The Great Alone

by Janet Dailey

  “Baranov—Nanuk won’t return for a long time, not until next summer. He has gone to Kodiak. And he wouldn’t care if you were my woman.”

  Raven knew her father and the other clan chiefs would be interested to learn Nanuk would not return soon. He was brave and fearless. They had no wish to face him in battle.

  Not once did she seriously consider Zachar’s offer. If she became his woman, he would no longer give her presents. It would be her duty to mate with him. By living with him, she would lose status in her tribe. She had nothing to gain by accepting.

  But more importantly, Raven knew the plans of her people. Before summer’s end, the village of the Russians would be destroyed. Other clans were banding with her kwan to attack it, and a sufficient quantity of guns and powder, obtained in trade from the Boston men, was hidden in their houses. They waited only for the moment to strike when the Russians were unaware. She and the other Tlingit women who were allowed by the Russians to freely enter the fort to mate with them reported all they saw and heard to that end.

  She looked at this stupid Creole who gazed at her with hungry eyes, and she felt amused contempt. Soon he would be dead, and his head would be on the end of a pole stuck in the ground.

  “Raven cannot be Zachar’s woman,” she informed him coolly. “Raven will come visit Zachar like before times.”

  He nodded slowly and averted his gaze, but she observed the grimness around his mouth, a sign of some hot emotion held in check. Lithely she stood up.

  “Zachar does not want to be with Raven. Raven not stay.” She heard the scrape of his boots on the packed earth as he scrambled to his feet.

  “Don’t go.” His fingers closed around her arm to stop her.

  She looked at him insolently. “Raven not like the way Zachar is this day. Raven come back when Zachar happy.”

  There was a moment when she thought he was going to argue, then the fight went out of him. “We are going to have a feast in two days to celebrate a Holy Day.” He released his hold on her arm. “No one will work that day. We will have a praznik and there will be singing and dancing. Will you come, Raven?”

  She smiled slowly at his statement. “This will be in two days,” she repeated.

  “Yes.”

  “It is a happy time,” she said, and he nodded. “Raven maybe come then.”

  As she walked away from him, Raven forced herself to maintain a sedate pace. The minute she reached the concealment of the forest, she quickened her steps to hurry back to her clan’s summer camp and report what she’d learned, certain her news would fill the camp with excitement. What better time to attack the Russian village than the day of their feast.

  Idly, Zachar let the empty pail slap against his leg as he crossed the square, heading for the open gate and the cowsheds beyond by the creek. The doors and windows to the barracks stood open, their barricades raised. From inside came the high-pitched giggles of some Aleut women happily preparing for the day’s celebration. Zachar could see some of the baby cradles hanging along the wall in the sunny room. Over by the cookhouse, a half dozen promyshleniki leaned on their muskets, talking and laughing in loud voices.

  As he approached the gate, Zachar waved to the guard on the second-story parapet. An injury temporarily kept the Russian from any arduous task and earned him easy sentry duty. He lifted a hand in response to Zachar’s wave, smoke curling from the pipe in his hand. His musket lay across his legs. As he walked out of the stockade, Zachar had a fleeting glimpse of a baidar with three promyshleniki on board before it disappeared behind one of the small islands in the channel. The three were half of a hunting party sent to bring back fresh seal meat and wild geese for the feast.

  Zachar nodded a greeting to another of his comrades, who waded in the shallow water of the cove to stake out fishnets, and continued on to the sheds. There was an indolence about the sun-drenched day that reflected his relaxed, happy mood and that of those around him. Everyone was enjoying a well-earned day of rest. He passed an Aleut woman busy picking berries. Ahead of him, a young, black and white calf frolicked in the cattleyard, then scampered to its mother’s side at Zachar’s approach. The hammering of a woodpecker somewhere in the deep woods suddenly stopped.

  The spotted cattle took little notice of him as he paused beside the split-timber rails that enclosed the yard. Distantly, he heard a shout, followed immediately by the banging of the settlement’s iron ring, sounding an alarm. Turning, Zachar dropped the empty bucket and ran toward the fort. The crack of musketfire broke the quiet.

