by Janet Dailey
The green timbers of the shitik’s hull creaked and shuddered constantly. Someone manned the pump at all times, struggling to keep the vessel from taking on more water than she could hold. The close confines below deck reeked with the smell of dried fish and unwashed bodies. Vomit created a stench that was almost unbearable. Yet no one dared venture on deck for fear of being washed overboard by the tempestuous waves.
As the day wore on with no abatement of the storm, nerves and tempers threatened to break. The feeling of utter helplessness worked on Luka. He grew angry with this hell that refused to end. He couldn’t believe that he’d come this far only to be denied the riches he sought. The idleness nearly drove him mad. He couldn’t stand to sit there in the dark, stinking hold and listen to the shuddering groans of the vessel, wondering how much more punishment it would take, wondering when he’d hear the crack of timber and feel the rush of sea water closing around him.
Getting to his feet, he grabbed the support of a cross beam to balance himself against the wild pitching of the shitik. As he made his way over to the keg of dried salmon, he stumbled over a body in the shadows. A booted foot kicked at his leg in retaliation. Luka kicked back and went on.
“Anybody want some food?” He lifted off the cover and scooped out a handful of dried chunks. Someone answered affirmatively from the near corner, and Luka tossed a piece in his direction. Beside him a man moaned. “Want one?” He offered a chunk to the half-supine man.
The man’s eyes opened and focused on the fishy object, then he gave another groan. Convulsively his stomach heaved, disgorging its meager contents. Vomit bubbled from his mouth, slowly dribbling out of a corner to roll into his beard.
Derisively Luka snorted and moved on. He paused in front of Shekhurdin, who managed to appear less disheveled than the rest of the company. He met the Cossack’s empty, hollow-eyed stare. “Better eat if you’ve got the stomach for it,” Luka advised.
Shekhurdin reached out and took a chunk of salmon, then carried it to his mouth. He tore off a dry stringy bite with his teeth and chewed on it. “Give the hostages some.”
All his instincts rebelled against sharing their meager food supply with savages, but he suppressed them, aware of the practical value of looking after hostages well. Irritably he nodded a reply to Shekhurdin’s directive.
He located the pair huddled in a corner and maneuvered around slumped bodies—some sick and some simply dispirited—to the hostages. Bracing a hand against the bulkhead, he offered the hunks of dried salmon to them. The boy turned his sickly pale face away from the sight of it, obviously fighting nausea. Luka tossed a chunk onto his lap. When he started to give one to the old woman, he was roughly shoved from the side and the lurch of the shitik sent him sprawling. He struck his head on something when he fell, and he rolled onto his side, trying to stop the spinning blaze behind his eyes.
“The woman is old.” Belyaev’s bulk towered over him. “She’s going to die anyway, so why feed her?”
“You fool, Belyaev,” Luka jeered as the shitik yawed badly and a rush of sea water spilled down the hatchway. “We’re probably all going to die.”
Metal flashed as Belyaev pulled his knife from its belt sheath. “Then let’s kill them now. If we’re going to die, let’s make sure they’re dead first.”
Luka saw the madness of a trapped animal in Belyaev’s face, the wild violence that came with the fear of approaching death. Although he believed this wasn’t the time to kill the hostages, he had no intention of risking his life against Belyaev to protect them. The natives weren’t irreplaceable; more hostages could be taken. He lay unmoving as Belyaev swung toward the pair.
Shekhurdin stepped out of the shadows and placed himself between Belyaev and the hostages. “I took them prisoner. I will say when they die, Belyaev, not you.”
“Out of my way, Cossack.” Belyaev reached out to shove him aside.
With unexpected swiftness, Shekhurdin launched himself at Belyaev, grabbing for the knife arm. Both came crashing down. Luka heard the clatter of the knife skittering across the planks and realized Belyaev was disarmed. The bodies thrashed together on the floor in the semi-darkness.
