The Dakota Cipher

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

‘What cave is he talking about?’ I do dread the poking about in underground burrows that seems to go hand in hand with treasure hunting.

‘There’re some in the dirt banks of the river,’ Namida said. ‘Birds and animals use them for nests, and children for play.’

We walked down to the sluggish stream running back east. Downriver, past a grove of ancient cottonwood, the waterway cut a narrow gap through hard-packed clay and gravel, producing steep bluffs. The face was dotted with holes and caves, some as small as swallow nests and others big enough to picnic in. Our dead informant hadn’t explained which of these cubbies he’d used, but all but a half dozen were either too small for a man to crawl into or so broad they were useless as hiding places.

I looked at the mouths of the most likely ones with experienced wariness. ‘Do they have snakes here?’ I asked Namida.

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t like snakes.’ Or fire, gunshots, boxing, sword fights, vindictive women, or overly ambitious superiors, but there’s no need to make a list. My meaning was plain enough.

‘Elven hoards were guarded by dragons,’ Magnus said helpfully.

‘Thank you for that erudition, Mr Bloodhammer. And unless he has a dragon, I’m wondering why our friend the medicine man would chose a place as obvious as these caves.’

‘He was dying. How many choices did he have?’

‘What is dragon?’ Namida asked.

‘A big snake.’

‘We find a stick and poke.’ So we cut a staff and poked and thrashed each likely entry just before entering, indeed finding one nest of rattlers that, fortunately, guarded nothing.

Our branch couldn’t probe deeply enough to find the end of the last hole, however. It had a barrel-size entrance and scrape marks as if something heavy had been dragged. ‘Here it is, then,’ I guessed. This cave was deep and, I assumed, extremely dark. I hesitated.

‘I’ll go,’ said Namida. ‘I played in these caves as a girl.’

‘But the old man said something about a guardian, didn’t he?’

‘It’s my tablet,’ said Magnus. ‘Stand aside. If there’s rock writing in there I’ve got the muscle to drag it out.’

‘Do you want my rifle?’

‘No, thanks. You don’t have to reload an axe.’

So he shimmied in, his enormous hatchet thrust out ahead like a blind man’s cane. ‘It’s bigger inside!’ His moccasins wiggled and disappeared, and there was quiet.

Namida suddenly squatted to examine something in the dirt.

‘Find anything?’ I called into the mouth of the dirt cave.

‘Stink.’ Magnus said. ‘And something else.’

‘Is it hissing?’

‘It’s a slab, heavy,’ he grunted. ‘Give me a hand!’

Swallowing, I stooped to follow.

‘Bear droppings,’ Namida said behind me.

And then there was a roar.

I’ve heard unsettling sounds in my life, but the deep, guttural ferocity of this one seemed primeval. I didn’t know nature was capable of making such a bellow! A blast of sound from the cave entrance, an animal roar, a great human cry inside, and then a snarl as something was struck with a thud.

‘Magnus!’ I cocked my rifle.

The entrance to the cave exploded.

Bloodhammer came first, somersaulting out backward as if he’d been catapulted. The hard earth around the entrance burst like shrapnel, gravel flying in all directions, as he skidded down scree towards the river, rolling with his arms wrapped around something massive and profoundly heavy. His axe skittered away as if batted like a ball of yarn.

Behind charged the biggest bear I’d ever seen, bigger than I knew bears could be. The animal was absolutely massive, gloriously golden, its back humped with muscle, its paws striking sparks as claws the size of Arab daggers scraped the ground. Oddly, there was a stout leather quirt around its neck. So this was the guardian! The women screamed, I yelled, and just barely had time to point my rifle and fire.

Fur and muscle jerked where the ball went in, and then the animal turned on me with gaping mouth, saliva flying.

Well, now I knew why the cave had become a hiding place. The old medicine man had chosen a grizzly bear den! And a den the monster had somehow been drugged and tied to, until aroused by one Magnus Bloodhammer. It snapped a coiled leather rope as thick as my thumb as if it were string.

Then the monster was on me, its smell rank, and in desperation I jammed my gun muzzle into the beast’s mouth. The pain distracted him, and a swiping paw missed. It choked on my weapon, shaking its head in confusion, and then snapped it from my grip and threw it away. I chopped with my tomahawk and hit a haunch, but that was about as effective as a bee sting. So I went slack, preparing to die. My world was fur, musk, dust, and this cacophonous roaring that threatened to break my ear drums. The bear seemed a hundred times stronger than I was.

But then the animal bellowed even louder, rearing up on its hind legs.

Namida had snatched up Magnus’s axe and buried it in the grizzly bear’s back.

The animal snarled, twisting to get at this instrument of torture, muscles rippling, claws flailing at what it couldn’t reach. Blood geysered.

Little Frog was throwing rocks at the animal, sobbing.

The bear dropped to all fours, shuffling to turn to these new tormentors, my own cringing form momentarily forgotten. Somehow I found fibre enough to begin crawling towards my rifle, wondering how I’d load it in time.

Then Magnus charged back up the slope with a Viking wail, holding something huge and heavy over his head. He grunted, heaved, and with all his might brought a stone tablet down on the animal’s head. There was an audible crack of skull bone and the grizzly actually went down with a whoof, grunting, dazed by a blow that would have completely dashed the brains of any normal animal. I reached for my rifle and rolled upright, pulling out the ramrod to load it.

Then Namida darted in like a squirrel, jerked out the axe, and threw it to Magnus. He caught the weapon with a shout, his face aflame from fury and exertion, heaved, aimed, and swung. It was as clean and beautiful a stroke as I ever saw, a full foot of broad steel sinking into the bear’s back and severing its spine. The creature’s massive legs went slack, as if cables had been cut, and it collapsed on its belly, looking at me with bewilderment and regret.

I kept loading just to be sure, my arms shaking. A last growl rumbled in the beast’s throat and the fire in its eyes finally died. The stone tablet lay heavily on the bear’s skull and Bloodhammer’s axe jutted from its fur.

‘By the horns of the Minotaur,’ I wheezed. ‘Why weren’t you eviscerated in the cave?’

‘I’d grasped the tablet before it woke and blocked its initial swipe. Then it broke loose from something and knocked me back through the entrance. It had the strength of ten men, Ethan. It had the spirit of Thor!’

‘And Thor almost had us for dinner. That damned tablet of yours saved our lives.’ The slab lay on the bear’s skull like a gravestone. ‘Let’s have a look at what we found.’

Magnus dragged the tablet off and flipped it over.

‘It’s the magic signs!’ Namida said. I made a mental note to give the girl the claws for a necklace. It’s always wise to make the best of bad situations, Ben used to tell me, and women love jewellery.

Magnus meanwhile traced incised lines with his fingers, muttering, and then looked at me in triumph. ‘Norse runes!’