  Zachar skidded to a halt at the sight of the Kolosh swarming around the stockaded barracks, hideous in their grotesquely carved beast masks with gleaming eyes and hooked beaks and long fangs. Already they were climbing over the parapets and jamming their muskets into the window openings before the barricades could be dropped. More Kolosh streamed from the woods carrying firebrands of burning pitch that they hurled onto the second-story roof. As Zachar took a step toward the beach and the skin-boats on the shore, war canoes with more demon-masked Kolosh bore down on the clearing.

  Unarmed, with no chance of reaching the now barricaded fort or escaping by water, Zachar turned and raced back toward the cowsheds. Animal-like war cries rent the air, interspersed with the shouts and screams that came from inside the stockade. Sporadic musketfire signaled a valiant resistance.

  The Aleut woman emerged from the berry thicket with a small child clutched in her arms, her expression filled with terror and confusion. “Kolosh!” Zachar shouted. “Run! Hide in the woods!”

  She screamed at something behind him, then darted back into the thicket. Zachar glanced over his shoulder and saw four Kolosh brandishing spears in pursuit of him. Avoiding the bushes where the woman had gone, he sprinted for the deep tangle of the forest’s edge, straining every muscle in an effort to reach it ahead of the feet pounding the ground behind him. His heart felt as if it was going to burst.

  He dived into the dense undergrowth, scrambling and clawing his way through the thorny bushes and thick ferns on his hands and knees. His pursuers came crashing into the brush after him. Zachar frantically looked for a hiding place, then spied the gnarled and twisted roots of a long-ago-fallen spruce. He crawled quickly to the dark hollow at the base of the log’s massive trunk, slightly elevated from the forest floor by the widely spread roots. He flattened himself to the ground to wiggle into it.

  When he was safely inside it, he lay motionless and swallowed to control his loud, labored breathing. He could hear the rattle of the brush as the Kolosh searched for him. They were close, very close. He held his breath, then heard the reverberating boom of a cannon from the fort.

  The rustling noises grew fainter and finally faded altogether. Still Zachar waited a little longer before emerging from the dank hollow. Several times he’d heard the cannon go off. Moving silently, he worked his way through the woods to the edge of the forest close to the settlement and cautiously peered out to see if the attack had been repulsed.

  Dark smoke rolled from all the buildings, yellow tongues of flame leaping and dancing from the roofs. As Zachar watched, three promyshleniki jumped from the burning second story. One, the injured sentry, was impaled on a Kolosh spear. The second was quickly cornered, and a spear ripped out his throat. The last promyshlenik landed free and ran for the forest, pursued by the Kolosh, but he stumbled and fell. They pounced on him before he could rise and severed his head.

  A score of screaming Aleut women with their babies fled the burning barracks and ran directly into the arms of the Kolosh. The babies were taken from them, and swung by their heels to bash in their skulls on the hard ground, then their bodies were thrown into the water. A Kolosh warrior shouted and pointed to the woods where Zachar was hiding. He’d been seen.

  Quickly, Zachar slipped back into the forest and eluded his pursuers again. By accident, he found the Aleut woman and child that he’d sent into the woods to hide. Fleeing together, they went deeper into the forest, climbing the mountain that rose behin
d the redoubt.

  After leaving Sitka Sound, the Sea Gypsy had sailed into the maze of islands lying north of the sound, anchoring in the waters offshore of villages, trading, then sailing on. The brig’s circuitous route eventually brought her back to the sound.

  Caleb decided to call at the Redoubt St. Michael, replenish the freshwater supply, and learn what rival ships were operating in the area. As captain, he never fraternized with his officers or crew. In truth, Caleb was tired of his own company and looked forward to another evening drinking with that cagey Russian rapscallion Baranov.

  The prospect put him in a good humor. There was a half smile on his face as he gazed off the starboard bow, waiting for the initial glimpse of the Russian colors waving from the fort’s flagpole. The sun was warm on his back, and the wind steady.

  “Cap’n, we’re bein’ hailed from shore.” The first mate, Hicks, handed him the spyglass. “Three degrees off the starboard bow, there by the mouth of that little river. It looks like a white man.”

  Caleb lifted the spyglass and located the figure waving at his ship. The man’s clothes were in rags, but he appeared to be white, not an Indian dressed in white man’s clothes. Probably a deserter from some ship, Caleb guessed, and lowered the glass.

