Sitka (32 page)

From the beginning of Jean’s disappearance she had corresponded with Robert Walker. In his last letter he had hinted that Jean, as a convict, might be transferred to Sitka. She knew from here an escape might be arranged and she was perfectly prepared to do her part in making the arrangements.
 
A schooner that had come in only last night had brought news that a Russian ship was due in today, and Murzin was down in town even now making friends. If anyone could help Jean escape it was the former thief, that wiry, narrow-faced man who had never left her service since that meeting on the trip across Siberia with Jean.

At breakfast she had been gay, chatting cheerfully of St. Petersburg, the court, that handsome Count Novikoff, and the last ball at the Peterhof. She had told them of San Francisco and its warm green hills, sometimes misted with rain. She had talked of everything but the ship that hour after hour, minute after minute, was drawing nearer to Sitka. Even now it might be coming up the bay through those beautiful islands that resembled so much the islands of the Adriatic. A warmer sea, but never a more lovely one than this.
 
She went down the steps slowly, not wishing to reveal her excitement. If Jean was aboard she must help him escape, and that before the revisor came on his inspection trip. Maksoutof had told her the man was coming, but nobody knew when.

“Helena,” Princess Maksoutof suggested, “why don’t we go to the teahouse and watch the people land from the ship? They will come up the street and if we get in the right position we can see them leave the dock.” She got up, almost too quickly. “I’d like a walk,” she said. “I’d like it very much.”

Although from the teahouse they could see little, Helena forced herself to wait quietly, knowing whatever news there was would first be known here, long before it was heard on the Hill.

The waitress was excited. “They are bringing convicts ashore! They are to work here!”

“Irina”—Helena could wait no longer—“let’s go down and watch them come in!” They came, preceded by soldiers, in a column of twos, the gray-clad prisoners marching in slow, even steps swaying as though to a soundless rhythm.
 
The first two were a red-bearded giant and a slender man with a twisted face.
 
They blinked their eyes against the light after standing for some time in the shadowed warehouse. There was one man, tall, whose head was bowed. It could be Jean.

“Helena!” Irina caught her arm. “Look! Isn’t he magnificent!” He stood straight and tall, and he wore his chains in this town where he was remembered as another man might have worn a badge of honor. His face was shaggy with beard and his hair was long ... he was much, much thinner! But he stood tall and he walked tall. He carried his head up and his eyes were clear. How could she ever have imagined they could break or tame him? He was one of the untamed, and so he would ever be.

He walked beside a shorter man who was also bearded, but Helena had eyes only for Jean. She moved to the edge of the walk, hoping he would see her, hoping he would know she was here to help.

“Jean!” She must have whispered it, for Irina turned suddenly to look at her.

“Do you know him?” Irina’s eyes were bright with excitement and curosity.

“Yes ... yes, I know him. I know him well. I love him.” “You needn’t have told me that. I can see.” Irina looked at Jean again. “Yes, without so much beard, and if his hair was cut—“ She glanced around at Helena.
 
“Is that why you came? Did you know about this?”

“I came on hope,” she said.

Jean hunched his shoulders inside the thin coat. His eyes swung to the crowd, and suddenly he saw Helena.

An instant, a step only, he paused. Their eyes met across the heads of the people and suddenly there was a great smile on his face and Helena started forward. Irina caught her arm. “Not No, Helenal You mustn’t! I’ll arrange—“ “Whatever you arrange”—the voice was cool, amused—“do it quickly. He goes on trial tomorrow.”

Baron Paul Zinnovy was heavier, his thick neck had grown still thicker. There was in his eyes more cynicism and cruelty than Helena remembered.
 
“What are you doing here?” she demanded. He had been ordered back to Siberia, to Yakutsk. She remembered that. It could have been only a few months after Jean was captured.

“Why, I am the revisor,” he said, “here to rectify mistakes, conduct trials and discharge incompetent officials, but most particularly, to conduct trials.” “Haven’t you done enough to him? And to me?”

