The Dakota Cipher

by William Dietrich

  ‘Crosses!’ I cried.

  ‘Aye!’ Pierre shouted. ‘Not every crew has made it into this shelter, and those mark the voyageurs who failed! Eye them well, and bail some more!’

  They looked like pale bones, glowing in the light of the periodic lightning.

  Never have I bailed with more desperation, my muscles cracking with the strain, veins throbbing on my neck. I looked across. Now Aurora was bailing too, eyes wide and fearful. The rain came harder, in great, buffeted streaks, and I was gasping against it, feeling I was already drowning. Six inches of water were in the bottom. I grasped the pot again and flung pitchersful like a madman.

  I glanced about. One of the other canoes was gone. I pointed.

  ‘It’s too late for them, they are dead from the cold! Paddle, paddle!’

  And then we shot past the gnarled knob of land that marked the bay, the canoe rising and surfing on the long swells, and carefully turned, Jacques steering with fierce concentration so we wouldn’t broach when broadside to the waves. We turned into the storm, rain hammering, and fought our way into the lee of the point, wind screaming over the shuddering foliage at its crest. There was a red gravel beach and we made for that, the bowmen leaping out in waist-deep water, waves surging to their armpits.

  ‘Don’t let the canoes break on the beach!’

  We held them off, the lake numbing, as our waterproof ninety-pound bundles were lifted out and hurled up, gravel rattling as surf sucked in and out. Aurora was half lifted and then half jumped into the shallows, staggering in her skirts and then swaying as she splashed up onto land with her dress dragging like a sail. But then she came back down and dragged a bundle back up with her. The men turned the canoes so the water in the bottom poured out then carried them like caterpillars to where they could be propped against the wind. I looked up at the dark landscape beyond. Here the hills were high and hard, murky in the storm’s dim light. Lightning cracked and struck on the highlands.

  I glanced around to our party, everyone’s hair streaming, voyageur moustaches dripping like moss. Even Aurora’s ringlets had half-uncurled in soggy defeat.

  ‘Aye, we will not get to Grand Portage too soon,’ Pierre said. ‘The lake never lets us. See why we paddle hard when we can, American?’

  ‘What if we hadn’t been near this bay?’

  ‘Then we would die, as we all die someday. What if the wind had been on our nose? That has happened too, and driven me a dozen miles back to find proper shelter.’

  ‘What about those others?’

  ‘We’ll cross the point to look for them. And if the witch doesn’t give them up, we will fashion more crosses.’

  ‘That was more than a thousand in freight those fools lost!’ Cecil seethed. ‘They have to answer to the devil, but I have to answer to McTavish!’

  We never found their bodies, but some of the trade goods did wash ashore, so tightly wrapped in tarpaulins as to be salvageable. Their contents would be dried in the next day’s sun.

  The storm moved on, the sun low when it finally broke clear in the west. I was stiff and shivering with cold and thus happy for the exercise when Pierre beckoned me to follow him into the trees in search of dry wood. Magnus came too, swinging his great axe to break trail like a moose. In moments we were swallowed in a labyrinth of birch and thick moss, the wind and waves audible but our path back swallowed. I soon lost track of our direction.

  ‘How do you know where we are?’

  ‘Our blundering leaves signs, and the sound of the waves. But I like the water, not the forest where a man goes blind. I’ve had companions planning to walk a hundred paces to fetch a pail of berries and vanish without a trace. Some say Indians, some say bears, some say Wendigo. I say it is simply the soul of the forest, which sometimes gets hungry and swallows men up.’

  I glanced about. The trees shuddered, the shadows were deep, and water pattered everywhere. I could be lost for days.

  Pierre, however, seemed to have a calm sense of direction. We found a downed tree in the lee of a rock, its underside punk wood, and chopped until we quickly had armfuls of dry fuel and moss for tinder. We followed his sure route back and the other voyageurs used flint, steel, and gunpowder to catch the kindling. Smoke began puffing up in great grey clouds. Meanwhile Magnus was chopping more sizable wood with his axe, snapping dead driftwood into lengths with a single swing. I carried these to add to our pyramids of flame. Soon we had three bonfires roaring. Clothes steamed as the voyageurs began a makeshift manic dance like red savages, singing bawdy French songs and laughing and weeping at our escape and the death of their comrades, a tragedy they seemed to regard as unremarkable as the storm itself. Death was as common as snow in the north country.

