The Great Alone (22 page)

Tasha stared at him with her dark, suddenly expressionless eyes for a long time. Then she said, “I understand.”

Andrei straightened in his chair, relieved. He wasn’t certain what he had expected her reaction to be—rage maybe. But her sharp native intelligence had listened to reason.

He smiled. “It is not something we have to worry about now. It will be a long time until summer comes.”

“A long time,” she murmured and stroked the soft black hair on their son’s head.

As the sun neared its winter solstice, the daylight hours shortened. Activity in the camp and the nearby village was at its peak during that time. Few paid any attention to Tasha as she hurried along the muddy path through the snow. The winter landscape was a mixture of stark white snow and black rocks, surrounded by gray clouds and gray-green water. A flock of auklets darkened the sky like a thick trail of smoke heading out to sea. But Tasha’s gaze was focused on her brother. He was crouched beside his bidarka, checking a section of its hide cover. He stood up when he saw her coming.

For two days she had waited for the opportunity to speak to him alone. She wasted no time coming to the point. “I have to leave. Zachar and I have to leave the island,” she quickly corrected herself. “Will you take us from here?”

“Why?” Her brother glanced sharply in the direction of the hut. “Has he harmed you?”

“No. He plans to take my son.” Agitation stirred her, and the pain of betrayal by someone she thought she could trust. “Next summer he wants to take Zachar with him when he goes to his village. I am not to go with them. He says I should stay here and he will come back.” She didn’t believe him. Of all the things he’d said to her the other night, one thing had been clear. “He would steal my child.”

“Cossacks can never be trusted.” Walks Straight glowered at the party of promyshleniki setting out to check their trap lines.

“I must take Zachar and leave the island while Andrei Nikolaivich sleeps. I cannot wait.”

“Where will you go?”

Tasha shook her head, having no answer. “I cannot go home to Attu. He would find us there.”

“My friends in Unalaska would welcome us to their village. He would not know to look for you there. We would be safe.” His face smoothed with decision. “We must leave tonight.”

“I have gathered my things and hidden them. As soon as he sleeps, I will take them from their hiding place and slip away with my son.”

“I will take the Cossacks’ baidar and meet you where the waters run under the shelf rock.” With their plans made, Tasha returned to the hut and her sleeping child to await the coming of night.

* * *

The night was filled with the quiet murmurings of the sea as the baidar sailed through its waters. The swaddled baby in Tasha’s arms made a few protesting noises, but there was no one to hear except her brother. The island of Adak was well behind them. Only Zachar’s cradle remained at the hut. Everything else they owned was in the large skin-boat, including her brother’s bidarka and all his hunting equipment. Walks Straight would build Zachar another cradle when they reached Unalaska.

The undulating waters glistened with a silvery sheen. Overhead, broken clouds revealed the stars in the night sky and the singing lights that dipped and swayed in changing white-green waves.

CHAPTER XIII

On Unalaska Island, final preparations were under way to engage the Cossacks in battle. The villagers were observing the rituals and appealing to the Creator’s protective presence. The strategies were set. It was to be a coordinated effort among the villages on the islands of Four Mountains, Umnak, Unalaska, and the surrounding smaller islands. The enemy strength in the area was estimated at less than two hundred Cossacks, while the Aleuts numbered more than three thousand warriors.

All summer and fall they had pretended friendliness to the Cossacks so they would be encouraged to divide into smaller hunting groups as was their practice when they didn’t feel threatened. The Aleuts had carefully observed the routines of the Cossacks and used their patterns to plot ambushes.

Listening to their final plans, Tasha realized that the formidable Cossacks could be overpowered and killed. The bitterness in her heart made her glad. They should be punished for the wrongs they had done and the suffering they had caused, suffering with which she now empathized.

The village where Tasha and her brother had taken refuge with her son was on an island in the large bay carved into the northern end of Unalaska. It was a small village, composed of twenty hunters living communally in a single barabara. A short distance from the dwelling, a party of eleven Cossacks had built a winter hut from driftwood. They came from a boat anchored in the bay which could be seen from the island when the fog didn’t hide it.

After Zachar finished nursing, Tasha laid him in his new cradle. Walks Straight entered the barabara accompanied by two other hunters. Triumphantly he displayed the knives he’d obtained in trade from the Cossacks, then passed them out to the other hunters.

“Tomorrow the Cossacks will know why we wanted so many knives,” he announced, and the Aleuts smiled and nodded their understanding. Walks Straight strode over to the cubicle where Tasha sat. The eagerness for battle was in his eyes as he squatted beside her. “It begins in the morning. Before the sun comes up, you will take little Zachar and hide in the hills with the others. The old ones have agreed to stay so the Cossacks will not become suspicious.”

“I will stay, too.” Tasha knew the plan. Every morning half of the Cossacks left the hut to check their foxtraps on the island. One of the villagers would lure them into an ambush. The Cossacks remaining at the hut always came to the barabara. The rest of the hunters would attack them once they were inside. “Little Shell will look after Zachar for me.”

Her offer pleased him. At last they stood on the same side. “You will remain outdoors in the morning. When the attack begins, you will join the other women in the hills.”

“I will.”

After its flame was extinguished, the stone lamp was moved to the far end of the barabara so it would not be upset in the coming fight and its oil spilled. The daylight streaming through the roof hatch left much of the barabara in shadows. Two of the Aleut hunters stood within its spray of light, their clubs and knives hidden in the folds of their parkas. Walks Straight waited in the shadows with the others, positioned close to the notched log down which the Cossacks would soon descend. His nerves were tense, all his senses straining, the blood thumping loudly in the vein along his neck. He tightened his grip on the hunting club.

