The Great Alone (72 page)

“Gabe threw it at me,” Nadia explained self-consciously. “He’d been drinking. I shouldn’t have told him about the baby when he was drinking.”

Her sister always seemed to find some excuse for his violent behavior, but Eva didn’t choose to comment on it this time. She merely glanced at the iron skillet on the floor, then at the empty table.

“The jug’s gone.”

“Maybe he fell asleep in the other room.” Nadia picked up the lamp and held it in front of her as she headed toward the front room. Eva followed.

But Gabe wasn’t in the front room, nor was there any indication that he’d been there. Nadia led the way to the bedroom, but halted abruptly in the doorway gasping. Eva crowded close to her so she could see into the room.

It looked as if it had been ransacked. The lid to an old trunk stood open, its contents strewn over the sides and onto the bed. All the dresser drawers were open, and it looked as though someone had pawed through them.

“Who could have done this?” Nadia murmured.

Eva spied the jug sitting atop the dresser and pointed to it. “Gabe was in here. You’d better check and see what’s missing.”

Nadia entered the room, skirting the piles of clothing and linen lumped together on the floor, and set the lamp on the dresser, then began sorting through the scattered belongings. Abruptly she stopped, as if suddenly realizing something.

“What is it?” Eva watched her closely.

But Nadia looked under the bed first. A lost and bewildered look came over her face as she straightened. “Gabe’s clothes are gone … and the carpetbag is missing.”

“He’s left,” Eva said. “Grandpa’s things—where would he have hidden them? Quick. We must look.”

But even before the search of the house was over, she knew they wouldn’t find them. He’d stolen them. Everything was gone. She should have known she couldn’t trust him. Eva saw that now, now that it was too late.

Still, there was a chance he hadn’t left town yet, a chance she might be able to get her grandfather’s things back. Either way, it was certain he hadn’t notified the undertaker or told Father Stephan. Without stopping to tell Nadia where she was going, Eva left the house and hurried into town.

But luck was against her. The proprietor of the trading post informed her that Gabe had left on the mail boat, and remarked how anxious he’d been for the boat to leave. “Didn’t say when he’d be back either,” the man recalled.

Eva knew the answer to that—never. But she wasn’t about to confide that, not to a man. If he knew that she and Nadia had been abandoned, he’d try to take advantage of them in some way.

Before she went back, she fetched the priest and stopped by Mr. Simms’s house to tell him about her grandfather and make arrangements for the funeral.

They buried him a day later in the cemetery alongside his wife’s grave. That night, Eva gathered her few meager possessions from her grandfather’s house and moved in with Nadia.

In June, the Army pulled out of Sitka and Alaska, the troops summoned back to the States to assist in quelling an uprising of a band of Nez Perce Indians led by Chief Joseph. Eva was glad to see the last of the blue-coated soldiers. No more would she have to endure their foul language and insulting jibes.

The military rule was over, and the customs collector was left in charge. To protect his 586,400-square-mile area, he had two cases of rifles and two cases of ammunition that had been shipped to him by mistake. The end of the military presence in Sitka caused many of the townspeople to fear an attack from the Indians and half-breeds who lived in the Ranche, and who now drank and caroused unchecked. Eva loaded her grandfather’s musket and propped it against the wall beside her bed. She didn’t need anybody to protect her or Nadia. She’d do it herself.

As summer left and autumn came, Nadia grew large with child. More and more of the responsibility fell to Eva. With the money she earned cleaning the church once a week, she managed to keep food on the table, but she had to chop and haul firewood from the forest. The hardships were many, but Eva never complained.

Shortly after the start of the new year, Nadia went into labor. The water boiled in the kettle on the stove, and a clean knife lay by the bedstead to cut the umbilical cord. Eva sat with her sister, wiped the sweat from her face with a damp cloth between contractions, gave Nadia her hand to squeeze when they came, and closed her eyes at the agonizing cries.

After two days of labor, Nadia was in a state of exhaustion, yet the baby still hadn’t come. No one had ever told Eva that a woman could suffer so giving birth to a child. Her only previous experience of the birthing process had come from watching little piglets being born and baby chicks pecking free of their shells. She decided that surely Nadia hadn’t known it would be like this. She could not imagine any woman knowingly going through this torture.

As the hours wore on, she began to fear that something was wrong. Her sister could not endure much more of this. She hated to leave her, but she had to find someone to help or her sister would surely die. There was no doctor in Sitka. But Eva remembered that Mrs. Karotski had given birth to seven children and had been present during the confinement of several pregnant women in town.

“Sounds like that baby’s coming backwards,” the woman declared when Eva told her of Nadia’s difficulties. She wasted little time gathering her coat and hat, then accompanied Eva back to the house.

With Mrs. Karotski’s assistance, Eva had her first lesson in a breech birth. In a few short hours, she was holding a red and squalling baby girl in her arms. The baby’s wet hair was so flaxen that she appeared to be bald. She was quite the ugliest thing Eva had ever seen—and she loved her. With great reluctance, she gave her to Nadia so the baby could nurse.

As she watched the infant girl suckling at her mother’s breast, she was awed by the miracle of birth. Then Eva noticed how completely exhausted her sister looked, the ghostly pallor of her face, and the straggled, dull locks of her rumpled golden brown hair. The wan smile Nadia so briefly directed at her newborn daughter seemed to take a great deal of effort. Eva inwardly cringed from the memory of all the pain her sister had endured during those endless hours of labor. She could still hear the echoes of her horrible screams.

“We’ll leave them to rest now.” The stoutly built Mrs. Karotski touched her arm to draw her away from the bed where the mother and baby lay. “Bring that pan with you.”

