Alaska (52 page)

The problem was not resolved that time. The superior American morality prevailed, and the Evening Star

laid plans to sail north to dispose of its goods for the dwindling supply of seaotter pelts. However, on the last night ashore, a conversation occurred which had a profound effect upon development in this part of the world, for while Captain Corey talked with the Voronovs about Tlingit and Aleut history, Baranov and onetime-harpooner Tom Kane sat off to one side, looking down upon the silvery gray beauty of the harbor, and the Russian said, 'Mr. Kane, New Archangel will never be the first-class city I plan until we have our own shipbuilding yard. Tell me, how difficult is it to build a ship?'

'I've never built one.'

'But you've sailed in them.'

'Sailing and building, two different challenges.'

'But could a man like you, who knows ships so well, do you think you could build a ship?'

'If I had the proper books, yes, I suppose I could.'

'Can you read German?'

'I was fifteen before I could read English.'

'But you did teach yourself?'

'I did.'

'So did I,' Baranov said. 'I wanted to start a glass factory, got a book from Germany and taught myself to read that language.'

'Was the factory any good?'

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'Satisfactory. Look,' and he produced a German text on shipbuilding, an elaboration of the one Vitus Bering had used a century earlier.

Kane, hefting the volume and inspecting a few drawings, handed it back: 'A glass factory can work if it's merely satisfactory. A ship can't.' So he dismissed Baranov's implied invitation but he could not dismiss the man's penetrating vision of what Sitka might become, and when he asked about this, he knocked the top of a volcano from which erupted a lava flow of ideas.

'I want to build ships here, a score of them. And plant a colony in California, where the Spaniards accomplish nothing. I think we ought to trade with China. And with a captain like you in his own ship, Hawaii would be wide open for trade and maybe even settlement.' Reaching out and taking Kane by the arm, he asked: 'What did you think of Hawaii?' And there at the edge of the Pacific, Kane was lured into disclosing his admiration, indeed his longing, for those heavenly isles.

'Somebody ought to take over those islands,' he said enthusiastically. 'If Russia doesn't, England or America will.'

Now Baranov became more pressing: 'Mr. Kane, a man your age . . . How old are you?

Past fifty? You ought to be captain of your own ship.'

Kane smiled bitterly: 'Our first captain, fine man named Pym, promised to promote me along the line to captain one day. But he got himself killed at Lapak Island.

So I stayed on with Captain Corey, thinking he'd promote me the same way. Never happened.

So then I thought maybe one of these days the old fellow would die and I'd take over.

But you can see for yourself, he's past sixty, strong as ever, and he told me the other day he'd decided never to d
ie.
So I work on.' He stopped, laughed, and admitted: 'He's a good captain and I'm not unhappy.'

So the Evening Star

traded a few goods with Baranov's people, weighed anchor, and sailed on to the next island north, where they sought out Kot-le-an and Ravenheart, providing them with many guns and their followers with casks of rum. But when the time came to sail north toward Yakutat, where other Tlingits longed for guns with which to attack Kot-le-an's people, because Tlingits enjoyed nothing more than a good battle now and then among themselves if no Russians were at hand First Mate Kane stayed behind with Ravenheart, and when Corey sent a boat to fetch him, Kane said: 'Tell him I'm staying here,'

and the ex-harpooner spoke so forcefully that no one cared to challenge him.

'What shall we do with your things?' the sailors asked, and 320

Kane said: 'There are no things. I brought them with me.' And two days later he and Ravenheart were in a canoe paddling down to Sitka, where Kane informed Baranov that he had come south to start a shipyard, while Ravenheart used this opportunity to scout out the Russian defenses against the night when his Tlingits would attack once more.

WHEN TOM KANE OF BOSTON, USING A GERMAN Shipbuilding manual whose words he never learned to read but whose drawings he followed, completed building four ships, Sitka, Otkrietie, Chirikov and Lapak, his employer, Baranov, was ready to make his long-planned moves in the Pacific. Commissioning a group of bright young men and giving them two ships, he sent them off to occupy a fine site north of San Francisco, and the Spaniards were so inattentive to this invasion of their territory that they allowed the Russians to gain a substantial foothold.

