The Bully of Order

by Brian Hart

  They sailed from New Arkhangel at the end of September. Nothing was expected in the way of trade. Baranov had instructed them to appease the natives as best they could, not to kill them or cheat them or take any food or accept kindness without adequate payment.

  The daylight hours found them close to the coast, and night found them safely offshore. Ten days out, and they took notice of the haystack rocks that marked the point. Storms threatened the horizon but delivered little except thin rain and a westerly wind.

  Three days later, the winds began to fail and then they stopped dead. The swell carried them toward shore. Twice they tried to set their anchors, both fore and aft, and both times they failed. Navigator Bulygin’s continued attempts to stop their drift succeeded only in breaking their anchor chains. They passed luckily through the rocks and drifted into a small bay and in the gray afternoon and misting rain rolled easily into the pounding surf, and within minutes the Nicolai was on the beach.

  The crew waited until the wash broke against the ship and watched it slip back, and then jumped down and in this way off-loaded their guns and kegs of powder, shot, and one of the four-pound cannons. They took down the main sails and much of the rigging and used it to make two separate shelters up the beach near the tree line. Some of the Makah people were there to watch, but they didn’t come close enough to speak to. The Russians cleaned their rifles and put in fresh charges. When one of the Makah stole a sack of stale bread, they yelled but let him take it. Bulygin was unsure of what to do, and his uneasiness threatened panic among his men. Tarakanov posted sentries and had them build a huge fire and dry themselves. As he saw it, there were two options: they could either make a more permanent shelter where they were and try to signal a ship if it passed, or travel the sixty miles to meet up with the Kadiak as planned.

  Their first night was spent huddled under the sails. In the morning, when the tide was out, the navigator took four men to lower the topmast and strip the upper rigging. Tarakanov spiked the cannons and with help dragged them out into the water and let the ocean take them. They broke the locks off the rifles they couldn’t carry and gathered up the axes, adzes, saws, anything made of steel or iron, and pitched them as far as they could into the surf. The sails were cut up and used to bind their supplies into packs for the men to carry. Anna Petrovna was soaked through but didn’t seem nearly as disheartened as her husband. He’d not considered that this could happen.

  “Wait a minute,” Jacob said. “You skipped something.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “I know the history, and there was a battle at Sitka with the Russians.”

  “That’s right, in 1802. A great battle. Baranov was almost killed.”

  “But he wasn’t,” Jacob said.

  “No, he lived.”

  “Why’d you skip over that part?” Duncan asked.

  “Because our man Tarakanov wasn’t there. He was at that time in California, and this story doesn’t have anything to do with New Arkhangel, California, or even the Kiksàdi any longer.”

  “Oh, I bet it does,” Jacob said.

  “We’ll see about that. Can I go on?”

  “By all means. You finish your dinner, and I’ll set water for the washing.”

  “You’re a thoughtful host. Where was I?”

  “They were headed south, or about to,” Duncan said.

  “Right, and it was raining like it was fit to flood the world.”

  They had yet to break camp when the promyshlenniki had another skirmish with the Makah.

  “They’re throwing rocks at our men,” Anna Petrovna said.

  Tarakanov stepped out from the tent that he shared with the Bulygins and was hit in the chest with a spear, thankfully too lightweight to puncture both his thick leather and wool coats. He raised his rifle to fire, and the man who had thrown the spear threw a rock and hit him in the head, but Tarakanov got off a shot anyway, and his attacker fell forward and didn’t move. Tarakanov stumbled and fell backward onto the rocky shore and tried not to lose consciousness. He touched his fingers to the gash in his head and the hole in his coat, a little blood, a scratch. His comrades were firing all around him, and the Makah were fleeing. Smoke filled the air, and the sailcloth popped in the wind.

