The Sea Runners - Ivan Doig [22]
The pair of them, tree and stump somehow endowed with legs, moved with no word through the night for two minutes, three. Apprehension traveled with them both. Apprehensions rather, for their anxieties were sized as different as the men.
A several hundredth time Mela rider retold himself the logic by which he had singled this night. Christmas Eve the Russians hail begun, all going around solemn as church mice, crossing themselves tint il it seemed they'd wear out the air, eating no lute until "the first star of evening." (Which baffled Braaf no little bit : "They wait to see a star over this place, won't they have a hungry winter?") Yesterday, it had been a morning of liturgy murmuring out of the twin-crossed cathedral and then the Russian men paying calls on each other, toasting at every stop until by nightfall the streets were full of crisscrossing bands of them shouting back and forth, "You beat to windward, we'll steer to lee!" Now, the pious and visitâtional sides of Christinas having been observed, certain as anything this would be their night of celebrating and carousing and dancing their boots off—up there in Baranov's Castle at the governor's ball they'd be, all the officers and any of the company Russians who frequented their clubhouse for card games and tippling and monotony-breaking argument, every breathing one of them. And when the escapees' absence was discovered, what Russian among them was going to be eager to dash from snug activities to chase Swedes through the damp black of Alaskan night? And meanwhile the Koloshes would he staying to their longhouses, leaning clear of drunk and boisterous tsarmen.... Confusion, alcohol, reluctance, Melander had them all carefully in rank as allies for escape. Iiut late-going Russians yet within the officers' clubhouse ... racket in the gun room carrying to a sentry at the eastmost blockhouse ... just here, on such points beyond logic, Melander's months of planning teetered, and the quiver of them touched him through the dark.
Wennberg's perturbance was purely with himself. Until he stood up from beside the cardplayers in the barracks the blacksmith had not been convinced he would go through with the escape. Why risk the tumble, ass-over-earhole, down this bedamned coast? Why trust even a minute to Melander or Karlsson or Braaf, these three orphans of Hell? So how came it. that now lie was traipsing off with Melander into disaster's black avid mouth?
Abruptly a barrier of building met the two of them.
As Melander and Wennberg hesitated before the officers' clubhouse, a third upright shadow joined them. Into Wennberg's hands it thrust a heavy sharp-pointed pry bar and into Melander's a pair of long-handled smithing snippers, and it muttered : "This way."
In the dark and rain Melander and Wennberg stayed stock-still for a moment, as though the cold feel of metal conferred on them by Braaf had iced them into place.
"Come on, you pair of lumps." Braaf's jab brought them to life, tumbled the big men inside the doorway where he waited. "Stay an arm's length behind me, and try not walk on each other's ankles."
Braaf led Melander and Wennberg through rooms their eyes never really took in, so much focus were the two of them devoting to listening, breathing silently, and creeping.
Which may go to explain how the outer edge of Wennberg's left boot clanked against a hallway spittoon.
Braaf appeared more offended than concerned.
"Plowhorse," came his terse whisper to Wennberg.
The door of the gun room stood like the lid of a colossal strongbox tipped up on end. Heavy hinges, and a corner-to-corner X of strap iron to thwart notions of chopping in, and a powerful hasp, and a padlock the size of a big man's fist.
"Do your digging, blacksmith,"