The Great Alone

by Janet Dailey

  “I am Matthew Edmund Stone of New Bedford, Massachusetts, the son of her granddaughter, Larissa.”

  Wolf blinked in surprise. “I thought you looked familiar to me. Now I see—” He abruptly checked himself. It was almost like looking into a mirror. “You are the son of Caleb Stone.”

  “Yes.”

  A cold feeling ran through Wolf’s veins. For a moment he stared at the hand thrust at him in greeting. The name conjured up painful memories and a long-ago question in his mind. He forced himself to shake hands with the man roughly eight years his junior.

  “I am the son of Zachar Tarakanov,” Wolf asserted. “My mother is the Kolosh woman called Raven. She lives in the Ranche,” he said, referring to the Indian village that had been built in the shadow of the town’s log stockade, but his mother’s name appeared to have no meaning to the man. “I was but a boy when your mother left New Archangel. Unfortunately I have no memory of her, and it has been many years since any communication was received from her. I hope she is well.”

  “She died almost fifteen years ago from consumption.”

  “I am sorry to hear that.” He wanted to ask about Caleb Stone, but he couldn’t make the words come. “Your vessel is newly arrived in Sitka?”

  “Aye. She’s the whaling bark North Star.”

  Wolf glanced sharply at the seaman. “Hell-ships,” he’d heard them called, commanded by notoriously brutal tyrants and crewed by murderers and thieves. He wondered if that accounted for the steely look in the man’s eyes and the sternness around his mouth.

  “You do not follow your father in the merchant trade?”

  “I follow my father. He is captain of the North Star. He took to whaling shortly after the close of the War of 1812 with England.” But Matthew Stone didn’t explain that the British embargo and blockade had severely damaged Yankee trading in the Pacific or that his father hadn’t possessed the resources to recover from it and had lost virtually everything. “There’s a considerable profit to be made in whaling. Some are saying sperm oil will go back over a dollar a gallon. Working on shares, a man can make himself a tidy sum. That’s part of the reason we put in here at Sitka. Some of our crew jumped ship in Hawaii. We’re short-handed. Your Aleuts are supposed to be good with a harpoon. We thought we might contract with the company for their services—the way ships used to do in the old days hunting sea otter along the California coast.”

  “You have had no success,” Wolf guessed, and nodded in understanding when Matthew shook his head. “The Aleuts prefer their old way of hunting whales—to harpoon them, then wait for the dead whale to wash ashore. The company tried whaling a few years ago, but the experiment was not successful.”

  “So I was told.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his monkey jacket.

  Wolf nervously cleared his throat, then asked, “Is your father also in town?”

  “No, he’s on the bark. He … isn’t well.”

  “We have a physician here at New Archangel, as well as an apothecary shop. I would gladly arrange for him to—”

  “It isn’t necessary,” Matthew Stone interrupted. “It’s some fever he picked up in the tropics. It will pass in a few days. We won’t be in port long. For my mother’s sake, I felt I should try to find some of her family.”

  “Perhaps you could come to my home for dinner tonight and meet my wife, Marya, and our three children.”

  “No, I … can’t.” He tempered the quickness of his refusal, but didn’t offer an excuse. “It was a pleasure meeting you … Wolf, but I’m afraid I must be getting back to the North Star.”

  In truth, Wolf was relieved that his invitation to dinner had been turned down. “I hope your father’s fever passes quickly.”

  “Thank you.” He nodded to him, then left the shop.

  Wolf walked back to his workbench and picked up the silver bracelet, pretending to examine the detail of the totemic design he was etching onto its surface. He picked up the polishing cloth and began rubbing the shiny metal. It flashed in the sunlight coming through the window. But his mind wasn’t on the work at hand; instead his thoughts drifted into the past.

  For so long he’d thought of himself as Zachar’s son that he’d let the doubts about his parentage die. He had thought them dead until today when Caleb Stone’s son had walked into his shop, looking enough like himself to be his brother.

  Long after Matthew Stone left his shop, Wolf sat on his stool and rubbed the silver bracelet, wondering and telling himself it didn’t matter. At last he put down the bracelet and removed his apron, then grabbed his hat and coat and left the shop.

