Sacred Ground

by Alex Archer

  Wishman frowned. “But?”

  “That has changed,” Derek said. “The company is sending the first miners to this place tomorrow. They will not start drilling right away, of course.”

  Angry murmurs filled the room. Wishman urged quiet. “How long will we have?”

  Derek shrugged. “Perhaps a few days. Perhaps a week.”

  All hell broke loose.

  13

  By the next morning, things had quieted down to an unsettled murmur. Annja came out of the shelter that she shared with Godwin and Derek to find the camp bustling with Araktak men. Some of them were chopping wood for the fires while others had unloaded an array of shovels and picks from the backs of trucks that Annja hadn’t even noticed the previous day.

  Derek’s news of the accelerated schedule had not gone over well, but it was Wishman who finally restored order by reminding them all that they had signed an agreement with the company. Rather than argue about it, the best course of action was simply to accept the idea that things were moving faster. It just meant they had to do their work faster and accomplish what they set out to do.

  “Besides,” Wishman had said, “Friend of Bear is with us. And Chunok would not have sent her if he was not confident in her abilities.”

  Annja had frowned. Nothing like having more pressure added to the situation, she thought.

  But she knew upon waking that she would have to do her best, if only so that the Araktak people had a legacy to share with future generations.

  She wandered over to the main lodge and got some breakfast before stepping back outside. She finished a cup of coffee and saw Godwin coming back through the trees. He’d obviously been out for a walk.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  He nodded. “This really is beautiful country. I can see why the Araktak would claim it as home.”

  “Sure,” Annja said. “But it’s part of your land, as well.”

  Godwin grinned. “Good luck making that argument with the council of elders. My attempts to talk to Wishman have so far met with dismal failure.”

  “You can’t blame him. What with Derek’s bombshell last night, they’re not necessarily in the right frame of mind to discuss internal politics. And I sensed that Wishman is one of the few holding the Araktak together.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “You mentioned factions before, right? I think you’re on the mark there. When Derek unloaded last night, there was some definite dissension in the ranks. Only Wishman was able to keep things from spiraling out of control.”

  “Pretty good for a crusty old guy.”

  “Who is a crusty old guy?”

  They turned and saw Wishman standing there. His eyes crinkled into something like a playful grin. “Did you have a restful sleep, Friend of Bear?”

  “Very much so,” Annja said.

  “Good morning, Wishman,” Godwin said.

  Wishman regarded him for a moment and then turned back to Annja. “Are you ready to begin?”

  Annja nodded. “The sooner the better. Time is not going to be an ally to us on this day.”

  “Indeed.” Wishman gestured to an Araktak man standing nearby. “This is Nyaktuk. He will be your guide to our burial area. Once you start, he will be in charge of making sure the items uncovered are handled in a respectful manner.”

  Annja nodded. “Nice to meet you.”

  Nyaktuk nodded and then eyed Godwin suspiciously. “Does he need to come along with us?”

  Annja frowned. “Godwin is indispensable to this dig. He has certain expertise that I require.”

  Wishman frowned. “Is that so?”

  “Yes,” Annja said. “It is so. You don’t want to hamper me, do you? Wouldn’t that be the same as suggesting that your god Chunok had chosen incorrectly?”

  Wishman frowned. “The half-breed may accompany you.”

  Godwin sighed. “I feel like a mutant.”

  “You are a mutant,” Nyaktuk said. He gestured to Annja. “Follow me.”

  They ducked through the pine trees and covered the ground that Annja had walked right before she met up with the polar bear. Nyaktuk led them up a slight rise in the landscape and then stopped.

  “Here.”

  Annja looked around. “What is here?”

  Nyaktuk pointed at the ground. “We are standing on the burial mound.”

  Godwin looked around. “I don’t see an opening.”

  “It hasn’t been used in almost one hundred years. The top was covered up with dirt.”

  Godwin squatted in the deep snow. “It’ll take us hours to dig through this, and then we have to crack the frozen dirt covering the mound.”

  Nyaktuk shook his head. “We’ll clear the snow quickly. Then we only need to dig six inches down to find the door that leads to the chamber.”

  “You’re sure it’s still structurally sound?” Annja asked. “A hundred years under the ground with melting snow and all could easily rot a wooden door.”

  “The door is made from whale bone,” Nyaktuk said. “It will take centuries for it to decompose.”

  Annja nodded. “Let’s get started, then.” She and Godwin headed back to their SUV. Annja took a breath. “I wasn’t aware we’d have to dig into the ground.”

  “Does it make a difference?”

  “Well, yeah. Ideally, I’d like to have a ground-sensing radar or sonar that we can use to get a more complete look at what we’ll be dealing with under the surface.”

  Godwin unhitched the tailgate and hauled out a large yellow box. “You mean something like this?”

  Annja’s face lit up. “Get out!”

  Godwin shrugged. “I was told to make sure you had all the necessary tools at your disposal.”

  “Yeah, but this—”

  “I try to plan for anything,” Godwin said.

