Sitka (22 page)

“Who can say? Three months? Or three years? It is a long trip, nearly six thousand of miles, and the roads are bad, the troikas miserable, the people indifferent or criminal.”

Three months ... they could scarcely hope to make it faster even though she was a niece of the Czar. To secure an escort they must appeal to the very people they wished to avoid. The headquarters of the Russian American Company was in Siberia, and many of the officials were actually in the pay of the Company.
 
The shores slipped by in darkness. It gave him an eerie feeling to be sliding into these narrow channels, uncharted and largely unknown. How many men might already have lost their lives here, unrecorded by history? Captain Cook had been here, and the Spanish before that, and the Russian ships. The first Russians who had come to these islands had vanished. There was a story in the Tlingit villages that a chief covered with a bearskin had enticed them into the woods and into an ambush. A second boat sent ashore to find the first vanished in the same way. Their ship had waited and waited, then finally sailed away. But Chinese and Japanese fishing boats had been carried to this coast, and some of their crews might have survived. What strange lives they must then have led, with no hope of return to their homes.

“Neva Point ahead, Captain.”

“Go aft and report to Mr. Kohl. I’ll stand watch.” He tasted the smell of pines on the wind, heard the splash of something falling into water. Behind him the crew were moving about, taking in sail. The Point loomed suddenly on their left, well defined. On their right a breaking rock showed a ruffle of white foam where the angry lips of the sea bared its teeth against the shore.

Kohl came forward and spat across the rail. “Thank God, she’s deep enough.

There’s four fathoms in the Narrows, and it’s deeper beyond.” The Whitestone Narrows closed down on them like the jaws of a trap. It was cooler there, with the forest closer. They could hear the murmur of wind in the pines, but the schooner moved forward confidently. Ahead of them there was faint gray in the sky.

After what seemed a long time of creeping down the dark Narrows the schooner slid into the open water beyond. The Neva lay behind ... how long had it been?
 
“Nearly two hours,” Kohl said. “There aren’t any fast passages of the Neva.” Pope came on deck to take over the watch. He glanced at the graying sky, a thin, silent man who seemed ever discontented with things as they were. He swore bitterly when he realized they had passed the Neva in his sleep, and swore again when he learned he must take her through Peril Strait.
 
Finally, more tired than he could have believed, Jean stumbled down the companionway and stood in the paneled cabin, watching the brass lamp sway to the ship’s movement. Helena was at the table with a freshly brewed pot of tea. “Mr.
 
Kohl took his to his bunk. Sit down. You looked exhausted.” Gratefully, he accepted the tea. The warmth went through him slowly, taking the chill from his muscles, the damp from his bones. He was the first to speak and it was of something he had considered for a long time.
 
“There’s something you can do for me,” he said. “You can do it if anyone can. I want to see the Czar.”

She was startled. “The Czar! But why?”

“Maybe ... I don’t know ... he might consider selling Alaska to the United States. If he should agree ... well, Rob Walker could do the rest.” “I can promise nothing, but I can try.”

She was silent, and he saw how white were her fingers that pressed the cup, and the shadows under her eyes, shadows he had not been able to see out on the deck under the clouds. “Jean, Jean,” she whispered, “I wish I knew how he was.” “He’ll be all right.”

Rotcheff had made a tough decision but he had made it without hesitation, knowing exactly what must be done. It was another reason for admiring the husband of the woman he loved ... and Rotcheff had a good chance. Familiar as he was with gunshot wounds, he knew that such a wound, low down on the left side, was more than likely only a severe flesh wound. With care and proper food he might make it.

“Where are we going, Jean? What is it we have to do?” “The quickest way would be through Salisbury Strait to the Pacific, but we might be cut off there, so we’re going east up a passage called Peril Strait.” “Is it dangerous?”

“There are tide rips in all these passages, and unexpected currents. Water piles up in these narrow guts, then comes roaring through, and most of the rocks are uncharted. By this time Zinnovy undoubtedly has other ships out from Sitka to cut us off.”

Above them the brass lantern swayed and in his bunk behind the small door Kohl snored in an easy rhythm. Jean’s head lowered to his arms for a moment of rest and at once he was asleep. The night had been long.
 
