“Untie Seaman from the tree! Keep him at the back,” Meriwether said, as his other companions arrived, also taking their rifles in hand. “Let’s make this an orderly retreat, but as expedient as may be.”
With aching muscles and panting breaths, they trotted away from the noise and toward the river where they’d hidden the two pirogues. Meriwether wished they had left the small boats under guard, because he had no way of knowing if native spies might have been watching them from the underbrush. Too late now.
There was nothing for it but to run and hope they could reach the river before the stampede and the giant reptiles came their way. Of course, the charging buffalo and the antediluvian beasts would not be intentionally pursuing them…unless they were being controlled by the mind of a dark wizard who wanted their doom.
Leaving the wooded banks of the little creek, they ran across flat and treeless land. Meriwether felt exposed, knowing their figures could be seen for miles. Sweat trickled down his back, but then an unnatural chill swept through his veins.
Seaman bounded ahead of them, tugging on the rope held by his guard. He barked now and then, joyously, as though this were a big game. For the dog, perhaps it was.
From the left came the horrifying sound of thunderous steps shaking the ground. Meriwether took a knee and turned, swinging his rifle at the monster, but it was still a formidable predator. He feared that something so tall and full of muscle would not fall to a little rifle ball. Unless, perhaps, that ball were lodged in the eye.
Meriwether had always relied on his excellent marksmanship, but he was not normally required to shoot at an unknown beast as it was charging toward him. Another man took a knee beside him, extending his rifle. It was Clark. “Go!” Meriwether said without turning. “Go on, damn it! I shall hold it.”
“Not on your life! The men shall go and Seaman with them, but I am your second in this combat.”
Then the beast hove into range, making further conversation moot.
Now he blessed himself that his air gun could fire twenty-two shots in a minute. And twenty-two shots might well be required, although he didn’t know that he and Clark had a minute before the thing was on them. He remembered the long sharp teeth tearing the bodies of the painted warriors, the screaming men dismembered before his eyes.
Instead, he focused his mind, his aim on the golden eye of the advancing beast.
He let the rifle fire, and the creature still charged. He shot again and again, experiencing a curious sense of time dilation. Clark was beside him, firing as well with his conventional rifle.
Sweat rolled down his forehead and into his eyes, and he blinked away the sting and blindness to aim at the creature thundering toward them. He fired, always keeping aim on the creature’s eye even as it galloped closer and closer.
The creature was so close he thought he could smell its hide, like hot snake skin.
The monster vacillated.
Meriwether prepared his last shot, knowing the creature would be upon him, but Clark grabbed his shoulder and pulled him to the side. Both men fell on the ground, just barely avoiding a mountain of meat that crashed to the dirt.
Clark gathered himself and sprang to his feet. He offered his hand to a grateful Meriwether. “I could tell you didn’t realize your shot had struck home. The beast was already falling forward.”
“Did I hit it?” Meriwether contemplated the mountainous beast that lay shuddering on the ground in its last spasms of life. “Or did you?”
“It scarce matters.” Clark stood a safe distance from the vicious teeth, walking cautiously around the carcass. “I suppose we can’t stay, but what a trophy it would make.”
Catching his breath, Meriwether endeavored to laugh, but it came out sounding more like a cough. The fallen beast made a sound like all the flatulent dogs in the world, and then it trembled and squirmed.
Meriwether frowned, uneasy, and this time he yanked his friend out of danger, as the dead monster—had it ever been alive?—shook, groaned as if under great internal pressure. And then it exploded.
The blast was so forceful it hurled both men ten feet backward, and Meriwether cringed, sure they would be doused with a rain of gore and gobbets of shattered reptilian flesh. But he felt nothing.
When he finally dared look up, he saw that where the beast had stood, there were now only…bones? The beast had somehow disintegrated.
The two men approached cautiously. As a boy in the woods of Virginia, Meriwether had often come across decayed skeletons of animals. A year or two in the warm and humid climate, most creatures decomposed. But in other places, for whatever reason, the ancient bones turned to stone. That was what these reptilian bones looked like now, glistening with mineral incrustations, with no sign of flesh, scales, or blood.
“They are certainly more easily preserved,” Clark said. “I wish we could take them with us.”
“Why not?” Meriwether asked, still dazed. “Franklin would certainly want to inspect them. Even such large bones could be accommodated on the pirogues around the men.”
Clark smiled and shook his head. “My dear Lewis, I admire your optimistic and unsuspicious nature, but if such bones could be reanimated once, what would stop an evil wizard from doing it again? I would prefer not to have a giant creature come alive aboard our keelboat.”
Meriwether shuddered at the thought. “I concur.” He didn’t give a second glance to the collapsed skeleton as they ran after the rest of their party, heading toward the river. The other men had already uncovered the pirogues. Seaman barked urgently, then yelped with delight to see his master again. He and Clark waded into the green water, grateful for its cool touch, and climbed into the pirogues.
Once they were settled in the small boats and began making their way along the current, Meriwether turned to look back at the bank. His heart leaped. Clark had been right about the bones. The reanimated reptile—undoubtedly the same beast—now stood at the river’s edge, emitting its roar-hiss. As they watched in horror, several others of its kind joined it, including one much larger beast, as towering as the one that had killed the painted warriors. Simultaneously, all the monsters let out a blood-curdling bellow.
The men rowed faster.
From the other bank of the river, high up on the ridge, came the tune of “To Anacreon in Heaven,” and looking up, Meriwether could swear he saw the silhouettes of Collins, Hall, and Willard stumbling along.
My Dearest Julia,
After our harrowing adventures, we’ve come to a calmer part of the journey after five months from St. Louis. Life is not too calm, of course, as these travels through the unknown are never fully calm.
We’ve climbed many a hill, and we’ve travelled many miles of river. I’ve charted a good portion of this unknown land, and Captain Lewis has collected countless strange plants and animals to bring back to our benefactor, the wizard Franklin.
We have not, however, found anything quite as exciting as what happened to us near the mound said to belong to the little people. We never did see any tangible sign of the mythical pygmies, other than the small darts we found in the body of the poor trapper called Barefoot Johnny. Captain Lewis has conducted many chemical tests on that arrowhead, but detected no poison that would explain the man’s death. Perhaps it was deadly magic. We have seen stranger things in these arcane territories.
Now and then we have seen other glimpses of those terrifying beasts made of long-buried bones, loping along the hilly terrain near the river, but none have approached or attacked. We haven’t even heard their distinctive roars. Other than that and the occasional encounter with raggedy, possibly starving Indians, we have been left in peace.