Trail of Bones by Mark London Williams Read Free Book Online Page A

really cold. But it just
looks like he’s on fire.
    “You must keep him alive!”
    Howard is pointing and hopping around on the
small dock. He’s going to fall in the river if he’s not
careful.
    “Are you all right?” Clark asks.
    I rub my forehead. There’s a bump already
forming. But I’ll be okay.
    “I think so. I’ve had worse.” I don’t want
to get left behind now.
    “Welcome to the Corps of Discovery.” Clark
has his hand out and I take it.
    The keelboat with York, Floyd, and Lewis has
shoved off, and the oarsman in our pirogue begins paddling, taking
us into the river.
    We’re moving.
    “Remember! The president has ordered you to
come back alive!” Howard is shouting as we leave, like he can
change the will of the universe all by himself.
    Meanwhile, I’m rubbing my head, and trying
to remember enough of my history to know whether any of us actually
make it back— or not.
    Rrrooowwwf.
     
     
     
    Chapter Six
    Thea: East
    May 1804
     
    “He won’t beat you. He won’t whip you. I’ll
tell him to keep you in the house with me. He’s tolerable, for a
master. He even took me to Paris once.”
    “Paris? Is where?”
    Sally and I are shouting out words to each
other because we are riding on top of the carriage taking Mr.
Thomas President Jefferson back to his palace. Or wherever it is he
dwells. He calls it Monticello.
    Perhaps I should refer to him as Mr.
Jefferson President, instead. I am still not sure of the correct
way to arrange the title, though I know this does seem to be an
early form of the same government Eli lived under, much like the
Romans had during their republic phase.
    Jefferson is a leader here, a kind of regent
— and a man of import. Sally is his slave. And now, apparently, I
am too. Or rather, I am in his custody until I can be “returned.”
Where? To whom?
    And how much farther from Eli will I be
taken?
    I helped minister to him when he was still
gripped by fever. Perhaps our displacement in time has a cumulative
effect, becoming harder and harder on us each time.
    I wasn’t able to question Eli when his fever
broke. I was already back in the slave tent. And then Eli was gone,
dispatched on some kind of mission by this same Jefferson
President.
    History and chance are ever interfering with
a growing friendship.
    At the moment, the peculiarities of this
juncture in history — everyone’s reaction to skin pigment and
heritage—force me to be counted a slave. And so I must remain until
I can plan an escape.
    According to Sally, she is lent a certain
dignity not given to others forced into servitude. Jefferson even
invited her to ride inside the wagon with him, but she declined,
preferring to stay outside, on the bench, with Mr. Howard. She
makes him uncomfortable. Occasionally she even takes the reins of
the horses from him, holding them like she did when I first laid
eyes on her.
    “Paris?” I repeat. I am still wearing
K’lion’s lingo-spot. Indeed, it seems to be changing into a
permanent feature of my physiology. I still rely on it here, in
spite of my worries that when I hear a word a split second before
it’s spoken or thought of, the lingo-spot may be exerting a mind of
its own.
    But I have yet to fully master the “English”
that Sally, Jefferson President, Eli, and all the others use,
though I have picked up a few words and phrases.
    Until I can give some of the lingo-spot to
Sally, those few words are all I have to communicate with. Aside
from whatever Latin Sally remembers. Between the two tongues, we
cobble together more conversation.
    “Yes, dear. Paris. In France. That’s not
where you’re from, is it?”
    “Alexandria,” I tell her again, practicing
English. “No slave.” I hope she understands.
    “You poor lost thing. How can you be from a
town in Virginia and not be a slave? Maybe you are Brassy, and
you’ve just lost your mind.” She lowers her voice so that Mr.
Howard, who is studiously pretending to ignore us, will definitely
not be