Sitka (21 page)

“I know every path.”

“You’re sure?”

“I played here as a child.”

“Your father should have sent someone else. You shouldn’t be out at this hour.”

“Nobody sent me. I ... I just came.”

He took her shoulders in his hands and squeezed them gently. “Thanks ... thanks, Dounia. But you must never do this again, do you hear?” “I won’t.”

Suddenly she stood on tiptoe and kissed him fiercely on the lips, then ducked under his arm and was gone in the darkness. He started after her, then realized how futile it would be to pursue someone in such dark and unfamiliar surroundings.

The boat was drawing close, drifting like a darker shadow on the gray water. The oars stopped and it glided through the water with only ripples to make a whisper of sound. “Captain?” It was Gant’s voice.

“Here.”

At that moment a shot sounded.

Jean LaBarge had stepped down to the water’s edge, but now he stood still, listening, ears attuned to the slightest sound. Far away an unhappy coyote yammered his loneliness to the wide sky, the water rippled, water dripped from the suspended oars, and then a faint woman’s cry, from the Castle.
 
“Wait here!” he called to Gant.

Spinning, he dashed into the darkness. How he found his way through the maze of buildings he never knew, but suddenly he was back on the Hill, and when he stepped through the door Count Rotcheff lay on the carpet, blood flowing from a wound in his side. Helena was kneeling beside him and two servants came running into the room.

Jean dropped to his knees. His familiarity with wounds had been bred of emergency, and he worked swiftly now. When he had stopped the flow of blood and sent one of the servants running for the doctor, he got to his feet.
 
The door to Zinnovy’s quarters opened and the Baron came out, looking down at the wounded man. His face showed no expression, yet there was a faint flicker of amusement in his eyes. “It seems you’ve lost a passenger, Captain. He may recover, but it will take time ... time.” Zinnovy glanced at Helena and then at Jean. “In the meantime he must remain here.”

“You shot him! You did!” Helena’s face was white, her eyes enormous. “I will see you shot for this! You ... you ... !”

“Naturally, you’re hysterical.” Zinnovy drew himself up. “And of course, I ignore the accusation. It was some Kolush, no doubt, perhaps believing the Count was myself.” He smiled again. “I forgive you, Princess, and assure you I shall see that everything is done, everything, I repeat, to speed his recovery. Of course”—he pursed his lips thoughtfully—“it may take months and months.” Turning to Jean he added, “And of course, LaBarge, there will be no need for your schooner. None at all. Your stay here is over at midnight tomorrow. If you are in Russian waters within four days I’ll blow you out of the water.” When he was gone, Rotcheff opened his eyes. He glanced quickly after the Baron to make sure he was unheard, then he whispered, “Take her and go.” His eyes were bright and quick. “Take her to the Czar, my friend. I cannot go ... and he will listen to no one else. You must take her, Captain ... and you must go at once ... before they realize.”

“But—!”

Helena’s protest was brushed aside. The Count’s voice was firmer and his eyes clear. “Your things are already aboard the schooner, as are mine. Go now, quickly.”

“Leave you?” she protested. “Leave you wounded? Perhaps ...” “Perhaps dying? No, I shall not die, but unless you go now we may both be killed. We know now to what lengths he will go ... for it was Paul. I cannot prove it ... but it was he.

“If you escape, I shall be safe. If you remain here ... he will try again and again. With you away, safe with the Czar ... then he dare do nothing more for fear of repercussions. You are the only chance.” “He’s right,” Jean told her. “And if we go it must be now, before Zinnovy thinks of this.”

He led her, still protesting, to the door. Suddenly she turned and fled to Rotcheff and fell on her knees beside him. For a moment she was there, then she arose and came swiftly to the door. As they stepped out to the terrace the doctor and a servant came in the Castle entrance. Wasting no time, Jean led her to the path he had twice covered that night.

Kohl helped her aboard and whispered to Jean, “Zinnovy went out to the Lena.

What’s that mean?”

“Is the cargo gone?”

“Gone. And we’ve loaded the furs. The last lighter cleared an hour ago.”

“All right. As soon as we’re aboard we clear for sea. As quietly as possible.”