A short time ago, Looks Like Copper, the sentry posted on the barabara’s roof, had signaled to let them know that one group of Cossacks had left the hut to check their foxtraps. If the pattern stayed true, soon the other Cossacks would be making their regular visit to the barabara.

Suddenly greetings were called in the Cossack tongue. Footsteps approached the opening in the roof. Walks Straight watched as Looks Like Copper came down the notched log first. Very low, the Aleut murmured the warning, “Three come. One carries a hatchet.”

Walks Straight sank deeper into the shadows, turning his body slightly so that it wouldn’t appear his interest was centered on the Cossacks climbing down the ladder one after the other, the log groaning under their weight. The big-nosed one carrying the hatchet came last. As he neared the bottom, the first two Cossacks appeared to sense something was wrong.

“Agghh!” Walks Straight yelled the signal to attack and, with a mighty swing of his club, struck the closest Cossack between the shoulders, driving him to the earthen floor.

Immediately Walks Straight leaped onto the body and repeatedly plunged his knife into the Cossack’s back, while all around him clubs and knives were striking amidst shouts in Aleut and Cossack. A second Cossack went down and two Aleuts fell on him with their knives.

As Walks Straight abandoned the body of his slain victim, the big-nosed Cossack, badly wounded, began swinging his hatchet like a madman, slashing it back and forth, driving the Aleuts back while he retreated to the ladder. Walks Straight attempted to block his escape from the barabara, but the bloodied hatchet blade arced toward him. He jumped back and felt the scoring burn as the blade sliced through his parka and cut the fleshy part of his chest. Ignoring the pain, he went after the Cossack on the ladder, but the threat of the constantly swung hatchet prevented him from snaring the man’s boots and dragging him down.

All but two of the Aleuts followed Walks Straight up the notched log after the fleeing Cossack. Those two had suffered severe wounds inflicted by the hatchet-swinging man. As Walks Straight emerged from the hatch opening, the big-nosed man broke into a staggering run down the mound and yelled a warning to the Cossacks still in the hut. One Cossack hurried out of the bushes some distance from the hut, fastening his trousers. Walks Straight saw that he had little chance of keeping the hatchet-armed man from reaching his dwelling, but the other Cossack had no weapon. He ran quickly to intercept him.

They surrounded him a few yards from the hut. Walks Straight saw the panic in the man’s eyes as he came at him with his knife. The Cossack grabbed his knife arm and Walks Straight strained to overpower him, feeling the blood trickling from the slash across his chest. Some of the Aleuts had grabbed spears before leaving the barabara. One stabbed the Cossack. His mouth opened with shock and horror as his grip loosened. Walks Straight quickly drove his knife blade into him. The Cossack went to his knees while the rest continued to stab him with their spears.

Almost simultaneously it seemed, deafening explosions rent the air and two Aleuts were spun around by some invisible force. The Cossacks’ muskets. The man on the ground still moved. Aware that the Cossacks needed time to reload their weapons, the warriors stayed to finish their victim.

A Cossack broke from the hut and came slashing into their midst with a big knife. It ripped into Walks Straight’s side, cutting the flesh but missing the organs. He staggered backwards, clutching the deep gash to stop the pumping of blood from it. Another Aleut fell under the man’s knife. The Cossack scooped up his fallen comrade and began retreating toward the hut as another volley of musketfire thundered through the air.

With their own strength severely depleted by wounds, the Aleuts retreated out of musket range. Walks Straight paused for breath, the smell of blood and battle sweat strong in his nose. He was conscious of the draining weakness, the trembling of his muscles with fatigue.

“We have them trapped.” Walks Straight sat down, breathing heavily. “Their muskets can keep us from getting in, but soon they must come out for food and water. We will be ready.”

“Only four live, and two are badly wounded,” Looks Like Copper stated. “We have heard nothing from the others. Do you think they were successful in killing the Cossacks?”

“We will soon know.” One or the other would be coming back to the village. Walks Straight pushed to his feet, holding his wound, the sticky blood blackening his parka. “Come. We must let out the power in the bodies of the ones we have killed and take our wounded to the summer camp where the women wait.”

Three of the Aleut warriors remained near the hut in case the Cossacks attempted to flee to their baidar. The rest returned to the barabara. While some helped their two wounded fighters up the ladder, Walks Straight and the others took out their knives and started cutting the arms and legs off the bodies of the slain Cossacks. Once the extremities were separated from the bodies, they were cut apart again at the joints. Finally they gathered up the parts, carried them out of the barabara, and threw them in the sea, thus insuring themselves against a fatal encounter.

Like the other injured, Walks Straight washed his wounds in the sea and bound up the gash in his side, but he didn’t accompany the five other wounded hunters when they set out for the winter camp, the ones able to walk helping those who couldn’t. He stayed with the other Aleuts to maintain their siege on the Cossacks’ hut.

Shortly the ambush party returned to the village. Walks Straight looked with envy at the two pistols and muskets they had captured after annihilating the enemy.

“Show the Cossacks in the hut the weapons and clothes you have taken from their comrades so they will know they are alone on the island,” Walks Straight instructed, and two of the warriors stepped out in full view of the hut and waved their plunder for the men inside to see.

At the first sounds of a struggle inside the barabara, Tasha had abandoned her supposed search for driftwood and motioned for the two old women of the village to come with her. Together they had made their way across the hills of the narrow island to the summer camp located near a stream where salmon came during the spawning season. There they had joined the rest of the villagers—women, children, and men too old to fight—and waited for word of the outcome of the attacks.

Zachar slept in the cradle alongside Tasha while she filled the worry time by sewing a small rainproof parka for him. She kept remembering the rumble of musket shots vibrating through the island hills. The sounds around her now were the rush of the wind, the mixed cry of the seabirds, and the voice of an old man recounting his days of valor to some young child.