Finally, with all sails spread, the Erebus put on a burst of speed, maneuvered insultingly close to the impotent Rush, and hurried toward China with its riches. It was the dominator of these seas and it would comport itself as Captain Schransky determined, not some pusillanimous captain of an American patrol boat.
DURING THE LAST DAYS OF SPRING 1877 THE TLINGIT Indians, who clustered outside the palisade protecting Sitka, kept close watch upon happenings in the capital, and saw with amazement that the steamer California had anchored in the sound for the purpose of removing the entire army garrison, whose troops boarded the ship on the fourteenth of June and left Alaska forever on the morning of the fifteenth.
'Who will take their place?' one Tlingit watcher asked his companions, but no one knew, and it was as a result of this confusion that three thoughtful Tlingits, who would have been termed warriors in the old days, sequestered a canoe where the Americans in command, whoever they might be, could not observe it, and on a silvery night, when the sun disappeared only for a few hours, left Sitka, paddled due north to that maze of enchanting narrows which led to Peril Strait, and from there into noble Chatham Strait, which bisected this part of Alaska. At the northern tip of Admiralty Island, which lay to the east, they turned south through the lovely passage on which the future capital of Juneau would one day sit, and then, with a left turn toward Canada, they entered one of the choice small waterways of the region, Taku Inlet, from whose left bank, hidden amidst glaciers, debouched a beautiful mountain stream, Pleiades River, and there at the mouth of the river stood a cabin erected many years ago. It was to the redoubtable occupant of this rude dwelling that they had come seeking counsel.
'Halloo, Big-ears!' they shouted as they approached the cabin, for they knew from experience that he was prone to shoot at intruders. 'Ivan Big-ears, we come from Sitka!' And when the calls were repeated, a tall, big-boned Tlingit in his sixties, with white hair and erect posture, came to the cabin door, stared toward the riverbank, and saw men he had known forty years earlier when they fought the Russians in repeated battles that the Tlingits usually lost.
Striding down to the bank, he greeted his onetime companions, then asked them bluntly:
'What brings you here?' and his nostrils widened when he heard their reply: 'The Americans in Sitka. They grow weaker every day. The time's at hand, Big-ears ..."
'Come! Let us talk,' and as they told him of the chaos in which the American occupation foundered, he listened grim lipped, and by the time their mournful litany was finished, his mind was made up: 'It's time to strike,' but one of the messengers warned: 'I've thought so, too. We can surely defeat the fools who hold the hill now, but I'm worried about the rush of new soldiers who might be brought in,' and Big-ears had a sage response: 'Not a big battle with war cries. Slow pressure, day by day, until their spirit is broken and we regain our ancient rights.'
Like a Kot-le-an of a later day, he spoke as a wise man of his tribe, one who had spent his life brooding upon the unjust way in which his people had lost their glorious land at Sitka, and this report of degenerating American control inflamed his ardor but did not confuse his generalship: 'A big battle would produce big news, and ships filled with soldiers would speed up from the south, but each day more pressure, more advantage to us, and there will be no alarms.'
He was fortified in this strategy by an act of folly committed by the incompetent Treasury official who had assumed command at Sitka. A Tlingit living in a village on Douglas Island came hurrying up Taku Inlet in his canoe, with distressing news:
'Trouble in our village. Four white miners tried to abuse our women. We fought them.
Now the warship is coming from Sitka to punish us, because they claim we attacked them.' The word in Tlingit for warship carried no implications of size: the approaching vessel could be either a huge man-of-war or a corvette, but the impression created was one of military power, and Ivan Big-ears, who had been forced to take a Russian first name in 1861 when he knew the tsar's power to be already fading, wanted to see for himself what American power was in the waning days of its control, so he and his visitors set forth in two canoes, moving quietly along the shore so as not to be seen by the approaching warship.