  “Lie to and lower a boat, but make certain the men go well armed. It might be a trap.”

  “Aye, sir.” Hicks began barking orders to the crew.

  The yawl was sent out and returned a short while later with the man aboard. As it came alongside the brig, a seaman shouted up, “It’s one a’ them Rooskies.”

  The man was somewhere in his late thirties, early forties, Caleb judged, tall and more leanly built than most of the Russians he’d seen. His hair was dark, but his eyes were blue. His shirt and trousers were nearly in shreds, and his flesh bore scratches, both old and new, that indicated he’d been living in the woods for several days. The ship’s cook, Old Swede, brought him a mug of coffee and a piece of hardtack. The man tore hungrily into the biscuit, making it clear he’d been a while without food.

  “He was jabbering something about a woman,” one of the crew ventured.

  “Woman,” the Russian repeated and gazed earnestly at Caleb. “Woman, yes.” He pointed to the shore, then made a cradle of his arms and rocked them to indicate a baby.

  “It seems we have a woman and a baby hiding out there somewhere, Hicks,” Caleb said. “Send the boat out again and see if the men can’t find them.” Then he turned back to the Russian. “Are you from Redoubt St. Michael?” The Russian frowned his lack of understanding. “What the hell do they call it?” Caleb muttered to himself. “Mikhailovsk?”

  “Kolosh,” the man said grimly, then through a series of signs and pantomimes gave Caleb to understand the fort had been attacked by the Tlingits several days ago. The man had been hiding in the woods ever since. He wasn’t sure if anyone else had survived.

  The men in the yawl located an Aleut woman and small child hiding in the rocks along the shore and brought them back to the ship. The woman was frightened and half starved. Caleb sent all three to the cookhouse for a meal and ordered Hicks to proceed on their course to the Russian fort.

  All that remained at the site was a blackened rubble. Caleb had been given to understand by the survivor that Baranov had left more than a month before to return to his headquarters at Kodiak. A force of roughly thirty Russians had remained at the fort. With them had been twenty of their Aleut squaws. Caleb ordered the Sea Gypsy anchored offshore.

  “Sail ho!” shouted one of the Gypsy’s crew, high in the rigging.

  A twenty-gun vessel flying British colors hove into view. Caleb read the name painted on the ship’s bow, the Unicorn, and recognized her as a veteran Nor’wester, commanded by the notorious Captain Henry Barber, who had a reputation of being one of the most brutal and dishonest traders on the whole Northwest coast. Many claimed it was his indiscriminate acts, occasionally robbing and sometimes killing the Tlingits who came to his ship to trade, that were responsible for the hostile attitude of the Tlingits.

  From his quarterdeck, Caleb could hear the British captain’s profanity as he raged at the sight of the burned-out fort, roundly cursing the “murdering bastards” who had committed the deed.

  That afternoon, Caleb gathered a heavily armed landing party and went ashore. The survivor, who had identified himself as Zachar Tarakanov, accompanied him, his tattered clothes replaced by hip-hugging trousers and a voluminous checked shirt from the ship’s store.

  A grisly scene awaited them. Along the beach lay the bloated bodies of infants washed ashore by the tide. Beyond, Russian heads, impaled on sticks, sat drying in the sun, dark beards matted with dried blood, mouths gaping, white teeth grinning, eyes staring. Big black scavenging ravens hopped about the naked decapitated bodies that lay rotting on the ground. Efforts to chase the birds away from the decomposing corpses met with little success. The ravens flapped their wide wings in irritation, uttering their harsh calls, then hopped a few yards away to another body. The stench was sickening.

  The heavily palisaded fort was nothing but charred ash. All that remained was the half-melted barrel of a cannon. Knowing the greed of the Tlingits, Caleb suspected they had thoroughly looted the storehouses before the flames had devoured the buildings. He ordered the crew to bury the bodies where they lay.

  Zachar stared at the ravens, so shiny and black in the sunlight. The raven was a deity of the Kolosh, regarded as the Creator. A hundred times during the eight days he’d spent hiding from the Kolosh, he’d raged at the timing of the attack. Everyone had been off guard, distracted by the prospect of a praznik.

