The Great Alone (26 page)

“Most … scattered … villages.” Each word seemed to require great effort.

“Where’s the greatest concentration of warriors?” Andrei persisted, but Tasha’s brother looked at him dully and closed his mouth in a mute show of resistance, moving his head slowly in denial. “Pour some more saltwater on his back,” he told the Cossack officer as he let go of that black hair to step back. “But do it slowly.”

As the sea brine trickled onto his mangled back, a strangled cry of pain erupted from deep inside the Aleut’s throat. He arched convulsively. Andrei watched him writhe and twist as the torture was drawn out. He smiled faintly in satisfaction when he heard the murmured plea, “No, no,” mixed in with the long moan. With a wave of his hand, he signaled the Cossack to cease pouring.

“Where’s the greatest concentration of warriors?” Andrei repeated his question while faint tremors quivered through the Aleut. This time when he met Andrei’s gaze, his eyes held fear.

“Not far … temporary camp …” His breathing was rough and shallow, racked with the pain consuming him. “… two hundred … two hundred fifty warriors.”

“So close,” Solovey murmured.

“Why are there so many in one place?” Andrei demanded.

Broken by the unendurable pain, and the threat of more, he eventually told them everything—the reason for coming to the camp, the plan to attack it under the cover of fog, the number of firearms in the Aleuts’ possession—no detail was withheld.

As soon as it was determined there was no more to be learned, Solovey set out for camp with his men to prepare for the coming attack. Andrei promised to support him with a contingent of men from his vessel, but the reinforcements wouldn’t be transported ashore until the fog came in, so the Aleuts wouldn’t be aware of the camp’s increased strength.

When the boat carrying Solovey and his men pulled away from the
Andreian i Natalia,
Andrei turned to the semiconscious form sprawled on the deck. Hardly an inch of flesh on the man’s back remained intact. Unmoved by the gore before him, Andrei crouched down beside him and grasped the black hair to lift the man’s head.

“Where is Tasha? Where is my son?”

Her brother babbled an unintelligible answer in his native tongue. Andrei roughly tightened his grip, yanking the head back a little farther. “In Russian,” he ordered.

Although the response was barely coherent, Andrei understood enough. His fingers released their grip on the black hair, letting the head fall back to the deck. Straightening, Andrei faced northward. The misting rain reduced the visibility, hiding the other side of the bay. His son was there in a large village where the women and children had been sent. Soon he would hold him in his arms again. The certainty of it flowed through him like an invigorating tonic.

“What do you want done with the prisoner?” the Cossack asked in a hesitant voice.

“Tie him up.” Andrei walked away.

CHAPTER XV

The thick gray-white fog seemed to muffle all sound. A horde of wraithlike figures moved stealthily forward in the eerie stillness, closing silently around the crudely built hut. A few of the natives wore vests of armor made out of vertical rods of wood lashed together with sinew, the garment signifying their status as village headmen. The war party crept to within thirty feet of the structure, apparently undetected. Suddenly, without warning, the Russians inside opened fire. At point-blank range, the result was devastating. The Aleuts attempted to charge the hut but the barrage of musketfire drove them back. Giving up the battle, they fled the scene, leaving a hundred of their dead behind.

Aboard the
Andreian i Natalia,
Walks Straight was briefly roused from his pain-filled stupor by the thundering report of the muskets. He heard the death cries of his warrior comrades and felt the crushing guilt of his betrayal. A tear ran down his cheek as he lay open-eyed, staring vacantly into the swirling fog. It was the pain, that’s why he’d done it. They had to understand what it was like to be locked in the throes of a killing agony and not die. He shut his eyes, but there was no release from the suffering that tortured his body and his mind.

When the fog finally thinned, eliminating the possibility that the natives might try another sneak attack, the Russians ventured out of the hut. The wounded they found among the battlefield dead were mercilessly dispatched, and the bodies heaped in a common grave. After locating the abandoned encampment of the war party, they destroyed the temporary dwellings and several baidars.

