by Janet Dailey
“Is this how a man is to be welcomed home by his family?”
“How were we to know it was you?” She smelled the liquor on his breath and stiffly moved away from him.
Her grandfather struck a match and lit the oil lamp. Its flare of light reached out to embrace her cousin in his seaman’s clothes as he shut the door and stepped into the kitchen.
“We received no word that your ship was in port, so I was not expecting you,” her grandfather said, then gestured toward the table and chairs. “Come and sit down.”
“I forgot to send the message.” As Dimitri swaggered over to a chair, he noticed the ancient musket that stood propped against the wall. “If you had fired that thing, I wonder which of us would have been more severely hurt. Let me get you a new rifle, Grandpa.”
“That one I know how to use. It is good enough.” With hands braced on the table, he lowered himself onto a chair, betraying the brittleness of age in his slow and careful movement. “We should have petnatchit copla to celebrate your safe return from the voyage. Eva Levyena, bring us glasses and the bottle of vodka from the cupboard.”
If her grandfather had asked, Eva could have told him that her cousin had already celebrated his return. But the customary “fifteen drops,” which usually meant half a tumblerful, was a Russian gesture of welcome and hospitality, commonly extended to all who entered the household. So she fetched the vodka and glasses from the cupboard and brought them to her grandfather.
She noticed the way his hand trembled as he poured a healthy portion of liquor into each glass tumbler, and realized that Dimitri’s arrival had left him shaken. Eva had always viewed her grandfather as a strong, stalwart protector, afraid of nothing; but watching him now, she realized he was a weak old man. Next to him, her cousin Dimitri looked incredibly strong and vital.
Dimitri seemed to notice the haggardness, too. “You look tired, Grandpa. You should be in bed sound asleep.”
“It isn’t wise to sleep too soundly.” He darted a glance at Eva, then lifted his glass to take another drink of vodka. “Now that you’re home again, perhaps I’ll be able to rest a little easier,” he said to Dimitri, then carried the glass the rest of the way to his mouth.
Ever since she had moved in with her grandfather after her father’s death, he had sat up nights. She had never questioned it, because it made her feel safe and protected, knowing he was on guard. She suddenly realized that her grandfather didn’t stay up out of concern for his own safety. He did it to protect her. Eva had never really perceived his action in that light before. Now that she did, she felt bad about it. She realized that, although her grandfather was old and tired, he was willing to sacrifice his rest, maybe even his life, for her safety and well-being. He was doing it for her.
Before he died, her father had sat up many a night, but his sleeplessness had been caused by feelings of guilt and remorse over her mother’s death, not by any desire to protect her from harm. By example, her grandfather had shown her the true meaning of family responsibility and devotion. More clearly than before, she saw how selfish her father had been. She moved to stand behind her grandfather’s chair, deeply touched by his sacrifice.
“You’d better rest while you can,” Dimitri said in response to her grandfather’s comment. “Because I won’t be here very long.”
“You will be leaving again soon?”
Eva heard the note of regret in her grandfather’s question, yet it seemed to make no impression on Dimitri as he nodded affirmatively and then explained. “Colby is closing down his saloon here and moving to Fort Wrangell on the Stikine River. I’ll be sailing out of there from now on.”
The announcement was made so carelessly that for an instant Eva couldn’t actually believe he meant he was leaving. Then she noticed the rounded droop of her grandfather’s shoulders and knew it was so.
“Then you won’t be coming back here.” Whenever her grandfather spoke in that emotionless voice, it was a disguise for something that deeply affected him. Eva realized how much he had counted on Dimitri, even though he was away most of the time.
“I might run a shipment of liquor in now and then.” Dimitri shrugged.
Eva clutched the chair back, her fingers tightening on the wooden slat. “How can you just go off and leave us here alone like that? Don’t you care what happens to us?”
“Now, now, Eva.” Her grandfather tried to calm her. “Dimitri is a navigator. That’s how he makes his living.”
“He makes his living by smuggling liquor in for the Americans and by poaching otters and seals. He doesn’t even trade with the Kolosh any more.” Everyone thought she was too young to know what was going on, but she did.
“It is his business, not ours,” her grandfather reproved gently.
“He has worked for that man Colby for so long he’s become like the Americans.” Eva was angry and refused to be silenced. “He thinks only about making money and doesn’t care what happens to his family. Grandpa is getting old, Dimitri. He needs you here.”
As she gripped her grandfather’s shoulder, he reached up and patted her hand. “We will manage—just as we have whenever Dimitri was away. And we are not alone. Your sister, Nadia, is here.” He smiled wanly at her cousin. “Take no notice of her.”
But she could see that Dimitri chose to believe what her grandfather said. He did it because he was selfish, and believing it allowed him to do what he wanted. But in effect he was deserting them, just as her father had. And for all the help Nadia could offer them, they might as well be alone. But Eva seemed to be the only one who understood that.
“It is late, Eva.” Wolf affectionately squeezed her hand. “You must get your sleep.”
“What about you, Grandpa?”
“Dimitri and I haven’t finished our drinks yet.”
Reluctantly she left them.