  The log palisade that separated the town of New Archangel from the adjoining Kolosh camp known as the Ranche was heavily reinforced, and its portcullised gate strongly guarded. No one challenged Wolf as he passed through the gate. The guards were accustomed to the regular visits he paid his mother; their duty was not to keep their people out of the camp but to restrict the number of Kolosh coming into town. Camp dogs ran alongside him, barking and wagging their tails.

  Lost in thought, he paid no attention to them and didn’t stop until he was inside the log dwelling of his mother’s family. There he paused to adjust his eyes to the gloom, the smokehole in the roof admitting a spray of light. The stale air smelled of fish oil, body odor, and smoke from the center fire that was never extinguished. Meal preparations were under way, as they always seemed to be; food was eaten several times a day.

  No one spoke to him. Greeting was not the custom of the Kolosh. Nor was he entirely welcome, Wolf knew. He had chosen the way of the Russian, a way his mother’s people continued to reject.

  When he saw she was not among the women preparing food, he walked around to her sleeping corner. The Kolosh disdained the use of furniture, so there were no chairs or cots. His mother lay on a sleeping mat, covered with a trader’s blanket.

  The years had not been kind to her, grizzling her coarse hair with dull gray and jowling her cheeks and eyes. Her slim waist had disappeared under the accumulation of fat and her breasts had become pendulous. As he crouched down, sitting on his heels beside her, Wolf noticed the beads of sweat on her flushed skin.

  “Why did you not send word you were ill?”

  “I am hot,” she said, as if denying any sickness, and pushed down the blanket.

  Deep red splotches dotted the flesh of her inner forearm. Wolf took hold of her wrist to examine the rash more closely. “Are there more of these red marks on your skin?” he demanded grimly.

  She nodded and turned her face away from him.

  He straightened to his feet and looked down at her. “I will bring the physician.”

  After the German doctor had examined her, he informed Wolf that Raven was not suffering from a recurrence of syphilis; she had contracted smallpox. The disease had been reported in the villages south of Sitka in the Tongass region. His diagnosis of Raven’s illness meant the smallpox had spread; the feared epidemic had reached Sitka.

  The Tarakanov family were among the first to be inoculated with the smallpox serum from the apothecary’s supply. Vaccinations were ordered for everyone in the settlement of New Archangel.

  But the vast majority of Kolosh in the adjoining Ranche encampment and the surrounding island villages refused the white man’s medicine, and the plague spread rapidly. Despite Wolf’s repeated persuasions, his mother wouldn’t allow the doctor to treat her, and the doctor denied Wolf’s request to move Raven to his cabin, where he could look after her, insisting on isolating the smallpox victims.

  Wolf sat cross-legged on the planked floor and spooned water into her mouth. Never motionless, the shaman leaped wildly about her, singing incantations to the spirits. Bending low, he shook his gourd rattles over her body and twisted his painted face into hideous expressions, running out his tongue and hissing loudly.

  But his powers couldn’t banish the smell of death in the air. Angered by the futility of both their efforts, Wolf flung the carved-handled spoon aside, then clasped his hands
tightly together, trying to contain the rage he felt. He stared at Raven’s barely recognizable features, the smallpox pustules covering every inch of her face. He realized she was going to die and he would never know the truth about his father.

  A hatred, violent and consuming, took hold of him. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her roughly, determined to rouse her from the plague’s stupor. “Tell me, you witch!” he raged hoarsely. “Tell me as you die the name of my father!” Her eyelids moved. “Am I the son of Zachar Tarakanov or Caleb Stone?”

  A weak, cackling sound came from her throat. As her eyes opened to mere slits, an old insolence flared, then regret dulled them. “The son of Caleb Stone would not have to ask.” Her whispered answer drained the anger from him. Wolf sat back, oddly emotionless. The shaman danced with renewed vigor, his chant increasing in tempo to the beat of the drums and the rattle of his medicine gourds.

  In the night, Raven died.

  That same night, the whaling bark North Star violated the quarantine and slipped out of the harbor under the cover of fog. Later it was reported that a Yankee ship raided a village up the coast and captured four Kolosh braves. Shortly afterwards, smallpox broke out in the village.

