Russian Amerika (ARC)

by Stoney Compton

  One glance of the Chilkat Range told Grisha they were on their way to Klukwan and the Czar's prison camp. They were all beaten upon arrival. Grisha thought he really might die, and the lassitude of surrender enveloped him once again.

  When he woke the next morning, his hands were free of iron and one of the guards kicked his foot again.

  "Get up, or you'll miss breakfast."

  Grisha's stomach groaned loudly. He hadn't eaten since his last day on Pravda. His ribs looked like those of a corpse.

  He staggered behind them, willing himself to take each step and not fall, knowing if he did he would never rise again. The aroma of hot, cooked food enveloped him and he dropped onto a bench where a steaming wooden bowl of gruel waited. Between burning his fingers, face, and lips, and the already raw condition of same, it took him almost ten minutes to empty the bowl.

  He still felt ravenous.

  He looked up at the guard.

  "We'll feed you again in four hours. If you eat more now you'll just spew it all over the floor and have to clean it up."

  For the first time since his trial he had the strength to look at the other prisoners. Men and women both were dressed in the same flimsy uniform. No attempt was made to segregate the sexes.

  He pulled away from the women in gender hatred. First Kazina and then Valari had violated his trust. After supervising his anguished metamorphosis from cashiered officer to charter captain, his wife made him a cuckold.

  Valari used him as a scapegoat for murder and exacerbated her infamy by claiming rape. Everything he attempted in his life had started with great promise, then ended in the most humiliating manner possible. And except for being cashiered, there had been a woman involved.

  He noticed there were at least two men older than himself, and with the women there was no way of telling. Nobody talked except for one twitchy fellow who constantly murmured in conversation with something over his right shoulder.

  The midday meal had flesh mixed in with potatoes and carrots. Grisha ate all they gave him. For a week they were fed and allowed to regain their strength. Toward the end of July Grisha and nineteen others were chained together in two coffles and herded into two army lorries.

  The trucks growled north and east until they hit the Russia-Canada Highway and turned northwest.

  The Russia–Canada enjoyed the term "highway" only by consent. Broken rock in fist-sized chunks formed the surface as well as the roadbed. In many places the top sank into the muskeg deep enough for narrow streams to traverse the roadway.

  Leaving Klukwan and regular meals made all of them apprehensive.

  "I don't think they are going to kill us," the oldest man said. "Else they wouldn't have wasted food on us."

  "I agree," Grisha said, scratching at his beard. "I was sentenced to thirty years hard labor on the RustyCan, I think that's where they are taking us."

  "Thirty years!" the old man exclaimed. "What was your crime?"

  "They convicted me of killing a cossack. But I am innocent."

  The other nine all laughed until they gasped.

  "What's so fucking funny about that?"

  The old man grinned at him. "Thank you, I haven't laughed since they sentenced me to ten years. We don't laugh at you, we laugh at ourselves. I doubt there are even two guilty persons in this truck."

  "Why are you here?"

  "My politics didn't hew closely enough to proscribed lines. I was the lucky one; they hanged three of my friends for treason."

  "I thought they were commuting all capital offenses for a month. They did that to me."

  "Which only points to your true innocence. What is your name, young man?"

  "Grigoriy Grigorievich," he said with a laugh.

  "Any you laugh why?"

  "I haven't been called 'young man' for a very long time."

  "I am Andreivich, and I have sixty years. You are younger than I am."

  "By a third of your years, sir."

  "You both talk too much," a burly, wild-haired man growled in a deep voice. "You should be trying to sleep."

  "What is your name, woodsman?" Grisha asked.

  "My mother called me Basil, after the saint. She may as well named me Satan, now that I am in hell."

  Grisha nodded in agreement.

  "Thank your saint you are not a woman," a large woman with a gap between her front teeth said with disdain.

  Grisha noticed the women had pulled as far away from the men as the chains would allow.

  "We won't hurt you," Andreivich said. "Nor can we help you."