  All but a few of the men were wounded in the attack, but none mortally. Bulygin had been hit in the back with a spear, but it didn’t penetrate more than an inch. They’d been pummeled by rocks, and they were frightened. None of them had been hit by a rock since he was a boy, and the vision of grown men throwing rocks at them overhand as hard as they could terrified them as much as or even more than if they’d been armed with rifles. Everywhere there were stones perfect for throwing. Their powder could get wet, rifles failed. Three Indians were dead. The Russians collected their spears and coats and even their hats, because really they had nothing and needed to take whatever they could find. They posted sentries and spent another night huddled under their shelters and didn’t sleep.

  Tarakanov listened to Bulygin try to console his wife but thought she wasn’t the one that needed consoling. He wanted to stand up from his miserable bed and tell him, Navigator, we both were stuck with spears, and we’re fine. Hit by rocks, but we can stand and travel and still fight. But his head hurt, and his little speech died against the throb. He wasn’t getting up until he had to, and if the Makah attacked again he’d fight out of pure anger at being disturbed. He’d kill whoever roused him.

  At first light they broke camp and hoisted their packs, each man with two rifles and a pistol. The onshore wind slammed them in the side of the head as they stumbled southward.

  The forest was a wall of hemlock, and if they were lucky and found a doorway in, they ran into spruce and cedar, and if they crawled, the ferns smothered them. All felt a kinship to the smallest insect, and perhaps some of them quietly repented for any cruelties they’d previously wrought upon the small and the frail. Not so big in the world, not so bold. So it was down the coast on the rocks and beaches or nowhere.

  Anna Petrovna walked in front of her husband and carried a pistol in her right hand. She had a large canvas case slung over her left shoulder and had her hair tied up and one of the dead Indian’s hats pulled low over her brow. Half Aleut, she knew how to go forward without complaining. Her husband watched her back and her feet, the mud soiling the bottom of her dress. His eyes betrayed his fear. The promyshlenniki carried mostly powder and cartridges, with very little food. Hunting and trade were their intention and hope, but they weren’t above raiding. Come what may, they were moving, and with any luck would catch the Kadiak at the Harbor, known on British charts by the name Whidbey. Called Gray uniformly everywhere else.

  When Tarakanov last looked back at the Nicolai, it had already begun to be swallowed by the sand.

  They made only a few miles that first day and made camp inside the trees and posted sentries but had no nighttime visitors.

  Tarakanov woke rested and went out to the shore and hid among the jumbled and tilting rocks and cleaned his rifle. When he’d finished, he climbed up and watched the waves crumble and flatten on a narrow shelf of sand. He picked out a small round stone, named it Nikolai, and watched it disappear. The current offshore was barreling northward around the point. Nothing wanted them to go south.

  Jacob was drying their bowls with his shirt and stacked them neatly with the rest of his things. “You like to think you know what he thought, don’t you?”

  “I do know.”

  “He’s been dead fifty years, if he ever lived at all.”

  “I know his spirit, so I know what he thought.”

  “I like this story,” Duncan said.

  “You should, it’s yers.”

  “Nothin like mine.”

  “If you think so.”

  “Go on and tell it,” Duncan said.

  Tarakanov didn’t offer to go ahead by himself. He concluded that the group should stay together, at least until they reached a more hospitable place to make winter quarters, if not
until they met the Kadiak.

  They followed the cliffs while the tide was out. Single file they climbed over wet boulders and hopped tidepools. The weather was mild, and everyone seemed happier and full of resolve. That night, they again made camp in the trees and had a peaceful rest.

  The next morning, silhouettes of men were seen on the bluff. Soon after, a rockslide nearly crushed them, and they knew it had been no accident. The tide had them pushed against the cliff walls, and with every step they were sure boulders would rain down and kill them all. Some tripped and fell because they were straining their necks, watching the sky, instead of looking where they were going. Panic began to infect the party. Bulygin suggested they wade out into the water, into the surf and the barreling current, but Tarakanov wouldn’t allow it. He hurried ahead of the group with three promyshlenniki, hoping to find a way onto the cliffs above so they could engage their attackers, but they were trapped. They went on in a scattered line, full of dread. The coast went on forever.

