Sitka (31 page)

As the Susquehanna prepared for sea, Jean LaBarge read in the Alta Californian that the treaty “will hardly be considered at this session, but will go over to next winter.”

Seward increased his campaign of education. The papers rarely came out now without some information on Alaska, and by letter, Jean continued to supply information on various parts of the Russian-held area. On April 4
^th
it was reported that there was no chance of the treaty being ratified. But a letter from Rob was optimistic, and with that final word, the Susquehanna sailed.
 
For several days a fast-sailing sloop had been lying alongside a wharf near Clark’s Point, and during none of those days had a man been ashore. Within the hour after the Susquehanna cleared the Golden Gate, Royle Weber dropped into Denny O’Brien’s bar.

Much had changed. Yankee Sullivan, under threat of lynching by the Vigilantes, had committed suicide. Charley Duane had been escorted to a ship and sent off to New York, and O’Brien had much to worry about.

But his memory was long, and the night when he had stood at his own bar with his pants around his heels with the click of his vest buttons on the floor in his ears was not easy to forget.

Crossing the room he dropped into a chair opposite Weber. Weber shifted his weight on the chair seat and smiled. “Well, Denny, we’ve waited a long time!” “It’s now?”

“The Susquehanna cleared port this afternoon.”

Denny turned and motioned to a dark-skinned man who loitered at the bar, and when the man leaned over, spoke to him. Instantly, the man was out of the door and running. Less than an hour later the sailing sloop slid away from the dock and pointed herself north for Sitka.

“I’d like to be there,” Denny O’Brien said. “I’d like to see his face.” The Susquehanna’s second port of call was at Kootznahoo Inlet. The information LaBarge had received was clear. No ship had called at Kootznahoo since his own last trip, and there were many furs. It would be a rich cargo to pick up. When the Susquehanna dropped the hook off Kootznahoo head the bidarkas were swift to come.

A few days before the fast-sailing sloop had put into Sitka harbor, but had not gone near the dock. Rather, it had gone at once to the Lena and tied up alongside. Within an hour both the Lena and the Kronstadt slipped out of Sitka harbor, the Lena sailing north and around the island through Peril Strait, while the Kronstadt sailed south, rounded Point Ommaney and started north. The sloop, taking water and provisions from the Lena, never even docked at Sitka for fear the grapevine would carry word across the islands, but sailed immediately back to the United States.

The weather was good. Ben Turk, Gant and Boyar had gone ashore to hunt in the hills back of the inlet. Kohl was also ashore. Trading had been brisk that morning, but now it had begun to lag. Jean LaBarge went below and stretched out in his bunk.

He was half-asleep when from the deck there was a sudden wild yell, then a tremendous explosion. Leaping from his bunk he was thrown off balance by a second concussion. Lunging for the companionway he heard screams of agony from the deck, then a concussion from aft. He sprang put into a cloud of smoke and flame. Something forward was burning. The forem’st lay in a welter of tangled ropes and splintered wood. After, Duncan Pope and Ben Noble were working the gun, and near them, sprawled in the wreck of the helm, lay one of the Indians in a pool of blood.

Across the mouth of the bay lay the Lena. At a glance, LaBarge knew the situation was hopeless. There was no other way out of the inlet, and inside, the water was not deep enough to take the schooner. She would be shot to wreckage before they could get moving.

“Cut loose the anchor!” he yelled. “Get a jib on her!” A shell screamed overhead and lost itself somewhere in the woods. The schooner was moving slowly now. If they could get around Turn Point.. .. He had no hopes of saving the ship, what he wanted now was a chance for the crew to take to the hills. Once there, with the friendly Indians, they could hide out for weeks until they might reach the mainland.

Pope fired their own gun again, and LaBarge had the satisfaction of seeing the shell burst amidships, smashing the whaleboat to splinters and ripping sails and rigging. Now the Lena moved closer, getting into position to rip the Susquehanna with another broadside.