  “I’m glad you do,” Annja replied. She grabbed a shovel while Godwin hefted the radar unit and they moved back to the burial mound. As they approached, Annja saw Nyaktuk giving the radar unit a baleful look.

  “What is that?”

  She pointed with her shovel. “Ground-radar unit. It will help us see what’s beneath the ground before we dig into it.”

  “Why would you need such a thing?”

  Godwin frowned. “So we don’t end up destroying something precious with the shovels. This way, we can see what’s down there and make sure we don’t dig into a relic. Just the dirt.”

  Nyaktuk looked unsure of whether the radar would somehow violate the degree of sanctity that surrounded the area, but after a moment of introspection, he nodded. “It is a good idea.”

  “Show me where the entrance to the burial mound should be,” Annja said.

  Nyaktuk took his place on top of the hill and measured off with an aged old pine nearby. He mumbled softly to himself, paced back and forth a few times, and then planted himself at what looked like the exact crest of the hill. “Here,” he said.

  Annja nodded and pulled the unit over to the top of the hill. She looked at Godwin. “Can we set this up right here to give us a reading?”

  “Sure. Give me a second and I’ll get it going.”

  She watched him unbundle the unit and set the probes out. The spikes would shoot impulses into the earth and register the return echoes by displaying them on the small screen of the unit. They should be able to see a good picture of what lay below the surface of the burial mound.

  “It’s really handy you thought to bring this along,” Annja said.

  Godwin smiled. “I did some research on archaeological digs. It seemed like it might just be a good idea.”

  “Remind me to mention this to Derek. It’s always nice to make sure the boss knows you’ve done good.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate that.”

  Annja hefted the shovel. It had a nice sharp edge to the steel blade, and she started clearing off the snow in a twelve-foot diameter from the top of the hill. The packed snow was tough to move. Nyaktuk disappeared and returned a few minutes later with
several other men.

  Annja saw they were armed with shovels, as well. Nyaktuk directed them to take up positions around the area and they all started clearing off the top of the hill. Within a few short minutes, they had already reached down to the frozen earth.

  Annja looked at the clearing and saw the brown grass and lichens that covered the ground. Somewhere, below the hill, were the bodies and bones of countless members of the Araktak. She would have to proceed very carefully so that as little as possible was disturbed.

  She wasn’t sure what Wishman would want done with the bones of the deceased. Did he expect her to gather them up for transport to a new burial site? Or would they simply be discarded? Perhaps the Araktak could perform a ceremony that would maintain the dignity of the deceased without having to replant the bones elsewhere.

  It was something new for Annja. She’d never taken part in a burial-mound relocation before and she wasn’t quite sure what to expect. But as she watched Nyaktuk and the others finish clearing the area, she knew that this was something incredibly important to them. And she appreciated the zeal.

  Godwin finished firing up the ground radar and called Annja. “We can start using it now.”

  Annja helped him move the unit over to the precise location that Nyaktuk had pointed out. “Let’s get the probes into the ground here and there and then two more over in that direction so we have a four-point picture of the place.”

  Godwin drilled holes and then planted the probes so they jutted out of the ground with their points embedded in the frozen earth. Then he resumed his position behind the unit.

  “Ready.”

  Annja nodded. “Go ahead.”

  She heard the beeps and then she waited. Godwin frowned at the screen.

  “Something wrong?” Annja asked.

  “I can see the entry door to the mound, but that’s it. The radar won’t penetrate beyond it for some reason.”

  Annja frowned. “That’s weird.”

  “I know.”

  “This ever happen before?”

  Godwin looked sheepish. “This is the first time I’ve ever used one of these things.”

  “How’d you know how to operate it, then?”

  “I read the instruction manual last night before I fell asleep.”

  Annja smiled. “I see.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” She looked at Nyaktuk. “Can we dig down to the door and open it up? Once we get that clear, we might be in a better position to see what’s underneath.”

  He nodded and instructed his men to dig carefully. They moved into position and started easing up shovelfuls of dirt, pried loose from the frozen earth.

  Gradually, they worked through the permafrost. The color of the soil looked very rich, and Annja supposed that the presence of the decomposing bodies in the area would have naturally added nutrients to the soil.

  It seemed coldly scientific to put it that way, but everything broke down. Ashes to ashes, she thought.

  One of the men struck something hard and he looked up at Nyaktuk. “This is the door.”

  Nyaktuk stood over him to verify the whale bone and then stepped back to look at Annja. “Still intact.”

  “Can we pry it up?”

  “Yes.” He nodded at the man in the hole and then waited. The man used his shovel to pry open the door and then he lifted the entire piece out of the hole.

  Annja smelled a bitter scent on the air and had to remind herself that this was a cemetery and that all sorts of things would have decomposed underneath. The air trapped in place by the door would still contain traces of the smells of death.

  Nyaktuk helped the man out of the hole and nodded to Annja. “You wish to look in there?”

  Annja shook her head. “Not just yet. Let’s use the radar to make sure we don’t accidentally break something.”

  Nyaktuk nodded. “I appreciate your concern for our past.”

  “That’s why I’m here, remember?”

  Annja motioned for Godwin to reposition the ground probes and he did so. “Ready.”