  The sun neared the horizon, giving the wet beach and forest behind it a golden glow as if lacquered. The canvas tents of our nobility went up, steaming, and Cecil broke out a keg of rum and gave us each a tot, even Aurora gulping the fiery liquid down like a sailor.

  We began to grin stupidly, the way people do when they escape. Nothing makes you feel more alive than a brush with death.

  Then the fires burnt down to manageable coals and we began to cook our peas and pork and hominy, stomachs growling. The men stirred fat into the corn porridge.

  We ate as if famished, shaking with weariness. Pierre, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and licking it, addressed Cecil. ‘Lord Somerset, we’ve had loss but also gain this day. I watched the donkeys perform well – maybe because they wanted to keep their canoe in pace with that of your pretty cousin, no?’

  ‘If Ethan and Magnus are as weary as I am, then we all did yeoman work.’

  ‘They are not yet North Men but they are, perhaps, worthy of the company of the Pork Eaters of Montreal, eh, my porcine-loving friends?’

  ‘A Pork Eater is worth a hundred North Men!’ his Montreal companions cried. ‘Yes, let the donkeys be baptized into our company!’

  Pierre addressed us, arms folded like a potentate. ‘Ethan and Magnus, you have had a taste of the real lake and, much to my surprise, not only lived but have not completely embarrassed yourself. With my own eyes, I saw you drive and bail our canoe past Dead Man’s Point with the terrible will this country requires. As voyageurs die, new ones vie for their place. I think it is time you truly joined our company, if you dare to receive such high honour.’

  ‘My muscles are twitching, I’m so tired,’ I confessed.

  ‘A few weeks more and you will not be such women. So we will baptize you now.’ He picked up a spruce branch snapped by the wind and walked down to the breaking waves on our ruddy beach, the surf on fire in the setting sun. He dipped the branch, carried it back, and shook its droplets over our head. ‘By the power vested in me as a North Man of the North West Company, I initiate you into our fellowship! From now on you are no longer donkeys but have names, which at dawn I will carve into a tree!’

  ‘It’s an honour,’ Magnus said. ‘If we have satisfied you, you’ve impressed me with your endurance, little man. You have the strength of a giant.’

  Pierre nodded. ‘Of course I have impressed you. A French voyageur is worth a hundred Norwegians.’ He looked at me. ‘And now you must thank the assembly for this honour by taking your silver dollars and buying from Lord Somerset two kegs of shrub, as custom demands.’

  ‘How do you know I have silver dollars?’

  ‘Fool American! Of course we have been through your things a dozen times while you slept. All must be shared! Nothing is private among the voyageurs! And we know you can afford to treat us at Grand Portage as well!’

  I resolved to hide a few coins for myself in the sole of my moccasins.

  So a drunk began, earned by the day’s dramatic storm, the rum a needed fire in our throats. As night fell the fires were built up again, sparks swirling up into a sky now brushed clean and full of stars, and Aurora’s tent glowed with a pale translucence from a candle within. Pierre had said we’d rest the next day, and it occurred to me that I might have more ene
rgy for evening recreation if I knew I could sleep in the next morning. I wanted a taste of life after the day’s death. As inebriation mounted I backed into the shadows and crept to her tent flap, the others singing behind me. Surely she was ready for some warmth by now!

  ‘Aurora!’ I whispered. ‘It’s Ethan! I’m here to attend as you suggested. The night is cold, and we can bring each other comfort.’

  There was silence.

  ‘Aurora?’

  ‘What cheek, Mr Gage. I gave no invitation. I am a woman of propriety, after all. We must be discreet.’

  ‘Discretion is my specialty. Let’s wager that I can be quieter than you can.’

  ‘You are presumptuous, Yankee Doodle!’

  ‘But companionable. I hope your memory is as fond as mine.’ I don’t know why, but women require a measure of persistence and palaver before agreeing to the obvious. Fortunately, I am a fountain of charm. As Franklin said, ‘Neither a fortress nor a maidenhead will hold out long after they begin to parley.’