Glass from a broken whiskey bottle in the street glinted in the light of the noonday sun as Gabe Blackwood stepped out of his office. He paused and absently moistened his lips, longing for a taste of the whiskey that had been in that bottle. He glanced back inside his nearly bare office. There wasn’t anything of value left to sell. He’d pawned his law books last month. In a land with no law, they weren’t any good to him. He couldn’t even sell the building. There was nobody interested in buying it.
The pounding of hammers came from the nearly deserted street. It was now a rare sound in a town that had once boasted a population of almost two thousand people and now could muster less than four hundred inhabitants, excluding the Indians, whom Gabe never counted. He hesitated, then closed the office door and wandered down the boardwalk to see what was going on.
A group of workmen were in front of the Double Eagle saloon. Gabe stopped in surprise when he saw they were lowering the big sign to the ground. He’d heard rumors that Ryan Colby was pulling out of Sitka, but he’d discounted them. Obviously he’d been mistaken. He spied Ryan standing to one side, wearing his customary black waistcoat and brocade vest and chewing on a long cigar.
“So you’re really pulling out?” Gabe asked him.
“Yep.” His lips moved to form the answer, but the cigar remained clamped between his teeth.
“I’ve heard the rats are always the first to leave a sinking ship.” There were many things about Ryan Colby that Gabe had grown to dislike intensely, not the least of which was that Colby had known all along that he had married a breed.
Ryan chuckled, then removed the cigar from his mouth, his attention not straying from the workmen carefully lowering the sign. “I’d rather be the rat than the noble fool who goes down with it.”
“What makes you think it’s going down?” Gabe retorted.
“Take a look around and what do you see? A lot of buildings boarded up or standing empty. Surely you’ve noticed them.”
“The Army’s still here in force. The soldiers are your main customers anyway, so why should it bother you if a few decent people leave town?”
“A few? It’s been considerably mor
e than that.” The military payroll from that garrison wasn’t enough to sustain the town’s economy. “Three years ago this town had thirty-four prostitutes. I’d bet there’s fewer than eighteen now. The town’s dying.”
“Maybe we’re just getting rid of the trash.”
Ryan’s mouth was quirked at an angle as he thoughtfully studied Gabe. “When was the last meeting of your town council—your attempt at a provisional government?” Gabe pressed his lips tightly together. “Since you seem to have forgotten, there hasn’t been a meeting since February. What’s the use of one? Nobody’s paying their taxes. The town’s broke. The school is closed. It’s all over here but the shouting—and even that’s fading to a whimper.”
One end of the sign thudded onto the ground as one of the workmen let out too much rope. Made top-heavy by the large carved replica of a twenty-dollar gold piece, the sign tilted precariously forward, straining the ropes that held the opposite end upright.
“Careful with that sign!” Ryan called sharply.
“What do you plan on doing with it?” Gabe glanced at the empty horse-drawn dray that waited in the street.
“I’m going to take it with me and put it up over my new saloon in Wrangell.”
“Wrangell?” He was taken aback by the answer. He’d been expecting to hear Ryan say that he was heading for San Francisco. “That’s just another military post. It’s no different than Sitka.”
“It’s no different in the summer, but come autumn it fills up with miners from Dease Lake and the Cassiars in British Columbia. They can’t work their claims in the winter, so most of them spend it—and their gold—in Wrangell. The town is about to boom.”
“You always go where there’s easy money, don’t you, Colby? You’re only interested in how much money you can make from a town, not what you can build.” It was greed pure and simple, and Gabe despised him for it.
“I came to make money.” Ryan’s smile was cold and thin-lipped. “That’s what I’m doing. What about you, Gabe? You’re a lawyer in a land with no law. Why in hell do you stay?”
Gabe stared at Ryan’s tailored waistcoat, the fine linen of his shirt, and the expensive cigar in his hand. His own clothes were shabby and threadbare. Money jingled in Ryan’s pockets, but Gabe didn’t have two coins to rub together. He didn’t have enough money to pay the fare on a ship back to the States. He was barely able to scrape up enough to keep body and soul together. Hell, he didn’t even have the price of a much-needed drink. But he was too proud to admit that, like the town, he was busted flat.
“It won’t always be like this. Sooner or later, Congress is going to have to give Alaska the right of self-government.” He went back to his old standby answer, but he’d said it so many times now that it rang hollow in his ears.
“It’ll be a hell of a long time before that happens.” Ryan watched the workmen loading the sign onto the dray. “Now that the Alaska Commercial Company has been given a monopoly on harvesting the fur seals in the Pribilofs, they have formed a powerful lobby in Washington. They aren’t about to allow the formation of any local government that might tax the money they’re making out of the furs. They’re going to do their damnedest to kill any measure that would create one.”
Gabe knew it was true. Alaska sat off by itself. Few Americans knew what this vast territory was like. And the big money men were protecting their profits by perpetuating the image of Alaska as one giant iceberg incapable of supporting a permanent white population. People listened to such men. He cursed their stupidity and their deafness that didn’t hear the small voices like his own crying out with the truth.