  The woman pulled her haunted stare away from them, and looked out the back of the open truck at the cloud of dust billowing over the second truck. Equally great clouds of mosquitoes descended on them whenever the trucks stopped.

  They arrived at Tetlin Redoubt and were pushed into a vast holding pen. The next morning they were fed and herded back into the trucks. Grisha found himself wondering where they would end their journey.

  He was surprised that he cared.

  A Zukhov K-28 tank followed the three trucks, one for army personnel and two for convicts, and Grisha wondered at the military decision behind its presence. Wherever they were going, a potential enemy lurked. Grisha smiled; it couldn't be all bad.

  After traveling half the day the truck jolted to a stop and the engine died. Grisha stirred from his semiconscious nap.

  "Get out here, you scum!" a deep voice shouted. "Quickly, or you'll miss dinner."

  They all heaved to their feet and followed the woman at the head of the chain.

  "She's mine, first," the deep voice roared.

  "No matter what else comes out that truck?" a second harsh voice asked.

  "Yes!"

  The next three women were also claimed by unseen men.

  Then Grisha jumped down to the ground and turned to help Andreivich. A stunning blow knocked him into the dust.

  "You don't ever turn your back on me, slave, unless I tell you to!"

  Holding his head so it wouldn't split, Grisha staggered to his feet and stared at the burly, bearded man in front of him.

  The cossack sergeant grabbed him by the shoulder and thrust him away from the truck. "Keep moving, you dung-eater."

  In moments Grisha took in his surroundings. They were in deep woods but the glint of moving water could be seen through the far trees. Pravda flashed through his mind but he wouldn't hold on to the memory.

  Two rough cabins sat at the edge of a large clearing where most of the trees still lay after harvest. A coffle of nine emaciated prisoners sat in the dust at roadside. Grisha decided they were being taken back to Tetlin to be strengthened.

  "How many were you in the beginning?" Grisha whispered to the closest one.

  "Thirty," the man whispered back without moving his head. "The rest are dead."

  "Move out!" the cossack sergeant bellowed.

  The women shuffled toward the cabins.

  Another cossack screamed, "Not that way! That's where we live."

  They were halted at a wide trench floored with packed wood rounds. A ladder was the only way down or up. Two of the cossacks opened the heavy locks on each prisoner's shackles.

  The men were ordered into the trench and the women were led away by the crowing cossacks. The soldiers who had traveled in the lead truck threw the men some food. They could hear the cries and moans of the women all night.

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  6

  Outside Construction Camp 4, Mid August, 1987

  Ten meters above the ground, Slayer-of-Men shifted slightly to take the pressure off his left foot. The tree limb remained motionless as the tall man smoothly transferred weight to his right foot so he could flex the numbness from his sleeping leg.

  The cossacks below went about their wasteful ways, unaware of watchers. Not once had any of the bear-men looked up at the surrounding trees. They believed themselves complete masters on this part of the Tana
na River. Soon they would know the truth. The Den were reclaiming their ancestral home—despite the Czar.

  Slayer-of-Men knew the location of all four cossacks, as well as that of the ten soldiers with the tank who followed their orders, and the twenty slaves who labored for them. One of the cossacks lay with a slave at the foot of the tree from which the Den warrior watched. He glanced down with distaste at the couple.

  The woman's head angled away from the cossack and the Athabascan Indian could easily see a dark bruise pushing her eye shut. If a man treated a free woman of the Den like that, she would kill him or die trying. But then this woman was a slave.

  The sound of hammers and saws echoed through the late summer foliage. A scattering of yellow and gold leaves heralded the imminent change of season; soon the birch trees wouldn't hide a squirrel, let alone a man.

  His long, black hair was tied back from the blotchy face paint matching his camouflaged dungarees. The sleeves of his shirt bulged over well-muscled arms as he braced himself. Slowly, carefully, he continued to flex his leg.

