The Dakota Cipher

by William Dietrich

  ‘Then I’ll tell you everything now,’ I said reasonably. If they wanted to go trooping after mythical hammers and nonexistent elephants, fine by me. I’m no coward, but the prospect of being a weeklong experiment for Red Jacket and his minions had me trembling, and what did I really care for Bloodhammer’s quest? I’d been recruited by accident.

  ‘I’m sorry, but that option has been closed, Ethan,’ Cecil said. ‘First, we wouldn’t believe you because you have a certain … inventiveness. And second, one of the things Aurora and I most enjoy, when we’re not coupling, is watching our enemies in pain. It’s electrifying – may I use that word? – how arousing the agony of others truly is. Our passion is always at its highest right after their suffering. We were hoping, the entire voyage here, that you’d make it necessary.’

  ‘You’ll forgive that I’m not all that happy to oblige.’

  ‘Your unhappiness is the best part!’ said Aurora.

  ‘I’ll cry out if you don’t let us go!’

  Aurora brought out a gag.

  ‘At least spare Magnus. I was the one who insisted we go with you. He’s just a harmless Norse dreamer.’

  ‘Spare a man who wants to claim North America by pretending his ancestors were here first? I think not. Besides, we want to hear him bellow. He’ll sound like an ox.’

  ‘I’ve a letter from my president, the sponsorship of Bonaparte, and McTavish himself has met me! If you murder us, it will be avenged!’

  ‘On the contrary. You stole supplies and a canoe, slipped into the wilderness without a word, and were never heard of again. We’ll mount a valiant rescue effort, finding, incidentally, whatever it is you’re really looking for. Then we’ll send condolences to Jefferson who, I’m sure, is actually expecting very little.’

  ‘You’ll unleash Ragnarok, Englishman!’ Magnus said from the ground.

  ‘I don’t believe in fairy tales, bumpkin,’ he said, pinking the Norwegian’s cheek with the point of his blade, ‘I’ve unleashed only the end of you.’

  And the gags were bound round our heads.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  At least we didn’t have to paddle.

  We were trussed like hogs and thrown in the bottom of Red Jacket’s canoe and the one we’d just stolen. A third canoe bore the Somersets with more Indian paddlers. A fourth included Namida and Little Frog. The two Indian women looked at us gloomily. They’d seen what happens to captives.

  This flotilla shoved off at dawn, the fort silent except for roosters and dogs, and soon we were out of sight. Except for rough handling as they tied us and dragged us, we were unmolested, since they were saving us for their village. I worked a while at the rawhide thongs but only succeeded in sawing my wrists. The Indians were better at trussing prisoners than my assailants at Mortefontaine.

  Our captors paddled all through that day and night, arriving the next morning at their home village on the western shore of Lake Superior. If it was any consolation, I judged by the sun and my memory of maps that the shoreline continued to lead us southwest. Unwittingly, we were a good hundred miles nearer our intended destination on Bloodhammer’s map.

  Gunshots and whoops announced our approach, and even from the bottom of the canoe I could hear the excited shouts of those waiting, no doubt trading torment tips and taking bets on how long before we screamed, fainted, or died. Somehow it was worse not being able to see yet, staring hopelessly up at the sky. Then the splash of paddlers leaping out, a dozen hands reaching to heave me up like a sack of flour, and finally I was ashore where my ankles were cut free so I could stand awkwardly, blood rushing painfully back to my feet. My hands stayed bound. Bloodhammer was propped up as well.

  I blinked, dizzy from anxiety. In front, a howling mob of perhaps two hundred Indians faced Magnus and me. Men, women, and children alike were armed with a stick or club and looking as excited as an orphanage at Christmas. A couple of rocks sailed out to sting us, but there was no serious barrage. You don’t open your present until its time.

  I tried to be philosophical. Magnus had dreamt that men who lived in virgin wilderness would be born with natural nobility and secret insight. Yet what I saw when civilisation was absent was raw human savagery stripped of any restraint. Nature was cruel, not benign, and that cruelty would now be turned on us.

  I looked at my companion. ‘I’m sorry, Magnus.’

  There was nothing to reply. He was looking at his tormenters with a Viking scowl that would give Tamerlane pause. Many men would collapse and weep at this point, praying against whatever horrors were planned – I had half a mind to do just that myself, if it would do any good – but Magnus was simply taking his enemies’ measure. If he ever got loose of his bonds, he’d be Samson at the pillars. So how to free ourselves?

