Russian Amerika ra-1

by Stoney Compton

  “Yeah. And Chandalar, too.”

  “Ah, damn!” Blue’s voice broke for the second time in twenty minutes.

  “Losin’ all these people I love, who helped me be the person I am, makes me die a little bit with each one. I don’t know how much more I can take.”

  The death of her brother, Lynx, didn’t seem to jar her as much as hearing about Malagni and Slayer-of-Men. “You weren’t sure about Malagni?”

  “I know he lost his arm and a lot of blood.” It seemed like a million years ago to Grisha. “But I won’t believe he’s dead until I see his grave.”

  “Yet Nathan the mind-bender still lives,” Blue said shortly.

  “He’s hurt,” Wing said testily. “He might even lose an arm.”

  Blue turned and stared at her friend. “But no bullet touched him, right?”

  “His arm was broken by a piece of falling roof.” Wing sounded defensive. “No, he has no bullet wounds.”

  Blue fastened her gaze on Grisha.

  “What do you think, little brother? Is our Nathan a witch or just damn lucky?”

  “Who knows? I believe he’s especially intuitive. But if he can read minds he has an affliction I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy,” Grisha mumbled. “There’s no way to turn off what others are thinking. Think how awfully boring that could become.”

  Both women laughed, muting the tension.

  Blue sobered quickly. “It might be boring, but I think he can control people around him.”

  “How can you believe that?” Wing asked incredulously. “He’s been unconscious for hours and I don’t feel any different than when he’s awake.”

  “I can believe it ’cause he’s the strangest damn thing to come downriver in my lifetime,” Blue said. “Grisha, how about you?”

  He yawned hugely. “I feel more awake when he’s around.”

  “I’m serious, Grisha.”

  Grisha glanced past Wing at the larger woman. “If he’s controlling me, I don’t know about it.” He paused. “But I almost wish he was, I’d have someone else to blame for my screwups.”

  Nobody laughed.

  “What was the situation at Tanana when you left?” Wing asked.

  “Mopping up. Most of the garrison were Cossacks and knew they were dead even if they surrendered.” Blue’s tone grew bleak. “They didn’t surrender, but we took the redoubt anyway.”

  “At what cost?”

  “Fred Seetamoona and his assault team feinted to draw their fire, they all died. That’s how we were able to take the place at all.”

  “Fred was on the council,” Wing said slowly.

  “We’ve lost five council members that I know of over the past few days,” Blue said.

  “How did you end up in this half-track with a bunch of desperate survivors?” Grisha asked.

  “Pure, crazy chance. We captured three of these things and we only had two people who could drive them, so I volunteered to guard this one until somebody could come back for it.” She grinned, showing the gap in her teeth.

  “The Cossacks got there first and I just played dumb, which under the circumstances, wasn’t too difficult.”

  “So what’s next?” Grisha asked.

  “What do you mean?” Wing said.

  “We’ve got Tanana, Chena is in ruins and won’t be of much use to them or us for a long time to come—”

  “Not to mention Huslia, Koyuk, Fort Yukon, and Bridge,” Wing said quickly.

  “Where?” Grisha asked.

  “Those are the other strongpoints on the highway now in our hands. We took Fort Yukon because we needed the airfield,” Blue said. “Finish what you started to say.”

  “I already said it: what’s next? Where do we go from here, attack south?”

  “No,” Blue said quickly. “We’re fighting a revolution for independence, we have no legal reason to hold more than the land of the Dená.”

  “But Nathan and Chan mentioned attacks on St. Nicholas and Tetlin.”

  “Tetlin is inside the Dená Republik and is the strongest redoubt outside St. Nicholas. We hope to negotiate them out of there,” Blue said with a trace of bitterness. “We planned an attack on the slave pens in each place, to gain more followers, but that didn’t happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “Too cold. The prisoners would have frozen to death before we could help them. As soon as the ice goes out on the Yukon, we’ll hit Tetlin, if they haven’t freed our people before then.”

