The Great Alone (29 page)

“Bring me my writing papers and implements,” he instructed, then walked to the wooden table and sat down in the chair. After she had set the pewter inkstand and parchment paper before him, Ismailov picked up the fine Russian quill, then paused before dipping it in the inkwell. “I want you to fix a salmon pie, baked with rye meal.” Presenting new arrivals in town with a gift of bread and salt was an ancient Russian custom, symbolizing a wish that the newcomers would never want for life’s necessities. If his notes failed to draw any response from the British captains, Ismailov hoped the accompanying gift would.

After writing notes to both of the ships’ captains, he sealed them with wax and pressed his signet ring onto the warm wax to stamp it with the imprint of the double-headed eagle, the symbol of the Romanov Empire. The following day he dispatched one of his Cossack officers to deliver his messages and the gift of salmon pie to the British.

A different matter required Ismailov’s attention on another part of Unalaska Island. While he was gone, his Cossack messenger returned with one of the officers from the British ship. Tasha saw the strange-speaking man several times during his short stay at the settlement. No one could understand what he said and they had to rely on hand signs to communicate. Tasha noticed how cheerful and inquisitive he was, curious about everything. His nature seemed very different from the Cossacks’.

Bad weather kept the stranger in camp a day longer and forced Walks Straight and Zachar to delay their departure on the long sea hunt they’d planned. Although Tasha knew her son was impatient to leave on his first adventure, she was relieved that her brother had postponed it. She trusted that Walks Straight would look after him, yet she worried. Zachar was proving to be a skilled hunter, but his experience was limited to the offshore waters of the island. Venturing into the open sea would be a test of all his skill and knowledge. So many things could happen. Perhaps most of all, Tasha recognized that her son would come back a man.

Then the weather improved, the stranger left to go back to his ship, accompanied by the peredovchik and two Cossacks; but Walks Straight continued to delay their leaving, insisting they wait until the bad weather had passed beyond their intended route. Tasha was grateful for the few more days’ reprieve, but she didn’t have time to enjoy it. When Ismailov returned from his journey and learned of the invitation extended by the British to visit their ships and exchange map information of the area, an invitation accompanied by several bottles of fine liquor, everyone including Tasha was involved in the preparations. The sloop
Sv Pavel
had to be readied for sail, the decks swabbed from bow to stern, the sails patched, additional provisions stowed aboard, and all the furnishings returned to Ismailov’s cabin, not to mention all the minor tasks like hauling water to the structure on shore housing the steam bath, gathering driftwood for the fire to heat it, and cutting grass to cushion the floor. Never did Ismailov even consider making the half a day’s trek overland to the bay where the British ships were anchored. He was a navigator, the master of his vessel, and he would meet with the British as such.

On the day the sloop sailed for the north side of the island, Walks Straight and Zachar also set out on their journey. Tasha stood on the beach while little Mikhail trotted after the seagulls wheeling overhead. She wished she had checked Zachar’s
kamleika
one more time to make certain there was no break in the waterproof garment. Now it was too late. She watched the two kayaks grow smaller and smaller as they headed toward the mouth of the bay and the open sea beyond. Soon she could no longer distinguish her brother from her son, but she remained on the beach, watching until they were completely out of sight.

For a long time, Zachar had waited to embark on this extended voyage, confident of his skill and certain he was ready for it. After anticipating it for so long, the excitement of actually going carried him for a considerable distance in the open water. The sea stretched from horizon to horizon, an endless undulation of dark gray waters. The expanse of it seemed to grow greater and greater. Slowly a sense of aloneness began to creep through him. Looking across the trackless sea, he suddenly felt very small. He realized how little his home island was, how big the ocean was, and how easily a hunter could become lost.

He glanced quickly at the bidarka that paralleled his, needing to be reassured that he was not alone. His uncle, Walks Straight, had not fastened the drawstring hood of his kamleika over his head, and his lank white hair was clearly visible beneath the wooden visor. There was nothing in that muscular face to indicate to Zachar what his uncle was thinking or feeling. There never was.

