The Explorer: a Novel

Prologue and Chapter One: This is Where I Am

Prologue

Through Another's Eyes

For two centuries, the young Virginia gentleman has waited. He stands tall and strong on a green Montana hillside, wearing a flannel shirt, deerskin pants, and moccasins.  His light brown, sun-bleached hair is tied back into a ponytail.  True, it's been two hundred years since his heart beat its last.  His spirit now resides in the meandering Missouri River, the mysterious White Cliffs, and the lonely Natchez Trace.  A new spring breeze soothes the explorer's weathered, sunburned skin.  He closes his eyes to the insistent sunlight and breathes in the reviving fragrances.

Images from his years among us seep into his daydream: his gifted mother, the herbalist and healer; Mr. Jefferson, the tall, red-haired mentor and statesman; "the girls" the young man might have loved.  Starvation in the Idaho mountains.  Bone-chilling great plains mornings.  Snow-dusted bison exhaling steam.  A lamp burns late in the Executive mansion as President Jefferson's silhouette paces.

The images swirl into a flood and crash into the present.  She does not yet realize that he is constantly at her side.  Her heart has beaten for several decades, and will for years to come.  The explorer opens his eyes and recalls scenes from her life: birthdays, recitals, Halloween costumes, graduations, kisses.  Hope, laughter, rage.  Death.  Who can say why two souls from different ages are linked in this way?

He does not want to let go.  She awakens from a dream in the middle of a New Hampshire night; she still feels the warmth of his calloused hand.  She turns on the light on the nightstand and picks up a notebook and pen from the floor by her bed.  Pushing her long dark hair from her eyes, she attempts to write an adequate description of the dream:

 "The man stood opposite me.  It was a clear, beautiful day.  A shadow hid his face.  I can't recall the kind words he had spoken.  He held my hand.  He loved me.  That other voice - that anonymous, wise voice that has guided me through recent dreams - said from behind my right shoulder, 'This love is what we all wait for.  Do not worry; it will not pass you by.  You will recognize it when it happens.' "

For several years, the memory of the dream sustains her, inspires her, shields her, annoys her.  She reminds herself that she breathlessly waits for a love that is, after all, the mere interpretation of the memory of a dream.

Chapter One:  This is Where I Am

 Another red light.  I got them all that sweltering June afternoon, as I drove home from my job at the deli.  Twentieth-century traffic squeezed through eighteenth-century streets, past the world-famous college prep school.  Even the local drive-through nail salon had ivy-smothered walls.  I considered turning on the air conditioner, but I always drove home from work with the windows open.  It helped to dissipate the sliced-onion, stinky-cheese perfume I usually wore by the end of the day. 

I couldn't believe how hilariously discouraging the day had been.  I misplaced the lunch order for our biggest corporate customer.  I tripped carrying a sandwich platter (that is why we don't stack boxes near the kitchen door, I told seventeen-year- old Rob, as I scraped shredded lettuce off my bruised knees).

I, Jennifer Corelli, was fired.

The credit card company withdrew all the money from my checking account, except for $28.32.

And now this traffic jam on the hottest June day in New Hampshire history.  The worst day of my fortyish years.  With my luck, I thought, my car will probably overheat.

I tapped my fingers to a familiar tune, probably coming from the next car's radio.  No, actually it was my radio, which didn't even work.  My radio?  Now my radio was turning itself on?  I had to admit, the radio had instantly developed an uncanny knack for finding the right nostalgic song for the right anguished moment.  I had first heard the song when I was five or six, perhaps from a passing car, maybe from an open apartment window.  I remember melodies that way - an accidental encounter with several chords, which reintroduce themselves years later, with much drama.  I definitely had not heard this song at my house; my father had indignantly forbid rock music, tossing contraband 45's out the window like so many Frisbees.  Ah, I thought, as Van Morrison serenaded me in the oppressive traffic, at least you still like me, resurrected radio.  Thanks for untying the knot in my solar plexus.  I felt as though I'd had a fine day, right down to the electric tingle in my bones.

Through Another's Eyes

The invisible young man sits back in the passenger seat, and watches her drive and sing.  Even now, his poker face rarely betrays his thoughts.  His light brown hair is undisturbed by the wind; his white linen shirt is untouched by the wilting heat.  He feels no bumps in the road.

"You're all right now," he says in his slow Virginia drawl.  Without hearing him, she senses his voice in her bones.

I finally drove onto the pine tree-lined driveway of the house in which I lived.  The two-story private house had been converted into three apartments; mine was on the second floor.  The white pine fragrance enveloped me and temporarily cooled my racing thoughts.  From the top of one of the trees, a robin urgently advised the other birds of my presence.  The large yellow and black spider who had built a web under the front steps rested upside down in the shade.  Neither my ninety-three-year-old landlord nor I had the heart - or the nerve - to remove her.  I normally cringed at spiders, but as I watched her work tenaciously to build her home and earn her living, I came to accept her company.

