Russian Amerika: Chapter Two

    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 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 skipper. Grisha won the fight but lost his berth. The next morning he joined the Troika Guard, the "Russian 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 1.7 meters and possessed open good looks, which 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 their silent racism and ceased his efforts.

    The marriage had been on the ebb for some time before tall, blonde, 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 24 knots, Grisha still waited for enlightenment. 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?"

    "Alexi! By God, you're working a real job."

    Alexi's face sported new lines and old scars. A limp now slowed him. He looked thinner than ever.

    "Whose boat you workin' here?"

    "Mine." Grisha said.

    "So that's why you quit drinkin' with us, you were savin' your money."

    "You got it, Alexi. How have you been?"

    Alexi's grin dampened down to a polite grimace. "Getting by. You know, job here, job there, working as crew when the Chinook are running, or the czar krab fishery gets good. That don't happen much no more. Dimitri offered me a day job running his fuel dock, so I took it."

    The suddenly diminished man ran an expert eye over Pravda. "Nice boat. Your home port is Akku these days?"

    "Yeah. Even got a marriage that's going sour."

    Alexi stepped back into the shack, professionally looked over his shoulder at Grisha. "Diesel or mix?"

    "Diesel."

    "So," Alexi said when fuel gurgled through the hose into the boat. "You got any kids?"

    "No. All I have is my Pravda, here."

    "Why'd you name it after something that doesn't exist?" Alexi asked with a flash of bitterness.

    "She's the only truth I know," Grisha answered.

    The boat rocked and Karpov came out on deck. "What is this place?"

    Alexi grinned up at him. "Welcome to Fort Dionysus, home to promyshlenniks since 18-"

    "I care nothing about fur hunter dens. Is food to be had here?"

    "There's a lodge just up the street from the end of that dock," Alexi said, jabbing a thumb toward the shack.

    Karpov gave Grisha a sour glance. "You will come and tell me when you are ready to leave, Captain Grigorievich." Then he stomped up the ramp to solid ground.

    "Thought you was done with the military," Alexi stared at him under raised brows. "What you doing with a fucking cossack like that?"

    "If I knew, I'm not sure I could tell you, old friend."

    After Grisha paid for the fuel, he moved Pravda to transient moorage, then found his way up to the Canada House Lodge. Despite the late hour, the sun barely touched the mountains on Zarembo Island. Diners laughed, drank, and ate on the screened-in deck.

    Grisha found a table, ordered, and had just swallowed his second mouthful of beer when Karpov loomed over him.

    "When do we leave this place?"

    "I'd like to get underway at 0700 tomorrow, if you can be on board that early."

    Karpov stalked into the lodge.

    Why was the man pretending to be thicker than he really was? If they were smuggling something in the tackle box, when would Karpov broach the subject? Did the Russian plan to set Grisha up as a dupe, or think he could endanger boat and captain without a cut of the profits?

    The next morning he glanced at the cloudless horizon, sucked hot tea through the sugar cube clenched in his teeth, and eyed the brass-cased chronometer on the console. The sharp, iodine-tinged smell of tidal flats filled his nostrils. At 0658, just as he allowed his tongue to seek out the final sweet granules, Karpov plodded down the steep ramp.

    Fall and break your neck, pig-eyes. I'll tell your keeper you didn't know what a low tide was.

    Karpov did not fall.

    Without a word Grisha untied the boat and pushed off. He wanted to make T'angass by early afternoon. Three days of sunshine unnerved seamen in this part of Alaska - after a time it felt natural and if one took good weather for granted one would pay for it.

    Grisha had attended ten funerals where the coffin was merely for show - the men, and one woman, lost to fierce storms on days that began this promising. The Alexandr Archipelago was legendary for its sudden bad weather.

    Karpov again disappeared below and Grisha relished the solitude. Once he saw a humpback but didn't radio in the plot. He enjoyed watching the huge, sleek mammals, and those whaling bastards never paid the spotter's fee anyway.

    Twice he switched on the weather channel to ensure the high-pressure cell still held as expected. The air remained crisp and fresh, adding to his edginess.

    For the rest of the six-hour run into T'angass the smooth wood of the steering wheel constituted his only connection with here-and-now reality. Despite himself, everything reminded him of Kazina's body on their wedding night. The texture of her skin had seeped into the steering wheel. The heavy, rounded console jutted toward him like her generous, gravity-defying breasts.

    The sparkling light on the sea brought to mind her eyes when she laughed. He pulled his gaze away from the water, tried to concentrate on something else, break the train of memory. Two mountains on the mainland curved gently together, forcefully reminding him of Kazina's perfect ass.

    He knew he would never enjoy her body again. With absolute conviction, he also knew if he didn't have this charter he'd be dead drunk by nightfall. Not even losing his commission had been this painful.

    Revillagigedo Island loomed large on the bow when Karpov returned to the bridge deck. The big Russian made a show of examining his wristwatch.

    "You've made excellent time, Captain," he said in heavy English. "Perhaps it is good I make you angry so you can concentrate on the job at hand."

