The Dakota Cipher (18 page)

“Ledgers before liquor, Simon,” one mouthed promptly as a puppet on a string. “Discussion before dance. The men have to complete the portage, too.”

“But after that…” McTavish grinned a wolfish challenge. “I will outdance all of you! Except Red Jacket, perhaps.”

“Have you brought my presents?” the Indian asked the Scot in English, startling me. Apparently he understood more than he let on.

“And more. King George desires peace and partnership with all the Indians: the Ojibway and Fox and Sac and Winnebago and Menominee and even your own relatives, Red Jacket, the famed Sioux.”

“That is our enemies’ word. I am Dakota. I kill King George’s enemies for you. I take their hair. I eat their courage. I steal their women.”

McTavish’s smile didn’t waver. “His majesty has uses for all his children.”

We went inside. The walls of the high, whitewashed dining hall were decorated with maps of the Canadian interior, antlers, crossed snowshoes, and Scottish broadswords. Long tables set with blue and white china were set for fifty men. Here the company bourgeois discussed business, while outside the voyageurs completed their portage. Drinking would commence this evening.

I explained our intent to explore Louisiana southwest of Lake Superior. “With the territory moving from Spanish to French control, and a new American president, Paris and Washington are simply seeking information,” I explained. “I’m hoping to serve as a go-between, as I did at Mortefontaine, to facilitate understanding.”

“From warrior to diplomat,” Cecil said approvingly.

“And Magnus here is a historian.”

“How altruistic of you,” McTavish said. “Just ambling about as tourists, are you? And I understand you were mixed up with Smith in Syria and Napoleon in Egypt, and now you’re halfway around the world?”

“Duty takes me to odd places.”

“How convenient to be everyone’s ally!”

“It’s often a bother, actually.”

“Where does the American wish to go?” Red Jacket suddenly asked.

“Well, we don’t know exactly,” I replied, even though we vaguely planned to head in the direction of Thor’s hammer on the old Norse map, an area entirely uncharted. “I hope we can accompany the North West Company’s men as far as Rainy Lake and then strike south from there. Do you have a suggestion?”

“Back home.”

The partners and clerks laughed.

“The French do not stay,” Red Jacket went on. “The British stay
lightly. But the Americans”—the chief pointed to me—“stay and wound the earth wherever they go. I have heard this from the great Shawnee Tecumseh and seen it with my own eyes, too. They drain the earth’s heart and blind the earth’s eyes.” He turned to McTavish. “It is dangerous having these men here. Do not be fooled by them.”

“How about it, Gage? Are you dangerous?”

“No man is more persistently friendly than I. I’m your guest, and would not embarrass your hospitality.”

McTavish turned to the Indian. “So while I appreciate your bluntness Red Jacket, I trust the Somersets to answer for our American guest.”

“What is bluntness?”

“Truth,” a company partner told the Indian.

“The truth is that when this fort is abandoned, the forest will return. I, Red Jacket, vow it.”

“And the truth, Red Jacket,” McTavish said, “is that no matter how little the Sac and the Fox and the Ojibway and the Menominee and the Winnebago and the Dakota like white men here, all depend on these forts for the guns, powder, kettles, and blankets that keep you from starving or freezing. Don’t you? Just as we depend on you to hunt fur.”

The chief scowled, but said nothing.

“We are a partnership. And now, gentlemen, to the maps.”

I
NSIDE, THE STOCKADE WAS MEETINGS, LEDGERS, FUR PRESSES,
and warehouses. Outside, the voyageurs who’d lugged their loads across the portage began what was the greatest revelry of the year, a two-week bacchanal of feasting, drinking, dancing, and tupping whichever Indian maidens they could woo, buy, or marry. I left the partners to their serious business and wandered back out through the gates, Magnus in tow, to find Pierre and experience the fun of Rendezvous.

The French voyageur had made a temporary castle under his overturned canoe, stretching a tarpaulin from one rim. He was smoking a clay pipe, sleeves rolled and shirt unbuttoned, pleased as a prince. There was a fine summer breeze to keep the mosquitoes down, and a dazzling high-summer sun to give everything a polish. Within a fortnight he would be on his way into the wilderness for the long winter, but for now he could focus on eating, boasting, drinking, and song.

