Trail of Bones by Mark London Williams Read Free Book Online

I’m not talking about Seaman’s squirrels. Part of the
food plan, I’m pretty sure, is to do some hunting along the way.
I’m guessing there won’t be any veggie burgers.
    “Let me help you with that.” I turn, and
it’s York. He’s the only black man on the whole expedition. He’s
supposed to be Clark’s “slave,” but to look at someone, and have to
think that — to have to attach that word to them — makes me feel
small.
    “Bringin’ lots of stuff, ain’t they?” York
asks, as he offers me a hand. I hold on — nearly slipping out of
his grasp — but manage to get back on my feet. My leg is still
sore, but I don’t let on as I move to help him with the barrel.
    “Is it all just food?” I ask. “What are they
going to explore with?”
    “They got the usual stuff. Guns. Some tools
to fix things. Compasses to figure out where we’re goin’ and where
we just been. Books to write stuff down in. And lots of things to
trade with the Indians. Look.”
    York shows me a small gold coin with Thomas
Jefferson’s head on it. “This is supposed to be a peace offerin’,
to let ‘em know who the big white chief in Washington is.”
    “Why would they care about that?” I ask.
“Don’t they have their own chiefs?”
    York laughs. “I guess we all get chiefs we
don’t necessarily choose.”
    We set the barrel in the keelboat, and go to
lift another of the wooden crates. I want to keep talking, in order
to take my mind off how cold and damp I am.
    “What are you bringing, Mr. York?”
    “Aw, you ain’t really ought to call me
Mister. I am bringin’ my own rifle, though, which we ain’t supposed
to have as slaves. But out here, Mr. Clark allows it. Mostly, I’m
just glad to be goin’ someplace where nobody will know who’s a
slave and who ain’t.”
    “York, you’re talkin’ that young fella’s ear
off, and he’s liable to melt clean away afore your eyes in this
rain!”
    “Kentuck!”
    It’s Floyd, with a big grin on his face,
holding up a buckskin jacket and one of those wide floppy hats.
“You’ll need these to keep dry.”
    “Dry” is more of an idea than an actual
possibility at this point, since the jacket and hat are dripping
water. But I take them, and put them on. Besides blending in
better, I am a lot warmer.
    And I probably look like Huck Finn or Tom
Sawyer.
    “So which of you layabouts is ready to get
going?”
    I turn to see Clark, standing up in a
pirogue. He smiles, too, like Kentuck, but more with his eyes.
Maybe that’s why Jefferson matched him up with Lewis — like being a
team manager in Barnstormers and picking a line-up — they each have
opposite strengths, like the moon and the sun: One keeps things in
shadows, so you can’t tell how they’ll turn out, the other warms
you up and tells you everything will be all right.
    “I’m with you, sir!” Floyd says.
    “You actually askin’ me for an opinion, Mr.
Clark?” York means it as a joke, but it runs a little deeper than
that.
    “I’m actually telling you men that someone
else will beat us to the Pacific unless we get going!” Clark means
it as a joke, too, but it also helps him avoid an answer.
    Floyd and York and I load the last of the
crates into the keelboat. I look around through the gray sleet and
notice we’re the last three men on the docks.
    York helps me into the square boat. The man
paddling Clark’s pirogue pulls it alongside.
    “Ride with me, Master Sands,” Clark says.
“It would be my privilege.”
    I look around. I’m not sure what I’m waiting
for, maybe someone to nod that it’s okay, as I try to step
carefully from the keelboat — which is still tied up to the dock —
into the dugout canoe. I slip on the wet wood again and fall in,
landing by Clark’s boots and banging my head.
    “You must be careful with that
boy!”
    It’s Howard. He’s reemerged from the mist
and stands there, the same mixture of sweat and rain covering his
body. He should be shivering. He should be