  Supplies of the smallpox serum were rushed from Sitka to all the Russian stations from Cook’s Inlet and the Aleutians to Bristol Bay and Norton Sound and the Yukon in an effort to prevent the disease from reaching the Tlingits to the north, the Athabascans of the interior, the Aleuts of the islands, and the Eskimos of the Arctic coast. Only the Aleuts submitted to the company-ordered inoculations. Like the Tlingits, the other tribes resisted the white man’s science.

  Wolf witnessed the cremation of many members of his mother’s clan. By the time the Kolosh tribe was convinced of the vaccination’s worth, half of its adult population was dead.

  CHAPTER XXX

  Sitka

  Easter 1864

  The pealing of the bronze bells, cast in Russia and presented by the Orthodox Church at Moscow, rang continually from the tower of the Cathedral of St. Mikhail, which was located almost directly opposite the site of the original church. Their clarion tones signaled the end of Lent’s strict observances and the start of Easter’s festive celebrations. Atop the flamelike copper spire on the bell-tower cupola, the Orthodox cross gleamed golden in the sunlight.

  In the ornate gold and white interior of the cathedral, built in the shape of a cross, fragrant clouds of incense drifted toward the rounded dome of the transept. Wolf Tarakanov stood in the congregation, a black silk cravat tied around the collar of his linen shirt, his black frock coat unbuttoned. At sixty-one, he carried his years with grace and dignity, standing tall and erect, his thick hair the color of tarnished silver. His blue-gray eyes were undimmed, their keenness still enabling him to inspect the skilled repoussé work of the twelve silver-plated ikons that ornamented the Royal Gates. As always, he looked with pride on the silver eucharistic vessels that long ago he’d helped to fashion.

  On this Holy Day of Christ’s resurrection, the priest appeared wearing the Easter vestment made from the cloth of silver instead of the high-feast-day vestment made from the cloth of gold given to the church by Baranov and beaded by the Aleuts into an intricate mosaic painting. As the priest read the Easter service, a choir of boys chanted the chorus a cappella, their young melodic voices blending sweetly. Wolf’s attention drifted to the choir.

  An elbow nudged his ribs. The gentle reminder to direct his attention back to the service came from his wife, Marya. Instead it served to direct his thoughts to his own family: his lovely daughter, Anastasia, marrying so well to a lieutenant in the Imperial Navy, Nikolai Ivanovich Politoffski; his second son, Stanislav, a coppersmith, and his wife, Dominika, a Creole of Kolosh blood, and their fifteen-year-old son, Dimitri, whose black eyes often reminded Wolf of Raven; and his eldest son, Lev, a mining engineer; his blond-haired wife, Aila, the daughter of a Finnish military captain, and their two daughters, Nadia, age thirteen, a pupil at the school for girls founded by Lady Etolin, looking very much the young lady in her muslin dress and ruffled pantalettes with the silk ribbons in her hair, and four-year-old Eva, so plain-looking and serious.

  Yes, he could be proud of his family, Wolf concluded; and for a time he paid attention to the liturgy. After a while his legs began to ache from standing so long. He shifted his stance to ease the strain, wondering if the Lutherans in their church across the way had a better idea with their long benches on which the people could sit. He smiled, knowing he didn’t dare suggest that to his wife.

  Finally it was time to file, one by one, past the priest and kiss the jeweled cross he held in his hand. Outside the church, the clamoring of the bells filled the air, competing with the resonant tones of the pipe organ in the Lutheran Church.

  With the somber days of Lent behind them and the religious observance over, the day took a festive turn. All was laughter and gaiety. Individual gifts of eggs, boiled hard and dyed, painted, or in the case of silversmith Wolf Tarakanov, gilded and presented to friends.

  Everywhere the greeting “Christ has risen” was answered with “He has risen, indeed.” And every salutation was followed by a kiss—or two. It was a mad, merry whirl, with barely time for a breath between kisses.

  Late in the afternoon, the entire Tarakanov family gathered at Anastasia’s home for an Easter feast. They ate and drank until they could hold no more. The men retired to the parlor to partake of tobacco and brandy; the children were sent outdoors to play; and the women did whatever it is women do when they are separated from the menfolk.