  “Blue, you’re pretty optimistic if you believe that,” Wing said with a snort.

  “Finish answering my question,” Grisha said.

  “We consolidate and negotiate,” Blue said. “And, if we have to, we keep fighting.”

  “The Russians will definitely counterattack,” Grisha said. “They won’t give up this easily.”

  “We’ve hurt them badly here—” Blue began.

  “Do you think this is the cream of the Czar’s army?” Grisha said. “This is the frontier, a colony. This is where they send the people who are being punished or aren’t worth the food they eat.”

  He licked his lips, hating himself for demeaning the sacrifice of others. “You were able to plant charges at the strongpoints before your initial attack, weren’t you?”

  “How’d you know what we did?” Blue asked.

  “It’s what I would have done. But the point is, the next Russian troops you see will be more aware, better trained, and possess few social skills. The real Russian Army will be a lot harder to beat than these trash-heap garrison troops.”

  Wing turned and stared at him. “We will fight until we die. I don’t think the Russian Army cares that much about the Czar’s holdings in Russian Amerika.”

  “The leaders do the thinking; all armies are paid to fight.”

  “If enough of them die, they will realize that to fight us is tantamount to death,” Blue said with finality. “Their choices are to go home, join us, or die.”

  “Maybe you should tell them that,” he said in a musing tone. “Perhaps they would come to their point of decision much faster.”

  “Propaganda’s not a bad idea,” Wing said. “Do we still have a printing press?”

  “More than one,” Blue said. “We’ll print up small notices in Russian and English and distribute them in all the Russian-held redoubts.”

  “How will you deliver them?” Grisha asked.

  “Getting in and out of their areas is easy. We’re all worthless Indians or Creoles to them,” Wing said, “we’ve just got to be very careful.”

  “They’ll be looking at everybody twice from now on, especially Indians and Creoles.”

  “What’s the matter, Grisha, don’t you want the job?” Blue asked with a laugh.

  “I think I’d be the wrong man for it,” he said wryly. “Give me something else to do.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Blue said. “But I need to talk to War Minister Nathan about it first.”

  “If it helps the Dená Republik, I’ll do it.”

  Blue glanced at Wing. “With Chan dead, how do we finance this war?”

  “What do you mean?” Grisha asked. “What did Chan have to do with finances?”

  “That’s right, you didn’t know,” Wing said. “Chan was the money behind the DSM and the revolution. His grandfather discovered gold up in the hills north of Chena way back in the ’30s, and had the presence of mind to keep quiet about it.”

  “Yeah,” Blue said. “He kept the secret in his family. They operated that mine for years and years, hauled most of the gold down into British Canada to sell it.”

  Wing nodded. “They were rich, the whole family. Then one of Chan’s uncles got drunk and told another Dená about it, and a Cossack heard him.”

  “Oh, hell,” Grisha said in a reverent tone.

  “Yeah,” Blue said. “Cossacks kidnapped the three brothers who had inherited. And their families were tortured to death in front of them. But no one told the location of the mine.”

>   “Because,” Wing said, hesitating for a beat, “the Cossacks had missed getting Chandalar. He had been over in Nenana visiting a girl and her family. So the rest of the family died at the hands of the Cossacks knowing Chan would revenge their deaths.”

  “Chan told the girl he couldn’t marry, but would always love her, then went looking for other angry Athabascans,” Blue said. “And he found a lot of

  ’em!”

  “He recruited the first ten Dená Separatists,” Wing said, “told them to find as many others as they could and he went down to the United States. He was arrested in a border town and turned over to the army. Within a week he was talking to someone on President Taft’s staff.”

  “That’s when Haimish came north the first time,” Blue said. “I was just a little girl, but I remember him coming through our door and wonderin’ what he was, cause he looked like one of those Eskimo billikens.”

  “But now they’re both dead,” Grisha said, sorry to pull them back to now.

  “Yeah,” Wing said in a husky voice. “But to answer your question, Blue, Chan willed the whole operation to the Dená people. We have bank accounts in British Canada, French Canada, and the United States with a lot of money in them.”

