The men of the war party were celebrating as if they might not live another day—which was indeed possible—but Meriwether felt the weight of responsibility like a heavy blanket on him, and he wanted to be alone, to gather his strength and to ponder. As he passed the first tent, though, he heard soft sounds of crying. He peeked through the imperfectly joined flaps and saw Sacagawea sprawled on a pile of hides that served as a mattress. He could tell by the shaking of her shoulders that she was crying—perhaps for the death of her husband, the separation from her son, or their likely fate on this hopeless mission. He hesitated, reluctant to interrupt her, to intrude on her privacy.
Eventually he decided he could do little to console her and quietly slipped to the next tent, which he found empty. With a long sigh, he let himself fall on the hides piled on soft grass. Rather than being rank or stuffy, the interior of the tent smelled clean, like freshly mown hay. Disturbed by Sacagawea’s anguish, he thought he would have difficulty falling asleep, but he and York had been on guard duty the night before, when they’d seen the small sea serpent jumping in the narrow river. He could not stay awake.
After a long, dreamless sleep, he woke up rested but tense for the great challenges they would face today. He found some of the young women tending the fire, and the shaman-Coyote drinking coffee from a wooden mug. Since his transformation, his mouth no longer matching Dosabite’s human mouth, Meriwether was surprised he could manage to drink coffee at all through his muzzle. It must be some sort of magic, he supposed.
A young woman brought Meriwether coffee and fried bread. “I didn’t know your people drank coffee,” he said to Coyote.
“I’ve existed since the beginning of the world. I take the best that humankind invents and make it my own. I like this potion.”
As Meriwether ate the bread, the other man continued. “I made time move slower in my home.” He spoke in the casual tone of a man telling his guest that the beds would be aired. “I wanted everyone to get a good and restful night of sleep, with no need to hurry. We will need to be at our greatest strength and alertness.” He lowered his voice. “Some of the party will not make it to the end of this journey.”
Little by little the others emerged from various tents, some accompanied by women who had kept them warm through the night. Meriwether neither envied the men, nor did he feel any interest in taking one of the willing women for himself. He’d certainly enjoyed female company before, and all these native women were uncommonly beautiful, yet he felt no desire right now. His eyes kept turning anxiously toward the tent where he had heard Sacagawea crying in the night.
He told himself he wasn’t in love with her. Of course not. Being in love was, at any rate, a thing for swooning maidens and young fools. Sacagawea, an admirable woman in her own world, would never fit in his own world back east. Society would shun them if they decided to marry—this was not the utopia the three Whiskey Revenants had described in the land of the dead. A dream…and a dream of dead men, at that.
But still, they had a common cause and great respect for each other. In this, they were perfect partners, but their association must go no further, even if she was the bravest, most loyal, and most resourceful woman of his acquaintance. While the rest of the war party attacked Raven’s lair, while Coyote endeavored to kill the human form the evil spirit inhabited, he and Sacagawea would travel together to find the real form of the seven-headed dragon and kill it.
And after that, once he and Clark reunited and completed their expedition to the western edge of the world, Meriwether and Sacagawea would go their separate ways, he to the east and his ancestral plantation in Virginia, and she—
Imagination failed him. What, exactly, would she do? From Sacagawea anything was possible. Maybe she would rejoin the Snake People and live quietly among her relatives. She might marry yet another trapper and travel with him all over the west, living an adventurous and precarious life. He felt a stab of irritation at the idea.
Interrupting his thoughts, Sacagawea emerged from the tent and came to sit beside him after she gathered her own breakfast. Knowing what lay ahead of them, he wanted to keep no secrets from her, so he told her of the preserved woman in the waterfall, the tale of the love that had broken the friendship of Coyote and Raven.
She had heard a version of the story before, but now she frowned disapprovingly. “So Coyote holds the woman that Raven loves. It sounds like he’s intending to use her as bait. Is that how he means to get close to Raven’s human form?”
“That may be his plan. He didn’t tell me, but I doubt there is much we can do to prevent him.” He took another sip of his coffee. “We will all have enough trouble surviving this day.”
Sacagawea shook her head sadly. “Coyote is a rogue and a trickster, and he will bend the rules as it pleases him. He is usually not ill-intentioned, and for the most part he is on the side of humanity. We will have to believe him now.” She drew a deep breath. “How sad her story is, though. In versions of the tale I’ve heard, we call her Raven’s bride. In most of the stories her husband kills her, or maybe a roving tribe, but this story is the saddest of all. She escaped from Raven and lives on, but finds she no longer has any place in her tribe, and no longer has any family.” A quaver in her voice suggested that she understood the woman’s plight all too well.
Meriwether braced himself, getting ready for their battle. “The day ahead will be filled with dangers, but I will do my best to protect you. I ask that you stay close to me. Coyote means for the two of us to enter Raven’s lair by some particular path he has in mind.”
Sacagawea shivered. “I will stay with you, Captain Lewis, but I don’t like being a pawn in games. I became a wife because Toussaint won me in a game, but I am done with that. I am not a piece to be won or gambled away by those more powerful than I.”
“You are not,” Meriwether said firmly, hating the idea as well. “You are vital to this war. We’ll never win if you and I aren’t alive.”
She inclined her head. “Then, let us stay alive.”
Doing so proved harder than it sounded. The attacks from the dragon sorcerer began as soon as they rode out, emerging from Coyote’s land.
Lewis, suspecting ravens might attack them, had them hold blankets in readiness to cover the horses’ eyes.
As soon as Meriwether rode beyond the boundary, he sensed that he passed through some sort of veil that tore in their wake. The war party suddenly found themselves in rocky terrain once more, and climbing toward mountains in the distance. One prominent peak looked familiar, similar to the many crags they had seen in the latter part of the expedition, but this one seemed more massive, with black and vermillion striated rock that looked raw, as though it had been hewn out of the surrounding stone just moments ago, with titanic chisel marks still prominent.
After emerging, he barely had time to look around himself and grasp his surroundings before the ravens came. A hurricane of the black birds descended on the war party just as they had swept down upon Meriwether on Tavern Rock. The raucous screeching nearly deafened him, but he screamed as loudly as he could, breaking the panic. “Use your knives! The steel blades may break the magic!” The horses reared, and the men struggled to grab their knives from sheaths at their hips. “Guard your eyes and cover the horses!”
As his animal churned and prepared to bolt, he threw his blanket over his horse’s eyes before the dark-feathered cloud fell upon them. He yanked out his knife as a flurry of sharp, deadly beaks pecked everywhere. He pressed his forearm across his eyes while with the other he stabbed blindly at the avian cloud. He managed a sidelong glance to see Sacagawea also defending herself.
The shaman raised both hands, chanting, trying to summon his own magic, but he was weaker now, in the land of Raven.
Among the myriad shrieks, Meriwether drew gulps of air, continuing to slash the blade right and left. Though his horse’s eyes were covered, the frightened animal still sidestepped and jerked, thrashing about. The ravens were attacking the animal, too, and Meriwether flailed with the blade, trying to drive the birds away, hoping the emanations of the steel would be strong enough.