The close confines of the hold gave the advantage to the heavier, more muscled Belyaev and deprived Shekhurdin of space to use his superior swiftness. Within minutes, Belyaev overpowered him and emerged astraddle the Cossack with his stubby hands at his throat. Luka saw the killing lust that contorted Belyaev’s face as he throttled the man’s windpipe and stretched out of reach of the fingers trying to claw out his eyes.
Seeing the strength leave Shekhurdin’s arms, Luka scrambled to his feet. The killing of a fellow promyshlenik was murder. He could not sit idly by and watch. He locked an arm around Belyaev’s neck from behind and bent him backwards, straining to break the stranglehold. At last Belyaev clawed at his arm, his hands free from the Cossack’s throat. Stepping aside, Luka used his leverage to hurl Belyaev backwards to the floor. When he started to get up, Luka kicked him back down.
“The Cossack has friends who would see you dead,” he warned, then knelt beside the victim. His fingers felt the weak beating of Shekhurdin’s pulse beneath the brown beard. “You’re lucky, Belyaev. He’s alive.”
He straightened to his feet as Shekhurdin stirred, reaching to clutch his throat. Moving away, he went to retrieve the knife, hearing the revived man’s coughing gasps for air. When he returned with Belyaev’s knife, Shekhurdin was sitting up, his shoulders hunched with the effort to breathe.
Bypassing him, Luka walked over to Belyaev and gave him the knife, hilt-end first. “Sheathe it.”
Resentment glittered in Belyaev’s eyes, but he jammed the knife into its leather case.
“You’ll pay for this, Belyaev,” Shekhurdin threatened hoarsely.
“I’m trembling in my boots,” he mocked, but he threw a malevolent glance at Luka and muttered savagely, “You should have let me kill him.”
Turning, Luka saw the bitter black points of hatred in Shekhurdin’s eyes. He watched him crawl back to his space along the bulkhead, a loser in battle, and guessed that the Cossack would have preferred death to the ignominy of defeat. The promyshleniki would never elect him peredovchik now. The opportunity to bring himself to the attention of the powers in Siberia as the hunt leader was gone.
In the darkness, someone murmured prayers, but the repetitive chant had no meaning to Luka. He remembered the ikons in the church at Petropavlovsk and the black-robed priests. God lived in the church, but Luka didn’t believe He was anywhere near this hellhole of the boat. They were alone. If this storm didn’t end soon, they’d all probably go mad and kill each other. Even he wasn’t sure he could face another day of this.
In the night, the storm spent its fury and Luka awakened to rain, just rain. He went up on deck and let it wash the stench of the hold from him—a stench that also included the smell of madness.
The sails were unfurled and the navigator set a course for where he believed the island to be.
Chuprov paused beside him. “We have no choice. If we find the island, we’ll have to seek a wintering place where we can beach the shitik. We’ve lost our anchor and our dinghy.” He smiled crookedly. “We’ll get there, with bozhe pomoshtch—God’s help.”
Luka glanced toward the two Aleuts on deck. At that moment, the old woman turned, a smile wreathing her face. Her pointing finger directed them to look off the port side. “Attu,” she said. Far away, on the distant horizon, Luka could see the mountainous headland of the island.
It took them a half a day’s sail to reach it. In their previous exploration of the island that the native women called Attu, they had seen a likely bay where they could winter. They searched it out and waited for high tide, then sailed into it and beached the flat-bottomed craft on the sand.
At sea, the navigator, Nevodchikov, had been the final authority. Now that they were on land, the promyshleniki elected their own leader. Yakov Petrovich Chuprov was chosen.
That night
Chuprov offered prayers to the patron saint of their expedition, then ordered bread to be made from their rationed supply of flour and precious sourdough starter, and wisely passed the jugs of kvass around, a brew made from fermented grain. With their stomachs full and the rosy glow of liquor in their eyes, life looked good once more and they could drink to the sea they would not have to sail again until next year, when they would return with a cargo hold bulging with sea otter pelts. So they drank, and sang, and danced Cossack-style, legs and feet flying, bodies whirling.
