Sitka (20 page)

Sitka lay warm in the morning sunshine when Jean LaBarge walked along the passage through the log warehouse. Much had changed. The equipment was worn, the clothing shabby, and it was apparent that few ships were arriving from the homeland.

Duncan Pope was in command of the schooner, and Kohl had accompanied Jean ashore. There were many men standing idle about the streets, most of them the hard-bitten promyshleniki, the same crowd who had brutalized the natives and fought the Tlingits. Many were former convicts, criminals shipped over from Siberia; others were renegades from various countries.
 
Leaving Kohl in the town, Jean started up the street alone. The booths of the merchants lined the way and the Tlingit women looked at him with interest. Two Tlingit men watched him approach, and one inclined his head as if to nod.
 
LaBarge acknowledged the greeting, if greeting it was.
 
Baranof Castle was just before him. At the thought of seeing Helena his heart began to race. He was a fool to think of her, yet the fact remained that he could think of no one else. And as long as Rotcheffi lived she would make no move nor allow him to make one.

The door opened as he crossed the porch and a servant bowed. “Captain LaBarge?

Count Rotcheff is expecting you!”

Crossing the foyer, his heart pounding, he went through the door and saw Rotcheff rise from behind his desk, hand outstretched. He looked older, more tired.

“My friendl My very good friend!” His sincerity was obvious. “Captain, there have been times when I did not expect to see you again, but it is good! Believe me, it is good!”

The warmth of the greeting found him responding in kind, and he realized anew how much he liked this fine old man with his scholar’s face and ready smile. “It is good to be here,” he said simply.

“You brought the wheat?”

“Yes, and other things as well.” He hesitated. “The Princess? She is well?”

“Waiting to see you. You will join us now?”

Helena turned quickly from the table where she was arranging tea, and he saw the sudden way her breath caught, the quick lift of her breasts, then a glad, lovely smile.

“Jean! At last you’ve come to us!”

Over tea Rotcheff explained. Zinnovy was in charge, the director no more than a figurehead. Rotcheff’s messages were intercepted, and although they were treated with bland respect, it was obvious they were prisoners. His demands for a passage to Russia were shunted aside with the excuse that there were no ships.
 
“I am sure the only reason we are alive is a fear of repercussions. But,” he smiled, “please believe me, our greeting is for you, not your ship, relieved as we are to see it. We have missed you, and we have missed outsiders. Even the beauty of Sitka can become dull for lack of new faces.” He went on to explain that after Zinnovy’s failure to capture LaBarge, the Baron had returned and begun all at once to make changes. At first it seemed an effort to increase the efficiency of the operating force on the patrol ships, but soon it became apparent that one safe man after another had been taken from the Castle and replaced by someone obedient only to Zinnovy. Letters from St. Petersburg had convinced Rudakof that Zinnovy was in the driver’s seat, and whatever Count Rotcheff might report would be discounted. Rotcheff and his wife were practically prisoners, and all ships coming to or leaving Sitka were checked by Zinnovy’s men. At first none of this had been apparent. Zinnovy had either avoided them or been carefully respectful, but he had built carefully to the point where he would have the situation in hand.
 
“The people of Sitka?”

“Frightened, most of them, but they hate him. Right now the Baron is worried, I believe. When orders arrived recalling me to St. Petersburg he became very friendly and extremely polite.”

“Does he know I’m here?”

“He was furious ... but even he will be glad to see the wheat this time, and I’ve told him there was not a ship I’d trust myself in ... not in Sitka harbor.” Later, Rotcheff returned to his desk and left them alone. When the door closed they stood for a long time looking into each other’s eyes.
 
“Jean, Jean,” Helena said, at last, “you’ve no idea how we’ve missed you!”

“Alexander, too. There have been times when we have thought of you as our only friend. You’ve no idea what it means to know there is someone, somewhere, who would come if called. Alexander has said as much several times.
 
“He is ... he is not so young any more, and could never stand the rigors of a trip in an open boat. Had it not been for that we might have made the attempt.” “Has he mistreated you? Zinnovy, I mean.”

“He wouldn’t dare. At least, not yet. But wait until you see him. He has changed, too.”

“Changed?”

“Perhaps it is just the veneer wearing off, but he has grown more brutal. He is not formal as he was, not so stiff or so neat. He drinks a lot, and goes to the village too often for his own good. Some night one of the Kolush will kill him.
 
Last month he shot an Indian for nothing at all, and he has had several brutally whipped.”

“How about you? Would he let you go?”

“Alexander believes he dares do nothing else, but I only wish I were as sure.” Shadows had grown long in the room and LaBarge became worried. His crew had been chosen for their fighting ability as much as for their seamanship; should they encounter any of Zinnovy’s men there might be trouble.
 
“I can’t stay,” he said, but made no move to go. “When you return to Russia, what then?”

“We have no idea what will be planned for us in St. Petersburg. Alexander believes much could be done here, but it would take a certain sort of man to do it.”

“And I’ll never see you again.”

She touched the teapot with idle fingers. “No ... unless you come to St.

Petersburg.”

He chuckled. “And what would I do there? I’m not a courtier. Although,” he smiled, “one American sailor did well enough—a man named Jones.” “John Paul Jones? I think he was a better hand with a ship than an empress.” She turned around to face him.

“You’ve never told me about yourself. What was your mother like?” “How can you answer a question like that? She was a little woman with big brown eyes and she used to take me into the swamp with her and show me the useful plants. I believe she came from a good family, wealthy at one time. She told me about the house they lived in: it had once been beautiful, but became very run-down, I guess.”

He paused. “She wanted me to amount to something and was very sure I would, and she used to tell me it wasn’t where a man started that mattered, but where he went. She believed the swamp was a good place for a man to begin. She may have been right.”

