Evil, I believe, is a choice. We embrace or reject it. It comes at us in insidious guises, and we make decisions that push it back or let it edge closer. It never tires and never sleeps; it’s there every day—crouching on our doorsteps, hoping for a cozy place to shack up.
After a while, it seems easier to give in. Just a little.
Years ago my mother took a bullet and tumbled into a river.
Yesterday, Darrell Michaels’s life spilled across the tiles in my espresso bar.
Would another human fall today? Was there some malevolent presence lurking, waiting, with insatiable hunger and greed? And where was God in all this?
My thoughts turned to my responsibilities at Black’s and to Samantha’s financial investment in the place. Tomorrow, Brianne will meet me, and we’ll get the place back in order so I can get on with life.
As for today? Two choices. Turn my back on what happened, or track down and face the truth.
Hours earlier I might’ve called Johnny Ray a liar had he told me Mom’s and Darrell Michaels’s murders were dots on a time line leading from Meriwether Lewis to me.
But ignoring the coincidences seemed as crazy as accepting them.
Johnny accused me of avoiding the issue of Mother’s death, and when it comes to our uncle’s involvement on that horrible day, he’s right. I’ve been trying to change, to let go of my bitterness, but I still tense at the mention of Uncle Wyatt’s name. His actions precipitated his sister’s death. From twenty feet away, hidden and helpless in the tall grass, I watched it play out as hot tears clawed down my face.
I needed the truth now. No matter how painful.
My brother’s voice brought me back to the present.
“Are you just going to stand there?”
“I’m coming.” I set our cooler of meat, chips, and cold drinks in the bed of his Ford Ranger and climbed into the cab. “So how’s this brush with Lewis’s ghost gonna help us figure things out?”
“I’m fixin’ to tell you on the way.”
“You’re ‘fixin’ to,’ Johnny Ray? Nashville really is your home now.”
He buckled in beside me. “Only since you arrived, kid, and I mean that.”
I set my foot on the dash, staring out the window as we headed west.
The morning was gorgeous, a typical October day in Middle Tennessee. A spike in humidity gave the air a leafy, moldering scent.
Wearing his black Stetson, Johnny Ray drove us—me and his Martin guitar—along I-440. His trusty pickup then carried us south-west, away from the headaches of the concrete jungle. No more snarling traffic, sirens, or screeching trains, no Wal-Marts, Mapcos, or Dollar Generals.
Flanking the parkway, sugar maples waved red leaves in the breeze against a waxy green backdrop of magnolias. Ginkgo trees shot golden flames through the foliage, catching and intensifying the rays of autumn sun.
“Look at these colors,” I said.
“Pretty spectacular.”
“Think your boss’ll be mad?”
“He’ll get over it. This is my first sick day in three years.”
“Ah,” I said. “But that’s how it starts. A day here, another one there, a couple in a row. Dude, it’s a gateway drug.”
My brother played along. “I can quit anytime.”
“You want me repeating that to your boss?”
“Watch it now.” Johnny slid a guidebook across the seat. “Here, this’ll keep you quiet. It’s history-lesson time. Read up on the trace and its origins. You’ll also find some bits about Governor Lewis.”
“Governor? An explorer and a politician?”
“In St. Louis and the surrounding area. Which makes his death that much stranger. He was a genuine American hero, but when he died, the first official report didn’t show up until ten days later in Nashville’s Democratic Clarion. The man changed the face of the modern map and couldn’t get a proper burial for months. There wasn’t a single government inquiry into his murder.”
“Suicide, you mean.”
“I mean it just the way I said it.”
“Maybe he took his life but they wanted to spare his family more shame.”
“He was found with multiple knife and bullet wounds.” Johnny raised an eyebrow at me. “And guess where he was headed when he died—to the capital to clear his name of some rumors and to Monticello to see his friend Jefferson. For years Lewis had been working on his journals from the expedition, and he was finally ready to publish them. Funny time to kill himself, don’t you think?”
“I’ve got to admit it sounds fishy.”
“The man was an icon and smart too. While in St. Louis, he helped set up their first publishing house and post office—”
“Maybe he went postal.”
“This is serious, Aramis.”
“Sorry. That wasn’t right.”
“I’m telling you, there’s some shady activity behind the scenes.” Johnny flipped on the AC to combat the rising humidity, then draped an arm over the steering wheel. “I believe the same secrets that gunned him down also came after Mom. Now they’re coming after you.”
“What secrets?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out.” He pointed to the guidebook. “Read up.”