  Nadia sat on the front stoop and carefully arranged her skirt so it was spread evenly over her legs and covered her knees. Ignoring her cousins playing in the street, the majority of whom were boys, she picked up the painted egg from her lap and turned to her little sister. “Cup your hands and I’ll let you hold it.”

  Conscious of the rare privilege being granted, Eva held her hands together on her lap, palms upward, and waited while Nadia placed the brightly decorated egg in their small hollow. “It’s beautiful,” she declared solemnly.

  “Don’t drop it,” Nadia admonished. “It will break into a thousand pieces if you do, and I’ll never forgive you.”

  “I’ll hold it tight,” Eva promised.

  “Nadia.” Fifteen-year-old Dimitri trotted up to the stoop, his cropped black hair falling across his forehead. “Come play blind-man’s bluff with us.”

  She shook her head firmly. “I might get my dress dirty. Besides, I’m supposed to watch Eva.” She grimaced slightly, tired of always having her baby sister for a shadow.

  “What are you going to do, just sit there?” he taunted.

  “Maybe.” She shrugged, determined this time not to let him bait her into an argument the way he usually did.

  His mood turned sullen as he glanced briefly at his laughing, shouting cousins in the street. “It is a game for children,” he declared with sudden contempt.

  Nadia felt a twinge of sympathy, something he rarely aroused in her, but she was caught in the same trap herself—too old to play with children and too young to be accepted by adults in their conversations.

  “What do you think the men talk about?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged diffidently, then a dark gleam appeared in his eyes. “Let’s listen in and find out.” He stole over to the side of the house and slipped up close to the windowsill.

  “Dimitri Stanislavich, you—”

  “Hush. They’ll hear you.” He glared, then motioned quickly for her to join him. “Come on.”

  She hesitated, but her own curiosity was aroused. “You stay here,” she whispered sternly to her baby sister, then snuck over to the window by her cousin.

  Settled comfortably in a handsomely carved parlor chair, Wolf puffed on his pipe, savoring the flavor and aroma of the tobacco smoke, finding renewed pleasure in it after Lent’s long abstinence. With an effort, he centered his attention on the stocky, barrel-chested man now speaking, hi
s eldest son, Lev.

  “According to the reports that arrived on the last ship from California,” Lev was saying, “the people there still believe that when this internal strife in America is over and the Union armies have won, the sale of Russian America to the United States will take place.”

  Even though the Russian colony of Fort Ross in California had been abandoned and its lands and holdings sold to a man named John Sutter in 1841, a trade was maintained with the southern coast. With the onset of the gold rush in ’49, San Francisco had proved to be a lucrative market for the Russian American Company. One commodity was in constant demand—ice. And a new industry had been born in Russian America. In the winter, blocks of ice were chopped from the frozen lakes around Sitka and on Kodiak, then stored in rows of icehouses for shipment to California.

  “For three years, they have been talking about a sale. It is only talk,” Wolf’s son-in-law, the Navy lieutenant Nikolai Politoffski, scoffed. “The Tsar will never sell this land to America. It is unthinkable. Never in all her history has Russia voluntarily given up a centimeter of land she occupies.”

  “Then explain why the Tsar has not renewed the company’s charter giving it exclusive rights to this territory,” Lev challenged. “For three years we have operated with temporary powers. Three years, the same as these discussions of sale. Do you claim that is coincidence?”

  “Yes,” Nikolai snapped, pulling himself up to his full height, every inch the officer, even though the coat of his dress uniform was unbuttoned. “Land is ever to the glory of the Tsar. The farther from St. Petersburg, the more glorious.”

  “Perhaps”—Stanislav began calmly, rising from the horsehair sofa—“perhaps we are too far from St. Petersburg. Perhaps the Crimean War has shown the Tsar that his Navy could not defend us. The Navy can do nothing to protect the Aleutians and the Arctic coasts from the Yankee whaling fleet. They land all the time to render their whale blubber into oil and spread disease and corruption among the natives. They make the men work on their ships and carry off the Aleut and Innuit women to commit their debauchery. If the Navy cannot stop unarmed whalers, how could they defend us if we were invaded by foreign armies?”