The Great Alone

by Janet Dailey

  The crunching of footsteps on the gravel made no impression on him until a hand warmly clasped his shoulder. Startled, he turned. “Zachar.” He recognized the familiar voice and shadowed face of his brother, Mikhail. “I didn’t think it would be so easy to find you.”

  During the voyage from Kodiak, they’d had no contact with each other. The last time Zachar had seen him, they’d been at the cabin taking leave of their mother and the lovely stranger who was his fourteen-year-old daughter, Larissa. Then, as now, he’d been conscious of the difference in their stations—Mikhail the navigator, with his seaman’s clothes and smoothly shaven face, and he the hunter, with his kamleika-covered parka and coarse beard.

  “How was your journey?” Zachar asked.

  “Without incident.” Mikhail looked around him. “This land is just as you described it to me. Even without the charts to guide me, I think I would have found this bay.” He surveyed the crowded camp filled with men who were tending fires, pitching tents, standing guard, hanging wet clothes out to dry. “It may have taken him two years, but Baranov has assembled quite an army.”

  “Yes.” The retaking of Sitka had become an obsession of their leader, the newly appointed governor of Russian America. Zachar didn’t share his thirst for vengeance, partly because of his own sense of guilt. The back-glow of a campfire lit the thin, wizened figure Zachar recognized as Baranov. With him was a man wearing the uniform and gold braid of an officer. “Who is that with Baranov?”

  “Captain Lisianski from the Neva. The frigate was here when we arrived.” Reports had reached Kodiak that two English-built naval ships had sailed from St. Petersburg the previous year carrying the Russian eagles on a round-the-world ambassadorial mission to Japan. The mission was headed by His High Excellency, Imperial Chamberlain Nikolai Rezanov, who had married Shelekhov’s youngest daughter, written the company’s charter, and obtained from the Tsar a trade monopoly for the Russian American Company. No one, not even Baranov, believed the Navy ships would stop at their colony, and they certainly didn’t expect any assistance from them.

  “I was told that when the high chamberlain learned about the massacre here at Mikhailovosk from the Hawaiian King, he ordered the Neva to come to Baranov’s aid while he continued to Japan.” The large triple-masted warship in the harbor dwarfed the crudely made vessels moored near it that had been built at the shipyards of the colony’s Yakutat settlement on the Alaskan mainland. “The frigate makes our sloops look like fishing smacks.”

  “Yes.” But Zachar could summon little interest in the frigate. Tomorrow the combined forces would confront the Kolosh, and he had ambivalent feelings about that. He didn’t notice his brother’s silence or the way Mikhail studied him.

  “I hadn’t realized how painful it would be for you to come back to this place,” Mikhail observed. “So many of your friends were murdered here. It’s a miracle you were spared.”

  “Yes.” The Russian priest Father Herman, who ran the school on Kodiak that his daughter, Larissa, attended, claimed it was God’s will that he had survived. But Zachar had often wondered. Had it been God’s hand that protected him—or Raven’s? Had it been mere chance that the Kolosh had attacked the fort when he was away from it, or had they waited, at Raven’s insistence, until he left? Did he owe his life to her—or to God? But he couldn’t tell his brother of any of the questions that plagued him without admitting his betrayal.

  “I heard Baranov plans to assault the main village tomorrow, the one along the bluff.”

  “He will parley for peace with them first,” Mikhail stated.

  “They’ll never accept his terms. He wants all the Kolosh to leave Sitka Island. They won’t leave.” Zachar’s sympathies were not with the Kolosh, yet concern for Raven always clouded his thinking.

  Somewhere in the large camp, a bow touched the strings of a guzla and scattered voices began to sing the song Baranov had composed that summer, called “The Spirit of Russian Hunters.” Other voices joined in and Zachar paused to listen to the growing chorus.

  “The will of our hunters, the spirit of trade,

  On these far shores a new Muscovy made,

  In bleakness and hardship finding new wealth

  For Fatherland and Tsardom.

