Polar (Prequel): The Turnagain Arm (2 page)

Aleksei tossed the man’s fishing line and bucket into the water before slipping into his coat. The sleeves didn’t even reach his wrists, but it would still serve its purpose. He moved quickly, returning to the woods to go in search of shelter where he could spend the upcoming day. When the night fell again, he’d go on another search.

He’d go looking for the man named Dzubenko.

Vasyl Dzubenko let out a sigh of irritation as he ran a wet rag over the bar at his Turnagain Arm saloon. This was something that idiot MacNeil should be doing, one of the many things Vasyl paid him to do, yet no one had seen hide nor hair of MacNeil since he’d gone out to fish early that morning. Now it was time for the dinner crowd and, thanks to MacNeil, Vasyl was short on fish as well as on help.

Vasyl had worked hard to make a life for himself after leaving his native Ukraine and ultimately settling in Alaska. A short, stocky man with black hair that was turning to grey, his wide face and high cheekbones were a tell-tale sign of his Slavic roots. He had a prominent nose and small dark eyes that frequently betrayed his tendency towards impatience and irritability.

The one person he was never impatient with was his wife Lara, a blond with cornflower blue eyes and long straight hair she wore rolled up in a bun. Lara was taller than Vasyl, and lanky, with arms and legs so thin she had often been described as birdlike. But her lean physique belied the strength and toughness that had impressed Vasyl from the moment he’d first met his cherished wife.

Now, he glanced across the bar and scowled at the sight of Lara fussing over Rebecca, girlfriend of the erstwhile MacNeil. He thought the best course of action was to ignore the girl and hope she’d go away, but Lara had, as usual, disagreed with him. Rebecca had been crying since the morning hours and loudly insisting that MacNeil would never have up and left Potter Creek without her. The two of them had plans to leave Alaska and head back to Tennessee. Or so the girl had claimed at least 50 times since she had run into the saloon looking for MacNeil.

Vasyl was tired of hearing her proclamations. True, he hadn’t figured MacNeil for the type who would run off and leave folks in a lurch either. And he had heard the idiot waxing eloquently about his plans to take Rebecca away from the railroad camp brothel and set up a new life with her in his home state of Tennessee. But Vasyl had lived long enough now to know that no one can figure what someone else was likely to do. As soon as you thought you knew someone, they’d show you that you were wrong. As far as Vasyl was concerned, Lara was the only exception to this rule.

A scream from Rebecca jolted Vasyl’s attention away from the bar and towards the girl, who was pointing at a tall blond man who had just entered the saloon. She shrieked again and ran towards the newcomer.

“That’s Kenneth’s coat,” she yelled. “Where did you get it? What have you done to him?”

The man stared at her with a blank expression on his face. If Vasyl had to guess, he would swear the man didn’t speak English and had no idea what Rebecca was screaming about.

As Rebecca cried and threw herself at the man, he caught her arms with lightning speed and stared down at her. He was so tall Rebecca barely went up to his chest. Vasyl watched with surprise as the girl suddenly went limp and quiet under the stranger’s piercing gaze. She let out a soft whimper as he pushed her towards a nearby chair. Rebecca crumpled into the chair like a rag doll.

“Dzubenko?” the man said, now ignoring Rebecca and glancing around at the men in the room.

Vasyl jumped at the sound of his name and came around from behind the bar.

“Are you looking for me?” he asked. “I’m Vasyl Dzubenko.”

“ты русский?” the man asked.

Vasyl scowled and repeated the man’s question. “Am I Russian?” So he had been correct that the man didn’t speak English. “No,” he said, switching to the man’s language. “I’m Ukrainian.”

The man nodded. “But you speak Russian?”

“Obviously. I just answered you, didn’t I?”

