Lewisicma

MERIWETHER LEWIS by Richard Dillon. 364 pages. Coward-McCann. $6.95.

It began with the biggest real-estate deal in history. On April 30, 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte sold Thomas Jefferson a parcel of land called Louisiana. It ran from the Mississippi to the Rockies, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and it was quite a bargain: 827,987 sq. mi. for $15 million. But what the U.S. owned it did not occupy. Already British traders were pressing south from Canada and Spanish raiders were roaming north from Mexico. Jefferson realized that he would have to move fast if America was to retain its new territory. He moved fast.

The President went looking for a man who could handle the situation, and he found the man at his elbow. Captain Meriwether Lewis, Jefferson's lifelong friend and private secretary, was a Virginian who at 29 combined impressive military and diplomatic experience with a lively intellect, immense stamina and wide knowledge of the frontier. Go west, young man, said Jefferson--and westward Lewis went.

Impossible Mission. Leaving the vicinity of St. Louis on May 14, 1804, the explorer's Corps of Discovery struck north along the Missouri. There were 45 untested men in Lewis' party and appalling instructions in his pouch: 1) explore the northern half of the new territory, 2) find a navigable northwest passage to the Pacific, 3) establish U.S. sovereignty over the Indian tribes, 4) make accurate maps and note favorable sites for settlement, 5) catalogue the animal, vegetable, mineral and human resources, and 6) do the whole job for $2,500.

Impossible? Certainly. When Lewis and his men reeled back into St. Louis some 28 months later, they had spent all of $38,722.25. But in every essential respect they had accomplished their historic mission--and something more. They had astonished the age with their sagacity and fortitude; they had enacted for all posterity the great American epic of exploration.

In this ambitious, absorbing biography, the odyssey is redacted with fidelity and vigor. As Author Dillon develops the narrative, Lewis evolves into a brilliant, noble and magnificently effective neurotic, one of the most admirable and tragic figures of the American past.

Instant Inventions. Lewis proved his prowess even in his preparations for the expedition. For his second-in-command he picked his friend Lieut. William Clark, 33, a fellow Virginian and a born leader; with characteristic generosity, Lewis made Clark joint leader of the expedition. To meet the special requirements of the journey, Lewis invented a collapsible canoe, a powdered soup and a sturdy lightweight rifle that was promptly adopted by the army for all infantrymen. The expedition's armament was so awesome that during the entire trip no Indian nation dared risk battle with Lewis' main force.

The Missouri was not so easily intimidated. Against the main current, oars and poles were useless, and along the collapsing sides of the stream the explorers passed at peril of their lives. At night the exhausted oarsmen camped at river's edge, wolfed bear meat and venison washed down with half a pint of whisky apiece. In what is now South Dakota, death stalked the expedition. For three days and nights, while ferocious Sioux lined the banks of the river and waited for a chance to strike, Lewis and Clark could not risk so much as a catnap. But the Arikara proved friendly--too friendly. Their "squars" were pretty and so "fond of caressing our men" that they invaded the camp to "persist in their civilities."

In late November 1804, the Corps completed a U-shaped log cabin about 60 ft. square, named it Fort Mandan and prepared to winter in North Dakota. Whisky froze at 38 below and game was scarce. But the expedition's half-breed scout could find animals where they weren't; meat was almost always on the table, and for the first time a woman was regularly in the camp: Sacajawea, the diligent, intelligent and virtuous squaw of a French Canadian interpreter.

Boils & Deadfalls. On April 7, 1805. the voyage resumed. The river now veered west into "a country on which the foot of civilized man had never yet trodden." In Montana the hills heaved up and game became so abundant that Lewis imagined himself in the Happy Hunting Ground: buffalo, beaver, wolves, and more grizzlies than a man cared to think about. On July 4 the Corps drank the last of its whisky. Two weeks later Lewis and his men rowed in awe through the majestic gorges of the Missouri. Then came the Bitterroot Mountains, a nightmare of deadfalls, gorges, beaver dams, saddle wasps, dysentery, boils and near-starvation. On Nov. 8, with profound relief, Clark scribbled hysterically in the logbook: "Ocian in view. O, the joy!"

Outwardly, little happened to the Corps of Discovery during its second winter on the trail, which was spent in another U-shaped log cabin, Fort Clatsop. Inwardly, something ominous happened to its commander--the first signs of emotional instability began to appear. On April 21, on the first leg of the return trip, Lewis slugged a thieving Indian. Among the amicable Nez Perces he threatened an insolent brave with a tomahawk. Back across the Rockies, he shot a Piegan Blackfoot who tried to steal his rifle and his horse.

Suicide or Murder? On Sept. 23, 1806, the expedition came safely home to St. Louis. But for Lewis, civilization held dangers more insidious than any in the wilderness: fame, adulation, politics. As a reward for his services, Jefferson in 1807 installed Lewis as governor of the territory that might appropriately have been rechristened Lewisiana. But the man who was at home behind a swivel gun proved ill at ease behind a desk. Lewis began to drink hard, and when he drank he sank into melancholy and delirium.

In September 1809, his affairs in confusion, the governor headed back to Washington. On the way, according to a traveling companion, he twice attempted suicide. Then one night, while Lewis was lodged in an isolated cabin on Tennessee's sinister Natchez Trace, two shots rang out. In the morning he was found dead. Suicide? Murder? Nobody knows, but Author Dillon thinks it was murder. When Lewis stopped for the night, he was carrying more than $100; in the morning his pockets contained 25-c-. He was buried in the woods, and his grave was all but forgotten. To his family he left an estate of $9.43 1/2. To his country he left more than legend. He showed the way West.

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