Enough of the wheel remained to swing the schooner and LaBarge started to put it over when a shell struck forward and he felt the ship stagger under a wicked blow in the hull. Then the shelling stopped. Their own gun had ceased to fire and turning he saw Duncan Pope sprawled on the deck, his skull blown half away.
 
Noble caught his arm.

“We’d better run for it, sir!” he shouted. “They’ll be alongside in a few minutes!”

Two boats were in the water, pulling strongly toward the wreck of the Susquehanna.

Dazed, he glanced around. Pope was dead, and another man lay sprawled amidships.
 
The schooner was drifting helplessly, but the current, slight as it was, was taking them deeper into the inlet. The tidal currents there, he recalled, were fearfully strong.

The way was blocked. The Lena lay fairly across the only entrance and her boats were drawing near. There was nothing else for it.
 
“Abandon ship,” he said. “Get for shore, all of you.”

“What about you?” Noble protested.

“I’ll come,” he said. “Get going!”

He turned to the companionway and went swiftly down the ladder. For the first time he realized how badly hulled they were: water stood on the deck of the saloon. He slipped a pistol behind his belt, caught up a coat. Alongside he heard splashes and yells as the crew jumped over the side. The shore here was nowhere over fifty yards away.

He went swiftly up the ladder and reaching the rail, turned back for a last long look. The forem’st was gone, trailing over the side in a mass of wreckage. The stern was a wreck and the deck was literally a shambles. Pope and Sykes were definitely gone, both killed in those few minutes of shelling. Luckily, most of the crew had been ashore. Yet ... the Susquehanna ... it was like deserting an old friend. He sprang to the rail.

Below him and not twenty yards away was the Russian longboat, and in it were a dozen men, six of whom covered him with rifles. In the stern sat Baron Paul Zinnovy, smiling.

To jump was to die, and he was not ready to die.
 
The boat came alongside and the Russians swarmed aboard. Two men seized him and bound his hands behind him, stripping him of his pistol.
 
Zinnovy scarcely glanced at him, walking about the ship, looking her over curiously. Other men had gone below to inspect the cargo.
 
As he was seated in the boat one of the men spoke to the other and indicating LaBarge, said, “Katorzhniki.”

It was a word that stood for a living death, it was the term applied to hard-labor convicts in Siberia.

May had come and gone before the news reached Robert Walker, and he acted with speed. The purchase of Alaska hung in the balance and the Baron Edouard Stoeckl was worried. He wanted to be back in Russia, or to have an assignment in Paris or Vienna, and everything depended on this mission. Now this LaBarge affair had to come up, and the man involved had to be a personal friend, a very close friend of Walker himself, known moreover to Seward, Sumner, all of them.
 
Ratification of the treaty was not enough. The appropriation must be made. He had watched Congress in action long enough to know that the whole sale of Alaska might fail right there. And if any man could get out the necessary vote, it was Walker. Why couldn’t that confounded Zinnovy have kept his ships in Sitka?
 
He sat now, in Walker’s home, and the little man with the wheezy voice glanced over at him. “Is there any news of LaBarge?” ‘ The Baron’s face shadowed a little. He had hoped the subject would not arise.

“Could it be possible,” Walker suggested, “to arrange for the transfer of such a prisoner? Supposing he is in Siberia?”

“There is no record of such a prisoner,” Stoeckl protested, “nor of any such capture. I am sure the whole affair is the figment of someone’s imagination.” “Sir,” Walker’s voice was stiff, “the man whose letter lies on my desk is a man of honor, LaBarge’s partner and my friend. Not only was an American vessel shelled but its cargo was taken. This, sir, savors of piracy.” Baron Stoeckl had friends in the Russian American Company, but Baron Zinnovy was not one of these. However, he had a very good idea as to Zinnovy’s duties in Sitka, and it would not do to have such news reach the ears of the Czar. Stoeckl knew that following the return of Princess Helena there had been a great fuss, which had been calmed down only after some time. At this moment orders for a complete shake-up at Sitka were carefully pigeonholed in the Ministry of the Interior. A revisor was to be appointed to investigate, but so far this had not been done.