Ben Turk touched his sleeve. “We aren’t the only ones, Cap. Look!” The canvas of the Lena was white against the night as she caught for an instant the reflection of shore light. Phosphorus showed in her wake. Zinnovy was taking the patrol ship out and Jean needed no blueprints as to why she was going. Out upon the dark water the sea would swallow any evidence of what happened to the Susquehanna here in the harbor there were too many witnesses. Without doubt he intended to sink the Susquehanna and end the problem presented by LaBarge, once and for all. Yet he could have no idea they intended to sail this soon, nor could he guess that Helena was aboard.

A wind stirred along the face of the mountains, and clouds drifted in the wide sky. Lights from the town made golden daggers into the heart of the black, glistening water. The patrol ship had taken the Middle Channel between Turning and Kutken Islands, but it was only a little past midnight and the anchor of the schooner was catted and she was moving.

“He can sit out there and wait until we come out,” Kohl said unhappily, “and when we’re at sea and out of gunshot of the town, he can sink us at will.” Jean LaBarge was not thinking of Zinnovy; that would come in its own good time.
 
Now he was thinking of a channel that led north past the Indian settlement and Channel Rock where the Susquehanna had lain at anchor on her first voyage. One of the clumsy Russian ships that lay in the harbor had moved across that opening. Zinnovy must have planned shrewdly, hours before; he seemed to have blocked every exit, leaving only the way the Lena had gone.
 
“Keep moving,” he told Kohl. “Let her swing as if we were taking the opening past Aleutski Island, and then at the last minute, point her into that opening past the Russian ship.”

The channel where the Russian was moored was not more than one hundred and fifty yards wide, and there were rocks along the shore of Japonski Island, but between those off-lying rocks and the Russian ship there was a space ... very narrow.
 
“We can’t do it,” Kohl protested. “We’d be fools to try.”

“You do what I tell you.”

The wind off the mountains was picking up, the sails filled, and Kohl went aft and took the wheel from Noble. He watched the approach to the channel past Aleutski. A few Russians loitered along the bulwarks of the moored ship. As Kohl measured the distance sweat broke out on his forehead. It was narrow, far too narrow. He swore bitterly, then setting his jaw, he spun the spokes rapidly and pointed their bows at the Russian ship.

There was a long moment before comprehension dawned on the Russian sailors.
 
Suddenly a man shouted hoarsely at them and running aft began to wave his hands wildly at the schooner which was bearing down as if to ram.
 
“Steady on!” LaBarge walked away from the rail and stood, his big hands on his hips, watching the narrowing gap. Kohl stared at him. To have seen LaBarge at this moment no man would have guessed that he was gambling his ship, their lives, and at the very least a Russian prison. Kohl could not know that LaBarge’s throat was so dry he could not swallow, and his heart was throbbing heavily. Had he kicked an ant’s nest there could have been no greater burst of activity than there now was aboard the Russian. Men shouted and waved their arms to warn him off, but the Susquehanna plunged on.
 
“Gant! Boyar! Get forward and stand by with your rifles. If anybody lays a hand on the wheel, drop him where he stands!”

It was close. If anyone touched the wheel on the Russian bark it might be just enough to close off the channel and bring about the collision they feared.
 
The water gap narrowed. A hundred yards ... seventy ... fifty! A man standing at the bulwark suddenly ran to the bow and dove off into the black water, swimming wildly for shore. Lights appeared in doorways and people rushed out, shouting and staring seaward.

Kohl’s eyes were riveted on the narrowing distance. “Cap’n!” he pleaded.

The moment seemed to stand still as the schooner closed that distance.

Forty-five ... forty ...

“Hard aport!” LaBarge shouted. His mouth was so dry his voice sounded choked.

“Hard over! Hard!”

Kohl swung the spokes and Turk jumped to lend a hand. Jean stood with his legs spread, watching the bow of the schooner swing. He had drawn the line very fine indeed, perhaps too fine. But he knew his ship, and the Susquehanna answered smartly to her wheel, answered as if she understood what her master wanted. The bow began to swing faster. Jean chewed on the stick of a match and watched the narrowing space.

Thirty yards ... twenty-five ... twenty ... fifteen. The schooner was forging ahead now, but still swinging. She was ... she was going to clear. Suddenly added wind filled her sails and she gathered speed, slipping past the stern of the moored ship with less than ten feet to spare.
 