Outside a small wave broke over the bow and the water ran along the deck rustling into the scuppers where it gurgled solemnly. Helena looked across the table at the black, wavy hair, glistening in the lantern’s light, and put out her hand to touch it, then drew it quickly back, frightened by the impulse.
 
After a moment she got to her feet and went into her little cubbyhole of a cabin and closed the door.

She stood then, her back to the door and her eyes closed, while the light from a crack moved slowly back and forth across her face. And then for a long time there was a silence made more silent by the sound of breathing and the lonely ship-sounds in the gray light of a breaking day at sea.

For two days the Susquehanna crept along through a dense fog that reduced visibility to zero, a cold penetrating fog that wrapped the schooner in a depressing cloud. With Zinnovy somewhere behind there was no chance to heave-to and wait it out, so they continued to creep along, using what little wind there was. With luck they could get into Icy Strait and so to the Pacific.
 
No sound reached them except that of breaking surf. Fog had come upon them in the vicinity of the Hoggat Reefs along Deadman Reach, and they had crept north to the point, rounded it and sailed southeastward toward Chatham. Every mile was a mile of danger for fog filled the Strait and tidal currents were strong.
 
During a brief interval when fog cleared they rounded another point and started north, ice becoming more frequent. Then the fog closed in again, thicker and colder than before. Several times, unable to see the floes in tune, they were struck with brutal force.

Kohl, wrapped in sweaters and oilskins, joined Jean in the bow while the lookout went below for coffee. “We’d better heave-to, Cap’n. Not even the Russkies will try moving in this fog.”

“If it gets colder we’ll start icing up,” LaBarge said. “Damn it, man, if we get caught in these narrow channels we’re through!” Kohl agreed gloomily. “If we could only get a couple of hours of sunshine and good wind.”

“How far do you think we’ve come since turning into the Strait?” “Your guess is as good as mine. We’ve been moving, but with the current against us part of the time, and there hasn’t been a rock or a point to take a sight from.”

“Do you know these waters?”

“No ... but Icy Strait can’t be far.”

Men came and went like wraiths in the gray, dinging fog. Ghostly trailers of fog lay in the rigging and the great sails dripped water to the deck. Nowhere was there anything by which to gauge their progress, and much of the time they could not see beyond the bowsprit.

Yet they could not heave-to. Even now ships might be awaiting them off every passage to the sea, but if they could get through Icy Strait and Cross Sound the opening was wide enough for them to slip by ... if they did not go past it in the fog and end up in one of the deadend, ice-breeding inlets north of the Strait.

Jean held up a hand. “I thought I heard something, Barney. Listen ...” At first there was only the ship sounds, the strain of rigging, the creaking of ship’s timbers, a faint stir of unseen movement, and then they heard it dead ahead. The beat of surf against a rocky shore.

Unmoving, they listened for a clearer sound. Not far off was a shore upon which waves were breaking. “I wish I dared fire a shot.” Jean was worried. “The echo might help us.”

“Not in this fog. Besides, I think Point Augusta is a low shore.” Miraculously, the fog thinned and they glimpsed momentarily a low shore on which a light sea was breaking, a sea that hustled and whispered among the black rocks. Jean studied it, trying to remember what little information he had about the area. He seemed to recall that the point they must turn into Icy Strait was more abrupt, yet there was clear water ahead of them and as far as they could see on the starb’rd side. “All right,” he said, “let’s try it.” When he went below Helena was reading. She looked up quickly, and seeing his expression, said, “You’re worried.”

“Yes ... we changed course and I’m not sure we should have.” “If we could only get some news!” She closed her book. “I’ve done all I can to keep from worrying, but I can’t help it. Jean, I never should have left Alexander.”

“You would have both been trapped. He was right to make you go, Helena.” He accepted a cup of tea. It was scalding hot and very strong. He had never appreciated tea until he started coming into northern waters, but there they all drank it.

Kohl stepped down the ladder. “Cap’n? It was a wrong turn. There’s land off the starb’rd beam.”

“Close?”

“It isn’t the strait.”

