The Great Alone

by Janet Dailey

  He glanced quickly at the bidarka that paralleled his, needing to be reassured that he was not alone. His uncle, Walks Straight, had not fastened the drawstring hood of his kamleika over his head, and his lank white hair was clearly visible beneath the wooden visor. There was nothing in that muscular face to indicate to Zachar what his uncle was thinking or feeling. There never was.

  “Did the wind change?” Zachar thought it might have, although he couldn’t remember from which quarter it had been blowing previously, and such things were crucial details.

  “Yes.”

  Zachar wished his uncle had said more, just for the comfort of a human voice.

  Some time later, Zachar noticed Walks Straight staring to the south, where the sky had darkened to an ominous black. The fast-moving storm was headed directly toward them. He knew the procedure for riding out storms in the open sea and maneuvered his bidarka alongside his uncle’s so they could lash them together to create a more flexible dual-hulled craft capable of riding out a storm that might sink a single boat.

  The wind whipped the sea in advance of the black squall and drove the waves higher. All at once, it seemed to Zachar, they were swallowed in darkness. The sheeting rain hammered at the waterproof hood covering his head, the string knotted tightly at his throat to keep the water from running inside. The sea tossed their twin craft in every direction, throwing them first one way then another. The roar of the storm and the sea seemed to take over Zachar, blocking out all other sound, including the pounding of his own heart. The hull of his bidarka became an extension of his body. Each time a wave slammed into it, he shuddered under the jarring force of it.

  Somewhere the passage of time lost meaning. Zachar had no idea if day had turned into night or night into day. There was only the storm; everything else seemed distant and unreal—his home, his mother and little brother, gone, beyond his reach. He was trapped in the heart of it and carried … he knew not where.

  Even after the storm abated, it continued to roar in his head. His senses were numbed. He didn’t notice that the heaving pitch of the sea had become less violent or that the raindrops on his face were from a light shower. A hand gripped his arm, and the sensation slowly penetrated his consciousness. Blinking the beads of rain from his lashes, Zachar turned to look at his uncle’s impassive face.

  “The storm has passed.”

  The words seemed to come from far away, but he heard them and gazed at the gray drizzle and the rolling sea, realizing it was true. He felt exhaustion loosening all his muscles and draining his strength.

  “Where are we?” he asked, but Walks Straight simply shook his head.

  Water surrounded them on all sides, and the low-hanging clouds and heavy drizzle obscured visibility. As the two bidarkas drifted on the sea, still lashed together, Zachar watched his uncle scan the sea, searching for clues in the wave action or the tidal flow or the water texture, anything that might provide direction.

  “Do you hear?” Walks Straight said, and Zachar held his breath, straining to catch whatever sound his uncle had heard. At first he detected nothing, then gradually he began to distinguish over the rumble of the sea the low thunder of breakers crashing on rocks. That meant an island, somewhere close by.

  Quickly they untied their bidarkas and started paddling toward the sound. The gray drizzle concealed the shore, but the noise grew steadily louder until it became a nearly deafening roar. Zachar frowned in confusion, vaguely alarmed by this strange sound that was like no surf he’d ever heard. He rested his double-bladed paddle on the deck of his bidarka.

  “That cannot be breakers,” he called to his uncle, but Walks Straight paddled on. Zachar followed him uncertainly.

  The drizzle became a fine mist that revealed a dark landmass looming in front of them. Gradually the noises that had blended to make one giant roar became separate sounds—the raucous shriek of shorebirds, the pounding crash of the surf, and the overpowering bawl of fur seals.

  As he approached the island, Zachar stared in disbelief. The island swarmed with seals. It appeared as one large, living mass of brown-silver larvae in perpetual motion, quivering and undulating. Their numbers had to be in the millions, Zachar thought. The din of their hoarse, bellowing voices was head-splitting.

