Russian Amerika (ARC) Read online

Grisha stared at the hate-filled eyes in the bloody face. He dimly realized this was the first fight he'd been in since he got married. He felt his windpipe crackle and knew he was going to die very soon.

  The lack of air became more pressing than the pain. He tried to struggle. But his arms lacked strength, pinned under the Russian's massive weight. Spots swam redly before his eyes.

  Karpov lurched violently, his jaw dropped open and his eyes lost focus. The terrible crushing at Grisha's throat eased as the man collapsed on him. The medicinal scent of vodka mingled with his last shuddering breath.

  Karpov suddenly rolled off Grisha and flopped on the deck, arms flung wide, and slid to the back of the boat in the quarter meter of water running across the deck. Valari pulled back the foot she had used to push Karpov's corpse and stood braced against the console. Blood and rain dripped off the steel spike on the halibut club in her hands.

  "Get up and drive this goddamned thing!" she screamed, waving the club.

  Even though Grisha felt like lying there and going to sleep, he rolled over and dragged himself up into the captain's chair bolted to the deck. Pravda rolled heavily to starboard again, and he grasped the wheel, turning to follow the roll, praying the tiller would grab enough water to keep from completely rolling over. Seawater seeped over the starboard gunwale as the boat pushed into multiple tons of brine.

  Pravda edged slowly into the keening wind, the laboring diesel barely audible, and slowly, reluctantly, creaked back to port. His head and throat ached. Every breath felt like fire. The spots dancing in front of his eyes gradually evolved into rain drops.

  "This isn't good weather for fishing," he said in a croak and shook his head. He pointed the bow into the wind and increased the throttle. Pravda surged against the storm and slowly made headway.

  He estimated the waves to be ten meters from trough to top.

  Valari huddled against the far bulkhead, braced and sobbing. "What are we going to do?"

  They were both soaked to the skin. The ocean temperature rarely warmed more than eight or ten degrees above freezing. With the squall blowing in excess of fifty knots, they both were in the depths of hypothermia.

  "We're going to live!" he said roughly, wincing at the pain in his throat. "We beat him, we can beat the storm!"

  "I'm so cold!" she wailed.

  "Go below, first locker on your right. Coats. Bring me one, too."

  The few minutes she took seemed like hours to him. She reemerged bundled in a coat too large for her and handed him a foul-weather jacket. He shrugged into the dry coat and knew he was going to be all right.

  "We m-must get rid of that," she said, nodding toward Karpov's bloody body. She was all business again, the tears gone but teeth still chattering. "B-but how?"

  "Why do we have to get rid of him?"

  "You f-fool! We've k-killed one of the Czar's co-cossacks! The Okhana will hang us both for that."

  "Find something heavy," he said. "Tie it to him. Once we're out of the weather, we'll dump him over. Tell them he fell over the side when he was drunk. They'll believe us."

  She gave him a look of respect and something else—he didn't know what. Despite the heavy weather she conducted a quick search, and drug out Karpov's heavy tackle kit.

  "Will this do?" Color had returned to her face and she no longer shivered. She only held the rail with one hand and didn't watch her feet. Grisha decided she was a natural sailor.

  "Open it. He brought that onboard. I want to see what's in it."

  Valari grabbed the halibut club and brought it down with on the kit a crash. The broken padlock skittered across the deck. She unsnapped the clasps and threw the lid open. Oily metal glistened from the box.

  "What the hell?" Grisha said.

  Valari pulled out a gleaming pistol, twisted it about while she examined it and released the rail to pull the slide open to look into the chamber. She had handled weapons before. Grisha felt his stomach drop. Other pistols rested in the box.

  "Kharitikoff, nine-millimeter," she announced. "Holds a clip of seven rounds, accurate up to twenty meters. An excellent weapon."

  Over the last seven years Grisha had carried many illegal items on his boat, but never this. He had two rifles locked in their rack down in the main cabin, but pistols?

  "Do you know what they do to you if they catch you with an unauthorized handgun?" Grisha asked, horror in his voice. "They take your dominant hand off at the wrist!"

