The Best of Evil

by Eric Wilson

  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.”

  EIGHT

  With shirt sleeves rolled up and buttons undone, I stepped down from the Ford Ranger and headed for the stone obelisk that commemorates Meriwether Lewis. There’s some dispute whether his bones are actually buried here, and a few years back there was a push to exhume the remains for DNA testing.

  The plan dissolved, and that mystery still simmers.

  I was doing my own simmering—succumbing to the day’s unseasonable heat. Hair clung to my temples, and my shirt was plastered to my back. Settled among the ridge-backed hills and deep glens, the humidity had the bees humming among the scented dogwood and persimmon trees.

  “Let’s go have a look,” Johnny said.

  I waved off a pair of mosquitoes, filled my lungs with wet oxygen, and followed him to the grave marker where an elderly couple stood in contemplation.

  Crafted in 1848 by a local sculptor, the stone rises twenty feet with unpretentious grace. The top is broken, symbolizing Lewis’s abrupt departure from this world. On a marker, I found these words: “His life of romantic endeavor and lasting achievement came tragically and mysteriously to its close on the night of October 11, 1809.”

  “It’s ridiculous,” Johnny murmured.

  “What?”

  “The man risked life and limb for his country, and this is all he gets.”

  The elderly couple backed up a step, joined hands, and left.

  My brother adjusted his hat, sighed, then let his eyes wander to the obelisk’s jutting tip. “The whole thing’s a pity. The man died on his way to Washington, DC—”

  “Federal City back then. Check the handy guidebook.”

  “Which means,” Johnny Ray pressed on, “he never got to deliver his writings to his publisher, never got to swing by Monticello to defend his reputation. And the worst thing is, no one seemed to notice.”

  “Mass communication wasn’t what it is now.”

  “I’ll give you that. But get this: a coroner’s inquest was never even filed. Up till 1814, papers like that were the personal property of the justice of the peace, but these just disappeared.”

  “You really have been researching this.”

  “It’s got me hooked.” Johnny set his hand on the monument, bowing his head as though bestowing a benediction.

  “So what happened to these papers?”

  “Hard to say.”

  “Some sort of foul play, though, right?”

  “Mmm, not necessarily. Whoever had them could’ve just thrown them in a box and stuffed them in an attic. Who knows?”

  We crossed the gravel and grass to Grinder’s Stand, the site of Lewis’s death.

  A man with slumped shoulders, wrinkled gray slacks, and a baby-blue golfer’s visor meandered around the corner. In the grove beyond, a white-tailed deer watched with brown marble eyes, then bounded into the foliage.

  Johnny Ray fed me more details as we circled the wooden structures.

  Located north of the actual trace and reconstructed by the National Park Service, the rustic cabins are joined by a common breezeway. Robert and Priscilla Grinder had carved out a life for their sons here, operating the small inn for weary travelers. James Audubon traversed the trail in that period, painting his famed birds. Andrew Jackson, too, was a frequent passerby.

  “You think they ever stopped in?” I peer
ed through a dusty window.

  “Wouldn’t doubt it,” Johnny said. “What we know for sure is on that night of October 10, 1809, Mr. Grinder and his boys were away on business. Governor Lewis and his servant paid Mrs. Grinder for a room, and by the next day Lewis was dead.”

  “Was she a suspect?”

  “Well, local lore’s always included the names of the Grinders. Mr. Grinder was arrested at one point, but they released him for lack of evidence. Wasn’t till eighteen months after the incident that Mrs. Grinder gave a recorded interview. Her answers were contradictory.”

  “Maybe she was afraid of what her husband might do if she said anything.”

  “Maybe she was protecting him,” Johnny noted, “or someone else.”

  He told me the rest of that night’s account.

  Before Lewis’s demise, she heard him pacing and mumbling in the dark. Then a gunshot. A shout. And another shot. The governor crawled to her door, bleeding, and cried out, “Oh, madam. Give me some water! Heal my wounds.”

  At another point: “I’m no coward; but I am so strong, so hard to die.”

