To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis by Andra Watkins Page B

my job as governor of Upper Louisiana.
    And my Ann wouldn’t have died.
    Nowhere gave me another chance to murder. At least, this time. I couldn’t remember what came before.
    Different, killing someone when they’re already dead. I could give Lewis an unwanted immortality. My nerves pulsed with the chance to claim it.
    For Ann and for me.

NINETEEN
    Thursday. October 6, 1977. Outside Natchez, Mississippi.
    A ragged, chalky cliff jutted out of the river on our starboard side. Dust to match my rotting memories. I knew where Natchez led: to the place that destroyed my life. A cabin in the middle of nowhere. An act that led me Nowhere.
    I couldn’t remember my time in Nowhere. It was all just random words and phrases, scribbled on the worn pages of a journal. Images I couldn’t piece together. I never knew what I did. Who I’d been. Where I tried to make a difference. Every Nowhere outing was completely new. Things and places seemed familiar sometimes. I didn’t even know why I bothered to record what happened. It was always stripped clean in the end. A blank journal and an inept man.
    Journaling was a compulsion from life. I couldn’t shake it. When I buried my journal under my mattress or pushed it over the edge of the boat and watched it bubble to the bottom of the river, I still woke up with it underneath my palm the next morning.
    The engine coughed, and Jim stuck his head out of the cockpit. He pointed to the bluff. Natchez. Dead ahead.
    This was one way to greet a sunrise. Light streaked over the bluffs. Burned my eyes. Hours of no sleep, leaning off the bow of the boat to help Jim navigate in the dark: the night did a job on me.
    Emmaline watched a white gull fish off the front of the boat. When she wasn’t scratching an angry sunburn, she giggled and waved with the freedom of a true child. I made a mental note to keep her sensitive skin covered for the rest of the trip. A serious case of sun poisoning could slow our progress a precious day or two. I called her to me, and she scurried to my side, her fingers scratching at her seared shoulder.
    Her skin radiated heat against a white t-shirt, something Jim had in a corner of the boat, and her hair was a snarl down her back. She looked a sight, but it would have to do until I could get her something else. Jim turned the wheel toward shore, and I kneeled beside her. “See that spot? Jutting out in the river, just beyond the bridge?”
    Her eyes followed my finger. “I see it.”
    “There’s a ramp. Jim is going to drop us there, and we can head into town.”
    “Can we get something to eat first? At McDonald’s? They must have one. Every place does.”
    “First things, Em. We’ve got to get you some decent clothes and find some scissors to cut all that hair.”
    She balled up her fists and wrapped her arms around her head. Fiery eyes poked through the crack betwixt her arms. Jim’s laugh vibrated in his throat.
    “You’re NOT cutting my hair, Merry. No way.” Emmaline grabbed up her tangled hair and stuffed it under her arms and down her shirt collar.
    “Believe me. You don’t want to be running a trail in the woods with all that mess.”
    Her red face grew even redder. “It’s not a mess. It’s NOT.”
    “Sorry. Sorry. Didn’t mean to offend, Em.”
    “I’ll find some rubber bands and keep it up. Pink. Or lavender.” She grabbed at her hair and demonstrated a fat ponytail, but her hands were too small to hold it all. The longer she tried to keep it back, the more it blew around her face. In frustration, she spit a wad of it out of her mouth and stared at me, defiant.
    Jim rolled his eyes and turned the wheel toward shore. Glad to have the easier task.
    I sat beside her, Indian-style. Put myself in line with the stubborn set of her jaw. It wasn’t just about hiking in the woods. She needed to look different. Putting her hair up wouldn’t be enough. Somebody could see her. Call her mother and tell her where we were. And we always had to be