The Great Alone

by Janet Dailey

  When spring came, the beached sloop, the Sv Mikhail, was launched. Delarov and the promyshleniki whose enlistments were up and who were not indebted to the company for purchases from the commissary boarded the ship and sailed for Russia.

  After Delarov departed, Baranov began exerting his authority and imposing strict discipline. The Russian flag bearing the double-headed eagle of the Romanov Empire was lowered each evening with the men at attention and a cannon salute. Gambling was forbidden. Drinking was allowed only during a man’s off-duty hours, and then only kvass, made mainly from cranberries. Native prostitution was forbidden; a man chose a woman and stayed with her. On Sundays and Holy Days, prayers were read. But he also organized celebrations, prazniks, where there was singing and dancing, in which he joined.

  Summer brought calmer waters that facilitated the hunting of sea otters. Baranov gathered a native hunting fleet of six hundred two-man bidarkas at Three Saints Bay, promising the Koniaga Aleuts a quantity of iron for each skin and assuring them that a Russian promyshlenik would be assigned to each artel of bidarkas.

  But it was more than a hunting expedition he planned. To the south and east of Kodiak, English and American ships plied the waters of the Alexander Archipelago and Prince William Sound, taking trade from the Russians. His instructions from Shelekhov had been very clear; in addition to the fortified outpost on Cook’s Inlet, more were to be established on Prince William Sound and the southeastern coast. The Tsaritsa had not given Shelekhov his monopoly, but she had granted him the exclusive rights to the lands he now occupied—or might later colonize. Baranov fully intended to use his hunting expedition to explore these areas and locate sites for new outposts.

  The mass assembly of native hunters littered the sandspit upon which the settlement stood with long, sleek bidarkas. Under the half-light of a summer night, the figures lying among them appeared like dark brown shapes. Tasha stood outside the cabin and gazed at the shimmering waters of the bay. She was getting old, she decided. Sleep frequently eluded her.

  There was a soft footfall behind her, and she turned to see Zachar. “I heard you leave the cabin,” he said.

  “Summers are not good for sleeping.” She looked at the dusklike sky. In the still air of the windless night, she could hear the uneasy lowing of restless cattle on the nearby hillsides. “I think the bears are not sleepy either.”

  “You were thinking of Mikhail,” Zachar said.

  Tasha didn’t deny it. “I wonder if I will ever see him again.” The ache was always with her, the bereaved feeling.

  “You are not alone,” Zachar said. “You have Katya, Larissa, and me.”

  “Yes.” They were her flesh and blood, too. But Mikhail was her youngest—her baby. How could she tell Zachar, who was also her son—her firstborn—that Mikhail was somehow special? She couldn’t. So she smiled faintly at him, letting him think that he had consoled her. “That is true.” Her gaze strayed to the crowded beach. “With so many hunters, you will bring back many otter pelts this season. You will be able to buy much tobacco.” As a Creole, Zachar worked for the company on a share basis, like the rest of the promyshleniki, and had an account of his own at the commissary.

  “There is little tobacco to buy. Everyone is using willow bark to make their tobacco last,” he said.

  “One day I must try smoking your pipe so I can discover this pleasure you take in it,” she decided.

  Zachar chuckled softly. “I will buy you one.”

  The raucous cries of a colony of storm petrels filled the night, nearly drowning out the softer calls of auklets, murrelets, and other nightbirds. “They are noisy tonight.” She watched a flock sweep through the sky, appearing like a long trail of dark smoke.

  Suddenly she felt the ground tremble beneath her feet. But this was a land where the earth often shook. She waited for the faint movement to cease and the ground to feel solid again. Instead the tremor grew stronger, rocking her unsteadily. Zachar grabbed her and pulled her down to the heaving sand before they could be knocked off their feet.

  All around them they could hear the rattle and crash of things falling and the panicked cries of those wakened from their sleep by the violent quake. The log timbers of the buildings groaned from being rubbed together as their foundations shifted. Tasha hugged the vibrating gravel, her heart racing with alarm. She heard the ominous crack of wood splitting and looked anxiously at the cabin, seeing its shuddering sway.

  “Katya!” Zachar started to crawl toward the door, but Tasha stopped him.