I opened to the first page.
With my head against the truck window and my thoughts mulling over what I’d learned from the book, I let my eyes follow yellow wildflowers along the curve of the hills to a limestone edifice.
I know virtue and honor played roles in our country’s birth. I guess it’s no surprise that treason and greed also got involved. Rising from the American Revolution, Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, Meriwether Lewis, and James Wilkinson became household names. Yet conspiracies and lies knotted their destinies.
And some of those shady scenarios played out along the Natchez Trace.
More than four hundred miles long, the trace stretches from Nashville to Natchez, Mississippi. Originally a buffalo trail, it drew Choctaw and Chickasaw hunting parties, who later used it as a warpath. In the 1700s, French traders, settlers, even itinerant preachers trod the same ground, giving it names such as the Devil’s Backbone and the Old Chickasaw Trace. By 1800, it had become a federal road.
President Jefferson was at the country’s helm, and the republic was booming. Despite rampant threats—including Spaniards stationed in the Florida territories and Napoleon on the march through Europe—the government sought to expand its territory.
The Louisiana Purchase swiped nearly a million square miles between the Mississippi and the Rockies from beneath Napoleon’s prominent nose. Jefferson pushed Congress to ratify the purchase quickly. He knew the territory could become a jackpot of trade and industry. If a northwest passage—a water route connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific—could be found, the young United States would become a political dynamo: self-sufficient, wealthy, poised to fend off all foes.
Jefferson called upon his one-time personal assistant, Capt. Meriwether Lewis, to form the Corps of Discovery. Lewis chose William Clark to join him in command.
It’s all there in the schoolbooks. The corps found success conquering unknowns, mapping huge territories, establishing Fort Clatsop—a site that still stands near the shores of the Pacific, on the Oregon side of the Columbia River. Reputations and fortunes were made, and our nation would never be the same.
But when power and wealth share the same bed, they always produce corruption.
In those early years, one man embraced such corruption with gusto.
General Wilkinson, commander of the U.S. armed forces, served as governor of the Louisiana Territory and throughout his career spewed lies to three presidents, directing their decisions while consorting with the Spanish, as confirmed by papers found a hundred years later archived in the courts of Madrid. A disgruntled defense counsel once commented that Wilkinson “instilled as much poison into the ear of the President as Satan himself breathed into the ear of Eve.”
The general was cunning. No doubt about it. With numerous disloyalties, Wilkinson was always in need of a scapegoat, and when suspicions mounted, he was quick to throw Aaron Burr to the wolves.
Later, rumors of treason circulated again. He needed another scapegoat.
Meriwether Lewis had previously made accusations about Wilkinson, so it was no surprise when the general started pointing fingers back, planting seeds of suspicion. In a letter, Lewis insisted, “My Country can never make ‘A Burr’ of me … she can never sever my attachment from her.”
In 1809, Lewis departed for the capital to defend his honor. He also planned to turn in his journals, reminding the nation of his contributions to her legacy.
He never reached his destination.
“Johnny, this is all fascinating. But how do you know it’s connected to Mom?”
My brother lifted his Stetson, ran his hand through his hair. “There’re a couple of things I can’t say, things you’ll have to find out on your own.”
“Like what? Since when do you hide stuff from me?”
Johnny stared straight ahead.
“Hey. I’m talking to you. What’s going on?”
“Listen, I’ll do my best to point you in the right direction. But you’ve got to trust me on this. It all starts with Lewis’s murder. Someone wanted to shut him up—of that I’m convinced—but his secrets couldn’t be contained.”
“Maybe it was just a robbery gone bad,” I said.
“No, even back then no one bought that theory. There at the scene, among his belongings, they found his watch, decorative pistols, knives, cash. It doesn’t wash.”
“Okay, so let me get this straight. Lewis was killed …”
“Uh-huh.”
“… somehow he passed on secrets through his descendants …”
“Uh-huh.”
“… and Mom, being a Lewis, paid for it with her own life?”
Johnny Ray nodded. “That’s how I see it.”
“Two hundred years of secrets and multiple murders? That’s some story. But if you’re right and Darrell Michaels was killed as part of all this, then we could be in serious danger too.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
I cupped my hand to the back of my neck. “How much longer?”
“To the monument? Couple miles. You’re not backing out now, are ya?”
“You kidding? If there’s any chance of understanding what happened to Mom, I’m there.”
Johnny grinned. “You said it, Aramis. Let’s get ’er done.”