  Sukharev’s towers old Moscow adorn,

  The bells ring at evening, the guns boom at morn;

  But far off’s this glory of Ivan the Great—

  We have naught but our own bravery.

  Our Father Almighty, we pray for Thine aid

  That Muscovite arms may here be obeyed,

  That we may dwell in amity and peace

  Forever in this region.”

  As the last note faded, a hush settled over the camp. Exchanging a few quiet words, Mikhail and Zachar parted company. Mikhail was worried. Lately, it seemed his brother preferred to be alone. He’d been like that ever since the British captain had arrived at Kodiak with the survivors of the massacre and forced Baranov to pay a ransom for their return. Zachar had given a full accounting of all that had happened at Sitka, but rarely ever spoke of it again.

  In the beginning, Mikhail had been willing to blame his older brother’s moodiness on the dreadful experience. Now he was less sure that was the reason. His brother seemed reluctant to fight. Mikhail was beginning to wonder whether his older brother was a coward.

  A long row of native log dwellings lined the shore beyond the tideline. Low openings were cut in their gabled ends, which faced the water. Pillars carved with heraldic symbols that identified the clan house flanked the doorways. Planks hewn from spruce framed the walls, and split logs formed the sloping roofs of the buildings, which averaged thirty feet in width and forty in length. Gravehouses, miniatures of the dwellings, sat atop poles and contained the ashes of the dead.

  Raven stood on the planked platform outside the doorway to her clan house, not far from the steps leading to the ground. Word of Nanuk’s return had spread quickly through her village. All day she and her people had watched the strange canoes of the Aleuts tow the tall ship with the big cannons close to the shores of their village. Now her attention was centered on the canoe carrying the village chief, her brother, and her husband, Runs Like a Wolf. The chief had gone to the ship to demand that Nanuk explain his action.

  As the canoe pulled away from the ship to return to the village, a cannon boomed, belching a puff of smoke. Raven flinched at the loud sound and saw the splash of water well beyond the canoe’s bow. Several babies in the village started crying, although not a whimper of alarm came from the toddler at her feet as he tried to climb up her leg. Raven quickly reached down and picked up her young son, ready to run for safety, but the ship’s cannon wasn’t fired again.

  Satisfied there was no imminent danger, Raven relaxed slightly and looked at her year-and-a-half-old son. She smiled proudly at the absence of any fear in Gray Wolf’s expression as he gazed with wide-eyed curiosity in the direction from which the loud noise had come. His hair was black and straight, its texture soft and silky, his complexion was swarthy and ruddy-cheeked. But his eyes—their dark centers were ringed by a color that was neither gray nor blue, but a combination of both.

  Young Gray Wolf pointed toward the shore and jabbered excitedly. The canoe had landed. Raven waited impatiently as her husband made his way to the clan house where they lived. He walked past her without saying a word and ducked to enter the dwelling. Quickly she followed him inside.

  The interior was built on three levels, descending to a center floor with a dirt hearth. Runs Like a Wolf turned and walked along the upper level that was partitioned into sleeping quarters and storage areas. Raven caught up with him before he reached the corner post with its totemic carvings.

  “What happened?” she demanded.

  “Nanuk demanded hostages before he would speak with us, and refused to give hostages in return. He said he did not trust our people.”

  Raven stiffened at the insult. She knew it was useless to ask her husband what he thought the chi
ef planned to do. He may have the legs of a wolf, but in her opinion he had the mind of a turtle. There were times when she doubted that he even realized he wasn’t the father of her son. Impatiently she turned away from him just as her brother, Heart of the Cedar, ducked through the low opening. Quickly she went to him.

  “Does the chief think Nanuk will attack the village?”

  “Night comes soon,” her brother answered. “Nanuk will wait until the sun rises again. The chief is calling a council of the clan. I think he will advise that everyone leave the village when it grows dark and go to the stronghold by the river.”

  Raven smiled. “Not even the cannon on the big ship can shoot that far.”

  “No.” His warm look held approval both for the quickness of her thinking and the recollection of that strategic detail.

  “Nanuk still has many men and many guns.”