Accompanied by the messenger from the village about to be attacked, they slipped out of Taku Inlet, hid in the mouth of the strait that led to the settlement, and were concealed there when a small American ship steamed into the quiet waters, located the wrong village, and began shelling it so ineffectively that at the first salvo, which missed completely, the occupants fled to the surrounding forest, from where they watched as the fourth salvo finally struck their empty shacks, battering them to pieces. Triumphantly the ship patrolled the shoreline for about an hour, with no soldier brave enough to go ashore to assess the damage, and then, with a final salvo that merely ricocheted among the trees, it retired to report another American victory.
When it was safely gone, Big-ears and his companions, including the messenger from the village that should have been the target, paddled across the strait to the wreckage and explained to the bewildered villagers as they came out of the forest: 'They fired on the wrong place,' and from that settlement as well as the other, Big-ears enlisted Tlingit warriors, who agreed that the time had come to move against the incompetents who occupied Sitka, and in succeeding weeks men from the Taku Inlet area began quietly infiltrating the capital.
Had Arkady Voronov still been in residence at Sitka, he would have known of-the increased Tlingit pressure within a week, but the Americans now in charge of the place drifted amiably on, unaware that they were surrounded by an enemy that grew stronger each passing month.
NOW CAME THE DARKEST PERIOD OF THE AMERICAN occupancy of Alaska. The presence of the army, inadequate though it had been and preposterous as its commander, General Davis, had seemed to the citizens who were ruled by him, had nevertheless provided a semblance of government, and of a hundred typical acts it performed in the post-1867 period, some ninety were either constructive or neutral, and now to have even this inadequate symbol of government removed was to invite disaster.
First the outward signs of control disappeared from the streets of Sitka. Police, even the few who were present, exercised no authority. Port facilities deteriorated so badly that the few ships which did put in left quickly, with vows never to return to such poorly administered facilities, which meant that customs revenues declined month by month. Smuggling became endemic, and rum, whiskey and molasses flowed unimpeded into the settlements. Miners and fishermen did as they wished, evaded such laws as there were, and decimated the supplies that used to flourish near Sitka. Foreign ships trespassed on seal rookeries that were supposed to be protected, and threatened to exterminate walruses, whales and the frolicsome sea otters who had begun to make a comeback.
But the most ominous development surfaced when Tlingits like Ivan Big-ears started drifting in from outlying districts, joining up with local dissidents and indulging in pressure behavior that terrified the white citizens. There were no murders, no burnings, simply the reappearance of Tlingits into areas from which they had been expelled by Baranov. And to the average white man unfamiliar with the old days, the sudden appearance of a tall, powerful Indian like Ivan Bigears could be both terrifying and a premonition that dreadful things were about to happen.
What the Tlingits wanted was well represented by Bigears. 'We must be free,' he told his fellow conspirators, 'to live where we wish according to our ancient ways, to have the new government respect our tribal laws and customs. Since there was no resident authority to which he could make these reasonable demands, he was forced to further them by insinuating his people into the daily life of Sitka, and when he did this, the locals felt that they must resist.
There was a family from Oregon living in Sitka at this time, the Caldwells husband, wife, son Tom aged seventeen, daughter Betts aged fifteen and they had come north through Seattle with the understanding that Mr. Caldwell could open a lawyer's office in the capital, and he
came well prepared for such service to the frontier community.
He brought with him three crates of law books, especially those dealing with territories and new states, both of which he assumed Alaska-would become in the near future.
He was most disappointed to learn that law and courts were not major concerns of the little capital, and as for an office from which to practice, there was no legal way by which he could acquire land on which to build one, nor were there any spare buildings that one could buy with assurance of obtaining a title.
'What can I do?' he asked in growing frustration, and a man who had been living in Sitka since the Russian days said:
'I think your wife might be able to get a job teaching at the new school,' and in disgust Mr. Caldwell said: 'If there's a job open, I'll take it,' but then his problem became: 'But where will I find a place to live?' and the same adviser told him: 'There's a big house down the street. Used to be lived in by a Russian family. Great people, went back to Siberia.'
