Alaska (49 page)

Baranov did not flinch. Looking inquisitively toward Captain Lesions of the Neva, who nodded, he said almost casually: 'Tell Kot-le-an that our attack will begin at dawn tomorrow.' And by the time Ravenheart reached his canoe, where the emissary waited, the two Tlingits saw that Russian soldiers and hundreds of Aleut fighting men had started streaming toward the four ships and the kayaks.

ON 1 OCTOBER 1804 THE FOUR WARSHIPS WERE READY TO sail the short distance to the Tlingit fort and start bombarding it, but an infuriating calm settled over the sound, and the big ship

Neva, on which the Russians must depend, could not be moved. However, the Neva was commanded by Captain Urey Lisiansky, a determined and resourceful fighter, and he resolved the impasse by lining up more than a hundred kayaks, which, by means of ropes attached to their sterns, pulled the heavy ship slowly into position. Kot-le-an, watching this herculean effort, whispered to Ravenheart: 'They mean to fight,' and stern preparations were ordered.

The efficiency of Captain Lisiansky was somewhat diluted by the fact that Baranov, fifty-seven years old and overweight, fancied himself a military genius with the right to lead into battle a force consisting of about one-half the effectives. Dubbed by his men the Commodore, he believed that his experience in Siberian brawls and minor island skirmishes qualified him as a tactician, and he shouted orders like a battle-tested veteran. However, buffoon though he seemed to some, his gallantry and lust for vengeance on the Tlingits who had destroyed his redoubt so inspired his men that they were prepared to follow him anywhere.

But before leading his men forward in the actual assault, Baranov, remembering battle stories he had read, believed he was honor-bound to offer his enemy one last chance to surrender, so he sent forward three Russians under a white flag. When they neared the Tlingit fort, the one in command cried in loud voice: 'You know our demands.

Give us land. Hostages. And stay here peacefully to trade.'

From inside the fort came laughter and then a volley which rattled high in the trees over the negotiators' heads. These men, afraid that the next shots might be directed at them, scampered back to the Neva, where they told Baranov how they had been received. He did not rant, but to those about

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him he said: 'Now we take their fort,' and as agreed beforehand, Captain Lisiansky dispatched four small boats, heavily armed, to destroy all the Tlingit canoes left on the beach. The battle had begun.

Now Baranov, clad in a suit of wood-and-leather armor, sword held high, waded ashore at the head of his men, determined to assault the walls and demand surrender. Supported by three small portable cannon, he stopped to listen for sounds of Tlingits inside the fort, heard none, and cried: 'They've abandoned it, just like they did the hill,'

and with a bold, peasant heroism he led his men right up to the walls.

But as soon as they came well within musket range, the walls erupted with fire from hundreds of good Boston rifles, and the effect upon the invaders was disastrous, for the unexpected volley struck many full in the face.

When the Russians retreated in disorder, the Tlingits broke from their central gate guarded by the totem pole and descended upon the disorganized men, killing and wounding without having to dodge any counterfire. And had not Captain Lisiansky sped to Baranov's relief, a general slaughter would have occurred. The first round, clearly won by the Tlingits, had been a disastrous defeat for Commodore Baranov.

Back aboard the Neva,

he revealed to his officers a major wound in his left arm, and after he was put to bed under a doctor's care, Lisiansky summed up the fracas: 'Three of my men dead, fourteen Russians wounded and countless Aleuts, who fled like rabbits at the first gunfire. But we gained one victory. Baranov is wounded just seriously enough to keep him from marching forth again. Now let's organize this siege and blow that fort apart.'

But before the cannonading could begin, there was an ugly portent that this battle was to be a no-surrender affair like the earlier assault on Redoubt St. Michael, where all Russians present were slaughtered, for onto the beach almost in range of their enemy's pistol fire came six Tlingit warriors bearing spears aloft, on whose tips was impaled the body of one of the dead Russians. At a whistle from their leader, the Tlingits jabbed their six spears sharply upward, driving the points so far through the body of the corpse that the metal tips shone red with blood. Then, at another signal, they threw their spears forward, allowing the body to splash into the bay.

