Makee joins the moustached toyon on the bench. I can barely see them through the crowd that mills about and presses forward. No one’s smiling or laughing. We’re not here for a celebration. I scour the heads, looking for Yakov’s cap.
Then I see Maria.
No one pays attention as I approach her. She starts when she sees me. “What are you doing here?” she whispers. She pulls me close and holds me for a long time. I kiss her cheeks.
“I came with him,” I whisper back, indicating Makee with my chin. “What are you doing here?”
“Those people we were with—that wounded boy and the old woman who makes the medicine and the others—they brought me here.”
“Where’s Yakov?”
She shrugs. “They took him away when they left. I think he went back with them.”
“Do you know what’s happening?”
Again, she shrugs. “Everyone’s been upset for days but I don’t know why. Where have you been?”
Softly I tell her how I live now. How hard I work with Inessa. The things I’ve had to learn to do. “I’m nearly a slave now,” I say and give a short, wry laugh. A quick glance at Maria makes me realize I’ve said something wrong. She looks at me sharply. I redden.
I change the subject. “I have other news. Their toyon speaks Russian.”
“What?” Maria cries. A woman peers at us. “How?” she says more softly.
“He learned it a long time ago from some Russian sailors.”
Maria frowns at Makee. She’s assessing his jacket, trousers, beaver hat—and his boots. “He looks very strange,” she finally says, “as if he’s walked out of a house from far away.”
“He’s very kind, in spite of how odd he appears.”
Makee speaks and he’s even more distressed than he was before we left Tsoo-yess. He’s angry, too. The moustached toyon responds with irritation. Is he unhappy with Makee? I can’t be certain. I turn back to Maria.
“What about you? Do they treat you kindly?”
Maria nods. “I also work every day—just as you do. Sometimes I help the woman who does the medicine here. But it’s fine—maybe even a little better. There’s much less work than on the ship, and what they ask me to do—it’s not as wearying.”
Nikolai Isaakovich told me that the Russian-American Company was very generous with Aleuts like Maria. It offered them a way out of their remote villages where eking out a living was almost impossible. It gave them food, clothing, medicine, and good jobs. Once they paid back their debts to the company, many went on to live very comfortable lives. I didn’t argue, but I knew from the discussion among my father’s friends that it wasn’t quite like that.
Until now, I never thought Maria aware of these abstract debates. I thought her willing to perform her duties until she earned her freedom, and maybe even a little grateful for the opportunity. My work with Inessa has changed the way I see the things my father’s friends debated night after night. I peer at Maria.
“Where are the others? Have you heard news?” she asks.
I shake my head. “I haven’t seen anybody. You’re the first.”
In the morning, Makee seeks me out. He looks like he didn’t sleep all night. “Anna, I need your help,” he says. “Something terrible has happened.”
“What is it?”
“It’s my sister. She’s been taken by your people.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your people have captured my sister. Her husband is frantic.”
So—this is the source of Makee’s distress, of the moustached toyon’s irritation, of the upset that Maria said had plagued the Quileutes for days. But is it possible? It makes no sense. “Are you certain?”
“She was seized a few days ago. Everyone’s tried to negotiate her release, but your people won’t let her go.”
What’s come over the crew? Why are they still battling the koliuzhi? I’d have thought they’d be trying to get to the Kad’iak, or at least settling in for the winter until fairer weather made the voyage south possible.
“What can I do?”
“They wish to exchange her freedom for yours. Yours—and all the Russians’. Once you’re released, they’ll free my sister and the other prisoners.”
“Others? How many are there?”
“Three. My sister, a young woman, and the man guarding them. Anna—the life of my sister is more valuable to me than anything I own. Please help me.”
My rescue is within reach. Before the end of the day, I could be back with Nikolai Isaakovich, with my beloved Zhuchka. I could hold my telescope up to my eye once again, turn the pages of my star log, and go over the sightings I made from the brig’s deck. No more long days spent scouring the forest for firewood. No more struggling under the weight of basket after basket of fresh water.
Could we make it to our destination? We’re as far away from the Kad’iak as we were on the day the brig ran aground. Conditions have become worse. It’s colder, rainier, we have nothing to eat, and, most importantly, we do not know where we’re going. I’m almost certain we’re neither strong nor well-equipped enough to make it. Or, even if we were to make it, would the Kad’iak still be waiting for us? So much time has passed.
“I have other news—I’ve been told there are two European ships sailing the coast right now,” Makee says.
“Isn’t it too early?”
“It’s earlier than ever before but it’s possible.”
Ships! Two! And from Europe!
“I’ve asked the Chalats to give you some food and show you the trail. Everyone’s been informed—if they see those two ships, they will tell them where to find you. If you see the ships first, then you can arrange your own passage. No one will disturb you for the rest of your journey. Anna—please.”
I nod my head slowly, considering my release and how, at last, it’s so close to being within my grasp. “Then take me to my husband.”
Maria and I and about twenty koliuzhi—Kwih-dihch-chuh-ahts and Quileutes—follow a trail that winds through the forest. We meet countless streams; some we follow for a time, while others we cross by balancing along narrow, fallen trees that span the water’s width or by leaping to the opposite bank. Maria is slow and falls behind. I stay with her. I offer her my hand when there is no choice other than to jump. She’s as light as a child and shockingly easy to pull across.
Eventually, we ascend along a steep, slippery path that leads partway up a slope. It levels out and we follow it as it skirts a mountainside. The trail here is dry and clear of foliage. An expansive valley widens below us, with a river snaking through it.
This is the route I took in the opposite direction with Yakov when I was sent to Tsoo-yess.
We descend into the valley and start to walk its length.
Just ahead on the trail, I see that the others, including Makee, have stopped. Maria and I catch up. What’s drawn their attention is a ring of charred wood and several planks leaning against a clump of scrubby trees.
The foliage in this grove has been flattened as though the planks had lain on top of it. The broken stalks of dried grass are folded over in layers that lie atop one another. All the small sticks are gone, too, probably for the fire. The men are disturbed by what they’ve found, and I feel it, too. There’s something haunted about this place, and if my mother were here, she’d say the leshii was nearby.
I try to catch Makee’s eye but he’s deep in conversation with one of the other men. So I look to Maria but she’s staring wide-eyed at the edge of the charred ring.
There’s a vivid white bone pressed into the earth. Against the black cinders, it glows. Farther away, scattered at the men’s feet, there are tufts of russet-coloured fur. Something struggled and died here. I look down at my own feet. There’s a big clump of that same russet fur attached to skin that’s attached to a curl of white fur.