  I glanced about. Aurora had claimed my longrifle, I saw with annoyance, angling it across her chest like a sentry. Some painted buck was shaking Bloodhammer’s double-bladed axe. Our stolen provisions had disappeared – probably eaten by our captors on the paddle here – and I realised I was ravenously hungry and desperately thirsty. Well, I’d lose my appetite soon enough.

  Red Jacket paraded up and down the beach, raising his arms, pointing at us, and orating in his native tongue. No doubt he was boasting how clever he was to have caught us, or explaining how foolish I was to try rescuing Namida. The girl and Little Frog were to one side of our party, shrinking from the shrieking assembly but in no danger themselves. Fertile women were too valuable to squander. Cecil was to the other side, hand on sheathed rapier, thoroughly enjoying his advisory role. He, I decided, would be the first to die. Then his half-sister, if that’s what she really was, the Siren. Yes, bitter revenge, just as soon as I got loose of two hundred agitated Indians!

  I tried to come up with a plan – electrical demonstrations, ancient spells, hidden weapons, predictions of a solar eclipse – and failed completely. It’s not easy to improvise when facing torture.

  Red Jacket had an idea of his own. He posed in front of us, hands on hips like the lord of the manor, and then speechified to the crowd again.

  They howled with delight. Cecil Somerset frowned, which I hoped was a good sign. Namida, I noticed, had glanced backward at something out of sight of the crowd but then quickly turned her attention again to me.

  A scraped deer hide was thrown on the ground between us. Red Jacket reached into one of his deep English pockets and pulled out a handful of what at first looked like pebbles. When he cast them onto the leather, I realised they were Indian dice, carved from the pits of wild plums. They were oval instead of square, in the Indian manner, and had just two sides: one side was carved with lines, circles, snakes, ravens, and deer; the other was blank.

  The Indians hooted and pranced. They loved gambling.

  And so did I, allowing myself a tiny wager on hope! Ten beans were placed on the hide as well.

  Red Jacket snapped something at Somerset and then jerked his head towards me. Cecil protested in the Indian tongue, but the chief would have none of it. He shook his head and barked at Somerset again.

  The Englishman finally shrugged. ‘He wants you to gamble, Gage. Apparently you have a reputation for it.’

  I swallowed. ‘I seem to be a little low on money.’

  ‘Gamble your life, of course.’

  ‘So if I win?’

  ‘You escape with your hair.’

  ‘And if I lose?’

  Cecil smiled. ‘Then you’ll run the gauntlet before being strapped to the stake, giving everyone a chance to take a swing at you.’

  ‘How sporting.’ I knelt at the deer hide, wrists still bound. ‘How do I play?’

  ‘It’s a simple version. Red Jacket will put the chips in a wooden bowl and throw. If more of the plain white side land up than the decorated, the thrower wins a bean. If more of the decorated side land up, you win a bean. If the advantage is seven white to three decorated, then two beans. Eight is three, nine four, and if all ten die are white then Red Jacket gets five beans.’
r />   ‘What do I get?’

  ‘Conversely, if the majority is decorated you take beans at the same rate. The first person to take all ten beans wins the game.’

  ‘That’s even odds and could take a long time,’ said Magnus.

  ‘At this point, friend, doesn’t that sound attractive?’ I countered.

  ‘Precisely,’ said Cecil. ‘But two consecutive throws of one colour can end it in a moment. So this entertainment may prove brief, as well.’

  The swarm of Indians crowded around, excitedly betting among themselves on how I would do. Red Jacket scooped up the dice, put them in the bowl, waggled it like a sifter, and threw the dice against the hide. A roar went up, fading to a mutter. There were five white sides, and five decorated. Neither of us won.

  He scooped them up to throw again.

  ‘Wait, don’t I get a turn?’

  ‘Under the circumstances, Mr Gage, I think it’s safer to keep you bound.’

  Red Jacket threw again and this time there were six white, four decorated. The crowd whooped as if it were a horse race! The chief took one bean.

  He threw again, and once more got six white. Delirium! Drumming and chanting!

  ‘By John Paul Jones, I don’t think anyone’s on our side. Be sure to cheer if we win a bean, Magnus.’

  ‘They’re just making sport of us.’

  ‘It’s better than the alternative.’

