The Great Alone (60 page)

“It is not a decision that I make without sadness. It does not fill me with joy to take my family and leave here. But neither do I wish to remain,” his son stated. “There is no order here under the Americans. Twice my wife has been accosted in the street by drunken American soldiers. Is anything done about it? No. When the soldiers are off duty, they drink. No one controls them. It accomplishes nothing to complain to their general. He reprimands them but takes no steps to stop the disorder. The sale of liquor is not illegal, he says. It is only illegal to import it. It is no longer safe for our women to walk alone on the streets.”

“You have decided so much.” Wolf sighed heavily. “Yet never have you spoken a word of this to me.”

“You have said many times that this is where you will stay,” he reminded him.

Wolf looked at his two sons. Both were silent. Both sat with bowed heads. “Lev, have you known of this?”

After a moment’s pause, Lev nodded a confirmation while Stanislav stared at his clasped hands. Once no decision affecting the family would have been made without consulting him, but Wolf realized that the coming of the Americans with their ideas of individual freedom had changed even that.

“Papa.” Stanislav flexed his fingers to tighten the grip of his hands. “We said we would wait and see how it was with the Americans. But a man cannot live here and take care of his family. The prices the Americans charge for everything are high. The workers in my shop, even the Aleuts, demand that I pay them five dollars a day in Yankee gold. It is too much. I cannot pay this and feed my family. I must think of them.” He pleaded for Wolf’s understanding. “You know how it is for my wife—the way the Americans treat her, the names they call her.”

But this blow was almost more than Wolf could absorb. There seemed so little left for him to say. He reached for the pipe in his pocket, seeking its comfort and attempting to cover his own bewilderment, but his hand was shaking.

“So you leave,” Wolf murmured.

“Yes. Next week there is a ship that leaves for Russia.”

For Wolf, there was pain in knowing that this was a decision Stanislav had been contemplating since before his sister left in December, yet he had been unaware his son was so dissatisfied here.

“And you, Lev.” Wolf looked to his eldest son. “Will you be deserting me, too?”

A protesting cry came from Nadia as she sank to her knees beside her father’s chair. “Papa, you cannot mean to do this. I want to stay.”

At almost the same moment, eight-year-old Eva flung herself onto Wolf’s lap, clinging to him and crying, “I don’t want to leave you.”

Emotion choked his throat as he patted the brown head pressed against his chest. “I don’t want you to go, my pet.”

“Have no fear,” Lev assured them all. “We are not leaving. We will stay here.”

“So will I,” asserted Stanislav’s son, Dimitri.

Tears welled in his eyes, and Wolf sniffed self-consciously, unable to speak for fear of his voice breaking. He simply nodded instead. When a knock at the front door distracted his family’s attention, Wolf took advantage of the diversion to wipe the moisture from his eyes.

The front door opened and a blustering wind whooshed into the room. Gabe Blackwood darted quickly through the opening and stepped to one side, stamping the snow off his boots. His nose and cheeks were reddened from the cold.

“Hello, everyone.” He pulled the fur cap off his sandy hair, smiling broadly at all of them.

Recovering from her surprise, Nadia rose to her feet and went to meet him. “Mr. Blackwood, welcome.” But her greeting wasn’t as warm as it might have been. She was too aware of the other family members in the room and the reason they had all gathered.

“Forgive me if I’m intruding. I can come another time,” Gabe suggested uncertainly.

Before answering, Nadia glanced at her grandfather, hoping he would invite him to stay. He nodded, granting his permission for her young man to remain. “Please come in, Mr. Blackwood.”

As Gabe started to unbutton his fleece-lined coat, Wolf Tarakanov said, “Mr. Blackwood must be chilled after his walk. Take him into the kitchen and fix him some tea.”

“I’d like that, Mr. Tarakanov. Thank you.”

