The Great Alone

by Janet Dailey

  While the water heated in the brass samovar, Andrei added the loose leaves of China tea to the small pot. Holding the teapot under the spigot at the urn’s base, he turned the handle. Nearly boiling water plunged over the tea leaves in the bottom of the pot, releasing their piquant aroma. It was a welcome smell in a cabin that reeked of sickness. Andrei let the tea steep for a few minutes, then poured it into two glasses in metal holders. He carried one to the bunk where Tasha sat propped against the bulkhead and gave it to her. The cuffs of his cotton shirt were rolled back to free her hands. They slipped further down her forearms as she lifted the glass to her lips with both hands. She took a small sip, then weakly lowered the glass to rest it on her lap.

  “I think I’m feeling better,” she said, but her voice lacked strength.

  He smiled absently, aware that she had been keeping down more fluids these last two days. “Would you like to go up on deck after you finish your tea and get some fresh air?”

  “Yes, I would.”

  He carried her topside, swaddled in a blanket, and settled her on a keg in a sheltered corner of the deck where the wind couldn’t reach her. His attitude toward her was neither gentle nor solicitous; rather it was possessive, leaving the men in little doubt that their commander had claimed her for himself alone.

  Breathing in deeply, Tasha filled her lungs with the sweet, fresh air. The motion of the shitik didn’t seem to bother her nearly as much. She hoped fervently that she had finally become accustomed to it. She never wanted to be that sick again. It shamed her to think how much trouble she had been to Andrei, yet she was warmed, too, by the memory of the countless times she’d opened her eyes and found him there watching over her.

  Her eyes sought him out among the hunters on deck. She decided she liked his craggy profile as much as she liked his eyes. There was strength and determination in it, along with a canny intelligence. Beneath the blanket, she touched the shirt of his she wore. She had gotten used to the feel of its material against her skin and the protection it offered from the scratchy blanket. He had been good to her. Even Walks Straight had to acknowledge that. She saw her brother standing alone at the rail, scanning the sea. She realized he would never make friends with the Cossacks, not even with her new husband.

  The outing quickly tired her. The least effort seemed to exhaust her. It frightened her to realize how weak she had become, when she’d always been so strong. She sagged against the hatchway’s bulkhead and shut her eyes to rest a moment. A hand touched her shoulder. Tasha looked up to find Andrei bending over her.

  “Do you feel all right?”

  “I am tired,” she admitted.

  He said no more and picked her up, carried her back to his cabin below deck and set her down on the bunk. Tasha rolled onto her side and fell asleep almost as soon as the door swung shut behind him.

  The following afternoon, Tasha lay in the bunk. Her stomach felt comfortably full from the small bowl of soup she’d eaten. Andrei had assured her that food and rest were what she needed to get her strength back. Yet now that she was feeling better, the idleness made her restless.

  She heard a sudden commotion on deck—muffled shouts and the clumping of boots. She strained to catch the cause of the excitement but she could only understand snatches of words. The cabin door swung open and her brother stepped soundlessly into the room.

  “What is happening? Have they seen a whale?” Nothing else in her village would have created such a stir.

  “They have sighted the islands. The tall, pronged peak of Adak stands clear of the clouds. The boat heads for it now.”

  “Then we have arrived,” Tasha said.

  “Soon they will see how good the hunting is here and they will know I did not lie.”

  She looked at her brother. “Did they think you had?”

  “I heard some of them wonder if I was guiding them into the middle of the sea. One of them cut a hole in my bidarka so I could not escape in it,” he answered bitterly.

  “Is it a big hole?” Without his bidarka, a hunter was powerless.

  “It crosses almost two skins.”

  “I will patch it for you,” Tasha promised, then asked, “Does Andrei know of this?”

  “It would do no good. The Cossacks claim something fell on it, but I know the way a hide looks when a knife cuts it.” His resentment went deep, and this incident was like sea water on an open wound. Tasha understood, too, that Walks Straight was saying this to warn her. “You are feeling better?” he asked at last.