Mr. Caldwell said: 'I don't think we want to buy a big house,' and the man said:
'Good, because it ain't for sale. But a very nice Aleut woman married to a Tlingit fisherman runs it, and she takes in boarders.'
So in one day the Caldwells received the good news that they could rent rooms at the old Russian house, as it was still called, and the bad news that whereas there was a teaching job at the informal school, only a woman would be considered. As a result, Mrs. Caldwell became a teacher in a school that had no visible means of support, for it had no tax base, there being no agency to assess taxes, whereas her husband, with the ingenuity of a man who had wanted to leave settled Oregon for the adventure of the Alaskan frontier, devised five or six imaginative ways to earn a little money other than by being a lawyer. He did paperwork for citizens who had to communicate with offices back in the States. He served as agent for the few ships that steamed into port. He helped at the coaling station where those same ships acquired fuel for their trips north. And he was not above working as either a day laborer or a handyman. Neither he nor his wife had a steady salary, but with what they did earn, plus some money picked up by their son, who was just as adaptable as his father, the Caldwells survived, and when the father received small commissions from miners and fishermen, they came close to prospering.
But always Caldwell listened to rumors and actual reports as to when Sitka was going to have a court system, and Alaska a formal system of government in which a lawyer could make a decent living: 'When that time comes, Nora, there's not going to be anyone in Alaska who'll know more than I will about the ins and outs of commerce and customs and the importation of goods and the management of mining and fishing.
Surely, things will have to be straightened out, and then the Carl Caldwells come into their own.'
Of course, during the dismal years of 1877 and '78, his hopes of action from Washington were disappointed, and instead of order coming to Alaska, grievous disorder came.
Caldwell first became aware of impending danger when his wife came home from school one afternoon with perplexing news: 'One of our children who plays with Aleuts said that a famous Tlingit warrior who fought the Russians many times ...'
'He's come back to Sitka.'
'What does that signify?'
'I asked one of the other teachers, and all she said was that her brother had seen him at the edge of town. Name Ivan Big-ears, a famous warrior ... like the child said.'
'Never heard the name,' Mr. Caldwell said, but during the next days when he made quiet inquiries he learned that Ivan Big-ears, if it was indeed he, had fought against the Russians and had fled to voluntary exile somewhere to the east. 'If he's come back,' one older white man said, 'it can only mean trouble. I was here when he battled the Russians. Never won but also never accepted defeat.'
Caldwell asked what this Big-ears looked like, and another man said with obvious fear in his voice: 'I think I saw him the other day. Tall, robust man in his sixties.
White hair. Dark even for a Tlingit.'
About this time Caldwell noticed that the Aleut-Tlingit couple who ran the Russian house in which the four Caldwells stayed became aloof, unwilling to talk with their boarders, and when Carl tried to discover why the change had occurred, he discovered, through the kind of detective work that lawyers enjoy doing, that the owners of the house were entertaining secret guests at night, and when the three older Caldwells established a watch, the son saw four Tlingits slipping into the back of the house.
'Was one of them tall, older, white hair?' Carl asked in a whisper, and his son said:
'Yes. He's in there now.'
Carl swore the boy to secrecy: 'Important things may be involved. Speak to no one.'
But he himself stayed up all night, keeping watch on the rear door, and toward dawn he was rewarded by a clear glimpse of a tall, handsome Tlingit who must have been Ivan Big-ears.
In subsequent weeks the four Caldwells, for now the daughter had joined the detective work, accumulated fairly solid evidence that the Aleut-Tlingit community was engaged in some kind of conspiracy which involved Ivan Bigears and at least several scores of Indians from other settlements across the water. And once this distressing theory was formulated, this clever family amassed a disturbing amount of substantiating data more secret meetings in the back of the house, Tlingit men who could not be identified as locals lurking along the edges of the town, a gun stolen here and there, a subtle arrogance among the natives which had not existed before. Carl Caldwell said: 'With the army gone and no agency to replace it, the Tlingits have grown bold.