Frustrated, Solovey looked over the demolished camp. “Those bloodthirsty natives have probably scattered to all points of the island by now.”

“I think not,” Andrei said and motioned for the two promyshleniki guarding his prisoner to bring him forward. Weakened from the loss of blood and immobilized by the excruciating pain from his back, he had to be bodily dragged over. “Where would the warriors have gone when they left here?” There was a barely perceptible shake of the head, denying any knowledge. “Would they have gone to the village where the women and children are?” Andrei demanded confidently and noted with satisfaction the small nod of agreement.

“I wondered why you kept the bastard alive.” Solovey smiled in approval. “This village, how far is it from here?”

“An hour’s march.” Andrei knew he needed to say no more than that. By nature, Solovey was cruel and given to excess. Avenging the massacre of his fellow countrymen provided the Russian with a ready excuse to indulge in his brutal passions.

Solovey called his men together and informed them of their new objective. “Before the day is over, these savages will learn how costly it is to spill Russian blood.”

The lookout’s warning came too late to evacuate the women, children, and wounded from the village. Everyone took refuge inside the earthen-walled barabara. The dwelling had been built for defense, with interior posts supporting an upper wooden walkway from which warriors could shoot their arrows through apertures in the roof. The men scrambled up notched logs to take their defensive positions and await the assault of the Cossacks.

With her son, Tasha joined the mothers, who gathered all the young ones at one end of the barabara, thus freeing other women to look after the wounded and infirm. All around her, children whimpered and cried, confused and frightened by the panic they sensed in the adults. Tasha felt it, too, and held an infant child more tightly in her arms, at the same time trying to keep Zachar beside her. A young girl, ten summers old, finally picked him up and hugged him close to her slim body, drawing comfort from him as much as she comforted.

A musket boomed, scaring screams from children, but it was just the beginning. The singing of bowstrings couldn’t match the roar of the Russian weapons, and the shower of arrows was answered by a hail of bullets flying through the defensive openings. Amidst the noise of battle and sobbing children came the cries of the wounded as the impact of bullets sent them spinning off their perches onto the crowded floor of the barabara. One landed in front of Tasha, half of his face blown away. She stared in horror at the bloodied cavity where a cheekbone and eye had once been.

The futility of their fighting quickly became apparent to the surviving warriors, and they abandoned their defensive positions, hauling down the notched logs behind them. They sat down among the others to wait, shielded by the dirt walls of the semi-subterranean dwelling, while lead balls continued to thwack into the ceiling rafters.

The musket barrage tapered off, then stopped. In the ensuing silence, the beat of Tasha’s heart sounded in her ears. Tensely, she strained to hear some sound above the soft whimpers of the children and the low moans of the wounded. She huddled more closely against the woven-grass matting that covered the earthen wall, protectively cradling the infant in her arms. She glanced at her son, assuring herself that he was faring well in the young girl’s care.

As the silence lengthened, with no sound coming from outside, her attention strayed to the roof of the dwelling. The hatch was the only way out and the only way the Cossacks could get in. She watched for any telltale sifting of dust from the sod roof that would warn of their approach. Nothing. Her anxiety grew with the strain of waiting. She didn’t believe, as some were murmuring, that the Cossacks might have left.

The soft scratching sound, not unlike that of an animal digging in the earth, was so faint that Tasha didn’t notice it at first. When it finally penetrated her consciousness, she stiffened away from the wall in alarm, then looked back at it, trying to determine the direction of the sound. As she was about to warn the others that the Cossacks were digging a hole in the side, the scratching stopped. Tasha waited, but it didn’t resume. Tasha loosened her hold on the baby and once again turned her back to the wall.

A tremendous force pushed her from behind, propelling her forward. Instinctively she half turned to let her shoulder absorb the impact of the fall and protect the baby. She never heard the explosion that blew in the wall and only knew the shock of motion followed by an enveloping blackness.