  Then fortune smiled on them. Tarakanov found a cave that could be entered by ascending a natural stone staircase, and inside it was dry and calm. Everyone agreed it was far too high to be flooded by any swell, but this was soon tested when a storm rolled in and blowing rain darkened the cavemouth. The waves shook the rocks.

  The following day they stayed inside in the fireless hollow, and the waves crashed high enough to wash over the lower ledge, but that was all. In the evening the weather broke, and they could see the unbroken ocean for all its emptiness. In the golden light Tarakanov made everyone clean and oil their weapons, and he reset the seals on the kegs of powder to make certain no moisture would taint them. Some of the men played cards before they went to sleep.

  The third day dawned clear, and blue skies welcomed them. When the tide was all the way out they descended the stone stairs to the shore. Not wanting to get trapped against the cliffs, at the first opportunity they went up the bank and ventured inland.

  Two men were there waiting at the top. One, the elder, said he was a starshina. The other man was his son. With the help of the Aleuts and Anna Petrovna, they told the Russians that there was a good trail that went safely through the forest, and there’d be slow going following the coast without canoes, and in any case they would probably be drowned. Tarakanov slipped away from the meeting and into the woods to make sure they weren’t being surrounded. As he left the din of the ocean, the forest became hauntingly quiet. He found no one, no sign at all, but he did find the trail and he followed it and it seemed the starshina wasn’t lying. He hid himself beneath the towering ferns and waited. The two Indians passed first, and Tarakanov could tell they knew he was there or that something was there, but they only glanced in his direction and carried on.

  Tarakanov could hear the Navigator’s voice before he saw him.

  “What should I do, Anna? I don’t know if I should trust them.”

  “We don’t have a choice.”

  “What if they betray us?”

  “They probably will.”

  “What then?”

  “We’ll have to fight them, Nikolai.”

  “There could be hundreds of them. We could be killed.”

  “But they won’t have rifles, only stones and arrows.”

  Tarakanov made a lot of noise so they could hear him coming toward them, and then whistled and raised his hand so he wouldn’t be shot.

  “Where have you been?” Bulygin asked.

  “I wanted to make sure we weren’t being trapped.”

  Bulygin nodded. “Of course.”

  “What did they say?” Tarakanov asked.

  “That we have safe passage, and they weren’t the ones that attacked us.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “No,” Anna Petrovna said. “But we need to keep moving while the weather is clear, and there is a trail to follow.”

  “I agree,” Tarakanov said. “Please permit me to scout ahead, Navigator.”

  “Yes, by all means, Mr. Tarakanov. Take the lead.”

  He hadn’t gone very far when he caught up with the starshina. He was alone now; his son had gone.

  “Your friends are far behind you,” the old man said, speaking in the Chinook Jargon, which Tarakanov understood.

  “Yes, they are. Where are your friends?”

  “My son left me to walk slowly because he is fast and wants to see his wife. She’s a pretty woman. I don’t blame him.”

  “Where will you attack us?”

  The old man’s eyes lit up. “Why would we attack you?”

  “Because we’re a party of armed men moving toward your village. How far is it from here?”

  “Not far.”

  “You’ll attack us there?”

  “We’ve given you safe passage.”

  “You should attack us soon, because if you wait, we’ll be ready.”

  The old man smiled and turned and continued walking. Tarakanov let him go, watched him disappear into the reaching arms of the giant coastal forest.

  “They attack them, don’t they?” Duncan said.

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “At the river. I wish we had coffee.”

  “We don’t, unless you brought some,” Jacob said.

  “I didn’t,” Kozmin said.

  “What happened at the river?” Duncan asked.

  “The Hoh offered to ferry them across, and in doing so split the party, and when they were far out in the current the men in the larger of the two canoes pulled a plug in the floor and jumped overboard and swam away and left the Russians to drown.”

  “What about Anna Petrovna?”

