Louis L'Amour - Sitka

"I've seen these fogs last two weeks."

"All right. Get a boat into the water and we'll explore a little. See? There's about four feet of clearance between the water and the fog." They were taking a chance, he realized that. With the onset of darkness finding the ship again might be difficult. Still, there was no place it could go, and they had only to come back up the strait to find it. Strait? More likely an inlet. They shoved off and let the longboat drift along close to the shore. Nearly a half hour had passed when Boyar, who was in the bow, lifted a warning hand. At the signal all rested on their oars, and then they all heard it. Somewhere not far off a man was whistling. Then something dropped on a deck and a man swore in Russian.

The boat still drifted, and then, plain to all of them, from beneath the fog they saw the gray hull of the patrol ship. She lay fair across the mouth of the inlet, blocking any escape.

A voice spoke in Russian. "I saw slops from a ship in the opening of the inlet. We've only to wait until the fog lifts and then go in after them. This is Tenakee Inlet and there is no other way out, I know the place well." At a signal from Jean the oars dipped gently and turning the boat they started back the way they had come. His own ship was up the inlet and out of hearing of the Russian.

Tenakee Inlet ... there was something he should remember about Tenakee. He scowled into the fog ... it had been a half-breed who had come down the coast with old Joshua Flintwood, the Bedford whaler. Once on the schooner's deck he wasted no time. "We'll go to the head of the inlet. There may be a way out." "If there is," Kohl said skeptically, "we'd best find it. Once the fog lifts the Lena is coming in, which leaves us like a duck in a shooting gallery." "We've got that long." Duncan Pope spat over the rail. "He'd be a fool to come in here before the fog lifts."

All the long day through they crept up the inlet through fog like gray cotton, holding as close to shore as feasible, taking soundings as they proceeded. Twice they passed small openings but each proved to be a bay, and it was not until almost dusk that the fog thinned close to shore and they glimpsed the head of the inlet, fronting a mud flat. Wanting time, Jean had the hook dropped and the schooner swung to anchor.

"Any chance of slipping by?" Kohl wondered.

"No ... not with his guns. He's just inside the opening of the inlet where he can cover the passage."

At the shore the fog was thinner. It drifted in ghostly wraiths among the dark sentinel pines. A break in the line of trees caught Jean's eye, and he had a sudden hunch. "Drop the boat over, Barney. Then pick four men and we'll go ashore."

Leaving the boat on the gravel beach, Jean LaBarge led the way toward the break in the trees. To the right and left the forest was a solid wall of virgin timber, dripping with damp from the fog, but before them the opening gaped wide and they stumbled into a narrow path that led into it. It was very still. There was no movement of wind or animal. Only water dripping from the trees and the gray mystery of the fog. There had been a wider track here at one time, and only a few large trees in the opening, although some of the bordering pines were magnificent trees. When they had walked about fifty yards they found themselves looking out over another arm of the sea. Jean walked down to the edge and tasted the water. It was salt. It was an arm of the sea of some size and it ran in a northwesterly direction. Boyar shifted his rifle to his other arm, and got out his chewing tobacco. "That there," he said, "must open into Icy Strait."

The water was obviously quite deep only a few feet out from shore. He had an idea and it scared him. If a man could catch a spring tide ... or even without it. But it was a fool idea.

He seated himself on a rock and stoked his pipe. The shore was flat and this was an old Indian portage where they had carried their canoes and bidarkas from one inlet to the other for many years. The water was deep off both sides, and at no place was the level of the portage more than six feet above the water level. There were indications that the sea had once been higher. No doubt the level of the water had fallen with years, but at present the distance was a bare sixty yards from inlet to inlet. Yet a schooner was not a canoe that one could pick up and carry across a neck of land.

Getting to his feet he strolled slowly back toward the Susquehanna, studying the ground ivith care. The big question was the fog. How long would it hold? How long would Zinnovy be content to wait him out? A slight change in the wind, or even a rise in wind strength, and the fog would be blown out to sea, leaving them naked and exposed. They had but one gun, although of very good range, and the patrol ship had ten guns and Zinnovy was a naval officer accustomed to handling ships under fire. If it came to a fight they would have absolutely no chance; the superior maneuverability of the schooner was useless in the narrow inlet.

The portage was wide enough, and they would have to fell some trees, anyway. Did he dare take the gamble? The Vikings used to take their ships over narrow necks of land, and there had been a pirate in the West Indies who had ... Closer to home, Jean had himself seen the Missouri River steamboats "grasshoppered" over sand bars, an occurrence common to nearly every trip upriver. "All right, Barney," he said finally, "break out that heavy tackle. Get twelve men ashore with axes and make it fast. We're going to take the Susquehanna over the portage!"

Chapter 25

The forest rang with the sound of axes and the torchlight cast weird, dancing shadows upon the backdrop of fog and forest. The first of the skids was in place and the two most expert axmen in the crew were beveling the edges, trimming them as smooth as if planed. The anchor trees had been selected and the brush cleared. The skids were run down into the water and as it was nearly high tide the bow of the schooner was being eased up to the skids. Six men with poles on either side of the bow were helping to guide her into the troughlike opening of the skid. The smoothed-off sides of the skids were heavily coated with grease and a wire rope ran to the big tree well inland through two huge blocks with snatch blocks attached to trees along the portage to exert greater pull. The bow eased into the skid opening and the men dropped their poles and scrambled up the bow chains to the deck to join the others at the capstan. Setting their capstan bars in place they began to walk around and take up the slack. Twelve men leaned their strength into the bars and two more slapped grease on the skids. Slowly, the schooner began to inch up the skids. "I've been thinking," Pope said suddenly, "--that other inlet over there. I think that's the same inlet where Hoonah village is. The directions line up right, and Hoonah is Chief Katlecht's village. He hates Russians." LaBarge thought a minute. He knew of Katlecht; he was, in fact, one of the chiefs to whom he had sent presents, and from whose village had come some of the best furs he had been buying in the past years. "I had an idea," Pope added, "one of us might go to see him. We could use thirty or forty of those husky lads of his right now." "Do you know him?"

"I should hope to smile." Pope chuckled. "Spent a couple of months in the village, even had me a Kolush wife. Maybe I should have stayed." "Take Boyar and get on over there. Get what information you can, and if you can get some help, bring them on the jump."

The schooner was moving slowly, but it was moving. The rigging of the snatch block had increased the strength of the pull by several times and the schooner was inching up on the skids. The remainder of the crew were trimming felled trees for skids to be used further along.

Jean walked along the line of travel with a rifle under his arm, but from time to time he took an ax and spelled one of the crewmen. Kohl was himself taking a place at the capstan ... day would soon be breaking. Would the fog lift? With the schooner high and dry they would have no choice but to abandon it and take to the woods, and that would mean destruction of the schooner and their chance of escape as well.