Sacred Ground

by Alex Archer

  He smirked. “Innate sense of honor and compassion? Where’d you get that from?”

  “I just made it up, but I think it fits. You’re not a bad guy, Derek. You just got stuck being the bad guy this time by your company. And I think you realized something else, that you’re just another cog in the machine. You’ll get used just like everyone else.”

  “You included,” he said.

  “Yep.”

  “And it doesn’t bother you?”

  Annja shrugged. “Sure. It’s weird for me. I’m not really used to working this way, but at the same time, I made the decision to take their money, so stuff like this comes with the territory.”

  “I don’t know how you’re able to maintain such equanimity about this stuff.”

  “I’m remarkably well adjusted.” Annja laughed. “I’m kidding, of course. Trust me, I’m anything but.”

  “I read the file.”

  She frowned. “Of course you did. Now, are you going to get up or are you just going to sit here and feel depressed about things and mope around for the rest of the day being completely and totally unproductive despite the deadline?”

  “Well, when you put it like that…”

  “Yes?”

  “Is there any coffee?”

  Annja nodded. “Yeah, in the main lodge. And hurry up, too, because we found something interesting.”

  “Yeah?”

  “The burial mound has a shaft that descends at a thirty-degree slope.”

  “What’s so special about that?”

  “It keeps going.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Just what I said. The shaft doesn’t appear to stop. Even more interesting, there are branches off of the main shaft.”

  “What, like other rooms to put the bodies into, that kind of thing?”

  Annja shook her head. “I don’t think it’s that simple.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the branches seem to go for some distance, as well.” Annja shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s weird. And yet there seems to be some sort of reason to it, even if I can’t figure out what it is yet.”

  Derek pulled on his parka and they walked over to the main lodge. “What do you think it might be about?”

  “I don’t know. But I thought about that kimberlite pipe thing you talked to me about the other day. It occurred to me that this whole area might be almost honeycombed with the things. If we play our cards right, it’s possible that you could simply descend into these pipes and do all the mining you need without having to drill all that much more.”

  Derek’s eyes lit up. “That would save the company millions of dollars in time and effort.”

  “At least,” Annja said. “And it’s possible. But I want you to see it first before we make the phone call back to your company.”

  Derek nodded. “Great, let me grab a cup of joe and I’ll head on over.”

  Annja watched him prepare his coffee by dumping a huge lump of sugar into the swirling hot black liquid. He sipped it and recoiled. “Damn, that’s hot.”

  “What time are you expecting the miners?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Personally, I sort of hope they get lost and have to come back another time. As soon as they show up, the mood around here is going to go from bad to worse. And I’ll be looked at as the bad guy again.”

  “The Araktak will know it’s not you.”

  “Yeah, but they shoot the messenger around these parts. Not literally, of course, but I still feel like crap for having to do it.”

  Annja led him back through the trees to the burial mound. She came through the final stretch and saw the wooden boxes being moved around carefully. Godwin and Nyaktuk were delicately placing bones into one of the boxes.

  Godwin nodded to her. “Three so far.”

  “Any idea how many more might be down there?” Derek asked.

  “Could be hundreds,” Annja said. “The mound is huge and there would seem to be room for a lot more.”

  “This is just the first branch off the shaft,” Godwin said. “We’re going to need to string lights to get illumination down there. Things get dark pretty fast and it’s not all that open and airy. Claustrophobia will sneak up on you damned quick.”

  “We will bring the lights,” Nyaktuk said. “We have a supply of them.”

  “You got a generator with them, too?” Derek asked.

  Nyaktuk regarded him. “We don’t discriminate against technology as a general rule. Only when it threatens our traditions and seeks to corrupt our young people. Only then do we rebel.”

  “So, you’ve got a generator?” Annja asked.

  “Yes.”

  Nyaktuk turned back to dig. Annja watched him work the shovel carefully and nodded to Derek. “Over here.”

  Derek followed her over to the display screen and whistled. “Wow, you weren’t kidding.”

  “You see? It goes down and keeps going. It’s possible it continues for a long time. All we can see here is the maximum distance for the display screen. And that’s reading at a thousand meters right now.”

  “Better than half a mile.” Derek shook his head. “What would it have taken to tunnel something like this out?”

  “Well, that’s just it. We don’t know if it was tunneled out by the Araktak or whether it’s natural.”

  “Could be a giant earthworm, too.” Derek grinned. “I’m kidding.”

  Annja nodded. “That would be the last thing we need on this. But I’m puzzled that the shaft goes on for so long. That’s what made me think of the kimberlite pipes.”

  Derek nodded. “I can see why. But the pipes I’m used to seeing aren’t anywhere near this large. We call them pipes, yeah, but they’re usually much smaller in diameter than this.” He pointed at the screen. “I mean, there’s room in there for two people to stand side by side.”

  “Yes.”

  Derek frowned. “Something like this occurring naturally? I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem possible.”

  “And yet,” Annja said, “we have the actual thing right in front of us. Kind of hard to argue with the reality of it, huh?”