Although Nadia noticed how quickly Gabe took advantage of the opportunity to be alone with her, she was too troubled by the recent discussion to feel pleased. She had caught the note of regret in Lev’s voice when he had agreed to remain in Sitka. She suspected that he had decided to stay not because it was his wish but because he felt it was his duty to look after his father.

In the kitchen, she busied herself with filling the samovar with water and lighting its fire. As she took the teapot down from its cabinet shelf, her hand lingered on the cedar door. Her uncle Stanislav had built these cabinets for her grandfather.

“You are troubled about something, aren’t you?”

Nadia half turned, smiling quickly to conceal her concern from him. “No. It’s just that Grandfather has no sugar for your tea. He has only honey to sweeten it.” She reached for the small crock on the cabinet shelf.

“Something is wrong. I sensed it when I arrived. Your family looked so solemn. Has there been bad news?”

First she said, “Yes.” Then she said, “No.” Finally she told him while staring at the honey pot she’d set on the counter. “My uncle has decided to leave Sitka. He is taking his family to Russia. They say there is too much disorder here for them.”

“But things will get better. This situation is only temporary. The soldiers from the fort have been unruly, I admit, with their off-duty drinking and carousing, but it won’t continue. Surely they aren’t judging all Americans by the misbehavior of a few?”

“I don’t know.”

He turned her around to face him, his hands still cool from the chill of the outdoors. His earnest expression commanded her attention.

“I can’t deny there is an unsavory element here in Sitka, but all that will change as soon as the Congress grants Alaska territorial status. There won’t be any more military rule. We’ll have a territorial government and the soldiers will be gone. Once that happens we’ll have a court system that can punish wrongdoers. Presently, the criminal element, or at least the less reputable element, knows that we can’t legally enforce our ordinances, so they disregard them, but they won’t get away with it for long. This is going to be a decent, law-abiding town where a man can raise a family and feel secure about the future.”

Nadia barely listened to his oratory. She studied his face, the intelligence of his high forehead, and the strength of his angular cheekbones, their lines emphasized by the long sideburns he wore. The weakness of his chin was a minor flaw in her eyes. Yet as she gazed at him, Nadia could think only of her fear that she might never see him again if her father should decide to leave, too.

“Papa says he is staying, but I know he does so only because of Grandpa. He is unhappy here. Grandpa is old. I worry that if he should die, then Papa would feel there is no more reason to stay. If that should happen, Gabe, I don’t know what I would do. I don’t want to leave.” Although she had summoned enough boldness to address him familiarly, she hadn’t enough to declare that he was the one she didn’t want to leave.

“You can’t go.” He appeared stunned by her suggestion. His fingers curled into her shoulders as if to prevent her from moving.

“If my parents leave, I will have no choice. I cannot remain here alone.” The possibility that she might be separated from him was so painful for her that it seemed imminent rather than mere conjecture. “I shall miss you.”

“No, I won’t let it happen.” Infected by the contagion of her fear, he pulled her into his arms and held her close, pressing his lips to her hair. “I won’t let you go, Nadia,” he murmured. “You are my princess.”

The ardent pitch of his voice thrilled her. Yet there was a poignancy in the moment, too, as she wondered if this first embrace might also be their last. She closed her eyes to memorize the sensation of his arms around her, the smell of his wool tweed jacket, and the rough texture of it against her cheek, so she might recall them all at some future time.

“I wish there was something you could do—something you could say to Papa so this awful thing would not happen,” she declared.

“There is.” He sounded so positive that Nadia lifted her head to look at him.

“What?”

“I can ask his permission to marry you. That is … if you want to become my wife.” His fingers touched her cheek in a loving caress while he gazed at her with adoration.

Her lips parted, but no sound came out. She was so incredulous she couldn’t give voice to her joy.

“It is what I’ve wanted from the first day we met outside your grandfather’s shop.”

“I have also, more than anything in the world.”

“I wonder if you know how happy you have just made me,” he murmured thickly, cupping the side of her face in his hand. “I love you, Nadia—my princess.”

“And I love you.”