  But he had told Raven. Zachar turned away from the carnage, unable to look at his dead comrades. He had betrayed them, as she had betrayed him. Anger vibrated through him, anger and hurt. He walked back to the beach and sat in the boat with his back to the massacre site, his hands clenched into fists.

  A third ship arrived at the scene, the Alert out of Boston, commanded by Captain John Ebbets. When he learned of the disaster, he called for a meeting with Captain Barber of the Unicorn and Caleb from the Sea Gypsy.

  That evening the three captains sat around Ebbets’ table in his quarters on the Alert and discussed the situation. As Caleb listened to the vengeful rhetoric being espoused by his English and American counterparts, he wished heartily for a drink. Unfortunately, Ebbets didn’t imbibe the devil’s spirits. A particularly acidic brew of black coffee was the only refreshment provided. Caleb was no more interested in it than he was in the direction this conversation was taking.

  “I say we must stand together in this,” Ebbets declared, and waved a hand at Caleb. “Now, according to the Russian you picked up, thirty men were stationed at the fort. Yet your men buried only twenty-three bodies. We know your man survived, but that leaves six men unaccounted for, plus the women.”

  “Who were Aleuts and half-breeds,” Caleb said of the latter.

  “Nevertheless,” Ebbets continued, “it is entirely possible captives were taken. We cannot allow these savages to believe that we will permit such atrocities. I propose that we take joint action and demand they surrender all survivors to us.”

  “And if they refuse, I would delight in blowing those devils straight to bloody hell,” the English captain asserted.

  “When the Tlingits come to trade with us, I suggest we take several of them as hostages, preferably the chief or any other important member of the tribe and refuse to release them until the survivors are delivered to us.”

  “If they refuse, all we’d have to do is hang a couple of the bastards from the yardarm. We should do it regardless,” Barber stated, warming to the thought.

  “You have said very little on this matter, Captain Stone,” Ebbets observed. “What are your thoughts?”

  Caleb lowered the hand he’d pressed thoughtfully against his mouth. “I think that it’s none of our business.”

  “You can’t seriously mean that.” Ebbets frowned.

  “O
f all the bloody damned—” Barber sputtered.

  “The way I see it, we buried Russians—not English or Americans. That makes it their affair, not mine,” Caleb stated. “Unlike you, I don’t consider myself to be my brother’s keeper.”

  “If punitive action is not taken immediately, those blood-thirsty aborigines will turn on us next.” Captain Barber pounded his fist on the table. “I trade in these waters—”

  “That is exactly my point,” Caleb interrupted. “I do business with these Sitka Indians, and I don’t intend to jeopardize my trade with them over this. We have no idea what provoked this attack. For all I know, the Russians may have gotten what they deserved.”

  “Then, you will not stand with us.” The stern-faced Bostonian captain regarded Caleb coldly.

  “No.” Caleb pushed his chair back from the table and stood up. “Do what you will, but count me out of it. The Sea Gypsy sails in the morning.”

  “What about the survivors you have on board? What are your plans for them?” Ebbets goaded. “Perhaps you intend to turn them over to the heathens so they may finish what they started?”

  Aware that the merchant captain was attempting to anger him into agreeing with their plans, Caleb ignored the insulting questions and pulled the brim of his cap lower on his forehead. “With your permission, gentlemen, I shall return to my ship.”

  “I am bound for Kodiak when I leave here, Captain Stone,” Barber stated. “I shall be glad to return your survivors to the Russian settlement there.”

  Caleb paused briefly. They were excess cargo to him. “I’ll have them transferred to the Unicorn. By your leave, gentlemen.” He bowed slightly from the waist in mock politeness, then left the ship to return to his own.

  Once on board the Sea Gypsy, Caleb ordered the transfer of his passengers, then retired to his cabin for a long-awaited drink. Unbuttoning his jacket with one hand, he poured himself a glass of rum with the other, then sat back in a chair. After the first swallow of rum smoothly burned his throat, he idly watched the sway of the brass lamp overhead. He was convinced the retaliatory action planned by his colleagues was wrong, and more likely to inflame the Tlingits’ passions against them than teach the savages a lesson. He saw no point in becoming involved in something that didn’t directly concern him. The destruction of the fort eliminated the Russians from the area. As far as he was concerned, that meant he would have to compete with one less rival.