Autumn is nearing its end here in the north, and the air has a distinctive bite, hinting at a hard winter ahead. Our expedition is together now on the keelboat, making our way higher along the uncharted Missouri, but as the weather gets colder we must find a place where we can settle in for winter before we proceed on our way in Spring.
Sitting out the winter adds a frustrating amount of time where the men must sit idle. It takes months from our journey, but all the trappers, guides, and natives assure me and Captain Lewis that the river freezes solid, and so progress will be impossible. Even if the ground is covered with snow, traveling overland while dragging our pirogues and keelboat is not practicable. So winter we must, and we are searching for a favorable spot that offers a minimum of magical disruption.
When you think of me, imagine me snug and safe in a well-defended log home or even a small fort, wintering in the heart of this great uncharted territory, waiting for the warm breath of spring so we can resume our enterprise.
As with my other messages to you, I shall give this letter to some natives who are heading downriver to St. Louis. With the inducement of reward for safe delivery, I believe my words will arrive safe in your hands soon, my dearest.
—Letter from William Clark to Julia Hancock,
October 1804
An Arrival
Meriwether had never felt quite so cold, never in Virginia, never in St. Louis…never in his life. Even if their clothes were adequate to the cold in the east, the warm garments proved wholly inadequate here.
The expedition had raced the winter along the river, breaking still-fragile encroachments of ice before it became too thick and too binding to allow them to proceed.
Despite the discomforts, however, Meriwether had not heard the dark, taunting voice in his head for more than a month.
He sensed, in the way most magic could be sensed, that the looming evil force abated somewhat as the Earth went dormant and the ground froze white under blankets of ice and snow. It was as though the magic drew its force from the heart of the land, and once the world went to sleep in the intense cold, the evil arcane force could not draw enough vitality to threaten the expedition or the surroundings.
He and Clark had discussed the merits of continuing, despite the hardships of the cold and snow, so they could take advantage of the weakening magical adversary, but considering the equipment, the boats, the supplies, and the increasingly rugged terrain, both men knew it would not be possible. Snow had started falling, and they spent more time chipping the pirogues and keelboat out of the ice than making progress. The expedition would have to find a place to take shelter under leaden skies and howling winds.
The scouts ranged up the river and out into the countryside, and finally they found a place with plentiful wood, both for construction of a fort and for fuel. The forest would provide game, even in the dead of winter, and they had easy access to water. Several native tribes had settled the vicinity, and the people seemed normal and non-hostile, neither impelled by a magical force nor so starved by arcane disruption as to feel the need to attack the expedition.
Meriwether had made contact with tribe members, offered the usual trinkets, and the natives seemed satisfied. As the expedition members began to cut down trees and build their home for the cold months, the natives and the expedition enjoyed a peaceful coexistence. Meriwether thought this was a fine place to weather the freezing winter.
They had determined to build comfortable winter quarters surrounded by a defensible palisade. With enough men and guns, they hoped to be able to repel any magical or natural attacks that should come. They had begun construction on November 3, and finished within three weeks, before the first truly severe blizzard hit.
So far, in nearly a month of scouting, building, and occupying what they’d come to call Fort Mandan—named after the neighboring tribe—the guards had sounded no alarums of note.
Twice, a whiskey barrel had been drained, and the sentinels on duty swore it had been done by the three revenants of Hall, Collins, and Willard who’d first been killed by the undead natives. Both Meriwether and Clark had been skeptical of the explanation, thinking that more human and less undead influences had stolen the whiskey.
Every week or so during the passage along the river and during the construction of the fort, one of the men would report seeing the lost men, as though their minds couldn’t let go of their friends who had been killed, yet remained alive, animated by the evil force. They named Hall, Collins, and Willard the “Whiskey Revenants,” and they were becoming a legend of the expedition.
With the fort finished, Meriwether slept in his first real bed in more than half a year. He looked forward to quiet months of rest and planning. He had many notes to compile, reports to write, assessments and opinions to be delivered back to Franklin.
Nevertheless, when he lay back to sleep, safe and sound in the warm fortress, Meriwether dreamed of the dragon again…the dragon in a rage. The servants of the great dark force had failed to stop the intruders, and the creature was looking for something—a critical piece of its game, without which it could not be successful.
Meriwether stirred, mumbled. Part of him was aware that he lay dreaming on a straw-stuffed mattress in a rough-hewn wooden bed. His miniscule chamber lacked a door or any privacy, a curtain in the doorway providing barely a pretense of some isolation, and nearby he could hear the sounds and movements of the rest of the crowded men sleeping. In the larger common room where most of them spent the day and where they cooked their meals, two men spoke in low voices, probably the inside guards stationed there. Their murmurs were punctuated by the faint slapping sounds of playing cards on the small table.
But as he slept, Meriwether felt cold, very cold, not just under the blankets but inside his heart and soul. In the dream—was it really naught but a dream?—he found himself outside in the falling snow, looking at their boats, so encased in ice that it would be impossible to free them.
He stood amid swirling snow, strangely naked, though he couldn’t look down at his own body. Instead, he looked at the river and the gray sky. All at once, the light dimmed and something immense and powerful hovered above the swirling snow.
Son of the Dragon, said the voice that was not quite a voice, but merely an echo in his mind.
Meriwether recognized the voice. It reignited the memory of the wizard Franklin, of the fight against the dragon, of Government House aflame, and of being knocked out for hours. And of that voice inside his head.
In the dream, he tried to see through the white, blowing snow, but found nothing more than an impression of a shape. The blinding flakes stung Meriwether’s eyes, burned on his skin. There was something strange about his eyes and his skin, but he didn’t understand it.
“I’ve come for my bird and her egg,” the dragon said, the voice clearer and more threatening in Meriwether’s mind. “Where are you hiding her?”
He didn’t know how to answer, and he clung to the certainty that he was dreaming, that he had entered that disjointed portion of illusion, where only dreams made sense.
“Where is she?” the dragon demanded again, louder.
Meriwether shifted in bed, groaning quietly, but he could not awake himself. In the snow, his dream self also shifted, although he still couldn’t see his own body. Cold wind blew, accompanied with gusts of snow. When he spread his arms, the wind caught his wings.
Something very old, an instinctive feeling from past generations, twined in his mind. Meriwether held up his large arms, stretched them wide, and let the wind catch them.