When he kissed her, Nadia felt certain she must be dying and approaching the heaven that the priests described. Surely there could be nothing to equal this glorious bliss she was experiencing. Her lips clung to his an instant longer as he drew away.

“Our marriage will be a symbol for everyone in Alaska,” Gabe declared. “A union between the old and the new. You and I will show the Russians and the Americans how we can live together and work to build a better place.”

“Yes.” She didn’t understand half of what he said, but it sounded important. Everything he said always sounded so important and meaningful. She was convinced that was why he would be governor someday. And she would be his wife. The thought was still enough to take her breath away. But it couldn’t happen soon enough to suit her. “I am so happy that I am almost afraid something will happen to ruin this. Gabe, when will you ask my father for his permission?”

“I would go to him this minute, but from what you have said, I don’t think this is the time to talk to him about us.” Letting go of her, he took a step backward, putting a discreet distance between them. Nadia was proud that he was such a gentleman, always so respectful of her reputation. It pleased her that he didn’t take advantage of her and behave in a manner that might compromise her. “I will come to your house later tonight when I can speak to your father alone.”

“He will give his consent. I know he will,” she declared.

As she readied the teapot, Nadia realized that soon she would be doing many such things for him, in their own home, as his wife.

An April rain pelted the windows as Nadia, garbed in the traditional headdress and embroidered bridal gown, knelt at her father’s feet and begged his forgiveness for all her sins. Wolf stood to one side watching the ritual that always took place at the bride’s home before the wedding ceremony at the church. His heart felt heavy that so few family members were present to witness it.

As Lev gave his daughter a piece of bread and a grain of salt, Eva tugged at Wolf’s hand. He bent down to hear her curious whisper. “Why did Papa do that?”

“So that Nadia knows he will never allow her to go hungry even though she no longer lives in his house.”

Her husband-to-be, Gabe Blackwood, knelt beside Nadia. She ceremoniously presented him with a little whip of braided hair. “She made that from her own hair,” Eva informed Wolf. “She snipped off a lock of hair last night. I watched her plait it. Why is she giving it to him? Is he going to beat her with it?”

Wolf patiently shook his head and murmured, “It is a sign of her submission to his authority. Sssh, now,” he admonished and bowed his head as Lev began reading the prescribed prayers.

The prayers concluded the traditional ceremony at the home of the bride’s parents. It was time to make the long walk to the Cathedral of St. Mikhail. The bridegroom helped Nadia into her long burnous so her gown would be protected from the steadily falling rain. Each carried an umbrella as they left the house.

The rest of the family followed. Lev Tarakanov didn’t close the door when they left, symbolically leaving it open as a sign to his daughter that his house was always open to her if her husband was ever unkind to her.

Halfway up the walk, Eva noticed the front door was still open. She let go of her grandfather’s hand and ran back to the house. As soon as she had pulled the door shut, she dashed back to her grandfather’s side and once more slipped her hand in his.

“Papa forgot to close the door and it was raining in. Won’t he be glad that I saw it?” She smiled up at Wolf, proud of her deed.

He started to explain the reason it had been left open, then hesitated. The patter of rain on his umbrella seemed to reaffirm the wisdom of her action; and the open door, after all, was only a symbol.

“Come.” He smiled at his well-meaning granddaughter. “We must catch up with your parents and Dimitri or we shall be late for the wedding.”

From the window of his saloon, Ryan watched the wedding procession making its way toward the church. He hadn’t been invited to the ceremony, which hadn’t surprised him. He and the idealistic Gabe Blackwood had come to a parting of the ways some months ago.

Ryan had grown weary of the continuous lectures from the righteous, upstanding attorney regarding the corrupting influence of his saloon on the boomtown of Sitka. Blackwood blamed him for the drunkenness in the streets. More than once Gabe had charged him with breaking the law by illegally bringing liquor in, and insisted that, for the good of the community, Ryan must stop, thereby setting an example for other saloonkeepers to follow.