  With a grunt the cossack finished with the slave and pushed her toward the work site. The bear-man glanced around lazily, then lifted his gaze to the trees bordering the clearing. Slayer-of-Men thanked the spirits for his location at the man's back. The cossack strutted back toward the construction commotion and began shouting orders at those nearest him.

  From his perch, Slayer-of-Men could see for miles over the wide, shallow Tanana River dotted with small islands scattered over the floodplain. The forest on the far bank presented a seemingly impenetrable wall to the uninitiated. Off to the northwest lay the Charley Hills and the great Yukon River.

  The Den warrior visually located every member of the Russian compound one more time before easing down the tree to those who waited for him. He felt certain this action would be like all the rest—completely successful and another victory for his People.

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  7

  Construction Camp 4 on the Tanana River

  Grigoriy Grigorievich ducked his head and pulled down hard on the crosscut saw. Sawdust and chips sprayed across him. He automatically shook his head before he pushed up and watched the man above him pull the long saw back to start the next cut. Four more cuts, he calculated, and the last log would be planked out.

  "Pull!" Dimitri said above him, continuing the cadence. "Push. Pull. Push. Pull."

  Halfway through the next downward cut, the last two pieces of the log fell apart into planks.

  "Letting go!" Grisha said loudly and released the saw handle. He kneaded the hardening blisters his hands while stumbling out of the saw pit. He shook himself off and brushed madly at his hair to dislodge as much of the chips and dust as possible.

  Without raising his head he glanced around the clearing, locating all four cossacks. The soldiers would give a man time to catch his breath. But the cossacks interpreted a prisoner's lack of motion as a personal affront.

  Grisha waved madly until the closest cossack nodded, then grabbed a handful of leaves and scuttled into the brush toward the malodorous slit trench. He dropped his ragged trousers and balanced narrow buttocks across the birch pole that served as a seat. Carefully he breathed through his mouth while his bowels released their watery load. He allowed himself to dwell on the fact that he was still losing weight before forcing his thoughts elsewhere.

  Unbidden, unstoppable, he thought of Pravda and the clean pleasure of running full out down some beautiful channel.

  His sphincter clenched and he briskly used the leaves with his left hand. He pushed himself off the pole and bent to pull up his pants. A dizzying blow sent him reeling forward to fall full on his face, his clothing still down around his ankles.

  Quickly he rolled onto his back and pulled his knees up over his exposed loins. Vich-something, the cossack sergeant, towered over him, legs wide, arms akimbo, and his gravel voice ground at Grisha.

  "With good fortune you're blessed, pretty one," he said in Russian. "Out of twenty new mares, four of them are actually female. But soon you will know a stallion's strength, just like all the other animals on our little farm." He laughed without pretense at humor.

  "Quickly return to work, you dung-eater! Or I will geld you now before your strength dissipates."

  Grisha jerked the trousers up as he rolled over, lurching to his feet he ran toward the rapidly rising lodge. He knew he could kill one of them with his bare hands, but not four, especially when all were armed. He hoped to last long enough to kill at least one.

  Basil, the wide-shouldered Georgian, grunted as he pried a log end up to secure the rope around it. Grisha skidded to a halt next to him, already on his knees, and pushed the noose over the squared-off tree trunk.

  The straw boss, a thick Indian or Creole woman from somewhere to the west, barked a command and four women tightened the rope to take the log's weight off the pry bar. Grisha jumped up and helped hoist the log high enough to maneuver the end into the corner notch where it belonged.

  At the other corner of the ten-meter wall, Basil, the wild-haired woodsman, hacked furiously to cut the place where the log's lower end would fit. Grisha scrambled up the wall and released the noose. Sallow-faced Andreivich, who had talked less and less as his strength drained, pushed the crude derrick around to position the rope above the back of Samis.

  The burly army guard stepped forward and pointed his rifle in their general direction as Samis finished the cut before lowering himself to the ground. His short ax hung by a rope thong looped around his neck. He ignored the guard as he scrambled up onto the next corner. Taking a deep breath and careful aim he hacked out another joint.