  “It is too dangerous.”

  At that instant, the door burst open, swinging crazily. Katya staggered through the opening, clutching her two-year-old daughter, Larissa, in her arms. A side timber of the door frame snapped. More logs creaked and splintered.

  Larissa wailed uncertainly as Katya tried to run clear of the cabin, but with each step, the ground shifted violently, depriving her of balance. She fell, then protectively hunched her body over Larissa to shield her. Stumbling, Zachar reached her and kneeled down beside her.

  Everywhere in the village there was chaos. People stumbling and staggering across the shaking ground like drunken sots. Barrels, kegs, tipping over and rolling. Broken debris falling from roofs and gables. In the bay, the waters danced in little white peaks, churned by the quaking under the ocean floor.

  Slowly the tremor lessened in intensity and the rumbling faded. It had lasted such a short time, yet it had seemed so long to Tasha. She still wasn’t certain it was over. She stayed on the ground, feeling its little shudders.

  Others also waited warily before tentatively pushing to their feet. Zachar helped Tasha stand up. Inside she was still shaking as she cautiously crossed the gravel, not fully trusting the solidness of the ground.

  Katya was sitting up, trying to soothe the crying daughter. Larissa wasn’t the only bewildered and frightened child crying in the village. She was echoed by many others.

  “You are not hurt?” Katya anxiously inspected Tasha as she stood up, bouncing her still fretful daughter in her arms.

  “No.”

  Tasha turned to view the destruction the tremor had wrought. Nothing was exactly where it had been. Buildings sat crookedly, some canted to one side and others turned on their foundations. Loose objects, large and small, were scattered all around. People moved among them, picking their way cautiously, still a little stunned.

  “Look! Look!” The shout was followed by screams.

  Tasha turned to face the bay, suddenly aware of a low rumble building into a loud rushing sound. A towering dark wall that completely obliterated the horizon loomed higher and closer. Water. It was water, a giant wave traveling toward the spit of land at incredible speed.

  “Run!” Zachar shouted and caught Tasha by the waist and propelled her along with him at a run. High-pitched screams of terror mingled with the growing roar. They were caught in a stampede of people. Tasha tried to make her legs go faster, but they wouldn’t. She cast a frightened glance over her shoulder. The white-foamed top of the wave was curling high above the sandbar, five or ten times as tall as any of the buildings in its path. She could feel the wave’s breath coming down, smell the sea in the air, and taste its brine on her lips. There was no escape from it.

  Wet droplets struck her. An instant later she was engulfed by the wave, the force of it slapped her to the sand. Vaguely she was conscious of Zachar’s hand gripping her forearm to hold on to her. Then it was only the sensation of the water, smashing her into the sand. She held her breath until her lungs felt as if they were going to burst. Still the water came crashing down.

  Then she felt its sucking power, pulling, dragging, trying to sweep her away. She grabbed on to Zachar’s arm, holding on to it with a death grip as the outgoing force of the wave tugged and twisted her legs. The undertow’s strength was too mighty. It rolled her against Zachar and ripped them both from the sand, dragging them backwards.

  There was no more strength left in her, no more air and no more will to resis
t the dark, watery world. Then the wave broke over her head, and Tasha instinctively gasped for air. Her knee grazed the gravelly bottom of the bay. She struck out for the shore, driving with her legs and feet to combat the current.

  She had lost contact with Zachar. She wanted to look for her son, but it required all her concentration and energy to keep from being pulled out to sea. She risked little glances, but there were too many heads, too many bodies in the water. Half wading and half crawling, Tasha reached the shallower water and was able to stand, her muscles trembling in exhaustion.

  Breathing hard and deep, she turned toward the sea and looked for her son. A confusion of shouts and cries for help assailed her. So many people were in the water, some floundering helplessly and others staggering toward the beach. So many people were trying to help them. Complicating everything was the debris—sections of roofs, broken timbers, wooden barrels, kayaks by the hundreds, a thousand bits and pieces of other things—all tumbling and rolling in the outgoing seismic wave.

  “Zachar.” She saw him, on his knees, trying to crawl that last bit of distance to shore, coughing and choking.