  ‘But what has changed, Ethan Gage?’ she said. ‘There’s no true intimacy when a man won’t share his purpose. No affection without a demonstration of trust. How can we unite our purposes if I don’t know what your purpose is?’

  Women do take patience, don’t they? ‘I’m just an explorer! I’m never quite sure of my purpose, actually. I just wander about, hoping for the best.’

  ‘I don’t believe that. And I’m not sure of my own affections until you are sure of our partnership. Imagine if we all joined your quest.’

  ‘Aurora, I told you – we’re looking for elephants.’

  A sharp intake of breath. ‘I have shared everything with you, Ethan. Everything! You give me nonsense in return!’

  ‘I’m in a giving mood right now.’

  ‘Good night, sir.’

  ‘But Aurora!’

  ‘Please don’t make me call my cousin for help.’

  ‘I must have reason to hope!’

  Silence.

  ‘Some small measure of pity!’ I hate grovelling, but it occasionally works, and the more I thought about her, the hornier I became. Yes, I know I was addled as a loon.

  Finally she answered. ‘Very well. If you teach me to truly use that remarkable firearm you’re so proud of, perhaps I will relent. I am quite fascinated with shooting.’

  ‘You want to fire my gun?’

  ‘We can hunt together in the morning. Sport gets my blood up.’

  I considered. Did the girl simply want more privacy? A roll on the forest moss away from the others? I could impress her with my accuracy, bag some game, massage her delicate feet near a clear forest stream, try to remember a sonnet or two … So off I crept, thwarted but not yet ready to surrender.

  I came back into the firelight and a circle of drunken men.

  ‘You look frustrated, my friend!’ Pierre cried, taking another swig of rum. ‘Having been baptized, are you impatient to be immortalized in the bark of a tree?’

  ‘I was seeking distaff company.’

  ‘Ah. Women wound.’ Heads around the fire nodded with sympathy.

  ‘Ethan, haven’t you realised that your worldly success is in inverse proportion to your romantic success?’ Magnus said. ‘We’ve got better things to discover than Aurora Somerset!’

  ‘But she’s here. Discovery is out there.’

  ‘Forget about the fancy lady,’ Pierre agreed. ‘That one is like trying to carry berries in your cheek and not lose any juice. More care than it’s worth.’

  ‘She’s so beautiful.’ My plaintive tone embarrassed even me.

  ‘So are half the dusky wenches at Grand Portage, and they are a hundred times more appreciative. Forget the fancy one and pick yourself a squaw.’

  ‘I don’t want a squaw.’

  ‘How do you know when you haven’t met her yet?’

  But I was tired of the jocular insults and advice, so I moved away to restlessly wait for the morrow’s hunt beneath a canoe, knowing Aurora was making a fool of me but not particularly caring. The best way to regain my equilibrium was her conquest. Perhaps it would be easier away from camp. I wouldn’t even mind babbling about Norse hammers, but she’d just think us lunatics and leave us on the beach.

  I lay sleepless as the voyageurs exhausted the rum and collapsed, and then there was a crunch of gravel by my makeshift garret and I saw a boot. Sir Cecil bent down to look at me under the rim of the boat.

  ‘Lord Somerset.’ I was afraid he was going to warn me off.

  ‘Mr Gage.’ He cleared his throat. ‘We’re a small group, and I heard of your disappointment. My cousin is moody, like all women. She breaks hearts like crockery and thinks little of it. Don’t be too sensitive.’

  ‘We’re going shooting tomorrow, while the party rests.’

  ‘You’ll find her a crack shot. And tameable, if you meet her halfway.’

  ‘Then you’re not opposed to our friendship?’

  ‘I’m not opposed to our partnership.’

  The gravel crunched as he walked away and I realised he’d included himself in any union. As I drifted off to sleep, I wondered why Cecil Somerset cared at all about his cousin’s romance with a wastrel like me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  While the voyageurs slept off their shrub, Aurora prodded me awake at dawn. She was dressed in boots, breeches, and a sky-blue, short-tailed hunting coat. Her luxuriant hair had been tied back and her hands were sheathed in doeskin gloves. ‘Let’s try this rifle of yours!’ she said, brisk as a chipmunk.

  I groaned to myself, having not had enough sleep, but sprang up like a toy on a spring, my groggy instinct to impress her. Perhaps the chipmunk’s brain was mine.