  52

  A half hour later they came to a large tree lying across the road. Grisha started to drive into the ditch to go around it.

  “No!” Blue shouted, her words nearly blurring in a staccato chatter.

  “This is our roadblock. The ditches are mined!”

  Grisha, hands suddenly shaking in an adrenaline rush, jumped on the brake, bringing them to a sudden stop. Cries of pain and anger could be heard from the back of the half-track. The vehicle stopped with the front wheels off the road, resting in the ditch.

  Grisha looked over at the two women, wondering if his face was as pale as theirs.

  “Did you know this was coming up?”

  “Yes,” Blue said, panting, “I knew, I meant to mention it earlier. But we got to talking.”

  “Anything else you forget to mention?”

  “Yeah, get out of the cab unarmed, with your hands in the air.”

  Grisha shook his head and grinned. “Remind me to talk to you about timing.” He pushed the door open and stepped out on the running board with his still-shaking hands in the air.

  “We’re friends from Chena Redoubt,” he shouted into the dark, snowfilled forest. The scent of wood smoke hung in the air, cold burned in his nostrils, the fresh air felt clean and good. “Blue is with us.”

  “Who are you?” a voice asked from the darkness.

  “Grigoriy Grigorievich!”

  “For what battle were you cashiered from the Troika Guard?” the voice demanded.

  “Bou Saada, French Algeria.” Grisha frowned and peered into the trees.

  A figure strode out of the dark, stunted, frozen forest.

  “It really is you, Major, isn’t it?”

  Grisha stared hard at the person but didn’t recognize him until Heinrich Smolst grinned and grabbed him a bear hug. The two pounded each other on the back, laughing. Other figures materialized and surrounded the two vehicles.

  “My God, Heinrich,” Grisha gasped. “They told me you had come over to our side, but I thought you were among the dead at Chena Redoubt. It is so good to see you, my friend.”

  “The Russians made me a captain, and I still hated them for what they did to you. I’ve waited ten years for the exact right moment to tell the Czar to go fuck himself, and it arrived out there in the woods, when I was surrounded by your Dená.”

  The refugees climbed out of the half-tracks, adding their welcomes.

  “Look me up tomorrow, Heinrich, please?”

  “Of course, Major!”

  “Not ‘Major.’ Grisha, just like when we were both private soldiers.”

  “Looks like we’re in that category again anyway. I’ll find you tomorrow, Grisha.”

  A cable and pulley easily swiveled the tree out of the road. The small convoy rolled across the frozen Yukon River to where Tanana slept under the scrolling northern lights.

  The half-tracks pulled up onto the high riverbank and stopped in front of a large building bright with light. Shell holes in the walls and roof already boasted tarp bandages. Grisha realized he didn’t have to drive anymore. The exhaustion he had been denying swept over him. He stumbled into the warm room and collapsed in a corner, fast asleep.

  “Major Grigorievich, wake up.”

  The voice penetrated his dream of being on the water again. So vivid was the dream that when he blinked his eyes, he expected to see the interior of Pravda’s cabin. The crisp apparition staring down at him instantly brought him back. He moaned before his wits returned and he could stop himself.

  “Heinrich, I’m not a major anymore,” he said roughly. He stretched and, when the scent of cooking food finally registered, realized he was famished.

  “About time you woke up,” Smolst said. “You’ve been asleep for over a day.”

  To his amazement Grisha found himself undressed and in a bunk. He glanced around wildly. Three-high stands of built-in bunks filled the room. All the others were empty.

  “How long have I been in here?”

  “Since about oh-two-hundred yesterday.”

  “What time is it now?”

  “Almost ten-hundred.”

  Grisha took stock, decided he felt pretty good. Voices wafted in along with food aromas. His stomach growled and he sat up, searching for his clothes.

  The barracks contained a dining hall where nearly thirty people sat, talking, drinking tea, and eating. He blinked as he came out of the sleeping area into the brightly lit room. Heinrich prodded him from behind.

  “Over there, near the wall.”