So a remarkable situation developed in this part of the world. Before cities like Chicago or Denver were even thought of, and while San Francisco had no more than a few score of residents and the future Los Angeles none, Sitka was a thriving town of nearly a thousand, with its own library, school, shipyard, hospital, navigation center, civil government and navy. In addition, it controlled a solid foothold in California, and under Baranov's prudent leadership, seemed destined to command the entire west coast of the Pacific down to San Francisco and probably beyond.

From that solid beginning, Baranov decided to reach into the central Pacific, for after Kane had finished with his shipbuilding, he was given command of the Lapak, with orders to establish good relations with King Kamehameha in Honolulu. Since Kane and the king already knew each other favorably, the wooing of Hawaii proceeded so rapidly that other nations began to fear they might have to take steps to thwart it, but Baranov's astute guidance strengthened the friendship between Hawaii and Sitka and for a spell of years it looked as if the golden islands were destined to fall under Russian control.

But now hammer blows began to strike Baranov. Close to exhaustion, he pleaded with St. Petersburg for three boons: money to complete building his beloved capital at New Archangel, a replacement to serve as chief administrator and, at the end of one of the most productive public services in Russia, some small shred of recognition a medal, a ribbon, a title no matter how mean that would lift him out of the category of despised merchant and enable him to believe, no 321

matter how briefly, that he had won by his energy and imagination a patent of minor nobility.

The money never came. But the distant government, acknowledging at last that Baranov was an old man, did appoint a replacement who would assume responsibility for the government, an able fellow named Ivan Koch who had compiled a good record as commander at Okhotsk. Baranov, delighted by the prospect of having free time to work at the things which really interested him and knowing Koch to be a good man, sent a letter of warm congratulations, which Koch never received, for while at Petropavlovsk on his way to his new duties he died with tragic suddenness.

Once more Baranov besieged St. Petersburg with appeals for a successor, and this time a much younger man with good credentials was shipped out to New Archangel aboard the

Neva, a reliable ship familiar with the eastern Pacific. From the lookout room in his house Baranov watched with delight as the Neva approached the bay, then with horror as it ran into a storm off Edgecumbe volcano and sank within reach of land, taking to their death most of her complement, including the new governor.

It was a savage disappointment, worsened by the return of the notorious Muscovy under the command of Baranov's avowed enemy Vladimir Ermelov, who, since his wife the princess did not accompany him this time, arrived in a foul mood. Among his secret papers was one which instructed him to probe the rumors which he himself had circulated during his previous visit:

You are to inquire as judiciously and secretly as possible into the financial deportment of Chief Administrator Baranov, who has been reported to us as having sequestered for his own use funds belonging to The Company. If in the process of your investigation you find him guilty of defalcations, you are hereby empowered to arrest and incarcerate him prior to his return to St. Petersburg for trial. In his absence you will serve as Chief Administrator.

But now the complexity of government in Russia manifested itself, for in the same mail pouch, directed not to Ermelov but to Baranov, was a letter which brought him great satisfaction. It came from a different branch of government, obviously, for it said:

Know Ye All, We do confer upon said Aleksandr Andreevich the rank in the Civil Service of Collegiate

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Councilor, with social standing equal in rank to a Colonel in the Infantry, a Lieutenant Captain in the Navy, an Abbot in the Church, and entitled to be addressed by all as Your Excellency.

Alexander I

The duty and privilege of announcing to the world that Chief Administrator Baranov was now His Excellency Collegiate Councilor Aleksandr Andreevich Baranov fell by tradition to the senior officer present, who happened to be Lieutenant Captain Vladimir Ermelov, commanding officer of His Majesty's warship Muscovy,

and on a bright morning which would bring bile to the throat of that young nobleman, he had to preside on the hill when Baranov, his incredible wig tied under his chin, stepped forward to receive the great honor which the tsar had bestowed upon him.

With taut lips and in a whisper so low that few could hear, Ermelov read in grudging terms those words which lifted Baranov into the nobility. It was then incumbent upon Ermelov to place about Baranov's neck the ribbon from which was suspended the shimmering medal he would henceforth be entitled to wear, and then came the worst moment of all, for by custom Ermelov was now required to kiss the recipient on both cheeks.

