Sitka

by Louis L'Amour

  When they moved into the next room for brandy and cigars Rudakof was beaming and jovial; the numerous drinks were having their effect. He opened his collar to give his thick neck more freedom and became involved in a lively discussion with the geologist.

  Almost accidentally, LaBarge found Busch at his side. The tall man studied him out of cool, intelligent eyes. "Is it true, Captain, that you have wheat aboard? And you have not received permission to discharge the cargo?" "That's right." Rudakof's broad beam was turned to them; he did not notice their conversation. "In fact, the director seemed upset instead of pleased, and when I asked to have lighters at once, he created delays." "This wheat ... how much is it worth?"

  "That's just it. The wheat was ordered by Count Rotcheff and the money for payment is on deposit in a San Francisco bank. I can collect payment by showing a receipt signed by the governor, or"--he paused--"by other responsible parties who will see the wheat used for the benefit of the colony." "Paid for?" Busch was astonished.

  "Evidently," Jean suggested tentatively, "everyone is not anxious to see the wheat delivered."

  For a few minutes Busch said nothing, then, "You will understand, Captain, that in our country as well as yours there are factions, and there are those who would make money even at the expense of their country. I realize this is hard to believe, but there are men who regard nothing as disloyal as long as the profits are large. Loyalty to their pocketbook or to their business firm is above loyalty to their country."

  "It's the same in my country."

  "I think men vary little the world over, but there are always a few who serve and ask nothing but to serve. The survival of the Sitka colony is of interest to me, and at this moment your wheat is almost the price of that survival." Yonovski interrupted and Busch moved away. The conversation grew more desultory and more ribald. Finally, the party broke up and Jean started down the steps. His eyes swept the dark harbor, searching out the schooner. Another ship was showing her lights, anchored only a short distance from the Susquehanna! From her size she could only be the patrol ship.

  He never recalled how he reached the boat. Boyar and Turk were sitting on the edge of the landing, smoking. Turk got up quickly. "No chance to do anything, sir. She just moved up and lay broadside to us." Behind them in the dark passageway a boot scuffed. LaBarge stepped quickly out of the light and Boyar got to his feet. Light gleamed on a gun barrel in Turk's hand.

  Two men stepped from the passage and walked to them. The first was Busch, the other the father of Dounia. "If we give you a receipt, Captain," Busch asked, "will you deliver to us the wheat?"

  "The wheat was bought for Sitka. If you'll accept delivery, I'm agreeable. But you will have a problem." He indicated the patrol ship. "Have you an answer to that?"

  "You underrate us, Captain." Busch spoke softly. "We saw the patrol ship while you were still at the Castle, and the men who stand the night watch aboard her were still in town. They were at the tearoom, of course, for all men come to the tearoom to look at Dounia, who is the prettiest girl in Sitka. "Dounia is a clever girl and when she told them it was her birthday they drank to her health in vodka. They drank many toasts, Captain, and naturally they were supplied with bottles by my friend here, Arseniev, the father of Dounia. They celebrated very well, Captain, and we gave them a dozen bottles to take back to the ship."

  "Good ... the cargo will be on deck, waiting."

  Hours later, in silence and darkness, he watched the last sack go over the side into the big, flat-bottomed scow. The scow had made several trips, always careful to show no lights and to moor herself on the off side of the schooner. Busch came aboard and signed the receipt, then gripped Jean's hand. "Thank you, my friend! Thank you!" he whispered.

  The scow slipped away into the darkness. A few lights sparkled from the Castle on the Hill, and the snows of Mount Edgecumbe glimmered faintly through the night. Barney Kohl came down the deck. "If it wasn't for her," he said, "we--" "Get everybody on deck. No lights, no noise. Then haul us up to the anchor." "You going to slip the anchor?"

  "And lose it? Not unless I have to."

  A soft wind was blowing over the bay as the Susquehanna came swiftly and silently to life. Clothes rustled, a knot struck the deck, a board creaked, ghostly hands moved on a line.

  Kohl spoke. "Over the anchor, Captain."