  Ahead of him, Walks Straight landed his kayak on a small stretch of sand that hadn’t been claimed by a bull seal. Zachar headed for the same place. He could hardly take his gaze away from the hundreds of thousands of seals—the huge beachmaster bulls, the adult females, the nearly grown pups that crawled over each other in one large seething mass. As he neared the strip of sand, something bumped into the side of his skin-boat. He glanced down, fearing he’d scraped a submerged rock, and saw a full-grown sea otter floating on its back and crunching on a sea urchin, with two more tabled on its chest. The otter appeared totally oblivious of his presence. Aware how much that pelt would bring, Zachar grabbed his harpoon.

  “No! No!” Walks Straight ran into the water. The shouts and the loud splashing startled the sea otter as well as Zachar. The mammal dived quickly. Zachar lowered his harpoon, glaring at his uncle as a wave carried his bidarka closer to shore.

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Look around you. They are everywhere,” his uncle said, then turned and waded ashore.

  Belatedly Zachar looked and saw the heads of curious otter, some no more than two boat lengths away from him. They watched him, unafraid. Confused, both by his uncle’s behavior and the otters’, he nosed the bidarka onto the sand and untied the drawstring that fastened the waterproof hatch covering around his waist, then crawled out of the bidarka and lifted it farther onto the sand.

  “Why did you come ashore? Look at the furs we can take.” Zachar gestured at the multitude of otter swimming in the surrounding waters.

  “Have you not guessed where we are?” Walks Straight said quietly, an almost pitying look in his eyes.

  “No.” Zachar frowned, confused by the question.

  “This is the island the storytellers say was found long ago by the son of a village headman. Like us, he was blown off course by a storm and found this island far to the north of his home. This is where all the fur seals come to have their young and raise them. This island is their breeding ground.” As Walks Straight gazed at the teeming mass of bodies, Zachar noticed the soft glow in his uncle’s eyes, a faint light where he never remembered seeing any before. “No man has ever set foot on this island since that long-ago day. We are the first in all this time.”

  “How many do you think are here?” Zachar stared at the multitude, thinking of their glossy pelts.

  “Millions.” Walks Straight faced the pounding surf and watched the frolicking sea otter. “There are tens of thousands of our brothers, the sea otter.” One climbed out of the water onto a nearby rock, and he walked toward it, stopping within an arm’s reach of the curious mammal as it sniffed the air to determine his scent.

  Zachar watched in amazement, then moved to stand beside his uncle. Still the otter didn’t flee to the safety of the ocean. “They are as tame as the seagull I had as a child.”

  “This is the way it was in my father’s time. The sea otter had no fear of us. He was our brother. He swam in the waters off our islands. Then the Cossacks came,” Walks Straight finished flatly. He turned and glared at Zachar, a strangely bright gleam in his eyes. “Look well and remember the way it was.”

  Feeling uneasy, Zachar glanced around, but he was too conscious of his uncle to see much. Walks Straight wasn’t acting right.

  “This is the last place where the sea otter can live in peace,” his uncle said. In this short time, he’d spoken more words than Zachar ever remembered him saying all at once. “The Cossacks have hunted the whole length of our islands. They have killed thousands, maybe millions of sea otter. They must not learn of this place.” He paused. A breath later, he shuddered violently and groaned like some dying animal in agonizing pain. “They must not know,” he moaned and swung wildly around to stare at t
he seal rookery, jammed with life. “I cannot let them know!” he cried, and the shrieking wail of his voice shivered down Zachar’s spine. Helpless and frightened, he watched his uncle appear suddenly frantic and desperate, clawing at his own face. “They will make me tell. They will make me tell,” he mumbled wildly, then added more clearly, “No. Not again.”

  Nothing he said made any sense to Zachar. He took a hesitant step toward him, but he didn’t know what to say or how to help. Suddenly Walks Straight ran to his bidarka, picked it up and carried it into the surf.

  “Where are you going?” For an instant, Zachar couldn’t believe his uncle intended to leave without him.

  “They will make me tell! I cannot let them!” Walks Straight shouted, then he scrambled into the hatch of his bidarka and struck out with his paddle, propelling the trim craft into the surf.