  “She was in the other canoe, a much smaller one, with a boy, Filip, from the party and the Kodiak woman, Maria, and the old man Pavla. They took them hostage.”

  “Where was Tarakanov?”

  “He was waiting to take the next boat across. The promyshlenniki in the sinking canoe used their rifles as paddles, and one of them took off his boot and covered the holes in the boat with his bare feet. With a lucky turn of the current they made it back to shore.”

  “And Bulygin?”

  “He was in the canoe with the promyshlenniki, and they mutinied on him because he wanted them to follow his wife.”

  “They’d have been killed if they went after her,” Jacob said.

  “This is true,” Kozmin replied.

  “What next?” Duncan had one of his socks off, and he was peeling hunks of skin from his feet like he was peeling an orange.

  “The fog cleared—”

  “You didn’t say there was fog.” Jacob laughed, and Duncan lifted his eyes to watch him and then went back to his feet.

  There was fog and it cleared and they could see the village across the river and there were two hundred warriors on the banks yelling back at them. Anna Petrovna was gone. Then the Hoh warriors climbed in their canoes and paddled back across the river to finish them off, but the Russians hid behind the dead and silvered trees on the banks and fought for their lives. In the course of the battle several were wounded, and one of them had an arrow stuck in his stomach and wouldn’t live. Soon the Hoh retreated to their canoes and paddled out of range and waited because they had all the time in the world.

  The Russians carried their injured with them upstream. Bulygin cried and whimpered over the loss of his wife, and the men and even Tarakanov pitied him, but they had to keep going. They dragged the Navigator along by his coat. The man with the arrow in his stomach was called Sobachnikov, and he couldn’t travel any farther, and they left him to spend his last moments alone. It was not an easy thing to do, but they would die if they stayed. Arrows snapped through the ferns as they ran, hissed by their ears. They hoped the mountains upstream would offer a better place to stand their attackers than against the walls of the ocean and the river.

  Exhausted, under a tree as big as any of them had ever seen, with no food or fire, they huddled.

  “This could be where we die,” Bulygin said throug
h his tears.

  Tarakanov went into the forest and up the hillside. There was no game sign. He climbed as high as he could, but the forest was still too thick for the elevation to offer any kind of vantage. He knew that they wouldn’t make it in time to meet the Kadiak.

  He returned to his comrades and with Bulygin’s tremulous permission led them upstream, and after several miles they found an abandoned lodge. They yelled to make their presence known and then entered the lodge and took the dried salmon they found and fled. In a deep streambed they sat on the ground and ate like animals.

  One arrow and then dozens more came down on them, and an Aleut and Ovchinnikov were hit, but not mortally. They made haste up the stream and fired on their attackers, and Tarakanov hit one in the leg, and the rest of the war party picked him up and they were gone.

  Farther upstream they found another lodge and at gunpoint robbed the people there of their food. Bulygin wanted to kill them, an old couple and several children, but Tarakanov reminded the Navigator of their orders and they left.

  They made camp in a flat spot on the river, and Ovchinnikov, the man with the arrow wound in his back, tried his luck at fishing but had none.

  That night two Indians boldly entered their camp. One of them, the old man, had been at the lodge they had robbed; the other was a stranger. They had a sealskin of whale oil to trade, and they asked if they wanted to buy back their woman, Anna. Bulygin was instantly on his feet, and he had the man by his throat, but Tarakanov pulled him off. The terms were four rifles, and they wouldn’t agree. Bulygin begged them, but they could not. He had ceased to be their leader. Tarakanov told him that if they traded one rifle away, he would leave them and surrender to the Hoh.

  “It’s winter by now, isn’t it?” Jacob said.

  “It is. December, the middle of the month.”

  “They’ll freeze to death,” said Duncan.

  “No, they still have their axes, and they build barracks.”

  “What about the Indians? The war party?” Jacob asked.

  “They don’t return to fight them, and the Russians find a different group upriver and trade with them a broken rifle and nankeen cotton.”