He planted the first one with obvious repugnance, and as he made preparations to award the second, he grumbled in a voice suddenly so loud that all could hear: 'For the love of Jesus Christ, take off that wig.'

Two weeks later, when Ermelov was well on his way into the garbled books of the New Archangel office of The Company, he was required to discharge an even more disagreeable obligation, for one of his young officers, scion of one of Russia's noblest families, came to him with a request which stunned him: 'Respected Lieutenant Captain Ermelov, with your permission, sir, I want to marry a local girl of impeccable reputation, and in obedience to custom, I beg you to represent me when I make my petition to the girl's father. Will you do me the honor, sir?'

Ermelov, aware of his responsibility to protect the noble families of Russia and to prevent hasty marriages which would damage them, sparred for time with the ardent young man. Holding himself very erect and looking his most severe, he asked: 'Surely you're mindful of the exalted position your family occupies in Russia?' 'I am.'

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”'And you know that you must not stain its impeccable reputation by an improper marriage?'

'Of course, my parents would be appalled if I behaved poorly.'

'So wouldn't circles at the court deem it imprudent if you were to marry some chit of a child here in New Archangel? Some Creole, no doubt?'

'I'd never do that. This young lady is the daughter of a princess. She's lovely and will glow in even the highest court circles.'

'A princess? I thought my wife was the only princess in New Archangel, and she's no longer here.' He coughed. 'Who is this paragon?'

'Baranov's daughter Irina.'

The cough turned into a choking sound, and then into a sputter: 'Do you believe that nonsense about Baronov's wife being the daughter of some stupid king somewhere?'

'Yes, Excellency, I do. Baranov showed me a paper signed by the tsar himself, legitimizing his second marriage, and another confirming his new wife in her title as the Princess of Kenai.'

'Why haven't I heard about such a ukase?' Ermelov stormed, and the young suitor explained: 'It arrived after you returned to Russia,' and when he borrowed the precious papers to show Ermelov, the reluctant officer had to honor them. So on a solemn summer day, with the sun reflecting from the many mountaintops, Lieutenant Captain Ermelov, in his best dress uniform, accompanied his aide to the hill, where they were met by His Excellency Baranov wearing over his ears his wig and upon his chest his medal.

'Your Excellency,' Ermelov began, the words sticking in his throat, 'my distinguished aide, a young man of excellent family well regarded by the tsar, seeks permission to marry your daughter Irina, lineal descendant of the kings of Kenai.'

Baranov, bowing before the man who was now of rank no higher than his own but of a more ancient lineage and therefore entitled to respect, replied in a low voice: 'You do our humble house great honor. Permission granted,' and the three men repaired to a balcony, from which they could look west to the volcano where the Neva

had foundered, north toward the site where Redoubt St. Michael had stood before Kot-le-an and Ravenheart destroyed it, and then to the mountains where Ravenheart was plotting his revenge.

WITH HIS DAUGHTER MARRIED INTO THE NOBILITY AND

his own patent of nobility firmly about his neck he wore it 324

on all occasions, even when drinking beer at the close of day Baranov should have been at the golden apex of his life, a man respected in New Archangel, valued at The Company offices in Irkutsk, and esteemed in St. Petersburg for his sagacity in handling problems in the Pacific, but as the months passed, it became obvious that Lieutenant Captain Ermelov was probing Company records to prove that the old man was a thief, and as the scandal grew, Baranov withered.

He was seventy now, resident in the islands for an unbroken twenty-six trying years, and his health had never been good since the day of his arrival, when he lay almost dead at the bottom of that improvised boat in Three Saints Bay. Four or five times subsequently he had been near to expiring, but he had struggled on, subduing adversities which would have collapsed a lesser man. He had brought order among the trader-hunters, utilized creatively the Aleuts, and conquered the warlike Tlingits. On a mountainous island at the edge of North America he had constructed a capital worthy of a vast territory, and above all, he had defended widows and cared for orphans, spending his own money in doing so. To end his life accused of petty thievery was almost more than he could tolerate and twice he contemplated suicide, but he was prevented from indulging in such negative actions by the unwavering loyalty of three trusted friends: Father Vasili and his wife, and his aide Kyril Zhdanko, who in these latter days stepped forth as his protector and the man who could be relied on to see that his grand designs moved forward.