  “Yes.” She nodded.

  “Good.” His gaze lingered on her another minute, then he turned and walked out of the cabin.

  Alone again, Tasha listened to the waning flurry of activity on the deck overhead. With the island in sight, Andrei would soon have need of her to speak to the villagers for him. She swung her legs over the side of the bunk and stood up to test her strength. She wobbled uncertainly for an instant, but they held her. Walking slowly, Tasha crossed the cabin to the table and stopped there to lean against it, fighting the light-headed feeling. She heard footsteps approaching the cabin and recognized them as Andrei’s. The door swung open as she turned toward it, keeping a hand braced on the table for balance.

  “Tasha—” The sight of the empty bunk stopped him in midstride. With a jerk of his head, he looked around and saw her standing by the table. The lines of his forehead gathered into a frown. “Tasha, what are you doing up?”

  “I had to see if I could walk by myself. I wouldn’t be much help to you lying down.”

  The tails of his shirt hung down to her thighs, leaving a long expanse of bare leg exposed to his view. Andrei noticed the barely perceptible buckling of her knees and realized she was less steady than she appeared. He moved quickly to her and girdled her waist with his hands, catching up the loose material of his shirt. Her hands immediately grasped for the support of his upper arms as she swayed into him.

  “From now on, Tasha, let me decide how best you can help me.” Until this minute, Andrei hadn’t realized how tall she was. She stood eye-level to his chin. When he tipped his head down, it brought her face closer still. He was conscious of the bareness of her skin beneath his shirt and the firm feel of her flesh.

  Too many times these last days he’d held her naked limp body and wished for her to be alive in his arms. Too many times his hands had caressed her and received no response. Now her hands were clutching him, never mind that it was out of weakness. His gaze shifted to the full curve of her lips, parted slightly.

  The burning look in his eyes was one Tasha had seen before when a man desired to lie with a woman. It heated her skin and made her feel warm all over. The band of his arm circled her back and pulled her against him. She was instantly conscious of his thighs and torso.

  She knew about this touching of the mouths the Cossacks called kissing. Curiosity held her motionless when he lowered his head and covered her lips with his mouth. At first she found the pressure unpleasant, then she discovered that if she didn’t hold her mouth so still, the sensation wasn’t so bad. She was just beginning to enjoy it a little when he abruptly pulled away, holding her at arm’s length. The sudden movement made her head swim dizzily.

  “I’ll be damned if I am going to make love to a woman who is too weak to do anything more than lie there,” he muttered thickly and ushered her over to the bunk. “Stay there until you are stronger.”

  “Moving makes you stronger, not lying down,” Tasha said, but she was conscious of the shakiness of her limbs.

  “You have done enough moving for a while,” he ordered, then paused. “Why are you looking at me that way?”

  Tasha could only blame her recent illness for making her think so slowly, but it finally registered that he had desired to lie with her. Many Whiskers had given her to him, but Andrei wanted her. She looked at him now with new interest, regarding him as a potential lover. Despite his many summers of life, he looked vigorous and healthy.

  “You do not regret that Many Whiskers gave
me to you. You wanted me,” she said.

  “That is a small way of putting it, Tasha.” She heard him sigh.

  “I have heard that Cossacks are rough with women.”

  He studied her long and hard before he answered. “Sometimes a man’s needs are great and he forgets his own strength. Stay in that bed and rest before I forget mine.” He swung around and left the cabin. Tasha smiled, secretly pleased by her discovery.

  CHAPTER XI

  The volcanic islands were strung together in a thick cluster, creating a multitude of bays, passes, and reefs. Andrei let his gaze wander over the towering cone-shaped mountains that dominated the view, then studied the complex coastlines of the treeless islands—sheer cliffs, rocky shores, and beaches of sand and shingle. But it was the reef systems and island straits that interested him the most. Seaweed and kelp beds grew along the reefs, providing food for the sea urchins, abalone, and shellfish upon which the sea otter dined. And the passes between the islands were channels for migrating mammals like the fur seals and whales. The feeding grounds were rich, and the multitude of sea otter already sighted proved that the hunting would be equally rich.

