"I am no coward; but I am so strong, [it is] so hard to die.", and: Loss

Abstract

"I am no coward; but I am so strong, [it is] so hard to die." – Meriwether Lewis, with self-inflicted pistol wounds; October 11, 1809 April-boastful in 1805 with his rifle, at first, in contrast to Indian fears, Lewis soon shudders, writes of a monster with four-inch talons, a maw of flesh and fish, 600 pounds of hair and roar, his heart even in proportion with his outrage and pale bulk. Attacked, they pursue their shooters, he discloses, including one eventually reversed and tracked, his skull shot twice in a belt of rosebushes. Hard to die, he says, then, of the gentlemen, one of whom he meets on June fourteenth, his gun unloaded, the buffalo standing before him fat and bleeding from the mouth and nostrils. Twenty steps away, the grizzly [End Page 130] startles him, gains on him, and he flees, alone, waist-deep into water, his espontoon raised for battle. Why it retreats is a mystery. Why it retreats is a mystery Lewis sleeps in, and vows to be always prepared for returns. Loss Forget, said the snow falling again and again until someone released the poem into the woods, or someone neglected to shut the door, or it ate a hole through the wall, or it curled up in the arms of the thief who stumbled in the dark, in the snow, and it fled. The tracks were lost, and the people could give nothing to the dogs for scent. No one could agree on a description; the neighbors' search party disbanded as quickly as it was formed. [End Page 131] The woman cried because she could not discern one wood call from another, and thus, could not know if it called, lost and withering, to her; the man, out in the snow, could not call it back, and cried because it could not discern his voice, his want, his plainspoken concern. Forget, said the snow falling again and again until the one color seen from the upstairs window was yellow, the grand yellow stucco miles and hills away, too jubilant to be a salve.