The midwife indicated the pan of blood-soaked rags that contained the afterbirth. Her own hands carried a basin of pink-tinted water that had been used to wash baby and mother. A toweling cloth was draped over her shoulder to hang down the front of her heavy bosom. Eva hesitated, then picked up the pan, making an immediate and unconscious attempt to tighten her nostrils and breathe shallowly so she wouldn’t inhale the peculiar smell of the expelled placenta. She tried to hide the revulsion she felt as she followed Mrs. Karotski out of the room.

“That’s a fine baby girl your sister has.”

“Will Nadia be all right?”

“I’m sure she will. She did have a very difficult time of it, but she’ll get her strength back.”

“I didn’t know women went through so much pain having babies,” Eva murmured.

“It always requires some suffering to bring a new life into the world. It’s a good thing your sister’s husband wasn’t here. He couldn’t have stood it. A man can’t take much pain.” Her mouth quirked in a wry smile. “If it was up to men to have the babies, none would be born. As it is, they have the pleasure of making them and none of the pain of birthing them.”

Suffering. That’s all a man brought a woman, Eva thought and loathed them all.

On a clear, blustery Sunday in February, Eva and Nadia emerged from St. Michael’s Cathedral. Muffled wails came from the swaddled infant in Nadia’s arms. Nadia paused at the top of the steps and lifted a corner of the blanket to gaze at her newly christened daughter, Marisha Gavrilyevna Blackwood. Eva had objected to the use of the Russianized version of Gabe’s name, but Nadia had insisted that tradition be followed and their daughter’s middle name should be his.

Everyone in the small community of Sitka was aware of Gabe’s continued absence. Too few people lived there any more for it to be a secret. Through the postmaster, they were also aware that there had been no word from him. There was considerable speculation that he had died. Eva encouraged such rumors.

“I wish Gabe were here so he could see our beautiful daughter,” Nadia murmured.

“Be glad you’re rid of him,” Eva snapped, irritated that her sister was so stupid as to want him back after all he’d done.

Surveying the town from the steps of the church, she saw the decay and ruin of abandoned buildings, the emptiness and neglect of a deserted town. She was old enough to remember how it had been. Men had built it, and men had destroyed it. Ultimately, in their greed, they always destroyed. As she started down the steps, Eva resolved that her young niece would know the truth about them.

The old beacon atop the castle on the bluff had once guided many a ship to the port formerly known as New Archangel. Now it turned crazily in the wind.

PART THREE

Alaska Mainland

CHAPTER XL

Sitka

Summer 1897

Since the steamer was expected to be at dockside for several hours offloading cargo and taking on more fuel, Justin Sinclair took advantage of the opportunity to look around the old Russian town and stretch his legs a bit. Lord knew, he’d had few chances to see much of anything in his twenty-two years. What sights could a man see from the deck of a fishing boat? He swore that when he struck it rich in the goldfields of the Klondike, he was going to eat nothing but meat. He never wanted to smell another fish again. He hated fish and he hated the sea. His father was welcome to both, but he wasn’t about to spend the rest of his life stinking like a fish.

Other passengers aboard the steamer had disembarked ahead of him, obviously sharing his intentions. A group of Indians, mostly squaws, crowded around them trying to peddle their goods that ranged from miniature totems carved from wood to silver bracelets and Indian blankets. Justin Sinclair shouldered his way through the bodies firmly shaking his head in refusal at every object thrust in front of him.

Once free of the throng, he paused to look around and get his bearings. A perfectly cone-shaped mountain rose in the distance. Snow still frosted the cratered peak of the extinct volcano, making it stand out that much more sharply against the cloud-studded blue sky.

“Could you tell me where that ship is going?” The question was asked by a woman, her voice oddly accented.

Justin vaguely recalled that there had been a woman standing on the fringe of the crowd at the wharf. He’d noticed her mainly because she had looked so dowdy, wearing a drab dress, a dark wool shawl around her shoulders, and a dark kerchief tied under her throat, completely covering her hair. But this woman’s voice sounded young. Justin turned curiously, surprised to find the voice belonged to the woman he’d noticed earlier.

“It’s headed for Mooresville.”

“Have you heard they’ve discovered gold on the other side of White Pass in the Klondike region of Canada?” Again the voice betrayed a youthful vigor.

“Yes, I know.” Justin took another look at her, but it was difficult to see her face.

The scarf that covered her hair was pulled forward, obscuring her eyes as she gazed at the vessel tied up to the dock. Then she turned her head to look at him. He was startled by her face. Her complexion was smooth and shone with the luster of an abalone shell, and her eyes were like large nuggets of shiny black coal.

“Is that where you’re bound?” she asked.

“Yes.” He would have stared at her much longer, but she turned away again to gaze at the steamer.

“I wish I were going.” She spoke so softly that Justin knew she hadn’t intended him to hear, so he pretended he hadn’t.

“Do you live here?”

“Yes.” She pulled the shawl more tightly around her shoulders and seemed to withdraw into herself.

“I have a few hours to pass before the ship sails. I thought I’d look around the town. One of the hands on the ship told me this used to be the old Russian capital of Alaska before we bought it. Maybe you could show me around.”

“There isn’t much to see.” The shrug of her shoulders seemed to express her dislike. “Some broken-down old buildings, a church, and a cemetery. There is little else.”

As he glanced toward town, he noticed the green-painted spire of a church, topped by a peculiarly shaped cross. “I’ve never seen a cross like that. What kind of church is it?”

“That is St. Michael’s Cathedral. It is of the Russian Orthodox faith.”

“Why do they have that slanted bar at the bottom?”

“When the Christ Jesus was put upon the cross, His feet rested on the lower bar. At the moment of His death, His weight tipped it to one side.” Her dark eyes gleamed like obsidian. “You should go inside the church. All the gold ornamentation and silver ikons are very beautiful.”