  As he went through the achingly familiar motions yet again, Grisha's thoughts drifted to the forest. This might be bad, but out there could be worse. Rumors told of work parties disappearing, cossacks, guards, and all, never to be heard of again.

  They had been told cannibals lurked in the dense forest waiting for the unwary. No matter how grim their life under the cossacks, they continued to live.

  However, he was sure they were in Den country, or very close to it. Soldiers from here had served under him in the Troika Guard. If there were cannibals roaming the forest he would have heard about it long ago.

  But slipping away without even a knife would mean starving to death, or perhaps ending up as dinner for a bear. He reflected that, in all his military travels, until now he had never been to the interior of Russian Amerika.

  Irena poked him sharply with her elbow.

  "You're cloud-gazing again, slave. Pay attention and help me pull the rope."

  Grisha tugged obediently on the rope. Irena had arrived in the same coffle of prisoners with Grisha. He'd noticed her compact, pleasing body on the trip here, before sickness dominated his life. She was the first of the coffle to be raped by the cossacks. Even now her purpled right eye swelled as a result of further attention from one of their masters.

  His willpower had dissipated in tandem with his physical strength and both approached their nadir. At the trial he had felt grateful toward the judge for saving him from the rope, even though was not sure he had received the most humane sentence. At least now the mosquitoes were nearly gone.

  A breeze wafted through the trees and cleared the air momentarily. Instantly Grisha imagined himself on the deck of Pravda, the master of his domain, and free on the water. A frustrated tear leaked from the corner of his eye and he concentrated on hoisting the log onto the wall. Only three weeks completed out of thirty years.

  Kazina's name stuck in his mind. But try as he might, he could no longer picture his wife's face. Last week he received official notice of the dissolution of his marriage. He used the paper at the slit trench and wondered if she still slept with the naval kommander.

  Another tear broke free of his suppressed emotions and blended quietly into his sweat. In all of this upheaval and hell, he nursed but one teeth-gritting
dream—to meet Valari Kominskiya one more time. He vowed she would not live through the encounter.

  Hammers sounded from the small cabins grouped around the ever-growing lodge, bringing him back to grim reality. They all worked as hard as possible to finish before the subarctic winter snapped down on the land. All this for foreigners, he thought. Why would anyone pay money to vacation here?

  "Put your back into it, you cockless mare!"

  Grisha gripped the rope and did as he was told.

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  8

  Outside Construction Camp 4

  Slayer-of-Men kept one ear cocked at the distant pounding while he conferred with his team. All wore the same face paint and camouflaged clothing. None of the uniforms carried any indication of rank.

  "Wohosni." His eyes flashed over the tall, thin man. "You take the cossack in the tent." His finger jabbed the twig model. "Paul, Claude," he glanced at the shorter men, one burly, one slight, "you deal with the three soldiers in the kitchen." A wood knot surrounded by smoothed dirt.

  "Leader," said Malagni, a wide-faced, big-boned man whose muscular chest threatened to split the fabric of his large shirt. "I would like a cossack." His fingers caressed the skinning knife he held in his other hand.

  "You take the one with the Kalashnikov. He has to die first, but not too early. And don't depend on your knife, use your bow."

  "I understand," Malagni said through a wide smile.

  "Heron." The man personified the bird. "You eliminate the soldier on the turret. Lynx, you take out the tank with the satchel charge. Remember, we want their slaves alive; that's the reason we're here."

  "Maybe that's true for you, big brother," Malagni said. "But I'm here to kill cossacks."

  "That's our second reason," the tall man said. "Alex, you move in on the left here"—he pointed at the twig standing upright—"and as soon as Malagni takes out his cossack, you destroy the radio with your satchel charge." Alex, easily the handsomest man present—despite the blotches of paint—nodded and displayed perfect teeth.