  She looked at him for a long moment, then returned the pistol to the box and shut it. "Where's the rope?"

  Grisha pointed to another locker. "In there, but for now just hang on."

  The boat dropped heavily into another trough as he worked his way toward land.

  Back | Next

  Framed

  Back | Next

  Contents

  2

  Four Days Earlier

  It didn't take Grisha long to realize this was the charter trip from hell. He'd puzzled at it ever since the broker called to book boat and skipper for a five-day fishing trip to New Arckangel, the capitol of Russian Amerika, three hundred miles west. Most fishermen arrived at the dock the same time he did, eager to pursue the chavych, or Chinook salmon, or the monstrous halibut that could grow larger than a barn door.

  Grisha had arrived just after sunrise. The summer sun hung two hand widths above tree-covered Mt. Robare when he finally spied the big man lumbering toward him down the dock. The client dressed like a fisherman, complete with trolling pole and tackle kit, but he walked like a cossack—arrogantly precise in a ruler-straight line and exuding the certainty he owned the world. At the edge of the dock he stopped and stared into Grisha's eyes, spoke Russian. "You are Charter Captain Grigoriy Grigorievich, yes?"

  "Yes," Grisha replied in English. "Are you my charter to New Archangel?"

  The man casually threw his tackle kit over the gunwale. When Grisha caught it, he nearly collapsed with the surprising weight of the locked metal box. The man climbed on deck and looked around.

  "You have vodka onboard?"

  Grisha glanced at the chronometer in the console, it was half past eight of the morning. Stale sweat and bowel gas eddied around the large man, who dropped into the other seat bolted to the bridge deck.

  Grisha watched the man look around at his nautical surroundings, obviously for the first time. So what was in the tackle box? This was obviously a smuggling run and would provide much more money at the end of the trip than previously agreed.

  "Yes, and beer, even some California whiskey."

  The man regarded Grisha with baleful, piggish eyes. "That is against the Czar's law, unless you have paid the duty, of course."

  "Of course!" Grisha suppressed a grin while stowing the tackle box, which he estimated at ten kilos, with his own fishing gear.

  Like this walrus ever worried about duty taxes!

  Maintaining a professional mien, he slipped over the side onto the dock. "We're late. I'll get us underway." Quickly, he untied both lines and stepped back aboard.

  Grisha edged the boat into gear and eased the throttle forward. "Do you have a name?" Other than Pig-eyes?

  The boat gently left the slip and angled toward the channel. A warm breeze rippled the water and the sky stretched bereft of clouds as far as the eye could see. A charter skipper couldn't ask for better omens.

  "I am Karpov. How long does it take to get to T'angass?"

  "Depends on how much fishing we do on the way and how fast we go." Grisha snapped his head around and stared at Karpov. "Wait a minute, I thought we were going to New Arkhangel."

  "There has been a change of plans. I wish to go to T'angass,"

  Karpov said. "We will fish on the way back. At maximum speed, how long will it take us to get to get there?"

  "Today and two more days if we don't run into bad weather. If you're in a hurry, why don't you fly?"

  "I enjoy the sea air. Where is the vodka?"

  "In the galley." Grisha motored slowly past the harbor patro
l, careful not to show any wake. So far he wasn't making all that much on this run, and a fine would put him in the hole, as well as add stamps to his license. Collect enough stamps and the license disappears; he loved the symmetry of Russian law.

  Karpov disappeared into the cabin. Grisha decided he had a smuggler on his hands. Smuggling paid a lot better than charter fishing trips, so he would patiently wait for the proposal.

  A ruble was a ruble, what the hell. His wife's face flashed through his mind and he slapped the wheel.

  No time for that now. It's either better when I return or it's over. Small angry teeth bit inside his gut. They chewed at him a great deal these days. He felt pissed at himself.

  "Sorry I slapped you," he murmured to the wheel, "I was aiming for someone else."

  "Do you Creoles talk to yourselves all the time?" Karpov asked as he clumped up out of the galley. The bottle of vodka looked small in his wide, beefy hand.