“To you?” His eyebrow lifted. “To you, Princess?” “You murdered my husband.” She spoke deliberately, coldly, and heard Irina’s startled gasp. “I shall not be able to prove it, but you murdered him, and we both know it.”

“It is a weakness of women to be overly imaginative, but if you wish to see reality, you may come as my guests to the trial of Jean LaBarge for theft, for smuggling, and for murder.”

The room was packed with spectators. As Sitka had little entertainment, the prospect of a trial conducted by Baron Zinnovy as revisor held an unusual interest. And the man on trial was as well known to them, by name at least, as the Baron himself.

LaBarge was seated, still in chains, inside a small enclosure. He had been allowed to shave, and his clothing had been carefully brushed. Here and there in the crowd he saw familiar faces, but there was no welcome on those faces, no expression of sympathy. He was alone here.

Yet he had seen Helena. Did that mean that Count Rotcheff had never left Sitka?

Or had he too returned again as Zinnovy had?

He had seen American ships in the harbor but there was no activity around them, and he had seen no Americans ashore in the town.
 
His thoughts returned to Rotcheff. If he was here he could do nothing, for LaBarge had been long enough in Siberia to know the power of the revisor. Appeal from his judgments could be made only to the Minister of the Interior or the Czar himself, and all such appeals were reviewed by the Ministry.
 
Siberia had made him suffer, but it had been a few months only, and this recall to Sitka had given him hope. If he could do nothing else, he could kill Zinnovy.
 
He needed no weapon but his hands, and once those hands were on Zinnovy’s throat nothing, nothing at all would stop him. He would kill Paul Zinnovy.
 
It would be absurdly easy. He could see where Zinnovy must sit, and he, LaBarge, must rise to receive sentence. His guards would be behind him, but the distance he must travel was short and they would not dare shoot at first for fear of hitting Zinnovy. Afterwards they would shoot him, but it would be better than Siberia again. Or the knout. He kept thinking of that.
 
Yet somewhere Rob Walker would be trying. By now he would know what had happened and Rob would move swiftly. No doubt he was working even now, and had been working, but it was too late. It was up to him, LaBarge, to do what he could.
 
He saw Prince Maksoutof and the Princess take their places, and Helena with them. Her face was pale, the circles under her eyes testifying to a sleepless night. Maksoutof had been pointed out to Jean by one of the guards. He was now the company director here, and governor of the colony. But even he could be removed by a revisor. The prison grapevine had a rumor that the Company had sent Zinnovy as revisor, appointed by somebody in the Ministry of the Interior who was a stockholder, to wipe out all evidence of the graft, cruelty and outright theft the Company officials had been perpetrating here.
 
Jean’s mouth was dry. He was tired and the room was warm. His clothing stank of prisons and of unbathed bodies. This was an end of it then, the end of all his dreams, hopes, and ambitions. Rotcheff, the only friend he might have expected here, was not present. Helena could not help him, and Busch was not present: the merchant must have returned to Siberia. He was alone ... alone.
 
What could be done? Being familiar with Russian courts, he knew that a trial was actually no trial at all but merely a hearing to air the crimes of the accused and pronounce sentence. The very fact that a trial was called meant the prisoner had been convicted.

The voices in the large room stilled, the clerk stood, then the spectators.
 
Baron Zinnovy, resplendent in a magnificent uniform, entered and seated himself behind the desk. “Proceed with the trial,” he said.
 
The clerk stood, then cleared his throat. The crowd leaned forward, the better to hear. “The prisoner will stand!”

Jean LaBarge got to his feet, the chains clanking in the silent room.
 
“You, Jean LaBarge, are accused: you are accused of illegal trading with Tlingit people in Russian territory; “You are accused of refusing to obey a command to heave-to given by a patrol ship of His Imperial Majesty;

“You. are accused of evading capture;

“You are accused of firing on the patrol ship Lena while it was in the service of His Imperial Majesty;

“You are accused of firing upon and killing three members of the crew of His Imperial Majesty’s ship, Lena;

“You are accused of the theft of furs belonging to the Russian American Cpmpany;

“You are accused of resisting capture ...”