Something bad is bound to happen.'
His wife said: 'If the rumors I hear are true, enough Tlingits have filtered in to wipe us out.'
Tom said: 'The men at the dock told me more guns had been stolen,' and Betts reported that Tlingit children had begun to push white children off the footpaths.
Caldwell exploded: 'Dammit, if we can see trouble brewing, why can't the officials?'
But who were the officials? When it was agreed that Caldwell must go to them and present his suspicions about a possible uprising of the Indians, it became obvious that there was really no one in authority with whom he could conduct a meaningful conversation. The little customs boat which had shelled the wrong village near Taku Inlet still lay at anchor in the harbor, but its captain, having made a fool of himself at that bombardment, showed no disposition to do so again in response to the crazy suspicions of a man who had been in town less than a year.
So when Caldwell broached the subject, the captain stopped him with a rambling discourse:
'Were you here when General Davis was in command? No? Well, folks hereabout thought poorly of him, but when he left here he was assigned to the Oregon-California boundary where the Modoc Indians was actin' up. Real bad Indian named Captain Jack come out under a white flag and shot the American general, man named Canby. Davis was appointed to replace him, and with great courage captured Captain Jack and saw him hanged.
At the end of the Modoc affair, he gained a commendation and spent his remaining time in service chasing Indians, who he despised. A real hero.'
Caldwell had not come to talk about a general he had never known, but when he tried to bring the conversation to a serious discussion of the impending crisis whose outlines he saw so clearly, he accomplished nothing and left the customs boat in despair.
'They didn't even listen,' he told his wife, and that night when Ivan Big-ears and five of his lieutenants crowded into the Russian house, Caldwell managed to overhear their agitated conversation, but since it was conducted in Tlingit, he understood nothing except the spirit of the words, but the animosity in the voices could not be masked.
However, at several points in the Indian debate about timing and tactics, men did use individual English words or phrases, and from them Caldwell obtained such confirmation as he needed:
'ammunition, ship in harbor, early morning, three men running and other words pertaining to military action, and toward dawn, w
hen he had heard enough, he convened his own meeting to discuss the steps that would have to be taken: 'If the United States can't protect us, and if there isn't any government here to take action, the only practical thing we can do is throw ourselves on the mercy of the Canadians,' and this strategy his three listeners agreed to. But how to reach the Canadians with a plea for help?
Tom had kept a map of the approaches to Alaska which the steamship company bringing them to Sitka had provided, and from its imperfect data he calculated that the distance to Prince Rupert Island and the seaport of that name would be about two hundred and eighty miles: 'Three men in a good canoe could get there in four days, if they're good men.'
'Would you be one of them?' Caldwell senior asked, and Tom said: 'You bet.'
The question then became: 'Nora, if Tom and I have to go south to fetch aid, can you and Betts protect yourselves till we get back?' Before she could reply, he pointed toward the back of the house: 'With them scheming on the other side?'
'We'd go to the church,' she said calmly, 'find safety with the other women and their men,' and when she looked at her daughter, Betts nodded.
Tom's suggestion that to paddle nearly one hundred miles, the first half through open seas, would require at least three men was so sensible that his father had to agree: 'We must find a third man before we can set out,' and in the next days as he scanned the community, peering into white faces to calculate who might have courage, he settled upon a choice between two men who impressed him with their general bearing.
One was an older fellow named Tompkins, who like Caldwell worked at various jobs; the other, a much younger man named Alcott, whom Carl had seen along the waterfront when he worked the ships.
His inclination was to approach Tompkins first, and this was a good hunch, because when he did, Tompkins surprised him by saying immediately: 'Of course there's bound to be trouble,' but he shied off when Carl suggested begging for help in Canada: