The Great Alone

The Great Alone Read Free Page B

Book: The Great Alone Read Free
Author: Janet Dailey
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his black eyes were small and sly. Shekhurdin attempted to go around him, but Belyaev wouldn’t let him pass. “I say he doesn’t get any water.”
    “I recall seeing you heave your guts over the side once or twice.” The Cossack wasn’t intimidated by the promyshlenik.
    “But I fetched my own water when I was thirsty.” Belyaev continued to grin, the shaggy black beard and mustache around his mouth drawing attention to the dark space between his teeth. “If that Kamchadal can’t do for himself, throw him overboard. It will just make our share of the skins that much bigger.”
    Luka agreed. All the men on the expedition had been engaged on a share basis. Half the proceeds of the hunt belonged to the two merchants who had financed the voyage, and the other half would be divided among the crew, one share to each man, with the exception of the navigator, who received three, the peredovchik —leader—two, and one for the church. If the hunt was successful, a promyshlenik’s share could amount to a small fortune, enough to buy a farm or a business—or stay drunk on vodka for a year.
    “Look!” someone shouted. “What’s that black shape on the horizon?”
    The confrontation on deck suddenly lost its importance as Luka swung around to scan the horizon that was sometimes above and sometimes below the plunging and rearing prow of the shitik. A man scurried up the rawhide rigging onto a spar of the square mainsail. Everyone tensely waited for some word to sound above the groaning timbers of the heaving boat.
    “Do you see anything?” Luka shouldered his way to the railing near the bow.
    Interminable seconds passed before an outflung arm pointed in the direction of the starboard bow. “Land!”
    Everyone crowded closer to the right side of the deck. A minute later a cheer went up at the sight of a mountainous headland thrusting out of the sea. Even the weakest of the seasick men managed to find enough strength to haul himself up to the rail and stare at the blessed vision of land.
    Slowly and steadily, the simple sailcraft approached the island. Luka felt a lift of excitement, the kind that always accompanied the coming into a new territory, a keening of the senses and sharpening of the wits. They were close enough to hear the breakers crashing onto the rocky shore at the island’s base.
    As they skirted the north side of the island, Luka studied the treeless terrain, green with thick vegetation. Even the rocks wore a hairy growth of grasses. Inland, jagged mountains stood in tortuous ridges, indicating the island’s volcanic origins. They loomed forbiddingly, void of plant life, while below a lush valley beckoned, the wind rippling the tall stalks of thick rye grass into waves.
    A man was sent forward to take soundings while the navigator, Nevodchikov, skirted the half-submerged rocks and avoided the hidden shoals lying off the northern shore.
    They rounded the island and turned south, sailing past the easternmost promontory and the wide bay it protected on the southeastern side. There were ample sightings of sea life amid the kelp beds off the rocky coast. In his eagerness to view the numerous sea otter curiously poking their heads out of the water, Luka crowded in with the other men at the rail. It was a sight to thrill a fur hunter’s heart.
    A solid cloud cover hid the sun, but Luka noticed the subtle change in temperature, a slight infusion of warmth at this place where the cold waters of the Bering Sea mingled with the warmer currents of the Pacific. The mewing cry of seabirds accompanied the rippling crack of the sails in the wind and the rhythmic slap of the waves against the boat’s hull. The jagged stone cliffs of the island were whitened with their droppings. He scanned the protected bay and its shore without finding any evidence of habitation, yet he distinctly remembered the navigator making mention of the presence of a savage race on these islands.
    “I thought there were natives living here.”

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