The Dakota Cipher by William Dietrich

Author:William Dietrich
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780749010591
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2011-12-30T23:00:00+00:00

The storm moved on, the sun low when it finally broke clear in the west. I was stiff and shivering with cold and thus happy for the exercise when Pierre beckoned me to follow him into the trees in search of dry wood. Magnus came too, swinging his great axe to break trail like a moose. In moments we were swallowed in a labyrinth of birch and thick moss, the wind and waves audible but our path back swallowed. I soon lost track of our direction.

‘How do you know where we are?’

‘Our blundering leaves signs, and the sound of the waves. But I like the water, not the forest where a man goes blind. I’ve had companions planning to walk a hundred paces to fetch a pail of berries and vanish without a trace. Some say Indians, some say bears, some say Wendigo. I say it is simply the soul of the forest, which sometimes gets hungry and swallows men up.’

I glanced about. The trees shuddered, the shadows were deep, and water pattered everywhere. I could be lost for days.

Pierre, however, seemed to have a calm sense of direction. We found a downed tree in the lee of a rock, its underside punk wood, and chopped until we quickly had armfuls of dry fuel and moss for tinder. We followed his sure route back and the other voyageurs used flint, steel, and gunpowder to catch the kindling. Smoke began puffing up in great grey clouds. Meanwhile Magnus was chopping more sizable wood with his axe, snapping dead driftwood into lengths with a single swing. I carried these to add to our pyramids of flame. Soon we had three bonfires roaring. Clothes steamed as the voyageurs began a makeshift manic dance like red savages, singing bawdy French songs and laughing and weeping at our escape and the death of their comrades, a tragedy they seemed to regard as unremarkable as the storm itself. Death was as common as snow in the north country.

The sun neared the horizon, giving the wet beach and forest behind it a golden glow as if lacquered. The canvas tents of our nobility went up, steaming, and Cecil broke out a keg of rum and gave us each a tot, even Aurora gulping the fiery liquid down like a sailor.

We began to grin stupidly, the way people do when they escape. Nothing makes you feel more alive than a brush with death.

Then the fires burnt down to manageable coals and we began to cook our peas and pork and hominy, stomachs growling. The men stirred fat into the corn porridge.

We ate as if famished, shaking with weariness. Pierre, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and licking it, addressed Cecil. ‘Lord Somerset, we’ve had loss but also gain this day. I watched the donkeys perform well – maybe because they wanted to keep their canoe in pace with that of your pretty cousin, no?’

‘If Ethan and Magnus are as weary as I am, then we all did yeoman work.

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