Louis L'Amour - Sitka

"I'd like to be there," Denny O'Brien said. "I'd like to see his face." The Susquehanna's second port of call was at Kootznahoo Inlet. The information LaBarge had received was clear. No ship had called at Kootznahoo since his own last trip, and there were many furs. It would be a rich cargo to pick up. When the Susquehanna dropped the hook off Kootznahoo head the bidarkas were swift to come.

A few days before the fast-sailing sloop had put into Sitka harbor, but had not gone near the dock. Rather, it had gone at once to the Lena and tied up alongside. Within an hour both the Lena and the Kronstadt slipped out of Sitka harbor, the Lena sailing north and around the island through Peril Strait, while the Kronstadt sailed south, rounded Point Ommaney and started north. The sloop, taking water and provisions from the Lena, never even docked at Sitka for fear the grapevine would carry word across the islands, but sailed immediately back to the United States.

The weather was good. Ben Turk, Gant and Boyar had gone ashore to hunt in the hills back of the inlet. Kohl was also ashore. Trading had been brisk that morning, but now it had begun to lag. Jean LaBarge went below and stretched out in his bunk.

He was half-asleep when from the deck there was a sudden wild yell, then a tremendous explosion. Leaping from his bunk he was thrown off balance by a second concussion. Lunging for the companionway he heard screams of agony from the deck, then a concussion from aft. He sprang put into a cloud of smoke and flame. Something forward was burning. The forem'st lay in a welter of tangled ropes and splintered wood. After, Duncan Pope and Ben Noble were working the gun, and near them, sprawled in the wreck of the helm, lay one of the Indians in a pool of blood.

Across the mouth of the bay lay the Lena. At a glance, LaBarge knew the situation was hopeless. There was no other way out of the inlet, and inside, the water was not deep enough to take the schooner. She would be shot to wreckage before they could get moving.

"Cut loose the anchor!" he yelled. "Get a jib on her!" A shell screamed overhead and lost itself somewhere in the woods. The schooner was moving slowly now. If they could get around Turn Point.. .. He had no hopes of saving the ship, what he wanted now was a chance for the crew to take to the hills. Once there, with the friendly Indians, they could hide out for weeks until they might reach the mainland.

Pope fired their own gun again, and LaBarge had the satisfaction of seeing the shell burst amidships, smashing the whaleboat to splinters and ripping sails and rigging. Now the Lena moved closer, getting into position to rip the Susquehanna with another broadside.

Enough of the wheel remained to swing the schooner and LaBarge started to put it over when a shell struck forward and he felt the ship stagger under a wicked blow in the hull. Then the shelling stopped. Their own gun had ceased to fire and turning he saw Duncan Pope sprawled on the deck, his skull blown half away. Noble caught his arm.

"We'd better run for it, sir!" he shouted. "They'll be alongside in a few minutes!"

Two boats were in the water, pulling strongly toward the wreck of the Susquehanna.

Dazed, he glanced around. Pope was dead, and another man lay sprawled amidships. The schooner was drifting helplessly, but the current, slight as it was, was taking them deeper into the inlet. The tidal currents there, he recalled, were fearfully strong.

The way was blocked. The Lena lay fairly across the only entrance and her boats were drawing near. There was nothing else for it. "Abandon ship," he said. "Get for shore, all of you."

"What about you?" Noble protested.

"I'll come," he said. "Get going!"

He turned to the companionway and went swiftly down the ladder. For the first time he realized how badly hulled they were: water stood on the deck of the saloon. He slipped a pistol behind his belt, caught up a coat. Alongside he heard splashes and yells as the crew jumped over the side. The shore here was nowhere over fifty yards away.

He went swiftly up the ladder and reaching the rail, turned back for a last long look. The forem'st was gone, trailing over the side in a mass of wreckage. The stern was a wreck and the deck was literally a shambles. Pope and Sykes were definitely gone, both killed in those few minutes of shelling. Luckily, most of the crew had been ashore. Yet ... the Susquehanna ... it was like deserting an old friend. He sprang to the rail.

Below him and not twenty yards away was the Russian longboat, and in it were a dozen men, six of whom covered him with rifles. In the stern sat Baron Paul Zinnovy, smiling.

To jump was to die, and he was not ready to die. The boat came alongside and the Russians swarmed aboard. Two men seized him and bound his hands behind him, stripping him of his pistol. Zinnovy scarcely glanced at him, walking about the ship, looking her over curiously. Other men had gone below to inspect the cargo. As he was seated in the boat one of the men spoke to the other and indicating LaBarge, said, "Katorzhniki."

It was a word that stood for a living death, it was the term applied to hard-labor convicts in Siberia.

May had come and gone before the news reached Robert Walker, and he acted with speed. The purchase of Alaska hung in the balance and the Baron Edouard Stoeckl was worried. He wanted to be back in Russia, or to have an assignment in Paris or Vienna, and everything depended on this mission. Now this LaBarge affair had to come up, and the man involved had to be a personal friend, a very close friend of Walker himself, known moreover to Seward, Sumner, all of them. Ratification of the treaty was not enough. The appropriation must be made. He had watched Congress in action long enough to know that the whole sale of Alaska might fail right there. And if any man could get out the necessary vote, it was Walker. Why couldn't that confounded Zinnovy have kept his ships in Sitka? He sat now, in Walker's home, and the little man with the wheezy voice glanced over at him. "Is there any news of LaBarge?" ' The Baron's face shadowed a little. He had hoped the subject would not arise.

"We have done our best, but--"

"Could it be possible," Walker suggested, "to arrange for the transfer of such a prisoner? Supposing he is in Siberia?"

"There is no record of such a prisoner," Stoeckl protested, "nor of any such capture. I am sure the whole affair is the figment of someone's imagination." "Sir," Walker's voice was stiff, "the man whose letter lies on my desk is a man of honor, LaBarge's partner and my friend. Not only was an American vessel shelled but its cargo was taken. This, sir, savors of piracy." Baron Stoeckl had friends in the Russian American Company, but Baron Zinnovy was not one of these. However, he had a very good idea as to Zinnovy's duties in Sitka, and it would not do to have such news reach the ears of the Czar. Stoeckl knew that following the return of Princess Helena there had been a great fuss, which had been calmed down only after some time. At this moment orders for a complete shake-up at Sitka were carefully pigeonholed in the Ministry of the Interior. A revisor was to be appointed to investigate, but so far this had not been done.

"I cannot see what good it would do to have the prisoner transferred if he remained a prisoner."

Walker brushed the question aside. "I have heard, correct me if I am wrong, that some convict labor is used in Sitka?"

Baron Stoeckl almost smiled. So that was what the fox was thinking! Maybe this man was married to Benjamin Franklin's granddaughter with some reason ... a prisoner transferred to Alaska on the evening of the sale would most certainly be freed when the Americans took over.

It was a very sensible idea ... and this he, Baron Stoeckl, might arrange. There were people, the superiors of Zinnovy, in the Ministry of the Interior who wanted LaBarge to remain a prisoner. Yet a prisoner might be transferred without incurring the displeasure of these people. It was something that might be done without endangering his own future prospects.