  Several of the crew were beside Jean, busy with a queer contrivance. He looked around at Kohl. "All right, take her in. Gently now." T'heir only worry was the patrol ship; the watchers there might be drunk or might not. There was no sound now from the Lena. Earlier there had been loud laughter and occasional singing.

  "Ben?"

  "Yes, Cap'n?"

  "Ready?"

  "Sure as you're alive."

  Several of the crew moved up beside him and together they lowered the contrivance over the side and anchored it in place. It was a long, narrow raft that supported two thin masts and a boom. On the end of one mast and on the boom, lights were mounted. From a distance, if the observer was drunk enough, it would look as if the schooner were still there. "Douse your lights, Kohl. Then light these."

  The tide was setting northward toward Channel Rock. Jean let the schooner drift, and there was no sound above the ripple of water past her hull. "When she comes abeam of the Rock," Jean said, "shake out a jib. I want no noise. Sound carries too well over the water at night." There was, for several minutes, no other sound. Then across the water on the patrol ship somebody moved and spoke. Kohl swore softly and Jean held his breath. The schooner seemed to lie still on the dark water, and ashore on Japonski Island, an Indian chanted. Behind him, higher in the forest, a lone wolf howled inquiringly into the night. The night gave back its echoes to his repeated question.

  "We're movin'!" Pete Noble whispered hoarsely. "Look at them lights!" Astern of them, almost fifty yards off, were the lights that simulated the schooner. They were moving but the movement was desperately slow and at any moment some drunken sailor aboard the Lena might realize something was wrong. The crew stood in silence, almost afraid to breathe, wondering what a Russian prison would be like.

  "Channel Rock ahead, Cap'n. Shall I shake out the jib?"

  "Hold it."

  The minutes walked by on cat feet. A star appeared through a veil of cloud, then was quickly banished behind a dark mass of rolled black-cotton cloud. The patrol ship was well astern now. Somewhere ashore and far off, a dog barked. Channel Rock was abeam. "All right, Barney," Jean said, and watched the white flag of the jib shake out and fill itself with the light breeze. "Stand by the mizzen," he said, after a minute. Channel Rock fell astern and the dark bulk of Battery Island loomed on the port side, yet they were still far from free. There was no more time. "All right, Barney. Get some sail on her!" Smartly the mizzen was hauled aloft, then the mains'l. The Susquehanna gathered speed. Out from behind Japonski Island the wind filled her sails and she heeled over and began to dip her bows deeper. With luck they would soon have a full cargo and a ticket home.

  "Sail, ho!" The call, from the lookout in the bow, was low and desperate. Jumping to the bulwark, Jean strained his eyes into the darkness. A big square-rigger was coming up the Western Channel, headed into port under a full head of sail, although even as they sighted her she began to take in canvas. Barney swore. "Look at that, would you?"

  "I'm looking."

  She was bearing down upon them and coming fast The man at the wheel turned and glanced at Jean but LaBarge shook his head. To change course now would be to lose distance they could not afford, yet the big windjammer was headed as if to run them down.

  "Cap'n!" The man at the wheel had a pleading note in his voice.

  "Hold your course!"

  Kohl drew a sharp breath and looked up at the towering heights of canvas. Before he could speak he was interrupted by a shout from the square-rigger and a command to put the wheel over. The big ship sheered off and a man ran shouting to the rail. A dozen faces joined him, peering over the side of the schooner. A rough voice
hailed them. "What ship is that? Who are you?" The hail was in Russian, then in English. LaBarge ignored the shouts and then suddenly, in the white light from a scuttle, he saw a face, and it was the face he could never forget, that would always be with him. There it was, not more than heaving-line distance away, and for a moment as the two ships passed their eyes met across the space, and then as they drew apart, he lifted a hand. She hesitated, then waved back, a vague, sad gesture in the night, and then the square-rigger fell astern and there was no sound, no light, and only a memory of a white face lonely in the light from an open scuttle, and the memory of a girl who had ridden beside him over the tawny, sunlit hills. The schooner dipped her bow and spray swept the deck. On the wind there was a smell of open sea and of the far-off pine-clad islands to the north, those far green islands where the schooner was bound.