  Grisha blinked again and saw Wing, who saw him at the same time.

  “Grisha. Over here.”

  He felt something he couldn’t define when he looked at her. Relief that she was safe, the old deep-seated hunger he’d always felt but had denied, and finally something else he couldn’t name—but it made his heart feel full.

  She stood and embraced him. He couldn’t remember anything that smelled quite as good as she did. He pulled back slightly and kissed her on her scar. She blushed and edged away.

  “I want you to meet some people.” She gestured at the five people sitting around the table: Blue, Claude, Nathan, and two other War Council members, an old man and a younger woman.

  “I am honored to finally meet you,” the old man said. Bright eyes flashed in the network of weathered wrinkles on his face. “I am Chief Andrew of the Dot Lake Dená.” He held out his hand and Grisha shook it, completely at a loss.

  A middle-aged woman with streaks of gray in her black hair smiled up at him.

  “As am I,” she said. “I’m Anna Samuel from Fort Yukon.”

  “Yes, I saw you both at the first War Council meeting, but I didn’t meet you personally.”

  “Grisha is very confused,” Nathan said gently, his intense eyes flashing from person to person. “Perhaps he should eat before we talk with him.”

  “Oh,” Wing said, “of course. Pardon us, please.” She led him over to the row of windows where the odor of cooked food became overwhelming.

  Back at the table, as he wolfed down potatoes and moose steak, Wing spoke in a very low voice. The others listened quietly.

  “We are in desperate straits. The Russians are massing troops on the Diomedes and at Tetlin. They’re already moving north out of St. Nicholas.”

  Grisha’s spoon paused midway to his mouth. “How many people do we have to put up against them?”

  “That’s a good question. A lot of Dená think we are mad to try this and are leaving the fortified villages, the redoubts, to go live with relatives in the bush. Other villages are fortifying against us, and announcing they are loyal to the Czar.”

  “How many do we know we have on our side?” Grisha asked through a mouthful of food, then paused to swallow. “That’ll tell u
s what we can do.”

  “It seems we don’t have to ask,” Anna said to the others at the table.

  “No,” Nathan said with a smile on his pockmarked face. “He’s already talking like a field commander.”

  Grisha nearly choked in the middle of a swallow. “Field commander! It’s been years since I was a major, I’m not even a Dená.”

  “Don’t forget we six are over half the War Council,” Chief Andrew said in his careful voice, “Yesterday the Dená Republik officially declared independence. We’re offering you a commission in the army, Colonel Grigorievich.”

  “Why me? There are so many others.”

  “You think efficiently during fluid situations,” Wing said, holding up an index finger. “You have years of experience in the field and have proven yourself to be a commander of fighters.” Another finger popped up. “You know the Russians—you’ve lived among them your entire life and served in their army. And we trust you to do your best.” Four fingers splayed toward him.

  “But I’m not a Dená, I’m only half Kolosh.”

  “There has been friction between some of our people,” Nathan said, looking down at his hands. “Between ‘upriver’ Indians and ‘downriver’ Indians. People from Nulato don’t completely trust people from Old Crow. There are factions in all areas.”

  “Why would they care, aren’t we all in this together?”

  “Some old, very old habits die hard. Everyone fights the same enemy, but when it comes to taking orders from someone whose people have always been suspect…” Nathan shook his head.

  “There are soldiers in the ranks who know you, served with you in the Troika Guard, they speak highly of you. You’ve shown us all your mettle over the past few days.”

  “It doesn’t feel right. I really think you could find someone else if—”

  Chief Andrew raised his hand, palm out. “There’s the other side of this aspect to consider. If we fail in our fight for independence, you would be the scapegoat in the eyes of many. You’re not even of the People.”

  “But I plead with you to say yes,” Nathan said. “There is much we think you can do.”

  Grisha considered Chief Andrew’s warning along with Nathan’s entreaty. He felt honored by the opportunity to lead these people he had come to respect and even love. This cause was important to him: much more immediate than anything he had ever done for the Czar.