  “Wait!” Zachar hurried to his kayak and dragged it around to launch it into the surf, but he was neither as experienced nor as adept as his uncle at handling the long craft.

  By the time he crawled into the hatch and started paddling after his uncle, he was already several lengths behind. He saw his uncle cease paddling once he was well out in deep water. Zachar thought he was waiting for him. Then Walks Straight picked up his harpoon. In horror, Zachar watched him plunge its sharp point into the hide walls of his boat. Over and over again, the arm holding the spear rose and fell as Zachar drove his bidarka with long, digging strokes of the paddle, trying to reach the wallowing skin-boat before it sank out of sight with his uncle still in it. It slipped into a wave’s trough and disappeared from his view.

  Zachar paddled furiously toward the spot where he’d last seen them. Nothing. There was no sign of his uncle or the bidarka. Certain that he was very near the spot, he stopped paddling. Breathing hard from the exertion, he let his bidarka drift, dipping a blade into the water now and then to maintain his position.

  “Walks Straight!” he shouted, not believing his call would be heard.

  Then he saw the bubbles breaking the surface of the water a boat’s length to his right, a small eruption but enough to indicate where his uncle had gone down. He stared at the steadily diminishing stream of bubbles, transfixed by the sight, unaware of the tears running down his face.

  “Why?” he murmured, his voice breaking.

  A gamboling sea otter swam close to his bidarka, gliding effortlessly through the waves, its sleek fur glistening. It circled his boat, as close to him as the first one had been. Zachar turned the impotent rage he felt over his uncle’s death on the creature. Somehow the otter was to blame for Walks Straight going crazy. But as he reached for his harpoon, Zachar could hear again his uncle’s voice calling out to stop him. “No! No!”

  And he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t kill the otter. Half blinded by tears, he turned his bidarka to point it toward the cacophonous bedlam of the giant seal rookery.

  “Why?” he shouted, but there was no answer in the deafening roar.

  With leaden arms, Zachar paddled back to the strip of vacant beach and hauled his bidarka high on the sand. He gathered some driftwood and built a small fire to drive the chill of death from his bones. Eventually the embers died. Still he sat beside the blackened ash. Night came and a heavy fog drifted in, so thick he couldn’t see all of his bidarka. It intensified the feeling that he was utterly alone.

  Somewhere to the south was home. Zachar stared in that direction, wondering if he’d ever see it again and knowing that he couldn’t stay here. If he did, he’d become as crazy as Walks Straight. In the morning he’d have to leave. Having made that decision, Zachar lay down next to his bidarka and shut his eyes. But his sleep was haunted by the vision of his white-haired uncle repeatedly driving his harpoon through the hide-covered sides of his boat to sink it.

  After an absence of seven days, Ismailov sailed his sloop, the Sv Pavel, back to its anchorage in the bay. Again Tasha was busy, this time returning his land quarters to their former order. Always garrulous, particularly when he was the subject, Ismailov was especially talkative that evening, his tongue further loosened by a bottle of liquor from the British.

  During the time Tasha had been with him, she had learned that listening to him was a vital part of what Ismailov expected from her. It didn’t matter whether she understood all of what he said. Once he had attempted to explain to her that a sailing master did not drink or talk with common men. He was too important, even for the Cossack officers. But it was all right to tell her things, which only confused Tasha, but she accepted that being a woman somehow made a difference.

  “I had a difficult time making myself understood,” Ismailov declared and sipped at the liquor in a glass tumbler, then blotted the moisture left on his mustache. A vain man, he kept his full beard and curly hair neatly trimmed and was rarely out of uniform. “I do not speak English and they did not know Russian. No one knew German, and that Capitaine Cook’s French was wretched. Did I tell you what a fool’s errand his King George has sent Cook on?” Tasha nodded, but Ismailov told her again anyway. “He’s searching for a northwest passage so British ships will not have to take that long route around Cape Horn to get to China. Bering and Chirikov have already proved it does not exist. Those English think they know more than a Russian about navigation and exploration.”