  Far from being the prim and helpless female she posed when whim took her, Aurora soon had me trailing and panting as she led the way up a granite ridge, Lake Superior a blue ocean below. Her slim legs were spry as a deer, and she had a good eye for the best path and signs of game. I didn’t mind following, having plenty of time to get a good eyeful, but it was clear that Lady Somerset’s comfort in the wilderness was not entirely due to parasols and trunks of clothes. Every time I tried to woo her with some witty or soulful remark she silenced me with a hand and stern look, pointing as if dinner were certain to appear. And sure enough, we did manage to sneak up on a yearling buck. She took my longrifle and felled it at seventy-five yards with a single shot through the neck, sighting and squeezing like a marksman and displaying no difficulty holding the heavy weapon steady or absorbing its kick.

  ‘Splendid shot!’

  ‘Your gun shoots slightly high and to the left.’

  She gutted the deer with her own ivory-handled knife, giving me pause at her efficiency in slitting around the testicles. Then she sliced off its head and heaved up the haunch to place it on my shoulders. ‘This is too heavy for me.’ Back down the mountain she led.

  My regal, delicate woman had been replaced overnight with a regular Boone, independent and laconic, and I realised that despite the delectability of her slim form, I didn’t much care for this new guise. It’s odd how one falls under a spell, and odder still when one begins to wake from it. I finally realised how little I understood her, or our relationship. I had not seduced but instead been seduced, and not by an English lady but by some kind of huntress – as dangerous, possibly, as Magnus had warned. I remembered his tales of Loki, the Norse trickster god, who could assume many shapes and eventually triggered Ragnarok, the end of the world.

  But then we did stop at a stream to rest and cool our feet. Hers, when I offered to massage them – a tactic that seems to work with all manner of women – were indeed more callused than I expected, or remembered. Nor did she swoon at my touch.

  ‘I’m beginning to suspect that you’re more at home in the wilderness than I imagined.’

  ‘Really?’ Her eyes were half-lidded as she leant back, regarding me. ‘I’ve learnt some things in travels with my cousin. And Cecil and my father taught me to shoot in England. It’s ever so s
atisfying to kill things, don’t you think?’

  ‘Your skill at shooting makes us even greater soul mates than I’d guessed,’ I tried. ‘We have the camaraderie not just of the bed but of the target.’

  ‘We’re simply having some sport, Mr Gage.’

  ‘There are sports other than shooting we could still teach each other, I’m sure.’ I do have a dogged persistence.

  ‘Like why a French spy and a Norwegian revolutionary want to go into fur country?’

  ‘I’m no spy.’

  ‘You keep secrets like one. You come from Bonaparte, Astor, and Jefferson.’

  ‘I’m simply scouting Louisiana, as I told you. For elephants.’

  ‘No. Bloodhammer is after more. It’s obvious that the pair of you have a wicked secret, and I’m beginning to suspect even you don’t fully know what it is. You follow anyone with a strong will, and he’s playing you.’ She drew her feet back and put on her boots. ‘We could help if you’d let us, but it seems you enjoy blind conspiracy. No matter. Everything will come out at Grand Portage.’

  I was annoyed by her scorn. ‘So let’s enjoy our companionship now.’

  She sprang up. ‘I gave you a sample, but I form relationships only with men I trust.’ And taking my rifle in her own fist, she started down again.

  I wearily stood, shouldering the meat and suddenly not liking the way she held my rifle so tightly and not me. I thought she had the politeness to wait on an outcrop, but instead she was paying me no attention, instead looking intently down at the bay below.

  ‘They’ve come,’ she said.

  A canoe was making for shore, its wake a widening V of silver. Indians were the paddlers, but the central figure wore the red coat of a British soldier. Voyageurs waded out to pull it to shore and the occupants leapt out and disappeared into the trees.

  ‘Who’s come?’

  ‘Cecil’s guide.’

  It took us an hour to work down the ridge towards the plume of smoke that marked camp, and when we were a few hundred yards from our destination we came across the small pond that changed everything. It was a low wetland at the base of the hill fringed by reeds and surrounded by trees, quiet and wind-protected, and the day had warmed enough that bathing would be pleasant. We heard a splash, and realised someone was in the water.