Clive Cussler - The Navigator

“I’m not surprised,” Angela said. “Many people don’t even know this organization exists. Think of its history. Founded by Franklin. George Washington was a member, along with John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Rush, and John Marshall. Its reach extended worldwide: Lafayette, von Steuben, and Kos$$$ciuszko. Later, we had Thomas Edison, Robert Frost, George Marshall, Linus Pauling. Women too. Margaret Mead. Elizabeth Agassiz. This library has millions of documents and papers, including the original Newton’s Principia, Franklin’s experiments, Darwin’s Origin of Species . It’s simply breathtaking.”

“The collection’s scope is both a blessing and a curse,” Paul said. “We’re looking for a needle in an intellectual haystack of enormous size.”

“Our cataloguing system is second to none. Just point me in the right direction.”

“Meriwether Lewis,” Gamay said. “According to the artichoke file, Lewis had important information that he wanted to get to Jefferson.”

“I pulled some files on Lewis after talking to you on the phone. There’s lots of controversy about his death. Some think it was suicide. Others say it was murder.”

“That would fit in with the air of mystery surrounding the Jefferson file,” Paul said. “Where do we begin?”

Angela opened a folder. “Even as a boy, Lewis was smart, adventurous, and intrepid. He joined the army, made full captain at the age of twenty-three, and was twenty-seven when he became Jefferson’s private secretary. Jefferson found Lewis to be bold, fearless, and intelligent. Three years later, Jefferson picked Lewis to lead one of the greatest expeditions in history. To prep for the journey, he sent him to study at the Philosophical Society.”

“Everything Lewis needed to know was contained here,” Paul said.

Angela nodded. “The members tutored him in botany, astronomy, geography, and other sciences. He was an apt student. The expedition was a huge success.”

“What happened to him after the expedition?” Gamay said.

“He made what might have been the biggest mistake of his life. In 1807, he accepted an appointment as governor of the LouisianaTerritory.”

“Mistake?” Paul said. “I would think he’d be a natural for the job.”

“Lewis was better suited for trekking through the wilderness. St. Louis was a frontier outpost filled with dangerous men, crooks, and fortune hunters. He had to deal with plots, feuds, and conspiracies. He was constantly undercut by his assistant. But he managed to last two and a half years as governor before his death.”

“Not bad, considering the difficulties he faced,” Paul said.

“It was a sedentary and confining job,” Angela said. “But, from most accounts, he did pretty well.”

“What were the circumstances leading to his decision to go to Washington?” Gamay said.

“Lewis had repatriated a Mandan chief. There was a five-hundred-dollar cost overrun, and the federal government rejected his claim. There were rumors of a land deal scandal. Lewis said he was in a financial bind, and he had to go back to Washington to clear his good name. He had some important documents to deliver as well.”

“Tell us about the trip that ended in his death,” Gamay said.

“The whole thing is full of contradictions and inconsistencies,” Angela said.

“In what way?” Gamay said.

Angela slid a map across the desk. “Lewis leaves St. Louis at the end of August 1809. He goes down the Mississippi River and arrives at Fort Pickering, Tennessee, on September fifteenth. Lewis is exhausted from the heat and may have a touch of malaria. A rumor circulates that he was out of his head during the trip and attempted suicide. Another rumor says he drank heavily the whole time with old army comrades. That’s funny, because he didn’t have any army friends at the fort.”

“Any truth to these rumors?” Gamay said.

“They were secondhand accounts. Lewis wrote a letter at the fort to President Madison that shows he was pretty clearheaded. He tells Madison he was exhausted but that he is much better. And that he plans to go overland through Tennessee and Virginia. He says he is carrying original papers from his Pacific expedition and doesn’t want them to fall into the hands of the British, who were expected to declare war.”

“What happened next?” Paul said.

“Two weeks after he arrived at the fort,” Angela continued, “Lewis set off again. He was carrying two trunks that held his papers from the Pacific expedition, a portfolio, memo book, and documents of a private and public nature. The expedition journals are contained in sixteen notebooks bound in red morocco leather.”

“It must have been tough carrying all that stuff overland on his own,” Paul said.

“Almost impossible. Which is why he accepted an offer of an extra horse from James Neelly, a former Indian agent for the Chickasaw nation. On September twenty-ninth, they left the fort: Lewis, his servant, Pernia, and a slave, and Neelly.”

“Hardly the sort of entourage you’d expect of a territorial governor,” Gamay noted.

“I can’t figure it either,” Angela said. “Especially in light of the legend of Lewis’s long-lost gold mine.”

“The plot thickens,” Paul said. “Tell us about this mine.”

“It was said that Lewis discovered a gold mine on his Pacific expedition. He told a few friends, and supposedly left a description of the mine so that if he died it might be of some use to the country. I’m sure the gold mine story was generally known. And it was common knowledge along the Trace that the governor would be passing through.”

“Lewis would have been in special danger,” Gamay said.

“Every bandit along the Trace would have been thinking about the map and how to get it away from Lewis,” Angela agreed.

“Wouldn’t Lewis have been aware of the risk?” Gamay said.

“Lewis knew the risks of traveling through the wilderness. He had faced danger before and might have thought he could handle it.”

“Or,” Gamay said, “he could have been so driven to get to Washington that he figured the risk was worth it.’

“Maybe the danger was closer than he thought,” Paul said. “Neelly.”

“More contradictions,” Angela said. “Neelly said later that Lewis was deranged, but the group did a hundred and fifty miles in three days.”

“That’s a good trek for a crazy man,” Paul observed.

Angela nodded in agreement.

“The FortPickering commander was disturbed at reports that Neelly had urged Lewis to drink. Lewis’s Spanish servant Pernia was pushing booze on Lewis as well. Then Neelly lost two horses and told Lewis to go on ahead with the two servants while he searched for the animals.”

Gamay laughed. “If Lewis were deranged, why let him go ahead with the servants?”

“Good question,” Angela said. “But they broke up, and Lewis went on to Grinder’s Stand with Pernia and his slave servant.”

“Grinder’s Stand sounds like a place that makes submarine sandwiches,” Paul said.

“Lewis would have been better off if it had been a sandwich shop,” Angela said. “The Grinder place consisted of two cabins. Mrs. Grinder was there with her kids and a couple of slaves. Her husband was away. Lewis stayed in one of the cabins, his servants in the stable. Mrs. Grinder said that about three A.M. she heard two pistol shots—and that Lewis had shot himself in the head and the chest. Mortally wounded, he made it to her cabin, asked for a drink of water, called for help, and died a few hours later. Neelly showed up the next day.”

“Convenient,” Gamay said.

“ Very. He talked to Mrs. Grinder and the servants, and a week later he wrote Jefferson and said Lewis committed suicide over his problems with the government.”