  “This area is an excellent choice.” Andrei straightened from the rail and glanced at the Aleut standing beside him.

  “It is as I said it would be.”

  “Yes.” But Andrei wondered at his motives. Somehow he doubted that the Aleut had directed them to this island group out of any desire to be helpful and cooperative.

  Whatever his reason, they were here. Andrei again turned his attention to the rocky coast. With his first glimpse of the tightly clustered islands, a strategy began to take shape in his mind. To fully exploit the fur potential of the area, he would need to split his promyshleniki into small parties and spread them throughout the islands. With only three or four in a group, his men would be highly vulnerable to any hostilities from the natives. It was imperative that he establish friendly relations with these islanders.

  As the shitik continued to sail close to the main island, they inspected its many bays and coves in search of a wintering site. On the western side of the island, two small whales were sighted, beached on the shore. The meat and fat from the mammals represented a supply of food for his crew. Andrei ordered a landing party to go ashore and retrieve it, instructing the Aleut to accompany them. Taking no unnecessary risks, he had muskets broken out. After he had passed out six, the number of promyshleniki assigned to the party, a seventh pair of hands reached to take the next. Andrei glanced up in surprise and encountered the steady gaze of Tasha’s half brother.

  Andrei shifted his grip on the musket and cradled the barrel in the crook of his arm. “No.”

  “I should have a musket. I go ashore with the others,” Walks Straight asserted.

  “No.” It was an unwritten law on the Russian frontier, which now extended to these islands not yet a recognized portion of the Romanov Empire—no muskets or swords were ever given to natives. Only fools armed the primitive people whose land they came to occupy. It was too likely those same weapons would be used against them. “You have no need for one.” Moving away, he ordered the boat to be lowered over the side.

  As soon as the promyshleniki had butchered the carcasses and loaded the whale meat and fat onto the shitik, they continued their search for a likely place to winter on the island. They encountered an islander in a bidarka, a man known to Walks Straight, who had visited his village a few years ago. They presented him with some of the whale meat. He directed them to a sheltered bay that had a freshwater stream and promised to bring his people to visit them. Everything went smoothly—more smoothly than Andrei had dared hope.

  The island blazed with the final days of summer; scarlet fireweed, purple lupine, and orange buttercups waved in the wildflower-lavished meadows and marshes. Thick clouds rolled across the sky, chased by a high strong wind, but on the beach where Tasha walked there was only a slight breeze to stir her hair, once more pulled back into a bun. This was her first trip ashore since they’d anchored in the bay two days ago.

  “The ground feels strange to walk on,” she said to Andrei. “It doesn’t rock like the boat.”

  “Your legs will get used to it.”

  Tasha paused to look around her and assess the location that had been chosen. Low tide exposed a reef where octopus could be snared from their caves and seaweed and urchins collected. The tidal flats and pools were a source of shellfish and ducks. The protected bay permitted fishing even when storms lashed the seas. Cormorant and puffins nested on the nearby cliffs, offering a ready source of eggs and skins for parkas. It was possible the salmon might visit the stream. And it wasn’t far to walk to the meadows where there were edible plants and grasses for baskets.

  “This is a good place.” Its only flaw appeared to be the scarcity of driftwood on the beach, indicating the currents didn’t carry it into this bay.

  “It will do.” A discussion over his winter camp was not a topic that interested him, especially when his mind was on her.

  She stood with her back to him, the fur parka hiding the supple young body he was so familiar with—although not as familiar as he wanted to be. Andrei stepped closer to her and laid his hands on her shoulders, unconsciously kneading their rounded points cushioned by the dun-colored fur. She moved slightly in surprise at his touch, but the pressure of his hands didn’t allow her to turn. Her freshly washed hair gleamed with the black brilliance of a raven. He bent closer, nearly touching the black shimmer with his lips.

