“In September 1806, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, arrived in St. Louis after a grueling expedition that had lasted for more than two years and were hailed as heroes. This novel begins in St. Louis three years after the celebrations had ended with Will Clark serving as Superintendent of Indian Affairs and Meriwether Lewis as the appointed Governor of the Louisiana Territory. But the intervening years have not been kind to Lewis. He is fending off people to whom he is indebted and, more importantly, rebutting criticism from his superiors in Washington that he has misused government funds, and the bad news is washed down with a liberal amount of whiskey and a healthy dose of laudanum.
Sensing his vulnerability, Lewis is approached by James Wilkinson, who had been caught up in the Aaron Burr conspiracy a few years earlier, and who is now an agent of Spain. He attempts to involve Lewis in another conspiracy which will put him at the head of an empire carved out of the Louisiana Territory. Not only does Lewis not bite, but he heads off to Washington to defend his honor and to warn the government of Wilkinson’s actions. Because Lewis believes that Wilkinson has hired men to kill him in New Orleans, he heads to the Federal City on horseback by way of the primitive Natchez Trace.
No one can say exactly what happened on the Natchez Trace, but what is known is that Meriwether Lewis, the hero of the Corps of Discovery, died alone in a room rented from a Mrs. Grinder. Most historians believe that Lewis committed suicide. Because so few details are known, the author is free to create a story of conspiracy, pursuit, brutality, betrayal, and murder.
The characters are richly detailed and wholly believable. You can sense what it was like to travel the Natchez Trace with its seedy inns, runaway slave communities, and robbers. Everything necessary to recreate the early part of the 19th Century in the Louisiana Territory is covered, and all is woven into the compelling story of Meriwether Lewis, a man who had become a drunk, drug-addicted, persecuted wreck of a man, and his friend, William Clark, who could do nothing to save him.”
