Sitka (26 page)

“Fortunate?” The man’s thin face seemed to grow still. He looked at LaBarge.

“There was trouble?”

“We were attacked by robbers.”

There were three men in the room now, and the boy driver as well. Nothing more was said until Jean asked about horses.

The proprietor shrugged. “I am sorry. We will have no horses until morning, but it is better that you stay here. We—“ “We leave tonight.” Jean looked across the table at the man and lifted his cup with his left hand. “And you had better harness the team at once, and with your best horses.”

“It is impossible!” The proprietor was voluble with protest. “It is—!” “If you believe those men who attacked us are following,” LaBarge said coolly, “you’re mistaken. Their leader is dead.”

“Dead?” The proprietor looked with quick concern at the boy, whose face showed white under the dirt.

They stared at him, shocked to immobility. LaBarge put down his teacup and picked up the pistol. Immediately the room broke into movement. “You,” LaBarge said to the proprietor, “come with us. The rest of you stay here. Think hard before you come outside. We don’t care how many you bury here.” Boyar took the man to the stables and returned with three gray horses, in fine condition. Hastily they were harnessed and then Jean told the proprietor to call his driver. The last they saw was a small cluster of people standing in the road, staring after them.

Ahead the road wound over rough country but the gray horses galloped cheerfully on, their breath steaming in the chill air, their feet making a lively clatter on the hard ground. When they had been on the road about an hour, it began to snow.

Crowded together as they were, Helena and Jean bumped and jarred against each other as the tarantas jolted over roads made rough by traffic as well as by lumps of ice, frozen earth and ridges of snow. Their bodies twisted and jerked with the motion until every muscle ached. And all the while the driver kept up a din of shouts, yells, whipcracking and cursing which mingled with the jangling bells that hung from the bow over the shaft horse.
 
Occasionally they would emerge from the forest to race along between stubbled fields and clatter through peaceful villages where every dog within hearing rushed out baying and barking, only to be scattered helter-skelter by the charging team. Inside the passengers were pitched, tossed, heaved and battered.
 
At last, in the cold gray of earliest dawn, they drove into the streets of still another village. The street was a mere alleyway of ruts a foot deep or more, lined on either side by buildings of logs or unpainted lumber, their gable ends turned to the road, each with a huge wooden gate beside it. Near the end of the street the horses turned of their own volition toward one of these gates.
 
Then began a period of shouts from the driver and faint replies from within, protesting argument, and finally after an interminable period, the gates swung back and they drove into a court flanked by a low-roofed stable covered with sod and an open-faced shed containing a bunch of decrepit carts, a weird and amazing assortment of vehicles, relics of some vanished era too remote to be guessed.
 
Jean fell rather than stepped down from the tarantas and straightened his bruised and aching muscles. Shin Boyar’s face was sullen with cold, showing its weariness, and when Jean helped Helena from the carriage she looked up at him with a glance of mingled despair and amusement at their situation. Painfully they walked toward the small door that offered little but a promise of warmth.
 
As the door opened under his hand a blast of odorous air struck them in the face. For a moment they hesitated, but the bitter cold left them no choice. They went inside.

Three small windows, their glass gray with dirt, looked out upon the road they had just left. Against the wall on the inner side was a long wooden bench, fastened to the wall. Before it was a heavy table and several stools lined the table’s opposite side. In the corner opposite was a huge stove built of whitewashed brick, and from the top of the stove to the wall was a shelf some eight feet wide that was also built of the same whitewashed brick. On this palati the family slept at night, as well as any guests who might be present.
 
A buxom girl with two thick blond braids entered and began putting dishes on the table. On Boyar’s advice they had brought their own tea and sugar, the custom of travelers in Russia, for the tea along the tracht was scarcely drinkable. The food on the table consisted of eggs, black bread, some thick green soup which was very hot, and butter.

“I think we should drive on,” Boyar advised. “I am sure these are honest people here, but if Madame is not tired—?”

Helena looked up, smiling. “If you can ride farther, I can also!”