  As he paused to take another swig of liquor, Tasha cast a furtive glance at the small sleeping area that was partitioned off with hanging mats. She could hear Mikhail jabbering behind it.

  “I managed to obtain a good deal of information from Cook, but I was careful what I told him, although I must admit I enjoyed pointing out to him that he had incorrectly shown Unimak Island as being a part of the mainland peninsula,” he bragged, then stared at his glass. “He has mapped a lot of the mainland coast to the south. Should be helpful.” Ismailov laughed suddenly. “He let his crew trade with some natives for sea otter skins, but nobody seems to know how valuable they are. Maybe they will never find out,” he mused. “With their American colonies in revolt, the English might forget about this futile voyage of Cook’s.”

  After drinking the last of the liquor from his glass, Ismailov picked up the bottle and drained the last of its contents into the tumbler. As he set the bottle down, his hand brushed the bundle of papers lying on the table. Tasha had noticed them earlier. The markings on them bore no resemblance to the writings of the Cossacks.

  “Dispatches from Cook,” he said. “I am supposed to send them to Okhotsk in the spring so they can be forwarded to the British Admiralty.”

  The letters were forgotten as she became the object of his scrutiny—and his suspicion that she hadn’t been listening. “Where is Cook?” she asked.

  “He is still at the north bay. As soon as the repairs on his ships are complete and the reprovisions on board, he will leave. He plans to spend the winter at some tropical islands he discovered in the Pacific. The Sandwich Isles, he called them. Then he intends to come back next spring and search again for the northwest passage—that does not exist.”

  Ismailov rambled endlessly, talking long after the last of the liquor had been consumed. Finally he staggered over to his cot, and Tasha helped him out of his uniform. He barely gave her enough time to remove her own garment before he dragged her onto the blanket with him. Many Cossacks couldn’t perform after drinking so much, but liquor never seemed to affect Ismailov’s potency. It was a source of pride to him. Tasha submitted to his demands, but he was too drunk to notice her lack of response. Copulation was an act that held little meaning for her any more. It was merely another part of life’s routine.

  Sometime in the night, she was awakened by a noise. She listened, wondering if it was Mikhail, then Ismailov rolled over and started snoring loudly in her ear. Moving his entrapping arm, she slipped out of bed and wrapped one of the blankets around her. As she made her way across the darkened room to check on her young son, the door was opened. Startled, Tasha halted to stare at the black figure coming through the opening.

  “Zach,�
�� she murmured in recognition and hurried to his side. But he made no response. She touched his arm and strained to see his face in the shadows. “I am glad you are home. But … why do you arrive so late?”

  There was a vague shake of his head. “I was lost,” he murmured, and Tasha detected the troubled note in his voice and sensed something was wrong. “When I recognized a part of the island, I … I did not stop until I reached here.”

  “Where is Walks Straight?”

  As he finally looked at her, his lips moved, but no sound came from his mouth. Again he shook his head, then let it droop. “He’s dead.”

  Quickly she covered her mouth with her hand to smother the cry of grief so she wouldn’t awaken her sleeping son. Pain gripped her chest until her throat ached with it and even breathing hurt. She turned away, lowering her hand to grasp the edge of the blanket and draw it more tightly around her.

  “How? What happened?” she whispered.

  Haltingly, Zachar told her about finding the legendary island of the seals. “He would not let me kill any of the otter. He kept saying this was what it was like before the Cossacks came. Then he … he went crazy and started saying strange things … saying that they would make him tell.”

  “Oh, no,” Tasha moaned.

  “Then he went out in his bidarka and took his harpoon—” A sob broke through his voice. He wiped a hand over his face, then insisted, “I tried to reach him. I tried!” She could feel his gaze on her. “Why? Why did he do it?”

  “He was afraid.” She felt very empty and very alone. And part of her felt relieved that her brother’s torment was finally over.