  A moment ago she didn’t have the strength to take another step. Now she ran through the water to her son. Tasha took hold of Zachar’s arm and tried to drag him the rest of the way to the beach, but he was too heavy. Someone splashed through the water not far from her.

  “Help me,” Tasha called.

  Baranov waded over to her. Hooking Zachar’s arm around his neck, he half carried and half walked Zachar to the sand, then lowered him to the ground. Tasha was right behind them. Sea water gurgled from his mouth, then Zachar’s stomach muscles contracted sharply, expelling vomit and more water. He started coughing—and breathing. Tasha wiped the slime from the corner of his mouth, then looked at Zachar. He sat on the sand, hunched over, still laboring for air.

  “Have you seen Katya?” he asked weakly.

  “No.”

  Tasha looked toward the boiling sea, but all she could see was Baranov’s shiny pale head against the dark ocean. He was wading in water up to his hips, trying to reach a foundering woman—Katya. Leaving Zachar, Tasha hurried into the bay. She could just make out her daughter-in-law’s cries for help.

  As Baranov reached Katya, she shoved her young daughter into his arms. “Take my baby.”

  Tasha saw the heavy wooden beam as the wave action lifted one end and spiraled it around. “Katya!” She screamed the warning, but it was no use. She wasn’t there any more. “No.” Tasha refused to believe it and waded deeper into the waves.

  Baranov met her and thrust Larissa into her arms, then hurried away to help others. Tasha hugged the crying child to her bosom and stared at the place where she had last seen her son’s wife, mindless of the waves breaking against her legs and the undertow tugging at her feet. She watched for a long time.

  Eventually, the shiverings and sobbings of her wet, cold granddaughter as she trembled from shock penetrated Tasha’s grieving vigil. Slowly she looked down at the black-haired little girl and rubbed her cheek against the child’s forehead, closing her eyes tightly. After a moment, she lifted her head and waded back to the sandbar, where Zachar waited.

  For what was left of the night, they huddled together, with only the heat generated by their own bodies for warmth.

  As dawn came, the full extent of the devastation could be seen. Not a single building was left standing intact. The impact of the wave had toppled them all, smashed them into pieces that were scattered over the landspit. Some goods and supplies were lost or damaged. Most of the bidarka fleet had been broken up or washed out to sea. Miraculously, few lives were lost. And the sloop Sv Simeon sat at anchor in the basin, the landspit taking the brunt of the wave and sparing the ship.

  In the settlement, the property loss was tremendous for Russian and native alike. The Koniaga Aleuts were convinced the sea gods had been angered, and they moaned over their fate. Tasha made an effort to search their cabin’s rubble, but her heart wasn’t in it.

  Larissa came crying to her, wanting her mother. “She drowned in the sea,” Tasha answered plainly.

  But death was a concept beyond a two-year-old’s understanding. “Where is she?”

  “In the sea.” Where Tasha’s brother, Walks Straight, had died.

  “No.” Zachar disputed her answer. “She is in heaven. We should pray for her.” He took his daughter’s hand and made her kneel down next to him. He bowed his head and repeated a series of disjointed phrases he’d heard the priest say, then crossed himself and took his daughter’s hand, making the sign of the cross for her.

  A little while later in the morning, Baranov called everyone together and announced the village would not be rebuilt here. He was moving the settlement to the eastern side of Kodiak, where there was timber and high ground. Furthermore, he was detailing a party of men to sail immediately with Ismailov on the Sv Simeon to the site he’d chosen and to begin chopping down trees for lumber to build the new town. He sent the Koniaga Aleuts home, instructing them to assemble at the new village in a month’s time to make their hunt. No matter what the setbacks, he was determined to find locations for new outposts as Shelekhov had ordered.

  His energy and determination revitalized the camp and transformed the apathy and listlessness of his men into action and purpose. Not even old Ismailov argued with his plan. Instead he immediately set out to make his ship ready to sail. Those not detailed to go with the navigator set to work salvaging everything they could from the scene of destruction.