    Grisha's eyes ached from squinting at bright water. His kidneys throbbed from the pounding of a boat on step. The draining exhaustion of long, boring hours in open air weighed on him like a two-bottle hangover.

    "Believe what you will, cossack."

    Karpov frowned. "This is something you must not call me. If I do not call you Creole, you must not address me as cossack. Agreed?"

    "You're the customer," Grisha said.

    "Da. Very good. Pull into the fisherman's dock, we pick up our passenger there."

    "Passenger? I thought you were getting off here." The vision of four beers lined up on a bar wavered.

    "Last evening in Fort Dionysus I was apprised of a change in plans. We will pick up a passenger here and go to New Arkhangel immediately."

    "That's out of the question! I've been pushing this boat for three straight days. The weather's been good for over five days and it's bound to turn. Besides, how do you know I don't have another charter?"

    Whatever this was about, Grisha realized, it wasn't smuggling.

    "Perhaps if your fee was increased?" Karpov asked, raising his right eyebrow skeptically. The corners of his mouth twitched, as if playing an elaborate prank.

    Grisha stared at T'angass. A neon sign gleamed in the late afternoon shadows. He knew the owner of that bar, and she would be very happy to see her old lover.

    It had been a long time since a good-looking woman had felt that way about him. He desperately craved reaffirmation from the gentler sex. The vision of beer dimmed further. He squinted back at Karpov.

    "By how much?"

    Karpov held out a wad of rubles, which more than doubled the original fee. Grisha made the money disappear along with thoughts of carousing with Natalia Fialikof.

    "I'll need to refuel and get some more supplies."

    "Be sure to get plenty of vodka this time."

 

---

 

    Fuel topped off, food and spirits stowed, Grisha had dropped onto one of the four passenger bunks and glanced around. Everything was ship-shape. He peered at his watch.

    He didn't want time to brood.

    Where the hell is that damned cossack? I thought he was in a hurry.

    He felt anxious they weren't smuggling. What else could this trip be for? Boat travel was no more secure than taking one of the new four-engine airliners, and a damned sight more tedious.

    The boat rocked to port and a female voice said, "Give me a hand, would you, Nikki?" The English sounded accent-free.

    Grisha's interest quickened. He had assumed the second passenger would be another cossack. Was this an elaborate assignation?

    "Karpov. You will address me as Karpov while on this craft."

    "Fine. Now give me a hand, would you?"

    Grisha eased into the companionway and moved quietly up the steps to the bridge deck.

    She wasn't much to look at, certainly not enticing enough to fetch all the way from T'angass. But then someone as ugly as Karpov might have to go to extraordinary lengths to get laid. Perhaps she was something else. A relative?

    Short blonde hair capped a face composed of planes and angles rather than the soft rounded features expected on a woman. The full lips of her mouth made its excessive width enticing. Dark eyes flashed about, assessing the small bridge deck.

    She wasn't nearly ugly enough to be Karpov's sister, but perhaps a cousin. Grisha stepped into view. Her agreeable proportions and medium stature heightened his interest.

    "Ah, here is Charter Captain Grigorievich. We can leave at once," Karpov said.

    The woman's eyes traveled over him slowly. Nothing coy about this one, he thought. He smiled.

    "Welcome aboard Pravda. I'm Grisha. May I stow your gear?"

    Her face softened a measure, adding attractiveness, and she handed him the canvas bag, it weighed nothing. An unknown, but delectable, scent touched his nose during the exchange.

    "Captain Grisha," she said with the smallest of smiles. "I'm Valari Kominskiya." Her English sounded first language. He wondered if her Russian was as proficient.

    Grisha put the bag on the forward bunk and returned to the bridge.

    "We can leave now." Karpov said again.

    Fifteen minutes later, as Pravda motored north on T'angass Narrows, their conversation became cryptic.

    "Did you have difficulty getting in or out?"

    "No," Valari said. "My documents worked as smoothly as gold in St. Petersburg."

    "Keep your subversive comments to yourself, or I'll take official notice," Karpov said with a growl. "What is the temper of Sam?"

    What on earth were they talking about, more relatives? Grisha turned his head slightly to hear her answer over the engine noise. Karpov caught the movement.

    "Wait," he ordered. "We'll go below to the cabin where there are fewer ears."

    Grisha stared studiously through the windscreen while the two clumped down the steps into the cabin. He smiled to himself and slid aside a piece of the console molding. Some cargoes could speak, and additional knowledge had a way of turning into more rubles. After mounting the tiny phone in his right ear, he flipped the switch concealed in the opening.

    "…States are very nervous. One man told me they were 'waiting for the other shoe to drop,' whatever that means," Valari said.

    "Which do they fear the most, New France or the Confederacy?"

    "It's a toss up," she said in fluent Russian. "They are allies. Tension is high between the governments. Texas is very friendly to British Canada. The great fear in Texas is of New Spain and the First People's Nation. Our historic ally, the Spanish, have been rattling sabers along the Rio Grande by placing additional troops at El Paso and Marronville. With New Spain as common enemy, California and Texas get along well. California is so friendly with British Canada that one may cross the Columbia River freely without showing a passport on either side."

