Windsor kept blinking at him. “How did you know the knife would kill it, Captain? My granny from old England used to tell me about hobgoblins and boggarts that fear steel, but here in this strange land—”
“Once before, the touch of steel drove back a magical attack.” He turned the knife over in his hand. It still seemed warm. “I decided to take a chance.”
He helped the men dig their holes and bury the scattered remains, seeing the mixed remnants of human bodies twisted into the roots and branches, all grown together and ignited. He prayed those poor victims had been dead when they were incorporated into the demon’s body.
Finally, near dawn, he was utterly exhausted and crawled back into the tent, collapsing into a numb sleep. He vaguely heard Clark stumble in and lie down beside him, muttering, “Good God.” Meriwether felt the shuddering dog Seaman come and curl up against him, needing comfort and resting his muzzle beneath Meriwether’s chin. With his close companions nearby, Meriwether drifted into a deeper sleep.
And then dreams followed, confused, disjointed. He was the Welsh dragon again, flying free and strong. He woke up startled, wondering why no one but Clark had ever spoken of his dragon form or of Sacagawea’s eagle after the encounter with the river monster. He stared at the top of the tent, where the crossed poles poked out. The hole revealed just a bit of gray sky.
Sensing his master stir, Seaman forced his head beneath his hand, and Meriwether patted it, half asleep.
Surely others must have seen his transformation, or had they been too frightened, fighting to get out of the river and away from the serpent? Since then, had the men showed any fear of him? They had so much to accept and absorb.
Meriwether himself had been preoccupied with suspicions over Charbonneau, wondering what danger the strange man posed. No, he admitted, he had simply been jealous of Charbonneau, angry that this thoroughly unexceptional man had captured the attention of a brave and resourceful woman. Even in his altered state, the man commanded Sacagawea’s attention and her loyalty. Even though he struck her.
It was so obvious to Meriwether that something was deeply wrong with Charbonneau, but Sacagawea didn’t seem to notice.
He chewed on the corner of his lip, trying to tamp down his growing feelings for this native woman.
A tentative voice called from outside the tent, a woman’s voice. “Captain?” As if his thoughts had summoned her, Sacagawea pushed back the tent flap, peered inside. She had the child on her back. Though he still found her face beautiful, she looked haggard, and he could see the shadows under her eyes. “Captain?” she asked again, and he realized that Clark also had sat up. She seemed very brave and determined. “I promised to take you to the other ocean, but I cannot go with you further.”
Meriwether reeled with the thought, but before he could speak, Clark blurted out, “Why not? You have been extremely valuable to our expedition.”
Meriwether said, “Is it your husband? Last night, I saw that he was stricken.”
“Not stricken—cursed.” She pressed her lips together, clamping away further explanation.
“Cursed?” Meriwether pressed. “Tell us.”
She entered the tent and fell, without effort, into that sort of squat that many of the native scouts found so comfortable. Seaman got to his feet, tail wagging, and tried to lick at Pompy’s face, while the child squealed and gurgled. He reached out for the dog’s ears with his chubby hands.
Sacagawea continued in a grim voice, “You know he has not been himself since he escaped from the great magic.” She fell silent a long time. “He’s been like a…a doll, used by something else.” She looked from one man to the other of them and sighed. “I suspected the great magic was reaching through him, but he was fighting it. I wanted to help him, to save him. I did not wish to tell you about his curse, because I feared you would prevent him from coming with us. I have prepared strong potions, tinctures of special magic herbs for him. Sometimes, I almost freed his mind. He told me that the…the evil wizard, the servant of the raven, was trying to reach through him and harm us. The great magic needs to be close to cause great destruction, but my Toussaint fought it. He would not allow the evil wizard to reach through him to harm our party. But last night, my Toussaint lost the battle.” She fell ominously silent again. “He lost the battle, and the sorcerer reached through him to the…to a place where dead lay, and he made roots and trees grow to them and animated them. He used lightning to ignite the creature before he sent it against us.”
Meriwether felt a strange relief to hear this. “Those bones, the skulls, the children…they were already dead, then?” It was just a small bit of hope. “When they became that thing?”
“And the same sort of thing burned all those other villages?” Clark asked.
Sacagawea nodded. “They were corpses, reanimated and ignited. But not long dead, because there was still life in them, which his sorcery tapped, added to the life in the trees—and then the fire.”
“Your husband told you this?” Meriwether asked.
She shook her head. “Toussaint cannot speak. But his mind was sundered when you threw that knife at the creature. He’s not…himself. No one remains inside his mind to answer me. I think he was being used by the great magic to create the fire monster. It was too strong a spell to make from so little, and so someone had to be present to evoke it. Toussaint. The sorcerer was in his body. But when your knife shattered the spell, Captain Lewis, the shock was like a person being struck in the head. But I also think it is a curse, that some vital part has left him.”
“What can we do about it?” Clark asked.
Sacagawea looked at him in surprise. “About Toussaint? Nothing. I have tried everything I can with roots and leaves, but the magic is deep and the damage severe.” She shook her head. “This is not why I came to you. Your expedition will continue over the mountains and to the sea, but I will remain here with my husband and Pompy until Toussaint recovers—if he recovers. And if he does not recover, then I will find the great magic and avenge my husband.”
“And what if he does recover?” Meriwether asked.
She looked away. “Then I will do whatever he wants, since I’m his wife. But I will try to convince him he must help me fight the evil sorcerer, because none of us will be safe.”
Clark was alarmed. “You can’t keep Pompy with you!” He had grown very attached to the child. “We will take him with us and keep him safe, feed him, guard him. If you do not rejoin us, then I will educate him and care for him as though he were my own.” He seemed embarrassed. “I meant to make such an offer to you, anyway, when the expedition came to an end, but now I must speak. You cannot possibly take this small child into such danger. You cannot!”
Meriwether knew what her answer would be, though. Sacagawea had shown as stubborn a refusal to be parted from her child as from her husband. He interrupted before she could answer, “William, my friend, we can’t leave her here, either. We can’t go on without her. Our mission is to cross the continent and reach the Pacific, but we could never survive with attacks every day and every night. We’d lose all the members of our expedition! There won’t be anyone to reach the Pacific, let alone come back and report.”
Clark pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and index finger. He knew that his friend missed his young fiancée back home. He’d seen Clark write her letters, which she would never receive, at least not for a very long time. He could imagine that his partner felt a great impetus to finish his mission, to be home and safe and away from these arcane lands.