  "I talk to my boat when the notion strikes me," he said, edging his words with a glint of steel. Grisha forced himself calm. This wasn't the old days, even if Kazina didn't want him any more. But if this tub of suet kept up this "Creole" crap there would be trouble.

  "You need some diversion on your boat for your passengers. Perhaps a Creole woman, heh?" Karpov laughed and drank from the bottle.

  Grisha ground his teeth. It was going to be a long trip.

  The boat burbled past the breakwater and into Akku Channel. He pushed the throttle forward, Pravda's cutwater surged up onto step, that portion of the boat where the vee of the hull flattens into a plane for moving at high speed, and raced cleanly toward the distant tip of Douglas Island.

  Grisha thought it humorous that an island in Russian Amerika bore the name of an English religious leader. But custom in the old days of exploration decreed that all nations would honor the wish of whomever named it first. British Captain George Vancouver had accurately finished what his former skipper, Captain James Cook, had started, and charted the entire southeast Alaska coast in the 1790s before Imperial Russia completely dominated the region.

  The constant rumble of stamp mills faded behind Pravda. They passed the whaling station on the island, scaring up part of the large flock of seagulls scavenging scraps. The station's stench caught them for an instant before the boat burst through the invisible miasma.

  "Smells like the Creole part of town," Karpov said.

  Abruptly Grisha pulled the throttle back to neutral and Pravda's bow dipped with the sudden loss of power. The boat drifted.

  "Why do you stop?"

  "There will be an understanding before I go any farther. I am the captain and owner of this boat. You are my passenger.

  "Despite the fact that my father was a poor Russian laborer and my mother was a Kolosh, you will show me the respect you would for any citizen, especially a boat captain. If you do not, I will return you to port so you can find a different charter to take you south."

  "That would not be a smart thing for you to do. You would miss making a great deal of money. Also, your license might be forfeit."

  "And your superior might ask many questions why I brought you back. Perhaps he has relatives who are Creole, or works with them. The Czar's ukase of 1968 said there would be no more prejudice because of one's birthright. That's nineteen years also, you should have heard about it by now. I don't want any more bigoted shit from you."

  Karpov's squinting eyes receded even further into his face as he took another long drink.

  "Drive your boat, I will say no more about your unfortunate station in life." As the beefy Russian lifted the bottle to his lips, Grisha pushed the throttle forward. Pravda reared like a cossack's horse and charged across the water. Karpov rocked back in his chair and vodka spilled down his neck and jacket front.

  "You dung-eating Cre—, you ass!" Karpov shouted. "I would punish you for that, but for the fact I need to get to T'angass as soon as possible."

  Grisha ignored him; a smile flickered at the edge of his mouth. More bullshit; if he wanted to get south as soon as possible he wouldn't have hired a small boat. His practiced eyes swept over the instrument panel and his mind ticked off the levels, amperage, RPM, and hull speed without actually thinking about them.

  Kazina's face occupied his thoughts. Her dark hair framed the high cheeks and nearly jade eyes. Lilacs always attended her.

  When they married just under six years ago he knew fortune had finally smiled on him. She epitomized the crowning accomplishment of his climb back from the lowest strata of the Czar's American possession.

  The illiterate son of serfs, his father married a Kolosh woman of the Kootz-neh-woo people from Admiralty Island. As a Creole, a person of mixed race, Grisha found himself equally shunned by the children of low-caste Russians as well as by the children of the Auk and Taku Kolosh, including his own cousins.

  At an early age he learned the three essentials of survival: a quick mind, lightning fists, and fast feet. After leaving the priest's school at fourteen, he crewed on a fishing boat. At seventeen he developed into a handsome combination of the ethnicities he represented.

  Grisha's virginity went to a pretty barmaid during an equinox party. Women in every port of the Alexandr Archipelago watched for him. His other idea of a good time usually involved a drunken fight after which his opponent had to be carried away.

  One night the fight was with his own skipper. Grisha won the fight but lost his berth. The next morning he joined the Troika Guard, Imperial Russia's slavish copy of the French Foreign Legion."