  Chapter 17

  Within a very short time Baron Zinnovy would realize that despite all his efforts the wheat had been delivered, and he would know that LaBarge and the Susquehanna were at large in the Alexander Archipelago. The immediate problem was obvious. They must be where the patrol ship was not, they must pick up the cargo of furs as planned, and slip away to the south at the first opportunity thereafter.

  The schooner carried eighteen men and three officers, all carefully selected men. A third of the number could have handled her, but the others were needed for trading, fighting, or any move LaBarge might make ashore. "We're pointing for Cross Sound. Do you know it, Kohl?" "As well as any man, which means nothing. I know there's glaciers north of it that keep feeding ice into the Sound, and there are bad fogs." "Do you know a small cove with an island in its mouth? It's on the north coast of Chichagof?"

  "That's old Skayeut's village."

  "All right. Take us there."

  Jean walked forward to the waist. There were no sails in sight and they could expect a few hours' grace. With the following wind they could make good time and farther north they could hug the coast. The wind was cold now, the sea choppy. From now on they would need luck, ingenuity, and every bit of their combined knowledge. Fortunately, the schooner was new, she could sail close to the wind and could carry canvas.

  The shores of the island, when they reached it, were heavily wooded right to the water's edge. Here and there a small indentation, each with a minute section of beach, broke the monotony of the forest-clad shore. The morning was bright and the day cold. Taking the schooner in past the George Islands they reached toward the cove, seeing no sign of life except a lone tern floating comfortably on the gray sea.

  "The entrance is narrow," Kohl advised, "right abeam of the island." It opened before them as he spoke and he conned the schooner into the opening between island and shore. Trees came down to the water and there was a fringe of ice along the shore. Inland, over the trees, they detected a column of smoke. "This Skayeut," Kohl said, "he's a mean old blister."

  "Can we go on in?"

  "The passage is narrow, and there's only three feet of water over the rocks at low tide, but you could make it at high tide, and inside it's deep enough." "We'll stay here."

  Two canoes put out from shore and circled the Susquehanna just within hailing distance. There were four men in one canoe, two in the other, but no movement showed on the shore, although all knew Indians were there, studying the schooner. These Indians had suffered too much from the greed and rapacity of the Russians.

  The dark green walls of the forest closed them in, and the schooner lay like a ship in a dream on the still, cold water. There was a faint slap of paddles on water as the canoes circled closer. The Indians stopped rowing. "Where's Skayeut?" Kohl shouted.

  The Tlingits said nothing. The schooner was new in these waters. One Indian shaded his eyes to stare at Kohl. "You Boston men?" "Sure! Come aboard!"

  They hung off, reluctant to risk it. One of the Tlingits indicated LaBarge. "Who that?" he called.

  "LaBarge!" Jean called back. "You tell Skayeut that Jean LaBarge has come to see him!"

  The paddles dipped deep and the canoe shot shoreward. Two of the men in the larger canoe turned to stare at LaBarge and Kohl turned to his captain. "They acted like they knew your name."

  "They know it," Jean replied blandly, enjoying Kohl's mystified expression. "He knew me, Barney."

  Just before noon a half dozen bidarkas shot out from shore, each packed with Indians. In the first was Skayeut, a tall man with a wide, deep chest and massive bones. He thrust out his hand to Jean and they looked into each other's eyes, and then they both smiled.

  Trade was brisk. The Tlingit Indians were born traders. Even before the arrival of Captain Cook they knew the value of the land trade routes and their economic value to the tribe. At one time the tribe had traveled three hundred miles to stop the establishment of a Hudson Bay post where it would interfere with their own trade with tribes from the interior.

  Of this Jean knew, and that old Skayeut could give him information about the interior. The old chieftain was about to learn that information itself could be a valuable item of trade.

  For three nights they remained at Elfin Cove, and each night LaBarge noted down the results of his talks with the old chief and the procession of Tlingits and Salish the chief brought to talk of Alaska. Later, alone in his cabin, Jean noted down what he had heard for future reference.

  ... the gold is known to the Russians. An effort was made to mine it without success and for some reason further attempts were discouraged, probably they did not wish to attract attention to a territory so insecure in a military sense. Old Skayeut knows where more gold can be had and will trade for iron. The iron here is in small deposits and difficult for the Tlingits to work. They are a superior people and the blankets they weave of dog hair or cedar bark are equal to the best, anywhere.