  He had knife lacerations. A slit throat.

  In a downward trajectory, a bullet had carved through his chest and intestines. Had he been shot while on his knees? Forced into a position of submission?

  “Can you imagine it, Aramis—an experienced soldier like him begging for his life? And if he did commit suicide, how did he botch it so badly? It just doesn’t add up. I’m not the only one who’s questioned it either. There was a legislative report in the mid-1800s that said something like, ‘It seems more probable that he died by the hands of an assassin.’ ”

  “That sounds pretty dramatic.”

  “It had to be one of Wilkinson’s men,” my brother said. “Wilkinson was on the Spanish payroll as a spy. They called him Number 13.”

  Johnny and I walked around the old buildings. My hand ran along the planks, extracting mental pictures from the rough wood: a miserable, insect-infested night … a slashing knife … a struggle in the dark and a gunshot … a man on his knees, dying.

  “Okay. So Lewis knew some incriminating evidence, and Wilkinson had him murdered. How does any of that trickle down to the present—to Mom or to us?”

  Johnny Ray shook his head. “I wish I knew.” He stopped in the shade of an eave and gazed across the memorial site. “Somewhere out here there has to be a clue, some sort of relic that’ll tie it all together.”

  “That’s all you’ve got to go on?”

  “Come on, kid. Help me start lookin’.”

  Johnny checked the speedometer, then glanced in the rearview mirror. We were headed back to Nashville empty-handed, despite a full two hours combing over the memorial marker, the rustic inn, and the surrounding grounds.

  “Should’ve known.”

  “Known what?”

  “You brought me on a wild-goose chase.” I slapped the guidebook down on the seat. “You were always dragging me along as a kid, talking me into those crazy ideas of yours.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Now look at you, acting paranoid, checking your mirrors over and over. What? You think we have nineteenth-century assassins on our trail?”

  “Aramis—”

  “Did they even know how to drive back then?”

  “Laugh all you want, but tell me this.” Johnny’s eyes danced again to the mirror. “Have you even considered that the bullet yesterday could’ve been aimed at you?”

  “Oh, you’re good. I thought maybe you were onto something with all your conspiracy talk. Okay, say someone is following us. What could they possibly want?”

  “ ‘You need the whip.’ Isn’t that what the Michaels kid said?”

  “The whip. Like I have a stinkin’ clue what that means. This is all so crazy, Johnny Ray. A big waste of my time.”

  “You’re wrong. Secrets and lies will haunt you till you pay them their due.”

  “I like it. You’ve got a real hit on your hands.”

  “Do you really think you can joke your way around every pothole on life’s road? You’re steerin’ for trouble. That’s what you’re doing.”

  “I kind of like trouble.”

  “And it obviously likes you too. Follows you everywhere you go.”

  “Yeah. We’re buddies.”

  “Uh-huh, you and trouble go way back. You almost lost your life, had yourself some religious experience, and still nothing’s changed.”

  “What do you mean, nothing’s changed?”

  “Don’t get me wrong. You’ve polished up real nice, but inside you’re still bitter as a cup of walnut juice. You’ve got to let things go.”

  “Let things go?” Fury welled in me, sudden and unchecked, and I threw my elbow against the seat between us. Johnny flinched. “Who do you think you are?” I yelled. “My judge and jury? For the past year I’ve worked my butt off to turn my life around and accomplish something worthwhile, something Mom would be proud of. You think you’re better than me? Think you can tell me how to live, how to eat? Oh, yes. You’re the smart one. The talented one. The firstborn son.” I waved my hand in an exaggerated bow. “Oh, hail the mighty Johnny Ray Black!”

  Fixated on the mirror, Johnny tugged on his Stetson.

  “We’re being followed,” he said.

  “Oh. My. Goodness. The man’s finally lost it.”

  “That white Camry back there—it’s been with us since we left the memorial.”

  I sneered. “And what was it they were after again?”

  “Good question. Is our food all gone?”

  “Our food? You think they’re hungry?”