Come morning, Chuprov had Luka accompany him as he led the old woman a distance away from the beached boat. Through Luka, he presented her with a kerchief, metal needles, and a thimble, which Luka had to show her how to use. Then, using sign language, Luka communicated Chuprov’s request to her.
“You are to return to your village.” He tapped her shoulder, then walked his fingers through the air toward the mountains. “Tell your people”—he gestured to his mouth—“that our leader wishes to see them. He wants to trade with them.”
Luka doubted that the woman understood, despite the affirmative nodding of her head. He made it as clear as he could that the boy would remain with him for the time being, letting her think he might release him when she came back with her people. Not knowing how far her village might be from the bay, he gave her a small amount of the seal blubber they’d taken from the hut and a container of water, and watched her walk with quick steps toward the ragged cliffs.
“Do you think she’ll come back?” Chuprov asked.
“We’ve got the boy. Someone will come for him,” Luka stated. “It’s just a matter of whether or not they come with spears.”
From his perch on the hillside, Many Whiskers scanned the area around his village, his gaze making long sweeps of the sky, sea, and land. He watched for many things—the boats of raiders, driftwood, whales or sea lions swimming close to the island, flocks of ducks, and the comings and goings of his village.
While his eyes worked, his thoughts wandered. There were many things to ponder. It wasn’t a happy time in his village. He had only to look at the women weaving death mats in which to wrap the bodies of his son, Small Hand, and his cousin, Moon Face. Both had died from the wounds they received during the fight with the raiders when Little Spear and Weaver Woman were captured. He had followed the strange men and watched them take his mother and cousin onto their large boat made of wood. The loss was great for him to bear, both his mother and his son taken from him—the past and the future.
There were many stories in his tribe of strange boats wrecking on their shores with men of another race aboard. Their boats were made of wood and held together with pieces of a hard substance—harder than rock. Many Whiskers knew such things to be true. His brother Strong Man had traded many skins for one palm-sized piece of this harder-than-stone substance. Through his massive strength and much pounding, Strong Man had shaped it into a sharp spearhead for his harpoon. Many Whiskers had seen it—touched it. And the raiders who had killed his son and taken his mother, Weaver Woman, had long hollow sticks of it. He had seen them, too, in the fight, although he hadn’t heard them roar like thunder the way his sister’s husband from Agattu claimed they did.
He had lived thirty-eight summers. The hair above his lip had grown thicker and wreathed the curve of his jaw and chin. But he was not a wise man. The Creator did not guide his thoughts the way He did Strong Man’s, and bring him understanding. Many Whiskers didn’t know what any of this meant. Death, like birth, was a way of life. But these strange raiders with their thundersticks harder than stone, they troubled him.
The air stirred softly around him. It was a rare calm day, proving indeed the wind was not a river. Maybe the wind would not again blow the raiders to the island in his lifetime. Perhaps this incident would become another tale for Storyteller to relate in the evenings.
He spotted an object entering the bay. Many Whiskers quickly identified its shape as that of a kayak, paddled by a single occupant. Strong Man, he knew, had left the village to go fishing. He waited to see whether it was him returning or someone from another village coming to visit. As the kayak approached the village beach, riding a wave, he recognized his brother, Strong Man, and saw the catch of halibut lashed on the deck of the kayak.
When Many Whiskers turned to look at the village, he noticed an old woman laboriously making her way down the trail that climbed the green cliffs behind the village. It looked like Weaver Woman. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. It was she. Shouting, he ran down the hill into the village to tell the others.
The instant Winter Swan heard the alerting shout, she thought the raiders had returned. She hurried to her feet, dropping the half-finished parka on her lap and scattering the skins of the tufted puffin yet to be sewn together. Her young son, Walks Straight, was sitting on the ground only a few yards away, throwing darts at a whale-shaped target hanging from a stick. Winter Swan ran over and swept him into her arms to flee, her heart pounding with fear. But she didn’t know which way to go—which way the raiders were coming. Pausing, she looked to her husband’s brother, Many Whiskers, for direction as he entered the village he’d thrown into a turmoil with his cry. But there was no alarm in his expression, only a wondrous look.
