times before.
And he had…but only in dreams. He felt his arms extended, his wings like giant rugs against the resistance of the wind, the sky beneath him, the ground far below. He twitched his tail—
His tail?
He let out a cry of surprise, but it came out as a roar. He felt the taste and burn of flames in his mouth.
Meriwether heard a laughter larger than any man’s laugh, as though the land itself laughed at him, mocked him. As the words formed in his head, he let out a cry in a voice he’d heard once before, Ah, dragonling!
“Lewis! Lewis, wake up, man!”
Meriwether sat up, startled and disoriented. He’d been sleeping in his buckskins and shirt, covered with a light army blanket. As he drew his knees up to his chest, Seaman jumped close, licking at his face.
He simultaneously patted the big dog and pushed him away. “No, Seaman. Down!” Having settled the dog with an arm around his furry neck, Meriwether looked to the entrance of the tent, where a worried-looking Clark knelt, looking in.
“Yes, Captain?” Meriwether asked, addressing him out of habit, though he was no longer under William Clark’s command.
“You screamed, and the dog barked. The whole camp heard it. I thought perhaps some creature had got in the tent with you.”
Some creature? Some creature perhaps, but in my dreams, not in the tent. Something like a cold finger ran up his spine. What was this curse? What was that strange land of dreams, and what sort of creature did he become in those dreams? He knew of mythical beasts created by magic since the Sundering, and of people who could transform into ensorcelled creatures that then lay waste to the countryside. He remembered stories from the old country, long before the magic had returned, stories of beasts like werewolves and weretigers who killed people and livestock.
Stories to scare children. Had to be.
Meriwether forced a laugh that sounded unconvincing, even to his own ears. “It was but a nightmare. I’m prone to them, just as I’m prone to my melancholies. You should know that by now, my friend. Nothing really. I can’t even remember it.”
Clark gave him a worried look and a smile as brittle and strained as his own. Clark backed out of the tent. “You might wish to rouse yourself, as the men have coffee and some freshly caught fish. Today we will face the Devil’s Race Grounds. A fine way to test the mettle of our boats and our men this early on.”
Meriwether knew about the dangerous rapids in the river. “Sounds as exciting as a wild hog race.” Now he managed to chuckle normally.
After washing himself in the river, drinking a cup of middling Virginian coffee and eating excellent fried cakes with his pan-fried fish, he felt more up to the day. His disturbing dream was no more than that, a thing contrived of the day’s exhaustion and the night’s fancy. Even though he’d long dreamed of turning into a flying reptile and even though he’d encountered a real dragon, it neither meant that the two were related, nor that the dragon’s voice in his mind was real.
Now that the expedition was under way and as more days passed from the attack in St. Louis, he began to think he had dreamed the dragon’s voice all along. As he watched the men pick up the campsite and pack things once more in their designated places in the keelboat, Meriwether thought that the attacking dragon had done him a favor. Surely, the beast was the very catalyst for the entire expedition he now led. He was dousing the campfire when Clark clapped him on the back. “Ready to face the river rapids, my friend? The Devil’s Race Course is aptly named, or so I hear.”
Meriwether responded with a nervous chuckle. “Despite my dog’s name, which was his name when I acquired him, I am no seaman—nor even a boatman. I shall follow the banks, while you do your charting on the boat.”
Clark seemed up to the task. When he’d first joined the party, the captain had a pale complexion from living mostly indoors, but now he had a reddish tan from spending every day outdoors. The tan made the wrinkles of mirth at the corner of his eyes more obvious. “Not much to chart yet. You taking the dog with you?” Was that concern in his eyes and voice? Concern for Meriwether or the dog? Though the dog strayed a little to harass unfamiliar wildlife or to explore the land around them, Seaman always returned to his side.
Was Clark afraid for Meriwether? Or of him?
“Yes, indeed,” he said. “Seaman shall protect me from any devil in that race.”
Dearest Julia,
We have just survived a very bad stretch of river called the Devil’s Race, and I don’t mind telling you we had a hard time of it.
The current sets against some projecting rocks for a good half mile on the side of the river, and the water was so swift and so strong that it wheeled the boat around and broke the tow rope, nearly oversetting the boat. It took everyone on the upper side getting out and lifting the boat up so the sand washed out from beneath it.
By the third time the boat wheeled around, we managed to get a strong rope tied to her stern and by means of strong swimmers, we towed her ashore, where we then pulled her over the soft sand, by means of pulleys, thereby giving up—quite—on the Devil’s Race!
Before you fret, none of us was in any danger, and may this be quite the worst we face from the mighty river, though in my heart I know it won’t be. Captain Lewis met us at the shore, alarmed, but he doesn’t trust the waters, being a woodsman.
Since I have a few moments’ respite to write, I thought you might wish to learn of this little adventure, which will be quite forgot in the course of our further travels. I want you to know how exciting our days were while you sat in your schoolroom, sewing samplers.
Yours, faithfully,
William Clark
—Letter from William Clark to Julia Hancock,
May 24, 1804
The boat was back in the water, and Meriwether made his way through the leafy shrubs along the bank of the river. For a change, Clark walked beside him. As his companion had said before, there wasn’t much to chart as of yet, and perhaps the captain had experienced quite as much of water as he could stand for a day.
The two friends walked side by side in silence, with Seaman now and again bounding back to sniff at them, as though to make sure they were still themselves, before crashing through the forest undergrowth again.
Once or twice, Meriwether heard Seaman bark, and then a scurrying, a pattering, sometimes a squeak. He didn’t know if the Newfoundland was actually pursuing prey, but he doubted it. The dog had eaten more than his share of breakfast, in addition to begging some of the dried meat the men had eaten after their travails in the water.
They had not traveled far from the civilized areas around St. Louis, so Meriwether doubted they’d encounter any creature exotic enough to be stuffed and mounted for shipment back to the wizard Franklin. He let Seaman run at will with his puppy energy.
Once, Seaman treed some animal and stretched himself with front paws on the tree trunk, barking loudly, until Meriwether and Clark caught up with him. Meriwether snapped his fingers, and Seaman came back, with a longing glance back at the tree, as though asking for help to corral whatever prey he had treed.
“What do you think he has up there?” Clark asked.
“Likely a squirrel,” Meriwether said, peering into the welter of leaves and seeing nothing. “He’s very fond of treeing them, as I found before we ever left St. Louis.”
They walked onward in silent companionship until Clark suddenly put his hand on Meriwether’s arm, squeezing hard. With his free hand, he put a finger to his lips, commanding silence.