  Another throw, and this time seven decorated dice turned up. The crowd groaned in dismay. I got two beans to even our pile, and there was enough mourning to animate a Greek chorus. I’m lucky at gambling, so my spirits rose.

  Two more throws, each of us taking a bean, and then seven white for Red Jacket, giving him six beans for my three. There was one bean left in the middle. Luck seemed to be running the rascal’s way: hysteria among the onlookers.

  ‘I appear to be losing,’ I told Cecil resignedly.

  ‘Not yet. You’ll play until you’re entirely bankrupt.’

  I actually won the next toss, taking the final bean between us, and then the one after that, taking one of Red Jacket’s beans and making us even again. Now the Indians muttered and mourned, poor losers.

  But then he took two of mine, then one, I won that one back, then the chief took it yet again, and another besides. I had one bean left, he had nine. The Indians were dancing, singing, and anticipating my demise with frolic worthy of a Neapolitan carnival. I hadn’t caused this much amusement since Najac and his gang of French-Arab thugs hung me upside down over a snake pit. I really should have been a thespian.

  Red Jacket grinned, scooped the die up while dragging the sleeve of his ratty English coat, and gave a victory whoop as he shook to throw. The Indians howled with anticipation.

  But I’d watched this sly devil with a gambler’s eye. I suddenly twisted off my knees, landed in the sand on my rump, and lashed out with a free foot, kicking the bowl out of his hand and sending the dice flying. I had that small cache of silver dollars I’d hidden in the sole of my moccasin to keep them from the shrub-drinking voyageurs, and I’ll bet the metal made the kick sting even more.

  ‘He’s cheating!’ I cried. ‘Check the dice!’

  I hadn’t actually spotted it, but each time he scooped up the dice he gave no opportunity for me to inspect them. Judging how he’d gambled for Namida, I was betting he’d slipped one or more dice with two white sides into the game. And yes, I saw one likely example and slapped my foot down over it, even as an angry Red Jacket tried to pry it off.

  Cecil stepped forward between us and gestured for me to sit back. I uncovered the dice and he lifted it. Sure enough, two sides were white.

  The crowd was silent.

  ‘Clever guess, Mr Gage. If you’d made a more civilised gesture we might have cause to question the entire propriety of this contest.’ He flipped the die in the air, catching it, and slipping it into his own pocket. ‘But you lashed out like a brute.’ Red Jacket looked murderous.

  ‘He cheated! Set us free!’

  ‘On the contrary, you upset the final throw of the game before its conclusion could be reached. We thus have to go by the score when you unceremoniously backed out. It was, I recall, nine to one.’

  ‘Only because he rigged the game!’

  ‘You upset the contest rather than make proper challenge. You can blame your own boorish manners for what is to come.’ Then he shouted something to the assembled Indians and they yelped anew, ecstatic that the fun of our torture could finally begin. Cecil turned back to me. ‘Don’t you understand that the game has been stacked against you from the start, Ethan? Do you really think we were going to allow a French-American spy to blithely blunder around British fur territory?’

  ‘Spanish territory, now French.’

  ‘Don’t think I’m disturbed by that technicality.’

  ‘Norwegian territory!’ Magnus shouted.

  He smiled. ‘How quaint. It’s historical progress to have you both die.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Red Jacket snapped some orders and the tribe began backing from the beach to form two parallel lines towards the gate of their palisade village. The women eagerly pushed into position ahead of the men, shaking their sticks and screeching contempt, which is usually something women do only when they’ve known me for a while. I saw gaping mouths, white teeth, and black, remorseless eyes. It took every ounce of courage to take the first tottering step forward.

  We were about to run the gauntlet towards the stake and the fire.

  ‘Don’t fall,’ Cecil coached. ‘They’ll beat you until you’re unconscious and see how many bones they can break. That makes it hurt even more when they tie you to the stake.’

  ‘Perhaps you could show how it’s done?’

  ‘Quite unnecessary. Running the gauntlet is instinctive, Mr Gage, or so Girty told me. He’s quite the mentor, you know.’

  Someone shoved from behind and I staggered forward, wrists still bound behind my back. I’d have to be quick, ducking the blows of the strongest and meanest and trying to keep my face down and undamaged. So I dug my feet in the gravel of the beach, crouched while my tormentors howled with anticipation, and then, when a musket went off, sprang. They whooped.

