Lewis bathes until his toes and fingers wrinkle. He drinks until his stomach aches. The horses splash along the banks and feast on grass, and when Lewis walks past his own mount, she whickers and nuzzles his neck and stares at him with her soft black eyes and he pets her and can’t help but smile. The doctor takes a knife and hacks down some leafy willow branches and hands them out for everyone to swing over their shoulders to warn away the mosquitoes and deerflies. The earth has greened and blued. Water unspools beside them, the river ever widening. Flowers bloom in explosions of color that match the feeling inside them all. Gawea helps them forage, showing them what to look for—strawberries and raspberries and blueberries and gooseberries—until their fingers and lips are stained, the flavors impossibly good. They eat bird eggs, sorrel leaves, basswood leaves, oyster mushrooms, currants, clover, worms, grubs. If things are this good now, their mood seems to say, how much better might they be in Oregon?