  “I want to sleep in my bunk tonight. I want to lie with my wife.” He heard the thickness in his voice, aroused by the mere anticipation of bedding her. When he sensed her hesitation, he had a fair idea of what drove men to rape. Roughly he turned her to face him, but the lively, bold light dancing in her eyes made him suck in his breath.

  “I would be happy to lie with you, my husband,” she announced in flawless Russian.

  At that moment, Andrei was half convinced she was some sort of enchantress. From the start he had been fascinated by that melding of Aleut hair and skin with Russian features and intrigued by her large dark eyes that slanted upward at the outer corners.

  “Andrei,” he said. “Andrei Nikolaivich.”

  “I would be happy to lie with you, Andrei Nikolaivich.” Her gaze never left his face. He almost believed that she looked forward to it as much as he did. Most women he’d known had lacked passion, however practiced their skill, but he found himself wondering about Tasha and the primitive blood that mingled with the Russian in her veins.

  That night, with the lamp turned down to a soft glow, he caressed her milk-white body. She was neither limp nor indifferent under his hands, but alive and sensitive. It was not a desire to arouse that prompted him to prolong his mounting of her, but a selfish enjoyment of the little sounds she made in her throat and the suggestive way she moved against his hands. He had spent too many sleepless nights in that chair staring at her motionless form in the bunk and imagining this moment to hurry it.

  Too aroused to hold back any longer, he plunged himself into her. When he breached her virginal membrane, a sense of power surged through him. He plundered the riches of the soft body that no man had claimed before him, and reveled in its treasure. His climax came with shuddering force.

  Hot and sweating, he rolled off her, his heart pounding wildly in his chest. As he lay there struggling for breath, Andrei tried to recall the last time his pleasure had been so great. Turning his head, he gazed at Tasha as she ran a hand over her stomach as if trying to ascertain the changes in her body. She had made him feel like a virile two-year-old stud instead of an aging stallion. Something told him that now that he’d had her, he’d never want to let her go.

  In the following months, the base camp was established on Adak Island, and Andrei journeyed to some of the neighboring villages in the island group, always accompanied by Tasha. Everywhere he got a friendly reception from the natives. Immediately he dispatched small parties of promyshleniki throu
ghout the islands to set up outlying camps. Nearly all the natives they had encountered thus far had stated their desire to become faithful subjects of Her Imperial Majesty and pay otter skins in tribute.

  Everything was exceeding his expectations—including Tasha. Andrei found himself becoming completely enamored of her. In bed, no act was unnatural to her. She was totally uninhibited, free to show her newly discovered passion. But surprisingly, he found himself equally stimulated by the quickness of her mind and her eagerness to learn anything and everything. Everything he took for granted was new to her. As he started seeing these things through her eyes, he experienced the wonder of them all over again. She was an elixir of youth to him, and sometimes Andrei felt almost drunk. Suddenly he didn’t mind the long winter nights in this part of the world and even regretted the lengthening hours of daylight that came with spring, despite the increased hunting time it allowed his men.

  Returning from an inspection trip to an outlying station, Andrei sailed the baidar into the protected bay and headed for the stretch of sand where the Andreian i Natalia was beached. A long, slender Aleut kayak lay on the shore not far from his vessel. As the baidar approached the beach, Andrei noticed two native hunters standing with three promyshleniki assigned to his headquarters. When they saw his skin-boat, they walked to the water’s edge to await his arrival. The two Aleuts stood back as the promyshleniki waded a few steps into the surf and hauled the baidar onto the sand. Andrei stepped out of the boat and glanced at the two natives, recognizing neither of them.

  “What do they want?” He collected his musket and gear and slung the latter over his shoulder.

  “I think they have come to trade,” the promyshlenik Popov answered. “They brought some pelts, but I don’t understand enough of what they are saying to know what they want.”