The clerk’s monotonous voice rolled on with the long list of accusations, some carrying at least a grain of truth, most completely false, yet the voice droned on and on.

Behind the judge’s desk Baron Zinnovy filled his pipe and considered the clerk a dull stick and a fool, but it was something that must be done. Zinnovy stifled a yawn. It was warm in the overcrowded room. He had expected this to be a triumph, but LaBarge showed no weakening, no fear as yet. The whole affair was a confounded bore. He should have shot the man when captured, then he could have saved himself this.

Helena listened, her eyes half-closed against the sight she dreaded, against the heaviness of the room and the heat of the crowded, bodies. From such an array of charges there could be no.appeal, no hope of escape. The droning voice ended.
 
There was silence in the room.

From the back of the crowd a voice said, “It’s a pack o’ lies!” Baron Zinnovy did not lift his voice. “Arrest that man,” he said, then turned his heavy-lidded eyes on LaBarge.

“Has the prisoner any statement to make before sentence is passed?” There had been a knothole, long ago, through which came the first gray light of morning. It had been a long, long night but he had never doubted that help would come because his friend Rob Walker had gone for help, and Rob would not fail him. There was a knothole here, high near the eaves of the building, and a ray of light fell through it, too. He stared at it, remembering that morning so long ago. He began to smile.

Behind his desk Zinnovy’s eyes tightened a little and a line appeared between them. Why was the fool smiling? Had he gone insane? Could he not realize what sentence would mean? That there was no appeal? LaBarge got slowly to his feet.
 
“You ask for a statement.” He spoke in a dull heavy voice that gained in strength as he spoke. “Whatever I might say in denial of your false accusations would be ignored. To some of the charges I admit my guilt.” He smiled broadly.
 
“I admit to buying furs from the Tlingit and paying honest prices; I admit to evading the patrol ship because it was absurdly easy to do; but—“ His eyes strayed to the beam of light from the knothole near the eaves...
 
Puzzled by LaBarge’s expression, Zinnovy followed the line of his gaze to the knothole, puzzled even more when he realized at what LaBarge was staring.
 
Suddenly, Jean knew he was going to take a chance, a daring chance, but one through which he could lose nothing.

“I admit the truth of some of the statements,” he repeated, “but I deny they are crimes, Baron Zinnovy, I deny your right, as a Russian official, to conduct a trial on the territory of the United States!”

“What!” Zinnovy came half out of his chair. “What nonsense is this?” “People of Sitka!” LaBarge turned suddenly to face the crowd. “You stand now on the free soil of the United States of America! The treaty of purchase has been ratified and signed by the Czar, and this territory now belongs to the United States of America, and the Czar has proclaimed an amnesty, freeing all prisoners at present held in Sitka!”

The audience rose to their feet, cheering. Zinnovy was shouting, his face swollen with anger. Soldiers ran along the aisles, threatening the crowd. Slowly they subsided. Jean LaBarge remained on his feet, his heart pounding heavily. He had attempted a colossal bluff and now he must carry it through.
 
There were American ships in the outer harbor, and those ships had given him the idea. He knew that shipping men have a nose for developments, and that coupled with his great faith in his friend inspired him to the gamble.
 
The room was quiet and Zinnovy straightened in his chair. “Prisoner, I sentence—“ “You are without jurisdiction, Baron Zinnovy.” Jean’s voice was calm, but it carried to every corner of the room. “Sitka is now a territory of the United States and if sentence is carried out on me, you will yourself be liable to prosecution under the laws of the United States.” Zinnovy hesitated. He was trembling with fury, but he was never an incautious man, and now a beam of cool sanity penetrated his rage. LaBarge was too positive, too sure. If the sale had gone through, and especially if the money was not yet paid, and he passed sentence on an American citizen, he was buying himself a ticket to Siberia from which even his friends could not save him. And the Princess Helena was right here to report every detail, so he could never deny he did not know.