    "The religious country in the wasteland, is it anything we must worry about?"

    "Deseret? The Mormons hate the other nations so fiercely they would sell themselves to the French Catholics before they would help any of them. They are neutral, you know."

    "Neutral, in what way?"

    "No matter who fights who, they will join neither side. Like Switzerland in Europe."

    "So our U.S. friends are completely surrounded by antagonism," Karpov said.

    "So it would seem. But what do we really care about North Amerikan countries?"

    "We have internal problems you will be apprised of in New Arkhangel. If the southern countries were to act in tandem against us it would be very bad."

    "I didn't see any unity or antagonism. But I saw a lot of spoiled people."

    "You're becoming hardened," Karpov said.

    "Not hardened, envious. Every one of our agents-in-place lives on a grand scale compared to what my family has in Russia. Our woman in Montreal owns two automobiles!"

    Grisha blinked. Karpov was a spymaster? They chartered Pravda for a debriefing session? It did make sense, after a fashion.

    "No!" Karpov's surprise carried clearly over the tiny earphone. "Perhaps we should pay them less?"

    "At least she provides us with accurate information. She told me there is softening about us in the western republics."

    "Didn't you just come through California?"

    "Yes. But our man in San Francisco spends all of his money on cannabis cigarettes, which makes him useless for days at a time. All he wanted to do was make love and eat."

    "Did you?"

    "Did I what?"

    "Make love with him."

    "That is none of your svinia affair."

    "It used to be."

    Something thumped on the table, and Grisha realized Karpov had been drinking vodka throughout the debriefing.

    "Not any more, Nikki. You're just not my type."

    "You'd sleep with our Creole captain, I saw it in your eyes."

    "He is pretty to look at, but he holds no interest for me beyond the objectives of our voyage. I am weary of men and their strutting and crowing."

    "You prefer women to sleep with, is what you mean?"

 

---

 

    Valari stomped up the companionway. Grisha's heart lurched as he jerked the tiny phone from his ear and hastily stuffed the wires back into their hidden compartment. She stormed past before he could shut the false molding, but she had eyes only for her anger and the passing scenery.

    "That bastard is such a svinia, a pig!" she said in a hissing voice. "Someday I will kill him."

    "I believe he dropped out of finishing school," Grisha said in a theatrical Californian accent. He quietly pushed the small door shut. The molding blended with the rest of the console. He wondered what she meant by "the objectives of our voyage."

    When Valari laughed she almost looked pretty. "You're married, aren't you?"

    The question caught him off guard.

    "At the moment."

    "I've been out of the country for two years. What does 'at the moment' mean? Is it a marriage of convenience to obtain citizenship papers?"

    "No. It means that at any moment she is going to leave me for another man."

    "Oh."

    Grisha made a show of checking his charts. He glanced at his watch and immediately powered up the radio.

    "...move across the Alexandr Archipelago by nightfall. Thirty-knot winds increasing to 40 to 50 knots by morning. Seas two to three meters. For the outside waters, Dixon Entrance to Christian Sound, small craft warning. Seas two to four meters. West winds 40 knots increasing to 55 by morning."

    Grisha snapped off the radio and peered at the horizon. A dark line rapidly moved out of the west, staining the abnormal blue sky back to familiar tones.

    "We're in for some rough weather," he said.

    Her eyes widened. "Are we in any danger?"

    He tried to laugh, but even to him it sounded more like a bark.

    "One is always in danger in Russian Amerika, one way or another."

    "Is this one of your pithy Native American sayings?"

    "It's truth, like my boat."

    "How can a boat be truth?" she asked with more than a hint of angry sarcasm.

    "How can it be a lie?"

    Karpov emerged from the cabin, vodka bottle in hand. "I'm hungry."

    A gust of cold wind heeled the boat over to starboard. The temperature dropped ten degrees in as many seconds.

    Karpov braced himself and stared out at the rapidly advancing weather. "Storm?" he said in a small voice.

    Grisha started to smile at their discomfort but stopped himself. It would not do to laugh at the wind.

    "Da," he said.

    Karpov hastily drank from the bottle. He peered at Valari.

    "You will go below with me, now."

    She scowled back. "In the Amerikas they have the perfect expression for someone like you. Would you like to know it?"

    Karpov quietly stared at her, eyes hidden in wrinkled folds of skin.

    "Go fuck yourself, is what they say. I think you should do that now."

    With surprising speed he lunged forward and slapped her open-handed. Her head smacked against the bulkhead with a solid thunk and she emitted a startled yell.

    "Hey!" Grisha shouted. "What do you think you're doing?"

    Karpov turned to face him. His English had gained polish. "This is none of your concern, Captain Grigorievich. You are being well paid. You will drive the boat and mind your own business."

    Grisha clenched his teeth and said nothing. Karpov gathered Valari in one arm and hauled her down the companionway as if she were a sack of oats.

    Then the storm caught them and Karpov started his last fight