Minutes later the cannonading began, and when word reached the deck that a fourth Russian had died from his wounds, the fire intensified. For two days the bombardment continued, and a sortie in strength under Lisiansky ranged the area before the fort, killing any Tlingits they encountered, 303

but in doing so, they saw that the great wooden fence constructed by Kot-le-an and Ravenheart had sufficient thickness to repel even the biggest cannonballs.

'We won't win by trying to knock down the fence,' Lisiansky told his men, and after this was reported to Baranov he consulted with his captain, the elevation of the guns was raised, and cannonballs of destructive size and frequency began raining down into the fort's interior.

Lisiansky, watching them land with rarely a miss, assured Baranov: ”They won't be able to tolerate this for long,' and grimly the fat little merchant smiled.

DURING THE FIRST DAYS OF THE SIEGE THERE HAD BEEN great jubilation inside the fort, for then the Tlingit defenders gained three significant victories: their palisaded walls had proved to be impervious to Russian fire, they had repulsed the first land attack with heavy loss to the enemy, and without suffering any retaliation they had successfully taunted the Russians at the seashore, spearing the corpse and tossing the body into the waves. 'We can hold them off!' Kot-le-an cried in those moments of initial victory.

But when the cannonading began in earnest, with the Russians firing over the walls, the tides of war shifted dramatically. There were, inside the stockade, some fifteen separate buildings clustered about the house that Ravenheart and Kakeena had started, and with hellish luck the Russian cannonballs began striking these wooden buildings, smashing them apart and killing or badly wounding the occupants. Children shrieked as the destruction continued, and there was a terrible moment when three shots in a row struck the Ravenheart house, scattering embers and starting a fire which quickly consumed the entire building. Ravenheart, watching the raging flames, had a premonition that he was seeing the demise of all things the Tlingits cherished, for this house had been a symbol of his release from slavery and his acceptance into the strongest of the Tlingit tribes.

However, knowing he must not allow either Kakeena or Kot-le-an to see his apprehension, he passed among the fort's defenders with words of encouragement: 'They'll stop.

They'll see they can't conquer us and they'll go away.' But as he uttered such words during the third day of the bombardment he was interrupted by a scream from Kakeena, and supposing that she had been hit by one of the cannonballs, he ran toward where he had last seen her, but when he reached her he found her standing, mouth agape and looking toward the sky. Unable to speak, she pointed heavenward, 304

and then he saw what had caused her outcry: a shot from the Neva had struck his totem halfway up and had shattered it, knocking away the carefully carved top with the raven and leaving a jagged stump, still tall but forever decapitated.

Remembering the legends of his people and their spirits which he had carefully carved in the pole, he was distraught, but still he did not allow himself to show his distress at the loss of yet another aspect of the life he loved and had hoped to defend. And the bombardment continued.

As daylight waned on the sixth day, Kot-le-an came to Ravenheart with a message the latter had not expected to hear: 'Trusted friend, take the white flag and go to them.'

'Asking for what?'

'Peace.'

'On what terms?'

'Any they propose.'

For some minutes, while Kot-le-an gathered a team of six to accompany his messenger, Ravenheart stood in the middle of the wreckage and felt the ground swaying under him. A dream was coming to an end, a world was being lost, and he had been selected to be the man to do the surrendering, but before putting into effect the signal of submission, his entire body revolted eyes refused to see, feet to move, and mind to accept the horrid duty and he cried to no one: 'I cannot!'

It was Kakeena, not Kot-le-an, who persuaded him: 'You must. Look,' and she pointed to the destroyed houses, the row of corpses not yet buried, the universal signs of loss. 'You must go,' she whispered.

Astonished that it was his resolute wife who was uttering these words of defeat, he turned to stare at her, and saw that she was grimly smiling: 'This time we've lost. Save what we can. Next time, when they've grown careless, we'll crush them.'

And when he moved toward the gate through which he would lead his messengers of surrender, she walked beside him to the beach, where he called in English to the Russians, who halted their bombardment when they saw his white flag: 'Baranov, you win. We talk.'

Through a brass trumpet came a reply in Russian: 'Go to bed. No more bombardment.

In the morning we will come.'