“How soon will you try to contact your friends?”

“At Perm ... and that is a long way yet.”

Outside the cold was bitter. The tarantas started with a rush, then settled down to a steady jog. The village fell behind and they entered upon a vast plain scattered with clumps of trees. The sky had turned gray and sullen, and as the miles went by the driver glanced again and again at the sky. Turning on his seat, he called back to them. “Purga!”

The clouds, a flat mass above the tops of .the trees, seemed to press down upon them, and the cold increased.

Helena pressed close to him, her face against his arm. There were no buildings, anywhere, and the trees grew thicker, the country wilder and more desolate. Here the land was swept by great winds that had left the trees twisted into grotesque shapes. Snow began to fall, a few flakes at first, then increasing until all was shut out by a white, moving curtain. Boyar drew the leather curtains and the tarantas was black inside. It was like riding in a moving cave. The wind whipped under the curtains, however, and the cold could not be kept out The driver sat hunched and silent, seemingly impervious to the temperature.
 
Jean leaned toward Boyar. “We’ve got to find shelter! This will get worse!” The tarantas had slowed to a walk; the driver was having trouble staying on the road. LaBarge knew the purga was the dreaded black blizzard of Siberia which could uproot trees or blow the roof off a house. Travel in such a storm would be impossible. The temperature was already far below zero and growing colder. Yet the driver was apparently headed for some place of which he knew. Finally, just when the wind seemed to become a full gale, he swung the horses into a dark avenue of trees through which the storm roared in a mighty blast. Treetops bent, glimpsed through a momentary lifting of the curtain. Behind them a tree crashed, blown down by the wind. Occasionally a blast of wind would seem to lift the carriage off the ground, but the horses were running now, and then they were in the lee of a hill and drawing up before a window which showed a feeble glow of light.

There were two doors in a log wall built against the side of a rocky hill, one for people and a larger one for the carriage and animals. With Helena clinging to his arm, Jean LaBarge opened the smaller door and they stepped inside.
 
They found themselves standing in the mouth of a cave. Beyond a log partition they could hear Boyar and the driver stabling the horses. A small fire dying in a huge fireplace provided the only light. There was a table, a few stools, some broken harness and on one of several bunks, a man was lying.
 
Finding a stump of candle, Jean struck a match to the wick. The flame leaped up, swaying like a dancer in the breeze from the chimney. The room was icy cold and there was no fuel. Crossing to the bunk, Jean lifted the candle and looked down at the man who lay there.

The man’s face was white, the skin drawn tight against the skull, his eyes, wide open, were sunk deep within their sockets. For a moment he believed the man dead, and then he saw his lips move.

A door in the partition opened and Boyar came through with the driver. Boyar had his arms full of supplies, the tea, sugar, biscuits and some other articles with which they had provided themselves against emergency. “Get the tea on,” LaBarge told Boyar. “We’ve a man here who’s in a bad way.” “No!” The driver caught LaBarge’s arm. He spoke in hoarse Russian. “The man is a convict! An escaped prisoner!”

For the first time Jean noticed the loop of chain descending from under the ragged blanket. Lifting the blanket, he saw that iron bands enclosed the man’s legs around each ankle, each thigh, and just above each knee. The bands were joined by a heavy chain suspended from a belt.

Holding the candle close, LaBarge removed the blanket and examined the man. His dirty shirt was stained with blood; he had been shot twice. The first was only a graze along the ribs, although it had bled severely; the other was a wound through the chest. There had been a bad flow of blood from that wound but the blood had no bubbles in it and the lung did not appear to have been penetrated.
 
“You must do nothing!” the driver insisted. “If you are caught it is hard labor in the salt mines. Let him die.”

“The hell with that.” LaBarge turned. “Shin, how’s the tea coming?”

“Soon ... and there will be hot water enough for the wounds.” Gratefully, the escaped prisoner accepted the scalding tea. He tried it gingerly, then sipped again. With a clean cloth LaBarge bathed the wounds.
 