He went on deck and stood there, his fists balled in his pockets. “It’s narrow,” he said, “it would be a risk to attempt a turn with the tide running.” “It wouldn’t be worth it.”

Any decision was better than none. “Drop the hook and we’ll wait it out. When the fog lifts we’ll get the hell out of here.”

“I’ve seen these fogs last two weeks.”

“All right. Get a boat into the water and we’ll explore a little. See? There’s about four feet of clearance between the water and the fog.” They were taking a chance, he realized that. With the onset of darkness finding the ship again might be difficult. Still, there was no place it could go, and they had only to come back up the strait to find it. Strait? More likely an inlet. They shoved off and let the longboat drift along close to the shore.
 
Nearly a half hour had passed when Boyar, who was in the bow, lifted a warning hand. At the signal all rested on their oars, and then they all heard it.
 
Somewhere not far off a man was whistling. Then something dropped on a deck and a man swore in Russian.

The boat still drifted, and then, plain to all of them, from beneath the fog they saw the gray hull of the patrol ship. She lay fair across the mouth of the inlet, blocking any escape.

A voice spoke in Russian. “I saw slops from a ship in the opening of the inlet.
 
We’ve only to wait until the fog lifts and then go in after them. This is Tenakee Inlet and there is no other way out, I know the place well.” At a signal from Jean the oars dipped gently and turning the boat they started back the way they had come. His own ship was up the inlet and out of hearing of the Russian.

Tenakee Inlet ... there was something he should remember about Tenakee. He scowled into the fog ... it had been a half-breed who had come down the coast with old Joshua Flintwood, the Bedford whaler. Once on the schooner’s deck he wasted no time. “We’ll go to the head of the inlet. There may be a way out.” “If there is,” Kohl said skeptically, “we’d best find it. Once the fog lifts the Lena is coming in, which leaves us like a duck in a shooting gallery.” “We’ve got that long.” Duncan Pope spat over the rail. “He’d be a fool to come in here before the fog lifts.”

All the long day through they crept up the inlet through fog like gray cotton, holding as close to shore as feasible, taking soundings as they proceeded. Twice they passed small openings but each proved to be a bay, and it was not until almost dusk that the fog thinned close to shore and they glimpsed the head of the inlet, fronting a mud flat. Wanting time, Jean had the hook dropped and the schooner swung to anchor.

“Any chance of slipping by?” Kohl wondered.

“No ... not with his guns. He’s just inside the opening of the inlet where he can cover the passage.”

At the shore the fog was thinner. It drifted in ghostly wraiths among the dark sentinel pines. A break in the line of trees caught Jean’s eye, and he had a sudden hunch. “Drop the boat over, Barney. Then pick four men and we’ll go ashore.”

Leaving the boat on the gravel beach, Jean LaBarge led the way toward the break in the trees. To the right and left the forest was a solid wall of virgin timber, dripping with damp from the fog, but before them the opening gaped wide and they stumbled into a narrow path that led into it.
 
It was very still. There was no movement of wind or animal. Only water dripping from the trees and the gray mystery of the fog. There had been a wider track here at one time, and only a few large trees in the opening, although some of the bordering pines were magnificent trees. When they had walked about fifty yards they found themselves looking out over another arm of the sea. Jean walked down to the edge and tasted the water. It was salt.
 
It was an arm of the sea of some size and it ran in a northwesterly direction.
 
Boyar shifted his rifle to his other arm, and got out his chewing tobacco. “That there,” he said, “must open into Icy Strait.”

The water was obviously quite deep only a few feet out from shore. He had an idea and it scared him. If a man could catch a spring tide ... or even without it. But it was a fool idea.

He seated himself on a rock and stoked his pipe. The shore was flat and this was an old Indian portage where they had carried their canoes and bidarkas from one inlet to the other for many years. The water was deep off both sides, and at no place was the level of the portage more than six feet above the water level.
 
There were indications that the sea had once been higher. No doubt the level of the water had fallen with years, but at present the distance was a bare sixty yards from inlet to inlet. Yet a schooner was not a canoe that one could pick up and carry across a neck of land.