“Did the wind change?” Zachar thought it might have, although he couldn’t remember from which quarter it had been blowing previously, and such things were crucial details.

“Yes.”

Zachar wished his uncle had said more, just for the comfort of a human voice.

Some time later, Zachar noticed Walks Straight staring to the south, where the sky had darkened to an ominous black. The fast-moving storm was headed directly toward them. He knew the procedure for riding out storms in the open sea and maneuvered his bidarka alongside his uncle’s so they could lash them together to create a more flexible dual-hulled craft capable of riding out a storm that might sink a single boat.

The wind whipped the sea in advance of the black squall and drove the waves higher. All at once, it seemed to Zachar, they were swallowed in darkness. The sheeting rain hammered at the waterproof hood covering his head, the string knotted tightly at his throat to keep the water from running inside. The sea tossed their twin craft in every direction, throwing them first one way then another. The roar of the storm and the sea seemed to take over Zachar, blocking out all other sound, including the pounding of his own heart. The hull of his bidarka became an extension of his body. Each time a wave slammed into it, he shuddered under the jarring force of it.

Somewhere the passage of time lost meaning. Zachar had no idea if day had turned into night or night into day. There was only the storm; everything else seemed distant and unreal—his home, his mother and little brother, gone, beyond his reach. He was trapped in the heart of it and carried … he knew not where.

Even after the storm abated, it continued to roar in his head. His senses were numbed. He didn’t notice that the heaving pitch of the sea had become less violent or that the raindrops on his face were from a light shower. A hand gripped his arm, and the sensation slowly penetrated his consciousness. Blinking the beads of rain from his lashes, Zachar turned to look at his uncle’s impassive face.

“The storm has passed.”

The words seemed to come from far away, but he heard them and gazed at the gray drizzle and the rolling sea, realizing it was true. He felt exhaustion loosening all his muscles and draining his strength.

“Where are we?” he asked, but Walks Straight simply shook his head.

Water surrounded them on all sides, and the low-hanging clouds and heavy drizzle obscured visibility. As the two bidarkas drifted on the sea, still lashed together, Zachar watched his uncle scan the sea, searching for clues in the wave action or the tidal flow or the water texture, anything that might provide direction.

“Do you hear?” Walks Straight said, and Zachar held his breath, straining to catch whatever sound his uncle had heard. At first he detected nothing, then gradually he began to distinguish over the rumble of the sea the low thunder of breakers crashing on rocks. That meant an island, somewhere close by.

Quickly they untied their bidarkas and started paddling toward the sound. The gray drizzle concealed the shore, but the noise grew steadily louder until it became a nearly deafening roar. Zachar frowned in confusion, vaguely alarmed by this strange sound that was like no surf he’d ever heard. He rested his double-bladed paddle on the deck of his bidarka.

“That cannot be breakers,” he called to his uncle, but Walks Straight paddled on. Zachar followed him uncertainly.

The drizzle became a fine mist that revealed a dark landmass looming in front of them. Gradually the noises that had blended to make one giant roar became separate sounds—the raucous shriek of shorebirds, the pounding crash of the surf, and the overpowering bawl of fur seals.

As he approached the island, Zachar stared in disbelief. The island swarmed with seals. It appeared as one large, living mass of brown-silver larvae in perpetual motion, quivering and undulating. Their numbers had to be in the millions, Zachar thought. The din of their hoarse, bellowing voices was head-splitting.

Ahead of him, Walks Straight landed his kayak on a small stretch of sand that hadn’t been claimed by a bull seal. Zachar headed for the same place. He could hardly take his gaze away from the hundreds of thousands of seals—the huge beachmaster bulls, the adult females, the nearly grown pups that crawled over each other in one large seething mass. As he neared the strip of sand, something bumped into the side of his skin-boat. He glanced down, fearing he’d scraped a submerged rock, and saw a full-grown sea otter floating on its back and crunching on a sea urchin, with two more tabled on its chest. The otter appeared totally oblivious of his presence. Aware how much that pelt would bring, Zachar grabbed his harpoon.