  “Do it,” Annja said.

  Another series of beeps went off and this time Godwin’s face showed surprise.

  “What now?” Annja asked.

  “It’s deep,” Godwin said. “Really deep. And wide.”

  Annja looked at the display. “Amazing.” She glanced at Nyaktuk. “How deep would these mounds typically be?”

  He shrugged. “Not too deep. Why?”

  “Because this shaft seems to go straight down. And it keeps going.”

  Nyaktuk came over to look at the display. “How deep does it go?”

  “That’s just it,” Annja said. “It doesn’t seem to end. It keeps going.”

  “For how far?”

  “I don’t know,” Annja said. “Maybe forever.”

  14

  Godwin stared down the shaft. “You’re joking, right? There’s no way it could go on that far.”

  Annja shrugged. “I remember Derek telling me something the other day about kimberlite pipes. That’s where the company expects to find its diamonds, right?”

  “Yeah. So what?”

  “Well, if this burial mound is built on what are basically kimberlite pipes, then they might well run down straight into the Earth’s mantle.” She shook her head. It seemed almost like something out of a Jules Verne novel, the notion that the burial mound was actually one giant tunnel leading right to the Earth’s core. It was too fantastic. And yet, the possibility was staring her right in the face.

  “So, where are the burial areas, then?” asked Godwin. “They wouldn’t have just tossed bodies into this hole, would they?”

  Nyaktuk frowned. “Each body would have had its own resting place, according to tradition and their place within the tribe.”

  “So you mean the elders would have held a higher place of esteem than a hunter,” Annja said.

  Nyaktuk nodded. “But only just. Hunters were obviously a highly valued member of the tribe. More likely, women and children and the elderly would have been buried in a less respectful position than the others.”

  “I don’t see any bodies to speak of,” Annja said, once again studying the ground-radar display.

  “I’d be amazed if you could pick out an actual body on that thing,” Godwin said. “They’ve had a lot of time to settle and get moved around as the landscape has shifted.”

  Annja nodded. “Good point. But I still ought to be able to see something on this screen. Instead, I see a whole bunch of branches.”

  “Branches?”

  Annja pointed as Godwin came over. “See? There’s the main shaft going down at what looks to be about a thirty-degree slope. But then there are whole branches sprouting off like a tree that’s been turned upside down.”

  “Which means what?”

  “It means we’ve got a pretty interesting dig site in front of us. It’s a burial mound to be sure. But the shaft’s depth and these branches indicate something else entirely.”

  “You think the Araktak built the burial mound on top of something else that was already here?”

  “It’s possible. Likely even.” Annja frowned. “But what could it be? And why would they have done something like that? It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

  Nyaktuk scowled at them. “We’re wasting time. We should be excavating and helping move the deceased to our storage vehicle.”

  Annja looked at him. “You have a storage vehicle?”

  “We weren’t sure what condition the bodies would be in, so we arranged to have a truck ready to transport the bones to the new site.”

  “Is the new site close by?”

  “It’s fifty miles to the east. It’s actually closer to where we are concentrated now. In some ways, this will be helpful to us.”

  “But you don’t seem too thrilled with this process in general,” Annja said.

  “I am helping you because Wishman decrees it. He carries a great deal of respect within the tribe.”

&nbs
p; “Even if you happen to not agree with his decisions?”

  “It is not for me to judge his actions. He is many years my senior in this tribe and has seen many more things than I will likely ever see during my entire lifetime. I follow his commands.”

  Godwin turned to Annja. “All right, then. If there’s nothing else, I suppose he’s right. We should get started.”

  Annja nodded. “I’d like to show this to Derek. He might have some ideas about the unique construction of this area.”

  “Good idea. I’ll stay here with Nyaktuk and get started on the first tombs. Maybe you can go chase him down and bring him back. I think he’s still pretty upset about having to tell the bad news last night.”

  “All right. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Nyaktuk whistled twice and the sharp tones carried out across the area. Within seconds, a half-dozen men came out of the forest, each bearing a long wooden box. Annja watched them file over to the opening of the burial mound. New coffins, she supposed, for the bones of those long since dead.

  It didn’t make a lot of sense to her. The owners of the bones were probably long past caring about whether they were bagged or boxed, but then again, Annja had seen a lot of respect accorded to the dead in her travels all over the world. The Araktak were just another culture who valued their dead almost as much as their living.

  She walked back toward the camp. It was quieter now as more of the men moved to the burial mound to help with the excavation. With their timeline drastically reduced, they would have to move fast.

  But even still, Annja wanted to show Derek what she’d found.

  She entered her shelter and called his name. “Derek?”

  He was sitting on his improvised bed with his head in his hands. He looked up as she came in. “Oh. Hey.”

  “You look like hell warmed over with a butane torch.”

  “Thanks. I feel about the same way. Must have been that damned drink I had last night.”

  “Sure it’s not something else?”

  “Like what?”

  Annja shrugged. “I don’t know, like maybe you’re feeling bad because you basically reneged on the deal with the Araktak and it hurts your innate sense of honor and compassion?”