“And you? What do you want, Jean?”

“You have a husband ... a man I respect.”

She brushed the suggestion aside. “I did not mean that. But there must be something you want, that you want very much.”

“I suppose there is. It used to be wealth, but it isn’t any more. When I first began to learn about Alaska I felt it was a new country, a rich country where a man could become rich in a hurry. But I’ve done a lot of thinking since then, and I have a friend, Rob Walker, who has given me a different slant. I want to be rich, I suppose, but I keep thinking of Jefferson. I’d like to see Alaska a part of the United States.”

“Why?”

“I’ve heard men curse it. I’ve heard them talk about the cold, the wolves, the northern lights, but that’s not important. I want it for my country because someday my country may need it very much.”

The room was now dark and the town only a velvet blackness where a few lights shone like far-off stars. Down upon the bay the harbor lights shot arrows of gold into the black heart of the water.

“What of you, Jean?”

“What I want I can make with these—“ He lifted his hands. “Where there’s fur I’ll have some of it, and where there’s gold, I’ll take my share. But that’s not enough. More and more I want to do something of value, the way Rob Walker is doing.”

“Tell me about him.”

“He’s a little man, the way my mother was a little woman. I doubt if he weighs more than one hundred pounds. But that’s the only way he’s small. I think he would do anything for his country, and he knows how to bring men together to work, how to use their ambition, their envy, greed, even their hatred. It’s funny—I remember him mostly as a shy little boy, and now to think he’s become a great man.”

A servant entered and lighted the lamps. When he was gone she turned to him again. “You may get what you want, Jean. Strangely, perhaps, it is what Alexander also wants. We must talk to him of this.” “And what of us?”

She put her hand on his sleeve. “You must not ask that, and you must not think of it. There is nothing for us, nor can there be anything for us, except”—she looked up at him—“except to say, I love you.”

The door opened and Rotcheff came into the room. “I am sorry, Captain, if I have kept you waiting. You will wish to return to your ship.”

He was crossing the foyer when a door opened and in the opening stood Paul Zinnovy. LaBarge needed only a quick glance to see that what Helena had told him was true. Zinnovy was a changed man. There was about him now an air of sullen brutality. Little remained of the immaculate perfection in uniform that he had once been. His coat was unbuttoned and his shirt collar gaped wide. He carried a bottle by the neck and in the other hand a half-filled glass, but he was not drunk. He was heavier than when Jean had last seen him. There were red veins in his face and his features seemed somehow thicker.
 
“So? Our little merchant comes to pick crumbs from the Russian table? Enjoy them while you can, Captain, it will not be for long.” “Perhaps.”

“So you will take our Rotcheff back to Russia, will you? And that will be the end of Zinnovy, you think?” He chuckled. “Think again, my friend. I have power here. I have a warehouse filled with furs, I have wealth. Do you think I would lose all that and what it could mean to me in St. Petersburg for one man? Or a dozen men?”

Jean was impatient to be away, but the man fascinated him. It was a rare opportunity to see his enemy at first hand. “Count Rotcheff is a good man,” he replied shortly, “and very close to the Czar.”

Zinnovy smiled. “Is he now? How long does a man’s influence last when he is far away?” He held up two fingers and rubbed them together. “See? I will have this.
 
Gold speaks an eloquent tongue, understood in court or cottage. There are many men who stand between the Czar and any issued order. As for Rotcheff”—he shrugged—“he might be dangerous if he gets back, and as for that little bit—“ Jean swung toward Zinnovy. “I’d not say that if I were you.” Zinnovy’s eyes danced with cynical amusement. “Ah? So that is how it is? Oh, do not worry, my American friend, I’ll say nothing to offend either you or the lady, but it interests me that you would fight for her. Chivalrous, and all that.” His eyes narrowed a little. “It interests me that you will fight at all.
 
You have always seemed more ready to run.”

Abruptly, Jean turned to the door. Nothing could be gained here and he had a ship to make ready for the sea. A long voyage lay before him and neither the Bering Sea nor the North Pacific was gentle. He walked out, drawing the door to behind him, conscious of Zinnovy’s eyes.

Outside it was completely dark. Most of the lights in the town had been extinguished. Jean LaBarge paused at the head of the flight of wooden steps and looked down, not enjoying that descent into blackness. Hadn’t there been a light there, at the foot of the steps? He started to step down when a low voice called to him.

“Captain! Wait!”

He drew back from the step and turned to find a girl, her head covered with a shawl. “It is I—Dounia! You must not go down the steps. There are Russian sailors waiting for you! They mean to kill you!” “How many?”

“Nine, perhaps ten. I do not know.”

“And my men?”

“They are with the boat.”

“Is there another path? Where we can’t be seen?” She caught his sleeve. “Come!” Swiftly she led him through the darkness, past barracks and tannery, to the corner of a storehouse. There they crouched in the shadows, listening.

It was very dark and very still. The water was gray, with a fringe of white along the rocks. From where they stood he looked along the water’s edge toward the landing stage. His ship’s boat was clearly visible.
 
Now that they had come this far the girl waited, knowing he must decide the next move. The building loomed above them, and looking back he could see the Castle outlined darkly against the sky. A few of the Russians would be waiting at the bottom of the stair, growing restive now, and there would be others in the log warehouse, watching the boat. But they would not be watching closely for they would expect no movement there. It would be sounds from up the street they would be expecting.

As he watched he saw a man move in the boat; and taking a chance, he called softly. Ben Turk was at the boat, and so was Gant. Both men knew the call of the loon, and he made it now. The moving figure stood still, listening. Softly, he called again, and there was a stirring in the boat shadows. For an instant starlight glinted on an oar blade.

He realized suddenly he was holding Dounia by the arm. “What about you?” he whispered. “Will you be all right?”