  My speed took them by surprise so the first few clubs missed, wind singing by my ears. But then blows began striking my arms, back, and thighs. Someone thrust out a stick to trip me and I had the wit to jump and come down on it, snapping the wood and eliciting a cry of surprise. I butted another brute and kept staggering. One particularly fierce crack stung the side of my neck but the pain jolted me forward just as I was faltering. I surged ahead again, clubs a tattoo on my torso.

  ‘Good show, Gage!’ Cecil was shouting. ‘Oh, that must hurt!’

  ‘His head! Hit his head!’ Aurora screamed. At least she wasn’t urging them to aim for more private areas.

  There was a great shout behind and I glanced to see that Magnus, charging like a bull, had knocked over half a dozen of his assailants and was stomping on indignant, writhing forms as other Indians howled with laughter. The distraction allowed me to squirt ahead the final ten yards with only a few last smart blows. I plunged through the gate of the village where half a dozen armed warriors waited in a blocking semicircle and sank to my knees, too excited for the full pain to yet register. Bloodhammer’s size had turned his ordeal into sport, the gauntlet widening around him like a swollen python. As he ploughed forward he dragged Indians with him, grunting with each thwack and spit, and when his knee went down once he simply genuflected and shoved off again, gasping. Finally he broke free of his tormenters and joined me in the dirt. A trickle of blood ran from one temple and his chest heaved. Norse fire burnt in his eyes.

  ‘Did they crack a rib?’ I asked.

  ‘Barely dusted me. I broke a nose with my foot. I heard it crunch.’ He grinned, his teeth red with blood.

  ‘Look for any chance you can. I’d rather die fighting than burn.’

  The cordons on his neck popped out as he
strained at his bonds. ‘If I get loose, it won’t be just us dying.’

  It seemed appropriate to concede some fault, given the circumstances. ‘I’m not always the smartest judge of women,’ I admitted.

  He spat blood. ‘We’ll pay her back.’

  ‘And living in nature doesn’t improve human character,’ I went on, a regular Locke to dispute the Rousseau of Magnus.

  ‘This is nature corrupted by gunpowder and rum,’ the Norwegian replied. ‘These Indians are on the edge of extinction and know it, and the knowledge has driven them crazy.’ He looked sourly at a brave who sauntered up, languidly swinging his axe. ‘Out there it’s still different.’

  ‘Out where?’

  ‘We just haven’t gone west far enough.’

  The Indians tied tethers around our necks like dogs and Cecil languidly walked in front of us, his sword now unsheathed and balanced casually on his shoulder. ‘Gage, I’ve never met a spy so easy to anticipate.’

  ‘I’m not a spy.’

  ‘After failing to get you in New York we didn’t even have to trail you to Washington. We had only to wait for you at Detroit, so obvious was your mission. I was sceptical that my sister’s bit of quim would be enough to get you to abandon a chance of American escort, but you almost suggested the arrangement yourself. Tsk, tsk, Ethan Gage. You played her lackey until you spied a squaw, like a dog distracted by a new rabbit. And then, after peeping on us, you made a beeline for the Mandan wench, the one place we might look for you. I’m beginning to wonder if a fool like you and the hero of Acre are the same man at all. Are you an imposter?’

  ‘I’ve discovered your headquarters.’ I looked about.

  He laughed. ‘This dung heap? This nest of primitives? I use savages, Ethan. I’ve got my eye on a castle in Montreal, after we’ve helped these Indians push your mercantile, indentured nation back east of the Appalachians with an uprising so violent that the rivers from the Monongahela to the Mississippi run red with blood. Ten thousand cabins are going to burn, and ten thousand children are going to become orphans, inducted into the tribes. Tecumseh will make Pontiac look like a Franciscan monk by the time he’s through, and Britain has guns enough for all of them. Yes, America must be confined, Ethan Gage, for its own good and the good of the world. I will not let your nation of grubby equality and mercantile greed pollute civilisation! America will be contained until it inevitably withers, just as France must be contained! So now you’ll die, and we’ll send your entrails back to Jefferson after the dogs help pull them from your slit belly. You can watch us smoke them for preservation – oh yes, the old women know how to keep you alive and conscious while we do it! Unless, of course, you want to tell us what you’re really doing on the far frontier, so far from the salons and parlours that keep you worm-white and useless. Tell us, Gage, and because I’m charitable I might grant you the gift of a swift tomahawk to the head! You’ll tell us anyway, when the squaws put coals in your ears and anus and shove cedar splinters up your wilted prick.’