“No! No!” Walks Straight ran into the water. The shouts and the loud splashing startled the sea otter as well as Zachar. The mammal dived quickly. Zachar lowered his harpoon, glaring at his uncle as a wave carried his bidarka closer to shore.

“Why did you do that?”

“Look around you. They are everywhere,” his uncle said, then turned and waded ashore.

Belatedly Zachar looked and saw the heads of curious otter, some no more than two boat lengths away from him. They watched him, unafraid. Confused, both by his uncle’s behavior and the otters’, he nosed the bidarka onto the sand and untied the drawstring that fastened the waterproof hatch covering around his waist, then crawled out of the bidarka and lifted it farther onto the sand.

“Why did you come ashore? Look at the furs we can take.” Zachar gestured at the multitude of otter swimming in the surrounding waters.

“Have you not guessed where we are?” Walks Straight said quietly, an almost pitying look in his eyes.

“No.” Zachar frowned, confused by the question.

“This is the island the storytellers say was found long ago by the son of a village headman. Like us, he was blown off course by a storm and found this island far to the north of his home. This is where all the fur seals come to have their young and raise them. This island is their breeding ground.” As Walks Straight gazed at the teeming mass of bodies, Zachar noticed the soft glow in his uncle’s eyes, a faint light where he never remembered seeing any before. “No man has ever set foot on this island since that long-ago day. We are the first in all this time.”

“How many do you think are here?” Zachar stared at the multitude, thinking of their glossy pelts.

“Millions.” Walks Straight faced the pounding surf and watched the frolicking sea otter. “There are tens of thousands of our brothers, the sea otter.” One climbed out of the water onto a nearby rock, and he walked toward it, stopping within an arm’s reach of the curious mammal as it sniffed the air to determine his scent.

Zachar watched in amazement, then moved to stand beside his uncle. Still the otter didn’t flee to the safety of the ocean. “They are as tame as the seagull I had as a child.”

“This is the way it was in my father’s time. The sea otter had no fear of us. He was our brother. He swam in the waters off our islands. Then the Cossacks came,” Walks Straight finished flatly. He turned and glared at Zachar, a strangely bright gleam in his eyes. “Look well and remember the way it was.”

Feeling uneasy, Zachar glanced around, but he was too conscious of his uncle to see much. Walks Straight wasn’t acting right.

“This is the last place where the sea otter can live in peace,” his uncle said. In this short time, he’d spoken more words than Zachar ever remembered him saying all at once. “The Cossacks have hunted the whole length of our islands. They have killed thousands, maybe millions of sea otter. They must not learn of this place.” He paused. A breath later, he shuddered violently and groaned like some dying animal in agonizing pain. “They must not know,” he moaned and swung wildly around to stare at the seal rookery, jammed with life. “I cannot let them know!” he cried, and the shrieking wail of his voice shivered down Zachar’s spine. Helpless and frightened, he watched his uncle appear suddenly frantic and desperate, clawing at his own face. “They will make me tell. They will make me tell,” he mumbled wildly, then added more clearly, “No. Not again.”

Nothing he said made any sense to Zachar. He took a hesitant step toward him, but he didn’t know what to say or how to help. Suddenly Walks Straight ran to his bidarka, picked it up and carried it into the surf.

“Where are you going?” For an instant, Zachar couldn’t believe his uncle intended to leave without him.

“They will make me tell! I cannot let them!” Walks Straight shouted, then he scrambled into the hatch of his bidarka and struck out with his paddle, propelling the trim craft into the surf.

“Wait!” Zachar hurried to his kayak and dragged it around to launch it into the surf, but he was neither as experienced nor as adept as his uncle at handling the long craft.

By the time he crawled into the hatch and started paddling after his uncle, he was already several lengths behind. He saw his uncle cease paddling once he was well out in deep water. Zachar thought he was waiting for him. Then Walks Straight picked up his harpoon. In horror, Zachar watched him plunge its sharp point into the hide walls of his boat. Over and over again, the arm holding the spear rose and fell as Zachar drove his bidarka with long, digging strokes of the paddle, trying to reach the wallowing skin-boat before it sank out of sight with his uncle still in it. It slipped into a wave’s trough and disappeared from his view.