At these words, which meant that the siege was over and that Tlingit hopes of recovering Sitka were doomed, Kakeena began a high-pitched wail which Russian listeners interpreted as a lament for lost hopes; they would have been astounded could they have understood her words: 'Ai me, the waves have left our shore and only rocks remain. But like the rocks we will endure and in the years to come we shall return 305

like the waves and smother the Russians.' And as the enemy sailors listened in the falling darkness, they heard one Tlingit voice after another join in the supposed lament until the shore was filled with what they construed as grief but which was, under Kakeena's leadership, a commitment to revenge.

When Ravenheart and his contingent returned to the fort, they were greeted by silence.

The cannonading had stopped, but so had purposeful movement by the Tlingits. Standing in confused groups, they discussed what to do next, and as Ravenheart went from one gathering to the next, he found only consternation and lack of any plan as to what action they must take after the surrender, but toward midnight Kot-le-an and the toion assumed command, and their directives were short and brutal: 'We shall cut across the mountains and leave this island forever.' And as those fateful words were whispered through the fort, their awful meaning became clear, for to cross Sitka Island at any point was a monstrous undertaking, considering the jagged mountains and the lack of trails. But the Tlingits had decided to flee, and in the four hours after midnight there was in this destroyed fort a hurricane of activity.

Only Ravenheart and Kakeena had actually lived on this beautiful point between the salmon creek and the bay, so only they had mementos which they wished to take with them for him, a fragment of the totem; for her, a shattered wooden plate but all who prepared to flee carried recollections of their majestic hill overlooking the bay, and all were heavyhearted.

As dawn approached, two groups of refugees had special and heartbreaking tasks: appointed men roamed through the fort killing all the dogs, especially those who had attached themselves to specific families, for to take them on the journey ahead would prove impossible, and there were moments of grief as some animal that had bounded with love at the sound of a child's voice was slain, but this sadness was soon forgotten, because a comparable team of women led by Kakeena was passing through the assembling crowd, killing all the Tlingit babies.

EARLY ON THE MORNING OF 7 OCTOBER, AS THE MISTS lifted and the bright autumn sun appeared, sailors from the Neva and the three other ships lined up on the beach behind Commodore Baranov and started their triumphal march to accept the surrender of the Tlingits, but as they approached the fort they saw no people, heard no sounds, and with uncertainty they drew closer, whereupon a cackle of ravens

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took to the air, and one superstitious sailor muttered: 'They feed on the dead,'

and when Baranov peered past the sagging gates, knocked awry by some cannon shot, he saw the desolation, the litter of dead dogs and the tiny human corpses. It was a moment of dreadful victory, accentuated by the sudden appearance from a shattered house of two old women too ancient to travel who were guarding a six-year-old boy with a crippled l
eg.

'Where have they gone?' Baranov demanded of the women, who pointed to the north.

'Across those mountains?' the interpreter asked, and they said 'Yes.'

As they spoke, Kot-le-an, Ravenheart and the toion who had lost his kingdom were leading their people across rough land covered by immense spruce trees, each trunk as tall and straight as a line drawn in sand. The going was so difficult that only a few miles would be covered that day and it would be painful weeks before they reached the northern limits of Sitka Island. When they did, they would have to halt for the building of canoes to ferry them across Peril Strait, after which they would have to find some kind of refuge on inhospitable Chichagof Island, a place infinitely more brutal and unyielding than Sitka Sound.

But they persisted, and finally reached the northern edge of the island, and when they saw, across the strait, the mountains of their new home, some wept, for they knew they were making a miserable exchange. But Ravenheart, having been dispossessed before in his turbulent life, told Kakeena: 'I think we can make a home over there,'

and as he spoke, a fish jumped in Peril Strait and he told his wife: 'Good sign.'

NOW CAME THE FIFTEEN AMAZINGLY PRODUCTIVE YEARS, 1804 through 1818, which confirmed the reputation of Aleksandr Baranov as the father and chief inspirator of Russia's fragile empire in North America. Fifty-seven years old when his burst of energy began, he displayed the enthusiasm of a boy going after his first deer, the wisdom of a Pericles building a new city, the patience of an island Job.