  The new site was surrounded by forest that provided a ready supply of building materials. Its natural harbor was not as large as Three Saints Bay, but it was deeper and better protected. Baranov called his Kodiak site St. Paul and worked alongside his men with an axe. Determined not to lose the summer hunting season, he was content to have the walls in place to be roofed later in the summer after they returned from the hunt. When the Koniaga Aleuts arrived at the appointed time in nearly four hundred and fifty bidarkas, Baranov left behind a small contingent of men at St. Paul and set out with the hunters.

  It was a long busy summer for Tasha. With a child to raise, she didn’t have time to actively grieve. Existence was always a struggle in this land.

  When the first of the bidarka fleet was sighted beyond the harbor islands, Tasha collected Larissa and joined the throng of Russian hunters and other women and children who waited at the shore. Zachar rode in the rear hatch of a two-man bidarka, paddled by an Aleut in the front. There were plenty of eager hands to help land the boats. As Zachar’s was pulled ashore, Tasha waited to welcome him, gladness running through her heart at the safe return of her oldest son. Larissa crowded against her legs.

  As Zachar passed his musket to Tasha, she noticed the underlying paleness in his face and the vaguely pained look in his blue eyes. Her gaze sharpened with concern. He kept his left arm close to his body and didn’t move it at all as he climbed out of the skin-boat.

  “You are hurt,” she said.

  He paused in front of her, then reached for the musket she held. “The Kolosh attacked us several nights ago when we were camped ashore. One of their arrows went into my shoulder.” Still favoring it, Zachar crouched down to speak to his daughter.

  “Come,” Tasha ordered. “I want to look at the wound.”

  Inside their new crude quarters, Tasha examined his shoulder, satisfying herself that the flesh around the arrow hole didn’t look infected. Its location was high, assuring her that only flesh and muscle had been pierced and no damage had been done to his lungs. She packed it with a poultice of herbs and wrapped it in place, then helped Zachar put on his red shirt.

  “What happened?”

  “They attacked our camp just before dawn when the mist is thickest,” Zachar said. “Our guards had fallen asleep. I heard their war cries and woke up. They came screaming at us out of the dark mists. They wore helmets and strange, ugly masks over their faces. They had vests made of wood and carried war shields of wood. Unless
they were very close to us when we fired our muskets, the bullets would not go through the wood.” He paused and shook his head. “The Aleuts were too frightened of the Kolosh to fight. They would have killed us all if someone hadn’t managed to get the small cannon into position.”

  “Were many killed?” Tasha realized how very close she had come to losing another of her family. Her brother was dead; Mikhail was gone, maybe never to come back. She had no one left other than Zachar and her granddaughter, Larissa.

  “Only two Russians. Nine of the Aleuts.”

  A shudder vibrated her shoulders at the thought that Zachar could so easily have been one of them. “The Kolosh are too dangerous. Maybe now Baranov has learned to avoid their lands.”

  “The sea otter lives in Kolosh waters, too. The English ships and Boston ships trade with the Kolosh. Baranov will not let this attack by the Kolosh stop him from going there again.”

  Tasha sobered at his statement. The Russians had never let anything stand in their way of taking the sea otter—not distance or natives. Her brother had fought them at Unalaska. Many Russians had died, but more had come to take their place. The Kolosh wouldn’t stop them either.

  From outside the hut came the shouted cry, “A ship!”

  It wasn’t the old and weathered Sv Simeon that sailed into the narrow harbor, but a trim schooner-rigged packet bearing the name Orel, the Eagle. Again the inhabitants of the village thronged the shoreline, Tasha, Zachar, and Larissa among them. The word raced through the crowd that the packet was a supply ship from Shelekhov. Tobacco, flour, reinforcements, mail, news of home, vodka—they were here at last.

  Tasha scanned the faces of the men on deck. Her gaze lingered on a tall, lanky figure, dark of hair and eyes. Hesitantly she touched Zachar’s arm, not taking her eyes from the young man on the ship. She held her breath, an impossible hope rising.

  “Mikhail,” she murmured. But was it her son? Could he have changed so much? She didn’t know. She wasn’t certain. Her fingers tightened on Zachar’s arm. It seemed to take so long for the first boat to come ashore. Finally it landed. As she watched the young man bound from it, there was no more doubt in her mind. “Mikhail!”