The warm tingling in my neck and shoulders, which had begun in the car, continued as I climbed the stairs and unlocked my apartment door.  I turned on the fan, flopped on the couch, and picked up the TV remote.  There was another Lewis and Clark documentary, one of many that aired during the expedition's bicentennial anniversary.  The famous Charles Willson Peale portraits of the two captains stared from the TV screen.  I envied their friendship and their opportunity to explore the unknown wonders of this country.  And there was Seaman, Lewis' faithful Newfoundland dog.  Then came the inevitable discussion of Lewis' death at age thirty-five (was it murder or suicide?).  My mind insisted on wandering, so I shut off the TV and turned on the radio to listen to classical music.  Beethoven's sixth symphony -my favorite Beethoven symphony  -- was playing.

I resolved to wait until the next morning to contemplate my catastrophic day.  Naturally, I immediately began to compile mental lists of possessions I could sell to pay for groceries until I found another job.  I didn't really need so many books (and I had many books), CD's, or my CD player.  I progressed into "my life is over" mode in record time, and decided that I didn't need food, shelter, shoes, or friends, either.  I would leave no trace.  No one needed to know I'd ever breathed.  My anxiety spiraled into the muddy, sticky, obsessive despair that often alienated the people closest to me.  I wasn't sure which was more damaging: the bad news that precipitated the mood, or the mood itself.

Enough, already.  I took two sleeping pills and lay down on the couch.  No thought of supper.  Not hungry, anyway.  With the radio still playing, I turned on the television and hit the "mute" button.  Now the program was a local panel discussion.  Perfect.  I often fell asleep this way.

The breeze from the fan slightly dried the sweaty T-shirt and shorts I wore to "bed" - the same clothes I had worn to work.  As I drifted between "awake" and "asleep," an image of a ponderosa-covered mountainside, half-hidden in mist, passed through my mind's eye.  Someone said, "this is where I am," and then I fell asleep.

A smoky fragrance awakened me.  But where was I?  My face felt cold.  I opened my eyes in a dark, quiet log cabin, lit only by a crackling fireplace.  I lay on the floor, still in my sweaty clothes, wrapped in a heavy, dense, fur blanket (but wasn't it June?).  I heard water pouring into a cup.  And I was sure I heard a dog panting, first close behind me, then further away, then close again. A man whispered, "Shh!  Good boy."  It didn't occur to me to run away or move at all.  Not a thing in the room was familiar, other than a safe feeling that I just couldn't place.

The man cleared his throat.   Footsteps came hesitatingly toward me.  The tall, slender man, who wore a deerskin jacket, knelt beside me, placing his rough hand on my forehead.  A large black Newfoundland dog followed and lay down beside him.  With the fireplace glowing behind the man, all I could see of him was the flickering outline of his forehead and cheekbone.  He wore his hair in a ponytail.  With no hint of a smile, he removed his hand from my forehead and scrutinized me.  The shadow hid his eyes, but I sensed a profoundly serious, concerned gaze.   As I observed him through half-closed eyes, he placed a tin mug of sweet-smelling infusion on the floor next to me. 

"What's going on?" I suddenly asked, propping myself up on my elbow.  It must have been the last thing the poor fellow had expected; his jaw dropped, he lost his balance, and he fell over backwards, knocking over a stack of books, and crashing into an empty kettle and several pots and pans which stood next to the fireplace.  The chilly cabin air hit my back and shoulders; I scooted under the blanket again. 

"You're dreaming," the young man winced, attempting to sit up.  As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw that the man was probably in his mid-thirties, a few years younger than I.  The dog worriedly licked his master's face, and lay down between us.   

"Oh, I'm here, all right," he answered, carefully touching the back of his head and examining his fingers for blood.  He looked directly at me and pointed at the mug.  "Drink that," he said.  "It will warm you."  Hmm.

The dog suddenly raised his head and looked at the door, listening intently, as dogs often do, to sounds only they hear.  He barked and scrambled to his feet.  He barked twice more, and wagged his tail.  The man chuckled and shook his head.  Attempting to be serious again, he stood up and faced the dog.

"Seaman!  Quiet!" he ordered the Newfoundland, who was now pacing, his tail still wagging. 

Seaman?  That Seaman?  What a cool dream.

"C'mon back and lie down!  C'mon!"  The man sheepishly turned toward me.  "My dog, Seaman.  Sorry."  He looked at the floor, then back at me, no doubt noticing my odd expression.  An awkward half-smile briefly illuminated his face.  I sort of smiled back.  Seaman ambled back to his master and lay down again, resting his head between his front paws, sighing heavily.

Meriwether Lewis stared at me.  "Are you going to drink that?"  he asked with good-natured impatience.  "It tastes best before it cools."  He sat on the floor next to me and pushed the drink toward me.

I sat up, took the mug form Captain Lewis and blew on the steaming liquid.  I sipped warily.  The infusion tasted grassy, bitter, and berry-like all at once.  The captain watched me, apparently assuring himself that I was drinking the entire contents.  My insides warmed immediately.  I became less curious about where Captain Lewis and I were, and more interested in falling asleep under the heavy blanket.