The Dakota Cipher

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 satisfying 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.

There was feminine laughter.

Two women were swimming, their hair fanned behind them like a beaver’s tail. I realised they must have come from the visiting canoe. Aurora, stiffening, was as curious as I was. We stood hidden in the trees, watching them stroke. All Indians I’ve seen are good swimmers, and these were no exception. One of the women finally waded up out of the water to stand in the shallows, droplets sparkling on her bronze skin, and I audibly drew in my breath despite myself.

Aurora looked at me with wry amusement.

The Indian woman was young and very pretty, her breasts smaller than those of Lady Somerset but no less attractive for that, and her legs and buttocks smooth and supple. The water was to her knees, and somehow she sensed us and turned, seeming no more ashamed of her nakedness than a fawn, but curious, alert, her nipples brown in the sun and the patch between her thighs wet and gleaming. She was lighter-skinned than I expected an Indian woman to be, and her hair was not the normal jet black but instead a dark copper. The nymph looked across to where we were standing, even though I was certain we were well screened, and peered, wary but curious.

‘Why is she not darker?’

‘It’s not unknown,’ Aurora said. ‘Maybe she’s a half-breed, or a white captive. Come.’ When she moved the Indian woman suddenly sprang and ducked amid the reeds, instantly hiding like a wild thing.

‘Wait!’ I whispered.

But now the other one, stouter and less arresting, was also wading out of the water, looking over her shoulder, and vanishing into cover.

Aurora’s look over her shoulder was mocking. ‘So you like red meat.’

‘I’m not getting any white, am I?’

‘Partnership, Mr Gage, partnership.’

‘I’m just curious, like any man.’

‘I’ll bet you are, American. Stay away from them, if you value your life.’

‘What does that mean?’ It pleased me that she even bothered to warn me off.

‘Come to camp. You’ll see.’

We broke out of the last trees to the bright light of the lake shore. The large Indian canoe was drawn up, its warrior occupants making a fire separate from that of the voyageurs. There were six braves, shirtless in the sun and wearing breechclouts and buckskin leggings. They squatted like grasshoppers, easy but powerful. Their muscles gleamed from grease applied to ward off blackflies.

The man I’d assumed was a British officer was also an Indian, I realised. His black hair was pulled back and adorned with an eagle feather. Unlike his companions he wore a faded British military coat, the brass of its buttons worn but shiny. I wondered where he’d got it.

This chief, if that’s what he was, was conferring with Lord Somerset, and his regal bearing was a match for the aristocrat, reminding me again of Brant and Tecumseh. Unconquered tribal leaders had poise and panache, it seemed. His eyes were dark, nose strong, and lips set in a curl of slight cruelty. His muscles that I could see were as taut as the banded strands of a warship’s hawser. His gaze flashed with recognition when he saw Aurora and, disturbingly, the same look of recognition stayed when his gaze turned to me. Had he been at one of the forts? Surely I’d recall him.

‘The goddess Diana returns with her kill!’ Cecil called in greeting, smiling.

‘The deer is not all we found,’ she said.

‘Oh.’

‘Squaws washing in a pond. Red Jacket’s?’

‘Slaves. An Ojibway gambled them away. Red Jacket is taking them to Grand Portage and then to his village.’

‘Ethan was transfixed.’

‘I shouldn’t blame him. The one’s a beauty.’

‘Pah.’

‘Ethan, my cousin has made you a bloody packhorse, it seems!’

‘She has the rifle,’ I tried to joke. In truth, I was embarrassed. My determination to bed her had allowed Aurora Somerset to lead me by the nose like a bull, but now there were these other women. Hadn’t Pierre said to take a squaw?

‘Well, you’ll be newly popular,’ Cecil said. ‘All the men like fresh venison.’

‘Including your new guests?’

‘This is Red Jacket, a chief from the western end of the lake who is Ojibway on his mother’s side but Dakota on his father’s – the product of two historic enemies, and thus most unusual. His mother was captured and brought him up knowing both tongues. He travels widely and fights well. I was hoping to meet up with him, but with the storm, I wasn’t sure. He knows the west – knows the country you’re headed for, perhaps. He can serve us both! They took refuge on an island west of here and then paddled down this morning looking for us.’

‘Greetings,’ I said, holding out a hand.

The chief said and did nothing in reply.

‘He wears an officer’s coat?’

‘Yes, striking, isn’t it? Probably best not to ask him how he got it. I don’t think it was a present, and I hope it never wears out so he begins eyeing my clothes.’

‘But you trust him?’

‘Implicitly. Red Jacket makes no secret of where he stands, or what he wants. His appetites are plain.’