  “We will send messengers to other clans and ask them to give us more guns and warriors with which to destroy the Russians. In three days, maybe four, they will come.”

  It was as her brother predicted. Under the cover of darkness, they slipped away from the village that lay exposed to the guns of the Russian ships and went to their stronghold that was located near the mouth of a river farther up the bay. Erected on a small bluff, it was surrounded by a breastwork two logs thick and roughly six feet high, with small brush piled around that. On the long side facing the bay, there were two embrasures for the small cannon they had obtained from the Boston man. Two gates were located on the forest side of the stronghold, and fourteen dwellings provided shelter within the fortified compound.

  At midday, Raven saw a scout who had been sent to observe the movements of the Russians enter the stronghold. He wouldn’t have returned unless there was something to report.

  “Is Nanuk coming?”

  Slightly winded, he shook his head. “No. Nanuk and his men landed at the village and climbed the hill behind it. They tied one of their red cloths with the picture of the two-headed eagle on it to a pole and put it in the ground. Now they drag cannons and timbers up the hill.”

  That afternoon, her brother added a war design of red paint to the black that always covered his face to protect it from the insects and the glare of the sun off the water in the summer and the snow in the winter. He donned his vest of wooden armor and his shield, then joined the escort of roughly sixty warriors accompanying the chief. They left the stronghold to seek out Nanuk again and learn his intentions.

  When the band arrived at the village site, Heart of the Cedar saw for himself the eagle cloth that fluttered from the pole atop the bluff. A breastwork of timber was already partially completed, and the cannons pointed their long snouts at his warrior band. As they halted beyond musket range of the Russians, the chief called for Nanuk to come speak with them.

  A handful of men accompanied Nanuk down the slope. The wise leader of the Russians had not changed much since Heart of the Cedar had last seen him. Hair still did not grow on top of his head, and the pale fringe below the shiny top seemed no lighter. His expression was stern and unforgiving as he faced the chief.

  “Nanuk tell the meaning of the guns placed above our village,” the chief demanded.

  The answer came through an interpreter. “The Kolosh burned Nanuk’s village. Nanuk is going to build his new village in this place. He says that you must bring to him every Aleut you hold as slave, and all Kolosh must leave Sitka Island and never come back unless Nanuk requests to see you.”

  Angered, Heart of the Cedar stepped forward. “Since first Kolosh came, this land has been the home of the Sitka clan. Our spirits live here. We will not leave.”

  “When the Russians came, we asked to live in peace with the Kolosh. We built our village in one small place on land the Sitka kwan sold to us. We did not raise our hands against you. We always traded fairly with you. But you made war on us, and I no longer trust the Kolosh. Therefore, I say you must abandon your stronghold on the river and leave the island. If you refuse, our cannons will blow you into the sea. Give me your answer when the sun comes up.”

  The chief hesitated. Heart of the Cedar knew that help could not arrive from the phratries by morning and guessed the chief was thinking that also. “We will give you our Aleut slaves and let you build your new village. We will not make war on you. We will agree to that and no more,” the chief stated.

  Nanuk would not accept that. “Leave or I will drive you from the island.”

  The chief glared at the short, wizened leader, then pivoted sharply and walked through his quickly parting warrior escort. They closed ranks behind him and followed him into the dense forest.

  The following day, the command of the Ekatrina was given to the Cossack Lieutenant Arbusov. Several cannons from the Navy frigate were mounted on the Ekatrina’s decks. Under the Cossack’s orders, Mikhail sailed the vessel farther up the bay and anchored it close to the Kolosh stronghold. The three other colonial-built ships joined them to form a line, but the frigate Neva remained at the village site.

  Not a single Kolosh showed himself, but Mikhail knew they were there. All the previous night an eerie chant had come from the stronghold, the wavering singsong cry working on his nerves—and everyone else’s—and depriving him of sleep.

  The singing had continued into the early-morning hours. It hadn’t ended until a short time ago, after the sun was well up in the sky. Now the stillness was filled with a tension that came from the ranks of men crowded together on the deck, a kind of battle-ready eagerness that hardened their features.