“Lord Pierre!” I greeted. “You look more at ease than the bourgeois in the Great Hall, with all their china and servants and dogs.”

“That’s because they have too much.” He pointed at the fort with the stem of his pipe. “The more that’s acquired, the more you want. The more you have, the more care you must take of it. The more you possess, the more you can lose. That is the secret of life, my friend! A sensible man like me is rich with nothing.” He waggled his pipe at us. “Do not chase treasure. It will only bring you grief.”

“McTavish said even the Indians need guns and blankets now.”

“
Oui!
A generation ago, they answered to no man. Now they’ve forgotten, most of them, how to hunt with the bow and arrow. They live for trade, not for life. Instead of us learning all the right lessons from them, they are learning all the wrong ones from us.”

“Yet surely we are superior if we are the conquerors.”

“Who at this Rendezvous is slave, and who is free? The bourgeois in their stuffy meeting room, or me with my pipe?”

We sat to debate the point, I saying it was the company partners who gave the orders and would go home to snug houses in the winter, and Magnus opining that they spent so much time worrying about profit that they were blind to the glory around them.

Pierre compared ambition to rum. “A swallow warms you up, and a pint makes you happy. But a keg will kill you. Men like McTavish are never content.”

I wondered what restless Napoleon would say to that. “Red Jacket is with the partners,” I said to change the subject. “He watches in one corner, arms folded.”

“He and his renegades enforce their will,” Pierre said. “He’s estranged from both the Ojibway and Dakota, a man of two nations who belongs fully to neither and who obeys no law or custom. Let Indian kill Indian, the traders say. It’s been frontier policy for three hundred years.”

“It makes him a grumpy-looking bastard.”

“Simon McTavish keeps his friends close and his enemies closer. Red Jacket’s lodge flies the blond hair of the man whose coat he
wears, and rumor has it that he dined on the man’s flesh. Yet the Somersets count him an ally.”

“British aristocrats are friends with a red cannibal?”

“Those two aren’t the dandies they seem, my friend. Both have been in this country before, and know more of it than they let on. There was some kind of trouble in England, some money disappeared, and a scandal that involved them both.”

“What scandal?”

He shrugged. “One hears stories, and I only believe what I see. Cecil is a dangerous man with a sword—I hear he killed an officer in a duel—and Aurora, as you know, is a crack shot. So stay away from Namida. It isn’t good to be mixed up with anything to do with Red Jacket or any woman at all if the English lady has an eye on you. Find an ugly squaw so Aurora won’t care. They’re all the same down where it counts, and the homely ones are far more appreciative.”

Crude and sensible advice that I hadn’t the slightest intention of following. “If that girl is really Mandan, she deserves to be back with her people.”

“I know your kind, Ethan Gage. You are not ambitious, but you want to save everyone. Don’t. You’ll only bring trouble on yourself.”

“And I know your kind, Pierre. Man of the moment, going nowhere, with a thousand rationalizations of why to do nothing. You’ll die penniless.”

“Living for today is not nothing, my friend.”

“But Magnus and I have more than the day: we have a quest.” It was odd to hear myself defending our odd mission and my odder comrade, so much more fanatical and driven than me. “If it succeeds, we’re beholden to no one.”

“And if it doesn’t, you risk death for nothing.”

I
STROLLED THE CAMP.
T
HERE WERE LOTS OF WOMEN, MANY
pretty, but Namida still stood out; her heritage made her exotic. She
and Little Frog were taking smoked meat and fresh corn from the main supply tents to Red Jacket’s camp at the far southern end of Rendezvous. My tactic to talk to her would be a loaf of bread. I scooped one up, trotted ahead out of sight, and then intercepted them.

“Have you developed a taste for the baguette?”

They stopped shyly, Little Frog looking uncertain but Namida eyeing me with sly hope. Yes, she was looking for an alternative to her gruff cannibal of a captor, and I was just the man to provide it.

“What is that?” she said, looking at the loaf.

“Bread, baked from flour. You haven’t tried white man’s food? Some bites of this, and shavings from a sugar loaf, and you’ll want to go with me to Paris.”