  For a month the Susquehanna worked her way south, down Saginaw Channel into Stephens Passage, pausing at this island or that village. As planned, they touched a dozen villages where no traders had been in some time and soon the hold of the schooner was filled with prime fur. Occasionally they sighted some native canoe, but heard of no other vessels in the area. Yet Jean was nervous, for the channels were narrow, allowing no chance to maneuver, and steep mountains rose on either side to about fifteen hundred feet in solid banks of forest before giving way to bare rock or snow. The presents he had sent north were paying off, for everywhere he was welcomed as an old friend.

  The seventh week of trading was ending when Kohl came to the cabin where LaBarge was busy adding more information to his books. "Cap," Kohl said abruptly, "I've mastered my own ships and I'm not one to butt in, but the crew are getting nervous. We've been lucky this far; now let's head for home." "You know Kasaan Bay?"

  "Sure."

  "That's our last stop."

  Kohl dropped into a chair and shoved his hat back on his head. "I'm not one to show the feather, Cap, but this trip worries me. Maybe it's the fool luck we've had, cutting that square-rigger so close aboard you must have scared them out of a year's growth. I know you scared me. You done it deliberate, too ... and she couldn't have come around in a half hour, not to chase us, she couldn't. But it's fool luck we've had, every village loaded with prime fur, and no patrol ship in sight. You know what I think?"

  "Let's have it." Jean tipped back in his chair. "They're waitin' for us, Cap. Zinnovy will be to the south, knowing we've got to go that way, and he'll be lyin' where he can cover the best routes. He'll have both the Lena and the Kronstadt, and men staked out to cover every passage." "I think you're right."

  "Look." Kohl bent over the crude chart on the table before them. "We're heading down Clarence Strait. Once we cross the bay down here we'll be in Canadian waters, but that won't stop Zinnovy. Only right there some ships would head for open sea and a straight run to Frisco. So what does he do? He waits for us in the mouth of the Strait."

  "Just where do you think he'll wait?"

  "My guess is right off Duke Island, but maybe a little south so he can check both channels."

&
nbsp; Kohl had made a point that disturbed him. LaBarge was not sure that Zinnovy had even bothered to make a search, for such news travels from island to island and village to village by swift traveling canoes. It was likely Zinnovy was doing just what Kohl suggested, patrolling the outlets to the south. He did not tell Kohl that he had been, for days, worrying the problem as a dog worries a bone. "Barney, if you've got it figured straight, we'd better stand ready for action."

  "You'll fight?"

  "I won't be taken. We'll run if we can, but when we can't run any more, we'll fight."

  Kohl went aft with a small grin on his lips. He had begun the voyage in a surly mood, hoping LaBarge would get his belly full and decide that San Francisco life was better. But as the voyage progressed he grew to like the man more and more. He had nerve, and he had brains. He still did not understand LaBarge's vast knowledge of the islands.

  Later, they discussed the question again. "There are channels," Kohl said, "but too many dead ends and some of the channels are filled with ice. A man needs local knowledge."

  The lantern above their heads swayed with the gentle roll of the schooner. Her timbers creaked and they studied the chart. It offered few alternatives. "This island?" LaBarge put his finger on a large mass of land ahead and to the east. "That's Revjllagigedo, isn't it?"

  "Uh-huh. You can call it an island, Cap'n, but nobody knows whether it is or not."

  "Ever see a Russian chart?"

  "A dozen. On their charts it's part of the mainland." "Good." He got to his feet. "That was what I'd hoped. Understand now, Barney, no fighting unless we have to. Until then we play hide-and-seek around the islands."

  Suddenly, there was a shout from aloft, and running feet on deck. Then the cry, "Sail, ho!"

  "Where away?"

  "Dead ahead, an' comin' up fast!"

  "Well." Kohl grinned at LaBarge and rolled his quid in his jaws. "Here's where we start to run."

  Together they went up the companion to the deck and studied the oncoming ship through the glass. A flag was climbing the halyard and when it was caught by the wind it was easily seen. It was the flag of Imperial Russia.