  “No. We are. I’m gonna pull in at the Loveless Café, see what the Camry does.”

  The schizo aspects of his plan aside, I liked it. Food. Any excuse would do.

  I pretended to hide my face as we made the turn onto Highway 100. Through dramatically splayed fingers, I glanced at the passing vehicle. There in the driver’s seat sat the slumped man who had walked away from us at Grinder’s Stand. Although his golfing visor shaded his eyes, I did sense an abnormal amount of interest burning my direction.

  The man slowed the car, seeming unsure, then accelerated away.

  Sitting in the Loveless Café, protected from the humidity, I couldn’t help but chortle as I slathered homemade preserves onto scratch biscuits.

  “Looks like we really gave him the slip.”

  “For now,” Johnny said.

  He was dead serious, so I tried not to burst out laughing.

  The waitress approached, pleasant and middle-aged with a drawl thicker than the sorghum molasses on the table. I ordered country ham with red-eye gravy. Johnny mumbled his dietary concerns before selecting chicken salad and iced tea.

  “Sweet or unsweet?” the waitress inquired.

  “Unsweet.”

  I said, “A little sugar won’t kill you, you know. What’s gonna happen when you hit the big time? You’ll go to one of those Country Music Association dinners and starve.”

  “That’s the least of my concerns right now.”

  “My point exactly.” When the waitress returned with his iced tea, I dumped a packet of sugar into his glass, counting on childhood tactics to bring him out of his funk. “Go wild with it.”

  He didn’t laugh, didn’t smile. Not even a crack.

  NINE

  Home, sweet home.” Johnny pulled into the parking lot.

  The evening sky was orange and pink, traced with the thin, white contrails that gather over Nashville International Airport. Our brownstone stood in the glow, two stories tall, partially shaded by oaks and a magnificent magnolia.

  There are four residences in our building, all of them three-bedroom dwellings. Johnny Ray and I share the bottom floor unit. We each have our own room, and Johnny Ray claims the spare as a makeshift studio since his name is on the lease. He scrounged for months to line the walls with some sort of egg-carton material—“for acoustic integrity,” he claims—but still he plays
the guitar most often in the living room, in his boxers. Let the man do his thing, I say, even if he doesn’t always make sense.

  Creative types. Go figure.

  “Aramis, take a look.” My brother dropped the mail onto the dining table, then tapped the front page of the Tennessean newspaper.

  The headline was cold: “Man Shot, Killed in West End Shop.”

  I turned the paper around, read the account. It was nothing new, but in black and white it was a jolt of reality. No suspects yet, no arrests. Nothing new on Darrell Michaels.

  Black’s was named as well. A favorable description followed—and I felt like dirt. Lower than dirt. This is hard to admit, but the first thought through my mind was that this could be a blessing in disguise, a way of boosting business. I thought of the adage “There’s no such thing as bad press.”

  I slapped the newspaper shut.

  Turn your eyes from greed …

  It was already happening. I was becoming a greedy, sick man. What sort of person would be thinking of financial gain at a time like this?

  “Sorry, Darrell,” I whispered. “I really am.”

  With newfound conviction, I decided that what had happened in my shop would not keep me from pressing forward. I’d put all I had into Black’s—learning the art of coffee roasting, studying the demographics, decorating the place with Samantha’s help—and I refused to let the shooting tarnish my mother’s memory.

  Black’s is my ode to her. My mom deserves the best from me.

  And my father?

  He made his presence known when least expected, dropping words like grenades into my world. “If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger.” That’s the sort of thing he likes to say—as though he’s doing you a favor, as though he’s a real humanitarian, beating sense into you until he’s beaten you senseless.

  Thank you, Papa Bear. Again. Hit me again. You’re sure teaching me a lesson now. Oh yeah, it’s really sinking in.

  I’ve been told he was a different person before Mom’s death.

  I try to believe it. And though some part of my brain rumbles with thoughts of a gentler man, his deep, droll tone brings the darkness back in a rush.