  “Yes.” Derek turned and watched Godwin bringing up another bundle of bones. “All of this for the dead.”

  “There’s room enough in there for a mass death incident,” Annja said. “But then the question becomes, what could have caused so many people to die so quickly?”

  “I’ve got a bigger question for you,” Derek said. “Is what killed them all still lingering? And if so, are we in danger, too?”

  “I don’t like that question,” Annja said. “I don’t like it one single bit.” And she stared at the entry to the burial mound for a long time.

  15

  By the end of the first day, Nyaktuk and his men, working in concert with Annja and Godwin, had managed to transfer the remains of almost three dozen separate bodies into wooden coffins and arranged for them to be transported to the new burial ground closer to the permanent Araktak community.

  The cold wind swept in over the plain, cresting like a wave as it rushed the burial mound. Annja had spent the majority of the day shivering inside her parka, warmed only temporarily by the steady stream of coffee that flowed from the camp.

  Godwin seemed to work hardest of all. He showed no sign of exhaustion, even though Annja had seen him mop his brow covertly and pause here and there to take a deep breath. He refused the coffee that Wishman grudgingly offered him. The action seemed to set the Araktak elder back on his heels, but he simply shrugged and left Godwin to his devices.

  Annja suspected he was trying to show them all how much this job meant to him and how serious he was about this part of his ancestry. Godwin would be the first to admit he wasn’t pure blood, but neither would he state that he wasn’t Araktak.

  Annja watched more of the wooden boxes emerge from the burial mound, borne up from the underground chambers by men with blistered hands and dirt-streaked faces. Even in the numbing cold, the men m
anaged to work up a tremendous sweat.

  They paused as the sun started to dip closer to the ground. Nyaktuk emerged first from below. He looked weary, but still wore a frown on his face.

  “We’ve had a good day,” Annja said.

  He shrugged. “There are still many of them down there. It may take us much longer than I thought.”

  “There are that many bodies?”

  He glanced at her. “Haven’t you seen them all?”

  Annja shook her head. “You haven’t let me down there all day. You said that bearing the dead was work only for the Araktak.”

  Nyaktuk nodded. “The half-breed helps, as well.”

  “He’s part of you and you know it.”

  Nyaktuk looked thoughtful. “I don’t bear him ill will for being the son of a white woman. But he is only now returning to his homeland. What does that say about his spirit when it takes the lure of money to make him acknowledge his true people?”

  “It says he was too young to know any better.”

  “His father was an Araktak warrior. He should have schooled the boy better.”

  “Kind of hard to do once the tribe has banished you, don’t you think?”

  “He was given a choice.”

  Annja smiled. “And you’ve never fallen in love before? You’ve never felt the tug on your heart when you look at a special woman? How many other men have had their logic and reasoning destroyed by the emotional urges of their heart?”

  “Probably far too many than I could ever conceive,” Nyaktuk said. “But it still was not right for his father to take up with the white woman.”

  “Well, he did. And the child of their union is no longer a child and he wishes to know those to whom he is related. The least you could do is show him some measure of respect. If for no other reason than the hard work he has done today. He hasn’t even had a drink of water in hours.”

  Nyaktuk wiped his face on his sleeve. “We’ll see.”

  More of his men filed out of the mound. They looked exhausted, as well. Godwin came out last. He still wore that grim look of determination, as if the fact that night was approaching was a personal insult to his quest to show the Araktak how much he cared.

  “Time for some food,” Annja said. “And you need to rest. All of you.” She spoke her last words looking at Godwin directly. He turned away.

  Nyaktuk said a few words to the men and they walked back toward the camp. Godwin watched them go and then turned to Annja.

  “Am I being a fool?”

  “I don’t know, are you?”

  “I just want them to see me for who I am, not as the product of an ancient taboo. But something tells me they’ll never change.”

  “You mentioned the Araktak were among the most secretive of the Inuit. That means they probably don’t like the idea of change all that much.” Annja smiled. “Still, no one can fail to respect the amount of work you’ve put in. You’ve done everything that was asked of you and more today.”

  “Maybe.”

  Annja punched him on the shoulder. “Well, you impressed me. Maybe that will count for something.”

  Godwin looked at her and grinned. In the fading light, he looked almost ghostlike with the dirt obscuring his features. Only his smile remained white against the falling darkness.

  Annja laughed. “You look like the Cheshire cat. Your face is a mess.”

  “I need a shower.”

  “Good luck finding one back at camp.”

  Godwin frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that. I wonder what the others will do to keep clean.”

  Nyaktuk and the rest of the men suddenly came back through the pines toward them. Nyaktuk nodded at Godwin.

  “You need to bathe.”

  Godwin smirked. “So do you.”

  “We intend to. There’s a river a mile away. We will go there and wash. Come with us.”

  Godwin’s eyes widened. “The river will be frozen.”

  One of the men hefted a pickax. Nyaktuk nodded at him. “We will chop our way through to the water that flows beneath it.”

  “And bathe in the cold water?”