Things never change, he realized bitterly. Once he’d thought that in Alaska things could be different. It was new and fresh, the perfect place to build a better democracy. But he had never considered that those on the outside weren’t going to let it happen. They were the ones with the money, the power, and the influence.
Once the heavy sign was tied onto the wagon bed, the driver clucked to the team of horses and flicked the whip across their backs. As the wagon drew level with the two men, Ryan flagged it down.
“I’ll ride with you to the wharf.” He walked over to the wagon and climbed onto the seat next to the teamster, then glanced back at Gabe. “You should have taken my advice, Blackwood. I tried to tell you to make your money while you had the chance. Now you’ll be lucky if you can squeeze a dollar out of this town—unless you strike gold,” he added and chuckled as he stuck the narrow cigar in his mouth once more and signaled to the driver to move on.
“Giddyup there! Hah!” The teamster slapped the reins on the horses’ rumps.
The wagon rumbled on past Gabe, the trace chains rattling, the shod hooves clopping, and Ryan’s parting shot echoing in his ears. It brought home to him all that he’d lost. Even if he was able to practice his profession here in Alaska someday, he’d never be able to realize any of his dreams. Nadia with her Indian blood had ruined that for him. No one would ever appoint a squawman as territorial governor. She had destroyed him with her lies and trickery. He’d lost at every turn.
He’d had plenty of chances to make money—he could have been as rich as Colby, richer maybe—but he hadn’t taken advantage of them. Now he was broke, trapped in this stinking town and shackled to a woman he couldn’t stand. He’d been a fool.
One way or another he vowed he was going to get the money to get out of here and away from her.
CHAPTER XXXIX
Sitka
May 1877
From the dirty-paned parlor window, Nadia watched as her husband approached. Nervously she moistened her dry lips, but on this day she was more excited than fearful about his return. He weaved slightly coming up the path, a sure sign that he’d been drinking; but considering how hard he’d worked these past years, turning his hand to any enterprise that would keep food on their table, she understood his bouts with the bottle.
Men drank. They always had; they always would. If Gabe drank more now than he had during the early years of their marriage, Nadia believed it was because he had more cause. There had been too many disappointments over the years. Nothing had ever worked out for him.
He’d tried prospecting for gold, but all he’d ever found was fool’s gold. He’d convinced several miners to grant him an interest in their claims in return for his services to protect their titles once the American government made provisions for the legal filing of claims. Even though that wasn’t forthcoming, he’d tried to put together a group of investors to develop the claims—without success. And when he’d attempted to sell his interests, no one wanted to buy.
After that, he’d been discouraged, almost desperate. One winter he’d tried gambling, spending the bulk of his nights at the gaming tables of one of the saloons on Lincoln Street. For a while, he’d won, but his luck had quickly changed. Before the winter was out, he’d sold every one of their possessions of any value, from the silver tray her grandfather had given them as a wedding present to her small collection of gilded Easter eggs—all in an effort to win back what he’d lost. But he’d lost that, too.
Last year he’d tried trading goods to the Kolosh for furs, convinced that with his superior intellect he’d be able to make a sizable profit by trading cheap goods for valuable furs, but he’d been the one who’d gotten rooked in the bargaining by trading large quantities of goods for pelts he believed to be otter and fox only to learn they were skins of less valuable animals dyed and stretched to look like the purported peltry to an inexperienced eye.
Invariably he’d taken out his frustrations on Nadia, blaming her for his many failures and seeking solace from a cheap bottle of rum or a cheaper jug of hoochinoo. So many of his efforts had been in vain that it was no wonder he’d become so angry and bitter. Nadia understood why he lashed out at her, and considered the bruises she received from his abuse as a way of sharing his suffering.
The situation wasn’t improved by Sitka’s steady decline. People left by the scores, turning the once-thriving city al
most into a ghost town. Less than two dozen families remained in the community where once hundreds had lived. The Army was still there, but there was a rumor that soon they’d be pulling out, too. No one was quite sure what change that might portend. Strangely, Gabe didn’t seem to care one way or the other.
Nadia’s nerves felt all on edge as the door opened and Gabe stepped over the threshold. She pressed a reassuring hand to her stomach, feeling the small, barely perceptible mound, convinced that her news would cheer him. She couldn’t imagine any man not being overjoyed to learn he was about to be a father for the first time. She had wanted a baby for so long, certain that by giving Gabe a child she could heal the rift between them. Now she could barely contain her happiness.
Gabe glared at the faint smile on her lips. “What the hell is so amusing?”
“Nothing.” Quickly she lowered her glance and took the hat and coat he shoved at her and hurriedly hung them up.
“Where’s that jug of hooch I had last night?”
“In the kitchen. You told me to leave it there.”
“I know what I told you.” He followed her into the kitchen and spied the jug sitting on the table where he’d left it. Before he could ask for one, she set a clean glass tumbler on the table.
“Gabe, I have something to tell you,” she said as he reached for the jug. “I have some good news to tell you.”
Gabe snorted his disbelief. She’d been nothing but poison to him from the beginning. Everything had started going bad the day he’d married her. He uncorked the jug and poured the potent brew into the glass.