“What is Paris?”

I laughed. “The direction we
should
be going. But you live where the trees end?”

“Our families are there. Where the rock with words is.” She nodded encouragement.

“Did you see anything else peculiar in your travels?”

“I do not know that word.”

“Strange?”

She shrugged. “Earth and sky.”

Which might or might not include hammers. “Here, try a bite of this. Go ahead, put your bundles down.” I broke off a piece of the baguette. “Best bread in the world when it’s fresh, and the voyageurs appear to have taught even the Scots how to make it. Yes, try the white part…”

Suddenly something hit my backside and I bucked forward, sprawling on the muddy ground with my broken baguette under me. The women gave a little squeak of alarm and snatched their load back up, hopping over my body and hurrying on their way. I rolled over to peals of laughter from voyageurs who were watching.

Red Jacket loomed over me, his torso muscled into beaten bronze, his black eyes like pistol bores. He sneered. “You talk to slaves?”

I bounded up, surprised and shaken, my clothes muddy. “Damned right I do.”

He kicked again without warning, square in my stomach so I doubled over, and then shoved so I sat abruptly, windless and shocked. His violence was almost casual but quick as a snake and powerful as a mule. I wanted to get up but couldn’t breathe.

His finger stabbed like a spear. “Red Jacket women.” He spat.

I struggled up again, hunched, flushed with rage, but ready for a fight with this bastard even if he
was
two sizes too big. It was his arrogance that maddened me. Then hands clamped my arms. It was Pierre.

“Careful, donkey, you have no right in this matter. They are not your women.”

“I was offering a bite of bread, for God’s sake.”

“Do you want to lose your hair over slaves you don’t own? Even if you win, and you won’t, his companions will kill you.”

I was seething, but had no weapon. Red Jacket waited, hoping I’d come for him. Finally I shook off the hands holding me and spat myself. “Take your women.”

Red Jacket gave a thin smile of contempt. “Do not make me take another coat.” Then he stalked off.

I was shaking with rage and frustration.

Never have I seen a man so quick to seek out trouble,” Pierre whispered. “Come. Have a drink of shrub.”

F
EASTING BEGAN AT SUNSET, AND REVELRY WENT ON INTO THE
night. The Scot partners danced and skipped across crossed clay-mores laid glinting in the grass, while the voyageurs formed folk circles, dragging Indian women in to dance. Drink flowed, the moon climbed high, and lovemaking and fights broke out. The Indian warriors did their own dances as bonfire flames leaped skyward, their chants and cries mingled with drums, fiddles, horns, and fifes in a swirl of heart-thumping music. The braves also gambled like madmen, staking all on games that involved simple tools such as guessing different-length sticks or which in a row of moccasins hid musket balls. They’d bet furs for liquor, or firewater for a woman, or a blanket for a gun. Some gambled away their clothes in heedless recklessness wilder than anything I’d seen in a casino, but luck was how they evened wealth. Their wins and losses were each other’s entertainment.

I brooded, unable to shake my humiliation. Several voyageurs had smirked at me and my impotence against Red Jacket, and the shame
burned. Now trappers and traders staggered by dizzy with dance and drink, sweat on their faces, laughter a shriek. Someone was stabbed and carried past bleeding and groaning. In the shadows I could see the gleam of pumping buttocks as lovers mounted. The drunken Indians fought too, excusing any murders on the grounds that a man possessed by firewater was not responsible for his actions. Come morning, no one would profess to remember anything.

I drank, fantasizing about killing Red Jacket, the liquor dulling my frustration while the fires, ale, and human musk made me randy. Some of the squaws were half-naked, and I half wanted them. Some of the men drifted off with other men. Magnus was well in his cups, roaring Norwegian songs, and Pierre was in a dancing circle, kicking up his heels. I stayed restless and morose, nursing rum, curious about Namida, furious with Red Jacket, and longing for Astiza, who’d left me in France. If this new girl was Mandan, maybe I could
buy
her from the damn Indian. I had little money left, but enough to start a game or two of my own. I’d acquire the girl, we’d go find Welsh Indians, and while Magnus poked about for old hammers we’d share a cozy lodge….

