The Sea Runners - Ivan Doig [15]
Melander opened his mouth as if to go on, but went into thought instead. After a moment:
"Aye. Anyway, that's that. Let's get on with our enterprise. We'll need new sail for the canoe, can't trust the rotten cheesecloth these Koloshes use. You are able to recognize sail canvas, Braaf, aren't you?"
It happened minutes after the next morning's work call. Braaf was making away with the sailcloth, the folded length cradled snug as Moses beneath an armload of hides he ostensibly was transporting toward the tannery, when a voice suggested huskily into his left ear: "Shouldn't 've skinned so deep this time, Braaf. Let's talk about the bottom of your cargo, there."
Through the cold lightning of fright it did register on Braaf that the voice at least was Swedish rather than Russian. Leftward, he inched his head the fraction enough to test the wide sideburn-framed face beside him. Recognition unfroze his mind ... one of the blacksmiths ... vain bustard he is ... Wennstrom, Wennblad: "Wennberg:' Wait, listen now—"
"No, don't stroll off and don't put them down." Not suggestion now: orders. "We'll have a visit till we see which happens." Wennberg planted himself in front ot Braaf as companionably as if he had every matter in the memory of the race to talk over with him. "Whether you spill that load in front of these Russians, or your long-ass friend Melauder lopes himself over here."
With a lanky swiftness which to any onlooker would seem as if he had been beckoned over to consult with the pair', Melander arrived. His dark look met Wennberg's blandness like a cloud against a cliff face, but he spoke nothing. Nor Wennberg, Braaf was desperate beyond any saying of it. For a moment, there the three of them clustered, pegs of quiet centered in the long rectangle of parade ground between Baranov's Castle and the stockade gate as if time had snagged to a stop within their little radius, while around them morning life eddied, quartermasters and overseers and promyshlenniks and shipwrights and caulkers and brassworkers and sailors and Castle officers, New Archangel humanity in all its start-of-day seeps and spurts of motion.
"So, Melander," Wennberg snapped their silence. "Braaf and I're just talking over how much heavier hides've gotten this year. A man can hardly hold a pood of them in his arms these days, seems like."
"A man can carry as much as the world puts on him, it's said," Melander? responded crisply, still glowering at Wennberg.
'"You're always a deep one, Melander. Isn't he, Braaf?" The blacksmith stepped close and pressed his elbow slowly, powerfully, into Braaf's left upper arm, drawing a strangled gasp from the laden man. "Deep as the devil's pocket, isn't he, hmm?"
"Let's give Braaf a rest, shan't we?" Melander offered rapidly, "Matters of weight can always be talked over."
Wennberg hesitated. Cast a glance into the thinning stream of the workshift. Then as if Melander's words were the first coins down on a debt, nodded.
Braaf lurched his way out of sight in the general direction of the tannery. The other two, Melander more toplofty than ever beside the wide-legged Wennberg, strode toward a building not far inside the stockade gate. The middle of this structure was transected by the smithing shop and within its open arched doorway stood three huge forges, aligned from the outside in like stabled iron creatures. The outermost of these dusky fire bins was Wennberg's.
From where Wennberg stood day-long as he directed the heavy dance of hammer and iron Melander scanned out into the parade ground. All comings and goings there the line of view took in, and most particularly the route into Braaf's storage hulk just across the way.
Rueful, Melander wagged his head in admission. Then proffered: "So?"
"You've plans to crawl out of this Russian bear pit, and I'm coming with you."
"Are you?"
"I am. Else