Obviously, the second bullet had gone clear through, yet aside from lost blood no harm seemed to be done. Still, without care the man would bleed to death, and without fuel he would freeze.

Twice Boyar slipped into the night and each time returned with a huge armful of wood. Soon the fire was roaring. It was almost an hour before LaBarge completed his job of bathing, treating the wounds and bandaging them. By that time Boyar had prepared soup and Helena had broken bread into it. With a large spoon she fed the man, who scarcely took his eyes from her face, and then only to stare at LaBarge.

The driver sat hunched near the fire, his gaze averted, wanting no part in the crime. Yet from time to time he replenished the fire, and went with Boyar to gather more fuel. Finally, the driver went to a bunk and rolling up in his greatcoat, was asleep in a moment. Boyar gathered more fuel, ate a little, then followed him.

The prisoner dropped off to sleep and Helena joined LaBarge beside the crackling fire. Covering themselves with a blanket, his arm about her shoulders, they sat and watched the flames in silence. The cave room was warm now; the wind roared outside. Snow fell and hissed in the flames, and occasionally the wind guttered the fire, but there was no other sound but the snores of sleeping men.
 
Under the blanket Helena reached for and found Jean’s hand, and so they sat, and so, propped against a chair turned on its side, they slept.

Three days the storm blew without letup, but within the cave the fire kept them warm. There was fuel within a few steps of the door, yet each day found the driver, Liakov, more frightened. Obviously he wished to be far from the cave before a searching party would come for Marchenko, which, they discovered, was the prisoner’s name. He had escaped, he told them, by ducking away from a column of prisoners in a blinding snowstorm, but not before he was struck by two bullets. With his last strength he had dragged himself to the cave.
 
“I knew of it as a boy,” he told them. “It was a place where outlaws came.” His eyes went to Helena. “That was before I served in the Army.” “With what regiment?” Helena asked.

“The Semyonovsky, Madame. I often stood guard at the Peterhof and the Winter Palace.”

He knew her then, which explained the peculiar way he had looked at her when he had seen her that first night. He had probably recognized her at once.
 
“It is imperative,” she told him quietly, “that I reach St. Petersburg.” She kept her voice low so that the driver would not hear. “It is even more important that I reach there unknown to Siberian officials.” The pitifully thin lips smiled. “I am a poor convict, Madame. I have seen no one ... only a wandering hunter who bandaged my wounds and went away ... who knows where?”

By the evening of the third day the wind had died and LaBarge directed Liakov to make the tarantas ready for travel at daylight.
 
Liakov glanced at the convict. “What of him?” he asked. “We will turn him over to the police?”

“The safest thing for all concerned is to say nothing. This is police business.
 
The police will ask many questions. They will be pleased at no one for interfering.”

The morning dawned gray and cold. While Boyar aided Liakov with the harness, LaBarge stood by the bunk. He handed Marchenko a fistful of rubles. “These will help. My advice to you is to get away from here, even if you have to lie in the snow. I’ve left some tea on the table, and a bit of cheese and bread.” Outside the cold was piercing. The carriage started stiffly, but the horses were eager to go after their confinement and soon they had broken into a run. Several times they were forced to stop and remove trees blown across the road, and fifteen miles from the cave they came to their first halt-where they quickly changed horses and started off with a fresh team and driver. Glancing back as they pulled away, LaBarge saw Liakov staring after them.
 
“You are worried about Marchenko?”

“I hope he escapes, Helena. I hope he does.”

“He is very weak.”

“But his heart is strong.”

With such a one there was always a chance. How about himself? Would he have the fortitude to stand what Marchenko had stood? Could he survive? Would he lose his will to escape? If Liakov went to the police...
 
As if to atone for the past, the clouds drifted away and the sun appeared. It was spring and here and there the . hillsides showed a bit of green under the grays and browns. Twice they stopped to change horses, each time remaining with the volni system of free horses. The free drivers were known to the police, of course, but a man was harder to trace by that method than by the post system.
 
Often the volni drivers were weeks in returning to their home villages, which meant weeks before they could be questioned.