When she came to, frantic wails made the first impression on her senses, followed by cries of terror and panic from the villagers. Tasha was conscious of a heavy weight pinning her legs as she shifted position to check the baby. A thin layer of dirt covered much of its face, getting into its eyes and mouth. Tasha wiped as much of it away as she could while she realized that somehow the wall had caved in. It was the weight of its dirt that trapped her legs.

Cossacks streamed through the breach in the wall, intent on the warriors and ignoring the women and children. Twisting and clawing, she managed to pull her legs free of the dirt and crawl through the debris to a dark corner, hugging the baby to her breast with one arm. Panic reigned as people ran in all directions trying to escape the swarming Cossacks. Tasha struggled to avoid catching the terror in the air while she looked at the confusing mass, trying to locate her son. She was still dazed from the concussion of the blast, her head ringing.

She saw the body lying motionless beneath a cross beam that had collapsed during the cave-in. It was the young girl who’d been holding Zachar. Tasha went cold with fear. Hurriedly she laid the baby on the floor and pulled a torn section of woven matting over the infant to conceal it, then scrambled over the dirt and debris to the girl’s body, fearing that her son might have been crushed beneath the beam as well.

She rolled the timber off the inert girl. Zachar wasn’t beneath her. She looked wildly about and saw a pair of chubby legs sticking out from a nearby pile of dirt. “Zachar,” Tasha cried and attacked the pile, frantically clawing and digging at the smothering dirt.

Intent on rescuing her son, Tasha was mindless to all movement around her. Suddenly, she was violently shoved aside. She tried to scramble back to the pile, but Andrei had taken her place. For an instant, she stared at him in frozen panic. He had come for his son, as she had always known he would. He would take Zachar from her.

Wildly she threw herself on him, hitting and pulling, trying to drag him away from her son, but he paid no more attention to her than a nest-robbing raven pays to the panicked flutterings of a mother wren. A part of her was conscious of his hands tunneling alongside the child’s body. The dirt fell away as he lifted the little boy. Tasha abandoned her assault at the sight of the child’s blue lips and discolored face, unmistakable evidence of suffocation. But the boy wasn’t Zachar, and a tremor of relief shuddered through her.

“No,” Andrei moaned rawly.

Seeing the tortured look of grief in his expression, Tasha reached to take the dead child from him and tell him it wasn’t their son. He saw the movement of her hands and turned on her. She glimpsed the madness in his eyes. He swung his arm wildly, the back of his hand striking her squarely on the cheek. Pain exploded in her face as the force of the blow knocked her to the dirt floor. Stunned, she lay there tasting the blood in her mouth while black waves swam before her eyes.

A pair of boots walked by her. Through the swirling mist of her vision, Tasha saw Andrei gently lay the dead child on a grass mat, then stumble blindly through the gaping hole in the earthen side of the barabara. He believed their son was dead. Now she had to find Zachar and get away, Tasha thought.

One whole side of her face continued to throb painfully as she pushed to her feet and staggered back to resume her search for Zachar.

A bearded Cossack loomed before her, a bloodied sword in his hand. Tasha recoiled from the killing lust she saw in his eyes. But he grabbed her by the shoulder and roughly shoved her, pushing her into the flow of frightened villagers being herded outside. She was trapped like all the others.

As she emerged from the barabara, a Cossack motioned her toward a group of women and children huddled together. Tasha hurried to join them, casting fearful glances about for Andrei, but he was nowhere to be seen. She looked anxiously back at the barabara, wondering what had happened to Zachar, and noticed that the men were being grouped separately from the women and children. Tasha remembered the story of the massacre on Attu when Strong Man was killed, and felt a sickening knot of fear in her stomach.

Just then an old woman came out of the dwelling carrying Zachar in her arms. The joy she felt that her son was alive and well almost compelled Tasha to rush out to reclaim him, but she was afraid Andrei might be somewhere nearby watching. It was better that he believed Zachar was dead. No longer did she feel any of the compassion that had so briefly influenced her. After the old woman joined the group, Tasha moved to stand behind her.