This reverie was interrupted when I saw Aurora slipping along the edge of the bacchanal, looking aloof and purposeful as she hurried on some mission. Now resentment boiled more. How dare she toy with me! I was tired of being put off, warned away, mocked, and ignored—this by a woman who by rumor had fled scandal! And now where was she going, so important and haughty? I impulsively decided to follow, suddenly determined to regain the intimacy we’d enjoyed at Mackinac.

I’d catch her and I’d grab her and I’d say…well, I didn’t know what I’d say, but maybe I’d just kiss her. We’d fight or make love, and either way bring an end.

Aurora had a slim white dress that made her glow like a fairy nymph, making her easier to track as she skirted the clumps of rev
elers without pausing. Where the devil was she going? I considered running to catch up, but it seemed undignified to chase her, even though that’s exactly what I was doing. I tried sauntering, rehearsing lines to demand that either our relationship be consummated again or end completely. I didn’t need the Somersets anymore, I was at Grand Portage! But even as I mentally rehearsed witty repartee, Aurora didn’t pause to let me try it.

She came to a cluster of Indian wigwams at the northern extremity of the encampment, the bark-covered domes seeming to erupt naturally from the earth. She stopped, uncertain, and called something softly. A glow appeared at the door of one of the lodges, its light leaking through cracks in the shingled birch. It was a candle or lantern no Indian would have. She made for the wigwam, fell to her knees, and wiggled inside.

By Abigail Adams, an Indian hut for British aristocracy? Was the strumpet meeting that cannibal Red Jacket? Or did she have some other game entirely?

I’m not a Peeping Tom, but she’d slipped from me once again, and into the most improbable place I could imagine for a lady. Was it possible she was compelled to come to this dark village and was in some kind of trouble? Perhaps I could rescue her! I hesitated as I crouched in the gloom, wrestling with good manners, and then I heard first the low murmur of voices and then the coos and cries of accelerating passion. Now I had to spy. Aurora Somerset coupling with an Indian buck? It was the kind of revelation that might give me leverage.

Frustrated and curious, I crept in the dark to the rear of the lodge. I could hear pants within, a delicious moaning from the beauty, and murmurs that seemed English. What the devil? I found a slit to put my eye to and had a vision from the kind of naughty book you can buy in the back aisles of a Parisian bookshop. Aurora was straddling her lover—how typical that she’d insist on being on top—and was riding him with arched back, hips flared, breasts pointing upward,
her form lit a rosy hue by the glow of a lantern. Her eyes were closed, lips pouted, face tilted toward the lodge peak, and her hair a glorious shawl cascading down her back. It was a magnificent sight and I was hard in an instant, lusting even as I hated her for her haughtiness, yet ready to tell her anything if it would gain me entry to her guarded gateway! The woman was a sorceress. I leaned forward, pressed against the rough bark, near groaning myself.

And then I heard the words of the man under her. “Buck my beauty, buck my love! God, I worship your form!”

Could it be? A white man in an Indian lodge? But of course, it was a secret liaison! A perfect hiding place! My view was obscured by the narrow slit so I recklessly put my fingers up to pull bark aside to give a better view, wondering which bourgeois the lucky bastard was. It was dim, so I pressed my face in, looking at his limbs under her as he thrust upward, hands clutching her breasts. Then he turned slightly, the lantern giving better resolution of his features, and I almost yelped with shock. I looked to the pile of clothes beyond, and then back at the gasping couple.

Something was gleaming on the chest of the man, a pendant I’d seen months before tattooed on Renato’s skin in Italy. It was a pyramid entwined with a snake.

Aurora Somerset was riding her own cousin, Cecil.

And Cecil was wearing a symbol of Apophis, the snake cult allied with that London-based Egyptian Rite he’d pretended to disdain! Who had I befriended?

Or rather, who had befriended me?

They turned to look at my fingers caught in the slit of bark, the white of my eye illuminated in the glow. I jerked backward, accidentally yanking a piece of the lodge covering with me, and fell on my back.

I heard a hiss. “Gage!”

And then I ran.