Including venison. The meat restored us, and we spent the rest of the day at what we called Refuge Bay, bathing, stitching, patching, and eating. Aurora returned my rifle, complimenting it if not me, and she’d cleaned it, too. The two women I’d seen appeared dressed modestly in buckskin, their eyes downcast and their manner obedient. If they were embarrassed at being seen at their bath, they didn’t show it.

Pierre came over. ‘The pretty one is named Namida, or ‘Star Dancer’ in the Ojibway tongue,’ he whispered quietly, squatting while he smoked his pipe. ‘It’s a name given by her original captor. The other is Little Frog. They were taken by these scoundrels after gambling at the Sault. There was a whiskey fight, and Red Jacket here delivered the coup de grace to her first owner with a tomahawk. They’ll be taken to his band to be slaves until some buck asks for one of them. The tribes are always looking to replenish their depleted numbers. Too much war and disease.’

I studied the pair with interest, willing them to look up. Namida finally glanced my way as she stooped to do camp chores, and I more than glanced back. She was a woman of about twenty with hair as lustrous as an otter pelt, and she carried herself with grace. She was light for her race, but had the high cheekbones and generous mouth of the tribes, her smile a piercing white, her throat decorated with a porcupine bead choker, a silver coin on one ear. Her arms were bare and smooth, her calves taut, and her figure – well, I’d already seen that. She was as different from Aurora Somerset as a wild pony from a racetrack thoroughbred, but had fire of her own, I guessed. I knew it was partly my longing for my lost Egyptian woman, Astiza, who had a little of the same look, but my God, how lightly her moccasins moved, how bewitchingly her hips swayed, how innocent her averted gaze! She was nothing like the tired native women I’d seen in Detroit. And then she looked at me fully …

‘I thought you didn’t like squaws, my friend?’ Pierre said as my head followed her through the encampment as if on a swivel.

‘She has blue eyes.’

‘Aye, Mandan by the story I heard – or rather their relatives, the Awaxawi – captured as a girl and traded back and forth until she wound up on the Sault. She’s hundreds of miles from her homeland, and probably sees Red Jacket as an opportunity to get a little closer to home. Odd-looking for an Indian, isn’t she?’

‘That’s not an adequate word for such beauty.’ Mandan! Hadn’t mad Tom Jefferson suggested they might be descended from the Norse or Welsh?

‘I thought you were besotted with Aurora,’ Magnus put in. I ignored him.

Aurora was watching our tableau from a distance, disapproving, and I enjoyed paying her back some discomfort. If I could provoke enough jealousy of Namida, maybe the British tease would be more willing to renew our intimacy. I was considering just how to organise my campaign when my gaze was noticed by Red Jacket and he snapped something to Cecil.

The Englishman came over to speak. Aurora was also watching, her look towards the girl malicious.

‘The squaw looks different than her race, doesn’t she?’ Cecil said.

‘I didn’t know Indians had that colouring.’

‘I’ve heard of it and seen it. Welsh, some say. Some Indian words sound Welsh.’

‘Or Norwegian,’ Magnus said.

The aristocrat’s brows rose. ‘Do you think so? Imagine if your distant ancestors came this way! I think I’m beginning to understand your enthusiasm, Magnus. Although if it were the Welsh that settled Namida’s country … well, that would make Louisiana British territory by first right, wouldn’t it?’

‘Or so confuse history that none would have rightful claim at all,’ I said.

‘Stay away from those squaws,’ Cecil warned. ‘I’ve heard the Mandan maidens are positively ethereal in their beauty, the most attractive women on the continent – but this pair is Red Jacket’s property. He has a temper. He might have eaten the liver of the man who wore that coat.’

‘He’s a cannibal?’

‘They all are, when they want to destroy their enemies and imbibe their strength. I’ve seen Indian braves devour hearts and their squaws fry the liver. But if it ever comes to that you’ll long to be eaten, because the pain that comes from the torture before is indescribable. Women like those two there will be the cruellest, and they’ll heat sticks in the fire and insert them in every orifice.’

I swallowed. ‘I’m only looking.’

‘Don’t even look. One does not quarrel with Red Jacket and survive. Just ignore them – unless you’ve already tired of my cousin.’

‘Lord Somerset, it is she who seems to have tired of me.’

‘I told you, patience. She favours few men with a hunt.’

‘And favours even fewer with anything else.’

He laughed and walked away, nodding to the Indian chief.

That night I bedded down by myself, tired of pursuing Aurora and tired of my companions commenting on it. I’m not averse to playing the fool when I think there’ll be sweet reward at the end, but there’s a limit to humiliation even for me. The game with Somerset had turned sour, and I decided to swear off women entirely.

Then there was a quiet footfall near my bedroll and a female whisper in the dark, in the French that dominated the fur trade.

‘Sauvez-moi.’ Save me.

Then Namida crept away.