  Nyaktuk regarded him. “We seem to be short of hot water at the moment, so yes. On the shore we will build a fire and warm ourselves there after we wash. This is how it is done.”

  “For Araktak,” Godwin said.

  Nyaktuk frowned. “For anyone dirty from digging all day long. This is how it is done in this environment.”

  Annja nudged him forward. “Don’t be a snob.”

  Godwin nodded and looked at Nyaktuk. “Thank you for the offer to join you.”

  Nyaktuk led the group of men through the clearing and off into another glen farther away. Annja watched them go for several minutes. She smiled and thought that perhaps the Araktak would eventually warm to Godwin. But he would have to continue to work hard to prove to them that he was worthy of their acknowledgment. Still, he’d done well today.

  “The idea of a cold bath in a frozen river doesn’t exactly make me jump for joy. Hypothermia being what it is and all.”

  Annja started. Derek stood behind her watching the men troop down the incline that led away from the burial mound.

  “You’ve certainly mastered the art of sneaking up on people in deep snow.”

  Derek shrugged. “Not exactly deep snow anymore what with all the feet trampling it down all day long. It’s actually pretty easy.”

  “Well, you caught me off guard.”

  Derek eyed her. “I would have thought it was impossible.”

  “It’s not. Unlikely, maybe. But not impossible.”

  “Interesting.” Derek looked at the mound. “How’d we do today?”

  Annja shrugged. “We got a lot of the old dead out of the mound, but Nyaktuk tells me there are still many to go. And I can’t really do my thing until the Araktak have finished with the transferring of the dead. It would be a gross injustice if I tried to conduct any research or look for relics while the bones of the dead remain in the mound.”

  Derek nodded. “So, until they finish with the bodies, you’re stuck here doing, well, what, exactly?”

  “Morale booster?”

  Derek smirked. “Okay. I won’t touch that one.” He pointed at the ground-radar unit. “That working well?”

  “Seems to be.”

  “Show me the display of the burial mound again.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to see it again.”

  Annja nodded and set some of the probes into the ground. The machine took a while to heat up in the cold of the coming night air, but then the gentle hum sounded and Annja looked at Derek. “You ready?”

  “Sure.”

  Annja pressed the button and a series of beeps sounded. Slowly, the display screen revealed the shaft going down at the peculiar angle into the burial mound. Derek leaned closer to the screen.

  “You weren’t kidding about it going on and on, huh?”

  “Nope.”

  He leaned back. “I wonder how far it goes.”

  Annja shook her head. “Like I said earlier, it’s at least a thousand meters. The display screen won’t show anything more than that until we take the unit into the burial mound and ping it again.”

  Derek looked around. “Could we do that now?”

  Annja shook her head. “Didn’t you just hear me tell you that I can’t go in there until they’ve finished moving the bodies?”

  “Yes. I heard you.”

  “I would assume the same thing applies to you, Derek.”

  “But wouldn’t you like to know what we’re dealing with here?”

  “Of course. But I’m not in a hurry to throw any respect I earned being Friend of Bear back into their faces. I’d probably have to do battle with some extraterrestrial monster to win back that favor if I shirk it now.”

  “Well, I’d pay money to see that.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  Derek looked around. “No one’s here. Let’s just do it quickly and then we can get back out before
they even know we were down there.”

  Annja shook her head. “I don’t think so. And Wishman didn’t go with them. He might be old and somewhat tied to his ancient beliefs, but that doesn’t make him stupid.”

  “I never said he was.”

  Annja sighed. “But you’re suggesting we go against what they asked of us just to satisfy our curiosity. I’m not going to participate in that kind of activity. It has the potential to disrupt everything we’re working toward here. You should know that. I would have thought a company guy like yourself wouldn’t risk it.”

  Derek took a breath and blew it out. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. I’m too damned curious for my own good sometimes. I see something like this and my mind just grabs at it like some lifeline. I tend to obsess over things in my life, especially things that spark my interest.” He smirked. “When I was younger, it was the Loch Ness monster, bigfoot, UFOs, that kind of thing.”

  “A lot of kids are into that stuff.”

  Derek shook his head. “Not like I was. I had this old pseudo-storage-file system made from heavy-duty cardboard. It was like a beginner storage unit with drawers. I kept detailed files and personal notes on my thoughts and ideas about all those strange things.”

  “What’d your parents think about that?”

  “My father always told me that I was obsessive. Of course, I think he knew that it would eventually stop when I started discovering women.”

  “Was he right?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  Annja nodded. “Well, I’m sure the Loch Ness monster is happy you turned out to be a diamond-mine employee rather than a cryptozoologist, huh?”

  Derek grinned. “Probably so, yes.”

  Annja switched off the radar unit. “So, we’re not going into the burial mound. That’s settled, right?”

  “Yeah, fine,” Derek said. “It’s too dark and cold out here anyway.”

  “Good,” Annja said. “Weren’t you expecting the imminent arrival of some miners today?”

  Derek nodded. “Yeah, they haven’t arrived yet. I tried them on the radio but got no response.”

  “Is that normal?”