“I cannot see what good it would do to have the prisoner transferred if he remained a prisoner.”

Walker brushed the question aside. “I have heard, correct me if I am wrong, that some convict labor is used in Sitka?”

Baron Stoeckl almost smiled. So that was what the fox was thinking! Maybe this man was married to Benjamin Franklin’s granddaughter with some reason ... a prisoner transferred to Alaska on the evening of the sale would most certainly be freed when the Americans took over.

It was a very sensible idea ... and this he, Baron Stoeckl, might arrange. There were people, the superiors of Zinnovy, in the Ministry of the Interior who wanted LaBarge to remain a prisoner. Yet a prisoner might be transferred without incurring the displeasure of these people. It was something that might be done without endangering his own future prospects.

There was one thing Walker did not know and which Stoeckl had no intention of telling him. There was every prospect that Zinnovy himself would be appointed revisor at Sitka.

“It is, as you suggest, a possibility that another shipment of convicts might be sent to Sitka. ... How do the votes stand, Mr. Walker, for the appropriation?” They talked far into the night, weighing the pros and cons and Stoeckl nursed his injured leg and cursed under his breath.

It was bad luck that Zinnovy had gone to Siberia without putting in at Sitka, and the prisoners had been landed there and turned over to the police. Probably not even he knew what had become of LaBarge by now. It was several days before he saw Walker again. They met briefly, over a glass of sherry.
 
“By the way”—Stoeckl was on his feet ready to go—“I understand a shipment of twenty prisoners will leave Okhotsk on the last of the month.” “I shall hope for further news. Are any prisoners I know involved?”

“At least one,” Stoeckl replied, “that I am sure of.” They parted and the Baron walked away. There was no reason why he should feel guilty. It was too bad for LaBarge, and the Baron felt real regret for Robert Walker. A good man, this Walker, a genius at managing things like this treaty.
 
Seward might be the key figure, but it was Walker who lined up the vote, did the lobbying, the entertaining, and the leg work to arrange the purchase.
 
Walker must be content with that. For the rest of it, there was no hope.
 
Prisoner Jean LaBarge was going out of the Siberian frying pan into the Sitka fire.

From the window of her room in Baranof Castle, Helena looked out over the city and harbor where sunlight lay bright upon the water, and gleamed from the serene loveliness of Mount Edgecumbe. The Castle was no longer the gloomy place it had been. In the capable hands of Prince Maksoutof and his wife it had become warm, comfortable, even gay.

The same eighty cannon looked grimly over the city from the parapet below. But there was more shipping in the bay, and several of them were American ships.
 
She had been a fool to come, yet if Rob Walker’s hint in his letter to her had been founded upon fact, Jean LaBarge might soon be arriving here. If she could not free him she could at least, through Prince Maksoutof, relieve his imprisonment a little.

So few words had actually passed between them, yet she knew how he had felt, and she also knew, only too well, her own feelings. But what would prison have done to him? She had seen men who returned from Siberia, some of them scarcely human after the hard labor and punishments. Yet there was something about Jean that seemed indestructible.

There had been so little. The warmth in his eyes, the pressure of his hand, their bodies close together in the bouncing, jouncing tarantas.
 
She had loved a man for the first time, and she had lost him. Her husband had always been more like a kind father, tender, thoughtful, and considerate, and she had loved him for this. But it was nothing like her feeling for the tall, dark, dangerous-looking man with the scar whom she had loved with a love that bridged the bitter months and made them seem an age.
 
If this was being a fool, then she was a fool, and she had come across Siberia again, and across the ocean, merely on the hope that he would be here, and that he would still care.

Prince Maksoutof was questioning himself Kas to why she was here. Both the Prince and Princess had tried to find some clue from her conversation or her guarded replies to questions.

The Russian American Company still operated in Sitka although its charter had not been renewed. Something was impending, some change of which she could find out nothing. So far as she had been able to discover, the plan to sell Alaska had failed at the last minute. There were rumors of negotiations and rumors of the collapse of negotiations.