The Dakota Cipher

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 rumour 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 rationalisations 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. There 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.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Feasting began at sunset, and revelry went on into the night. The Scot partners danced and skipped across crossed claymores 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 leapt 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 burnt. 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