“Weaver Woman! She comes!” he told them and pointed toward the cliffs.
Weaver Woman. For a moment, Winter Swan thought some craziness had touched him and wondered if he had been struck on the head during the fight with the raiders. She clutched her son more tightly, mindless of the size and weight of his body five summers old. The figure coming toward them did belong to Weaver Woman. Staring, Winter Swan lowered her son to the ground, then moved in a daze with the others to welcome the old woman back to the village. The customary silence, the avoidance of unnecessary conversation, the sometimes going through an entire day without speaking was shattered by a barrage of questions from all sides.
“How did you get away from the raiders?”
“I saw them take you and Little Spear to their big boat before the storm came and took it away.” Many Whiskers gazed at the woman with shining eyes.
“We thought we would never see you again.” Often in these last days, Winter Swan had looked with sorrow at the unfinished basket that Weaver Woman had been working on before she was captured, believing she would never again see those gnarled but highly skilled hands raddling the grasses into tightly woven patterns.
“Where are the raiders?”
“ What of Little Spear?”
“He is with them.” The gray-haired woman regained her breath and everyone fell silent to listen to her tale. “They let me go after the storm. The sea was very angry and tossed their boat all over, making it cry and shake with pain. Many times I thought the sea would swallow it.”
Several of the men nodded in understanding, recalling similar experiences in their kayaks. “Where is the boat now?” one asked.
“They have taken it out of the water and dragged it onto the beach.” Weaver Woman identified the bay where the strangers had landed. “I think they want to stay on the island and hunt. Their headman gave me these things when he let me go.” She showed them the marvelous material with threads so tiny and so closely woven that she, with all her skill, could never duplicate. “And look at these needles, made from small slivers of harder-than-stone. And this.” She held up the thimble for her finger and showed them its use.
“Little Spear?”
“He lives,” she assured the boy’s mother. “The headman kept him. I don’t know why. I think he wants you to come get him.” Her glance encompassed everyone gathered around her. “He wants all of you to come.”
An uneasiness spread through them at the invitation. Many Whiskers explained to his mother that Moon Face and Small Hand had been badly injured in the fight with the raiders and had died from their wounds.
“What do they want of us?” Stone Lamp, the headman of their village and father of Little Spear, questioned the invitation.
“
Maybe it is a trick to capture all of us and take us to their village across the waters and make slaves of us,” Quick Eyes suggested and turned to face the shoreline. “Let us ask Strong Man what he thinks.”
With relief, Winter Swan saw her husband striding toward them carrying three large halibut as if they weighed no more than a basket of duck feathers. A wooden visor encircled his head and shaded his narrow eyes. His hair was straight and black, and a thin spiky mustache shaded his upper lip. She immediately felt calmed by his presence and proud that he was her husband. His thickly muscled neck merely hinted at the massive brawn hidden beneath the waterproof parka made from the intestinal linings of the sea lion. But Winter Swan knew it was the spiritual power he had gained through his strength that prompted the village elders to seek his counsel.
Strong Man listened attentively while Weaver Woman told him her story and showed him the gifts the raiders had given her, then ended the account with the invitation. Despite that fact that Weaver Woman had been well treated and Little Spear unharmed, and the gifts were truly wondrous, Winter Swan didn’t trust the strange-looking men. But, like the others, she waited for Strong Man’s opinion.
After considering the matter carefully, he announced, “We should talk to them. If they have come to hunt on Attu, there should be peace between us.” Of necessity they were a peace-loving people. Obtaining sustenance from the sea required a hunter’s full energies. If the village was to be fed, little time could be spared for warfare.
“What about the killings of Small Hand and Moon Face?”
“If we killed two of the strangers in punishment, would that restore peace?” Strong Man’s question made them realize it would not. Perhaps the killings had appeased their anger and the offenses would not be repeated. Either way, they realized there was nothing to be gained by maintaining hostilities.
CHAPTER IV