  Originally all the officers were Russian, but that had slowly changed over the years. However, all the enlisted were either minority races from the vast Russian Empire or foreigners. Never before had he been challenged on every level of his being, nor felt the degree of camaraderie, as he did in the Guard.

  The Russian Army was a political beast complete with intrigue whose genesis went back centuries. The Troika Guard was tough, demanding, and received all the hard, dirty jobs. In essence, they were mercenary troops—which suited Grisha just fine.

  He loved the Troika Guard. Starting as a sub-private he learned quickly and rapidly made his way upward to command sergeant in less than five years. His men loved him.

  At the age of twenty-five he received a battlefield commission as well as the Imperial Order of Valor, the second highest decoration the Russian Empire awarded her soldiers and sailors. Four years later came French Algeria and dishonor.

  His loathing of the Russian government began then and grew steadily over the years. Dealing with the day-to-day officiousness of Russian Amerika gnawed at him, but, like all other non-Russian residents, he endured.

  The mustering-out money bought him his home and his boat but cost him his self-respect. He started over, going back to the things he had learned before he had killed his first man. He returned to the life he knew before the Troika Guard, fiercely holding onto the freedom of being his own boss. After a couple years fishing, smuggling, and building up a charter business, he met Kazina at a party.

  She was a twenty-six-year-old bookkeeper with the Russian Amerika Company. Her extraordinary beauty lured him. Her intelligence hooked him. She made it plain she was on her way up and had no interest in a has-been.

  He pointed out that he worked for himself and made a good living. They married when he was thirty-two, still the master of Pravda, a ten-meter fishing boat. He rigged the boat for sport fishing, which had turned into big business along the Inside Passage. Financial opportunities also occurred for skippers who knew how to lade cargo quietly and get out of port quickly.

  At thirty-nine he could pass for a man ten years younger. Wiry and lean, with the exception of a slight paunch, he stood almost two meters and possessed open good looks that still attracted women who appreciated adventure.

  Now, after six, almost seven, years of marriage, Kazina seemed distant. Grisha's past attempts to interact with her friends always came off stiff and wooden. None of them were Creole. He detected or expected thei
r silent racism and ceased his efforts.

  The marriage had been on the ebb for some time before tall, blond, Kommander Fedorov knocked on their door with an "Imperial Order for Lodging an Officer of the Czar." Grisha's small chart room became the sacrifice for the officer's comfort and fanned the embers of his anger at the government. But the sudden animation he perceived in Kazina proved the heaviest burden.

  Until Fedorov arrived, Grisha entertained hope that he could find compromise with his beautiful wife. But she hadn't even said good-bye when he left for this charter. As a commander of troops he had learned the necessity of cutting one's losses. But this was much harder. The tiny teeth bit so hard in his stomach that he groaned aloud.

  "Go ahead, talk to your boat," Karpov said with a slur in his voice. "I'm going to take a nap. Wake me when the evening meal is prepared."

  As the burly man staggered down the steps into the cabin, Grisha steered sharply around imaginary flotsam, knowing the cossack would lose his balance in the narrow passageway. He heard Karpov crash into the companionway bulkhead.

  "Damn your black ass!" Karpov's voice was muffled by distance and engine noise. Grisha smiled, trying to make it a victory.

  Two days later, after pounding south at his top speed of twenty-four knots, Grisha still waited for enlightenment about the nature of his character. Maybe they were going to acquire contraband tomorrow in T'angass?

  Much smaller than Akku, Fort Dionysus claimed to be the second oldest settlement in Southeast Alaska, after New Arkhangel. Grisha had fished out of the small town in his youth and still had friends there.

  He pulled into the fuel dock, clicked the throttle back, and switched off the engine, letting the boat glide alongside the wooden dock. He grabbed the bowline, and nimbly jumped onto the bobbing dock to deftly loop two turns around a cleat.

  As soon as he dropped the line he grasped the boat rail to keep the stern from yawing away from the slip. The station worker came out of his small shack as Grisha snubbed down the stern line.

  "What ya runnin'?" The man said, and then blinked with surprise. "Grisha? That really you?"