Close off the port side were the off-lying rocks, but the Susquehanna slipped through and lifted her bows proudly to the seas.
 
“All sail!” LaBarge shouted the command and then walked forward alone so they could not see his hands trembling. He had, in that moment, risked everything. If the wind had fallen the least bit, if the schooner had yawed ... but she had come through like a thoroughbred.

He turned, after a moment, and walked aft. They were not yet free. If Zinnovy knew they had started and had slipped out of the harbor he might sail north and round Japonski Island to cut them off. Only, it was dark, and while the night lasted there was still a chance.

“Barney.” LaBarge stopped beside Kohl, who had turned the wheel over to Larsen.

“You told me you once took a boat through Neva Strait.” Kohl was still sweating out the near collision. “But that was in broad daylight!” he protested.

Jean grinned at him. “Next time you see the crowd at the Merchant’s Exchange,” he told him, “you can tell them you’re the only man alive who ever took a schooner through Neva Strait in the dark!”

Helena, wrapped in a dark cloak, returned to the deck. She had stood by during part of the escape operation, and now she, listened to comments of the crew.
 
This ship, she realized, was operated as though every man aboard had a real share in its success. Rolling along under a good head of sail with a following wind, the crew stood by, alert for whatever might come.
 
“Neva Strait,” Kohl was explaining patiently, “is four miles of pure hell in the daytime. The Whitestone Narrows are maybe forty yards wide, possibly less. In the daylight the dangers are marked by kelp, and some of the rocks are awash. At night you can’t see anything.”

LaBarge knew that Kohl’s first instinct when danger threatened the ship was to hesitate, to object to the risk. His second instinct was to weigh their chances and if the situation warranted it, to go along with the risk.
 
“And if we get through? What then?”

“Peril Strait around the end of the island, and once in the sound on the other side, we sail north.”

“One thing I’ll say,” Kohl grumbled, “you’ve got guts.”

“A good ship and a good crew,” LaBarge added.

Together he and Helena walked to the waist, where a little spray was breaking over the gunwale, and it tasted salt on their lips. They were silent together, listening to the bow-wash about the hull, the whining of wind in the rigging, and the straining of the schooner against sea arid wind. These were sounds of the sea, the sounds a man remembers when he lies awake at night on shore, and hears in his blood, feels deep in the convolutions of his brain, the sounds that have taken men back to the sea for these thousands of years. The winds that whispered in the rigging had blown long over the icy steppes and the cold Arctic plains, and over empty, lonely, unknown seas that lay gray under gray clouds.
 
Neither of them could avoid the realization that if all went well they would be together for months on end. Now, for the first time, they knew they were definitely committed to a long journey together. As their eyes grew accustomed to the darkness they could watch the whitecaps on the dark, glasslike waves, and see the darker, unknown shores that rose abruptly from the water’s edge.
 
“You seemed very calm.”

“I wasn’t,” Jean admitted, “I was scared.”

“This story I must tell to my uncle. He will enjoy it.” She changed the subject.

“The Neva Strait ... it is bad?”

“Did you ever walk down a dark hallway in a strange house, a hallway scattered at random with chairs? It will be like that.”

“You leave it to the mate?”

“I’d better ... he’s twice the sailor I am. Don’t be fooled by that business back there: I was gambling that they wouldn’t think I’d take such a risk. Also, I’ve a good ship and a good crew, and I knew they would be ready for anything that might happen. For day-to-day sailing Kohl is much better than I am.” They were silent, watching the water. Helena knew that Zinnovy had gone so far now that withdrawal was impossible. Although the shooting of Rotcheff could not be proved, if she reached the Czar his position would be at least endangered and might be finished. It was always easier to explain a disappearance than to escape consequences of crime when confronted by a witness. Yet the longer Zinnovy pursued the schooner the better Rotcheff’s chances of recovery without hindrance, and Rotcheff would be in touch with Busch. The merchant had as many fighting men as Zinnovy himself and would be no more reluctant to use them.
 
Long after Helena went below, Jean remained on deck. He walked forward to where Boyar stood lookout in the bow. “You have crossed Siberia, Boyar? How long would it require?”