  “Fire!”

  A second later, the air vibrated with the thundering boom of the cannons, and the deck shuddered beneath Mikhail’s feet. As men scrambled to reposition the cannons and reload, Mikhail observed that most of the shells fell short of the timbered breastwork surrounding the Kolosh stronghold. A few struck it, but their force was spent and the impact caused little damage.

  All up and down the line of ships, the cannon barrage continued. The deafening roar of the guns assaulted his eardrums, and the acrid smell of powder smoke burned his nostrils. Through the layers of drifting gray smoke, Mikhail could see that the stronghold remained intact. Baranov called a halt to the futile pounding that had succeeded only in wasting valuable ammunition, and approached Mikhail.

  “Is it possible to maneuver the ship closer to shore, Tarakanov?” Baranov demanded, his frustration showing.

  “No, sir.”

  As Baranov turned to confer with Arbusov, Mikhail was close enough to hear of their plans.

  Not a single answering shot came from the stronghold. Encouraged by this lack of resistance, the Cossack officer recommended to Baranov that the native fort be stormed by land, since the ships’ cannons had been unable to level it. The decision was made to transport some of the lighter field-pieces ashore and assault the bluff from two sides. Baranov would lead one group of a hundred and fifty men, and Arbusov would command the other.

  As the boats were lowered over the side, Mikhail spied his brother standing on the fringes of one of Baranov’s landing parties. He hadn’t spoken to Zachar since that first night. Mikhail hesitated, then wound his way through the throng of heavily armed men to his brother’s side. Zachar didn’t notice him; all his attention was centered on the timbered palisade of the native fort. He looked worried. Or was it fear? Mikhail wondered.

  “Zachar.” He watched his brother turn with a guilty start, then quickly avoid his gaze. “I wanted to wish you luck.”

  He nodded stiffly. “Thanks.” Ahead of him, the men began climbing over the side into the waiting boats that would take them ashore. Zachar shuffled forward to wait his turn.

  “Tonight, you can give me a complete account of what happened.” Mikhail made an attempt to remind Zachar of their younger days when he had listened so enviously to his older brother’s stories about his adventures.

  A smile tugged at the corners of Zachar’s mouth as he glanced over his shoulder at Mikhail. A moment later, he was crawling over the
rail and climbing down the ropes to the boat.

  As he helped row the heavily loaded boat toward the beach, Zachar stared at the brushwood piled around the log breastwork. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t forget that Raven was hiding somewhere behind those walls. He looked at the small cannon in the boat, knowing how indiscriminately its shells selected its victims.

  The boats landed on the beach without incident. As the force, mainly composed of Aleuts, disembarked, there wasn’t a sound or a movement from the native fort. Baranov assembled his force on the beach and prepared to advance in coordination with Arbusov’s assault. But the land between the narrow strip of graveled beach and the Kolosh stronghold on the bluff was clogged with a dense thicket of brush and towering berry bushes. They plunged into the wet undergrowth, but the going was hard and slow as they labored to drag the small cannon through the slippery tangle. They lost sight of Arbusov’s party almost immediately.

  By late afternoon, they were halfway up the slope of the bluff. Zachar leaned his shoulder against a wheel of the cannon and threw all his weight into it, straining to push it another centimeter closer, but the wet footing gave him little leverage. It seemed to take all his strength to keep the cannon from rolling backward. The others around him were having the same problem. He stole a quick look at the log ramparts. The closer they got to the stronghold, the more unnerving the silence became. Bending his head, Zachar redoubled his efforts to budge the cannon.

  Suddenly the wild yells of the Kolosh ripped the air, instantly followed by a barrage of musketfire from the breastwork. A rain of lead hammered down on them from above. Zachar crouched behind the cannon and tried to bring his musket up, but all around him the Aleuts were breaking and running, abandoning the more than two dozen Russians in Baranov’s group. Immediately, painted Kolosh warriors began streaming over the parapets, howling and screaming war cries. Zachar fired without bothering to choose a target. There were too many.