The mists swirled, and he saw that he was approaching a small isle in the stream. He saw the light of a campfire, heard a forlorn voice singing. He paddled up into the waterlogged underbrush around the island and stepped out of his canoe. He was so tired, he just wanted to rest. Holding his rifle and his provisions, he moved inland.
Meriwether found a young man sitting by a small, smoky fire. His features and shock of hair were so similar to Meriwether’s own, he felt sure this must be a relative. The stranger looked up, equally startled. “Hello there. It’s been many years since I’ve seen a man of my own race. Most of these lands are peopled with savages. I’m William Lewis. Pleased to meet you.”
Meriwether froze as he extended his hand in greeting. William Lewis was his father, and his mother always said her son resembled him very closely. Now that he looked at the man before him, he recognized features he had seen on a small locket portrait that his mother possessed. Lucy rarely displayed it in public, not since her remarriage and the birth of her younger children, but Meriwether had seen it. It was one of the only things he remembered about his father.
And now the man sat here, on an island in the river to the land of the dead. Seeing the confused look in William’s eyes, he broke his hesitation and extended his hand all the way to clasp the hand of his father’s ghost. The grip felt warm and solid just like any other hand, but Meriwether reminded himself that his own hand—his real, physical hand—remained behind in a tent in the Shoshone camp.
He gave an apologetic smile. “And I am Captain Meriwether Lewis.”
“Oh?” Understanding came into the man’s expression, and he looked his son up and down. “I suppose all people come here eventually. You were much smaller when I last saw you. I swam a frozen river to get back to see you and your mother…and then pneumonia carried me off within the month. I’m very sorry to see you here so young, my son. I hoped you would live a long and fulfilled life.”
William Lewis shifted his position on the rock he’d been using as a stool and resumed grilling something over the fire. “Here, share my dinner with me.” The roasting meat smelled foul, and Meriwether thought it looked like a collection of bones and dry leaves clumped around a stick.
William followed his son’s puzzled look, and smiled, “It’s just a rabbit I caught on the way. Not much. But enough to share.”
Meriwether shook his head and took a small step backward. “I am here, but I am not dead. I’ve come on a journey through magic to look for someone who has also come here, perhaps lost.” He lowered his eyes. “And while I would enjoy nothing more than to have a long dinner with my father, I dare not eat any food in this land of the dead. Else I’ll have to stay, and I am not ready for that, Father, not even for you. I have a great mission to fulfill back in the world.”
“You need not rush,” his father said. “Time passes differently in this land.”
Meriwether sat across from his father and told the man the story of his life, what he had done, the places he had seen, the great things he had accomplished. He tried to leave nothing out, because his father deserved to know. William interrupted him many times, desperately curious to know the details, although Meriwether made a courteous lie, choosing not to tell his father that his widow had remarried and had more children. He thought it would be cruel to let the man know he’d been replaced, if not forgotten in the world of the living.
More importantly, he told his father about the dragon that terrorized St. Louis and how he had fought it, and how that had launched this grand expedition across the arcane territories. His father listened, cutting invisible meat off the assemblage of sticks and eating the food with every appearance of enjoyment. When he described Sacagawea and how she had journeyed into this land to rescue her husband, William said, “She seems uncommonly brave and resourceful. And you have come to help her.”
Meriwether said, “She is an extraordinary woman, although her husband is quite common. He did not court her hand in marriage, but rather won her in a poker game. But she is very loyal and considers him worth rescuing.”
His father grinned. “Then he is a lucky man. I have heard of stranger ways to find one’s wife. It does not mean he doesn’t love her.”
It was the first time that Meriwether considered whether Toussaint might actually care for Sacagawea. It might have been more than a mere poker game, after all. What if the trapper had longed for this young woman and gambled everything to get her—and won? It could have happened like that.
“You love the woman yourself, do you not?” his father asked, quietly.
He laughed too quickly. “No, we are from different worlds. I respect her, but I doubt I could ever understand her. You know how different the native way of life is from ours.”
Sounding sage, even though he had died quite young, his father shrugged. “One tends to prefer those who are like us, but some people are so exceptional that it doesn’t really matter where they grew up or how they look. Some can command love even from those who come from far away. Like Virginia…”
Though his mother was a tolerant woman, Meriwether couldn’t imagine what she would say if he should come home with a native wife and a child by another man.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said with more of an edge than he wanted. “She has a husband, who is the whole reason she’s here. She has to bring him back with the knowledge he has about the dragon sorcerer. That way she can save herself, her little boy, and the entire land.” He couldn’t help adding, somewhat resentfully, “And she will help save his other wife, too, I presume.”
William Lewis offered his son a rueful grin. “Here, where we have left our bodies behind like discarded clothes, we come to understand many things, for we have nothing else to do but contemplate. One of the things I’ve come to understand is that love is love, even if my own experience was perhaps brief. The physical body that envelops the emotion of love matters little. Love is eternal. As for Sacagawea’s husband…well, we’ll see. You have little enough chance to bring any of them away from here, especially if he was sent here by a violent magical attack. Toussaint Charbonneau might be as dead as I am, even if his body clings to life back in the world.”
His father sighed and looked sadly at his son. “I think you should go now.” He pointed at the sky in the east, in which a pinkish light showed in the murk. “It is dawn here, or what passes for dawn. You should find what you are looking for down the river, that way.”
He escorted Meriwether back to the rotting, dilapidated canoe pulled up in the reeds. He looked at the boat approvingly, “A fine vessel you have there, son. It will take you far.” Departing, pushing the canoe back out into the current, Meriwether knew that this was the last time he would see his father until the end of his own life. As he began to paddle away, William called back at him, “One more thing to know! If you stab one of them with your civilized steel, they fall apart into a pile of bones. That will give you moments to run away, but they will come back even worse than your revenants. One cannot die here in the land of the dead. They will come back full force, and fully alive. Now go, save the woman who has drawn you here from the living world.”
With a thick throat and a heavy heart, Meriwether waved goodbye as he continued down the river.