Vasyl had no use for Russians. Or for their precious mother Russia. While his homeland of Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire, neither Vasyl nor any of his family had ever acknowledged it as such. He had been forced to leave his home in the Crimean Mountains and go to Russia to work on the construction of the Trans-Siberian railroad but he’d hated every second he’d spent in the country. When the construction to the ocean city of Vladivostok was completed in 1904 and he’d made it to the end of the rail he’d been happy to find work on a freighter and come to Alaska. He hadn’t realized then how many blasted Russians would be here with him.

“Why were you asking for me?” he asked, continuing to speak in the stranger’s tongue. “How did you know my name?”

“I heard one of the camp workers mention it,” the blond man said. “When I heard the name I knew you’d be someone I could speak to.”

“Speak to about what?”

“About finding work. And learning English.” The man smiled a disarming, but somehow also chilling, smile. “I’m afraid I know very little.”

Vasyl turned back towards his bar. “I’m not a tutor, my friend. You’ll have to look elsewhere. There are plenty of folks around here who can speak Russian and teach you English, you’ll see.”

Before Vasyl knew it, the man was in front of him again. What the hell?

“I’m afraid that hasn’t been my experience.” The man smiled again. “Please, I’m not asking you to help me. I want to work.”

Vasyl gestured towards the door. “There’s plenty of work for you out there on the rail.”

“Yes,” the man nodded. “I’ve been doing that. But I find it so tedious. I was hoping for a job here where I could interact with more people and not just hammer spikes into wood all day long. I much prefer working at night anyway. I could work nights for you here.”

Vasyl felt his wife’s hand on his arm and turned to glance at her.

“What’s going on, Vasyl?”

He gestured towards the blond man. “This Russian wants a job here. Says he’s been working on the rails and he’s had enough of it. He wants to work at night instead. And he wants me to help him learn English.”

“Ask him why he’s wearing Kenneth’s coat!” Rebecca shrieked, alerting everyone in the bar to the fact that she had composed herself and was back on the attack.

Vasyl looked at the man and had to agree with Rebecca that the coat did seem familiar. He wouldn’t have been able to say it was Kenneth’s, but who was he to argue with Rebecca? If anyone would know about Kenneth’s clothing, she would.

“She says your coat belongs to one of my employees,” he said to the man in Russian. “Where did you get it?”

“I found it this morning down by the water. My old one was so torn up I decided to wear this one even though it doesn’t really fit.” The man grinned sheepishly at the sleeves which fell far short of his wrists.

“He says he found the coat,” Vasyl said to Rebecca, anxious to appease her before she screamed again. “Down by where your boyfriend was supposed to be fishing for me.”

Rebecca collapsed back into one of the chairs and burst into tears. “Kenneth wouldn’t leave his coat behind if he ran away.”

Vasyl couldn’t argue with this statement. Even a man as thick as MacNeil wouldn’t leave his only coat behind. This was Alaska, after all, and winter was close at hand. But at this point, he was so tired of hearing Rebecca cry that he was past the point of caring what had happened to the missing Kenneth MacNeil.

“Vasyl,” Lara said. “If Kenneth doesn’t come back you’re going to need more help here. Why don’t you give this man the job he wants? It will help both of you. He can learn English and you’ll have the help you need.”

Vasyl shook his head. “I don’t want a Russian working here with me. You don’t know them, Lara. You can’t trust them.”

Lara shook her head. “Nonsense. You can trust them as well as you can trust anyone else.”

Vasyl scowled. “That’s proof you don’t know them then.”

And how would she? An American with Icelandic heritage, Lara had never been exposed to the horrors of Mother Russia like he had.

“The man wants to work. You need someone to work. For now, how can you lose?”

Before Vasyl could counter, she continued, shushing him with her hand.

“If he does something you don’t like you fire him, simple as that.” She glanced at Aleksei, who had been staring at both of them with the gaze Vasyl found more and more unnerving. “I think I like him,” she said.

“You like the look of him, more likely,” Vasyl said with a grunt. “He looks like your kind, yeah? Almost Nordic looking, isn’t he?”

Lara grinned at him, always enjoying the chance to tease her husband. “Russian or Nordic, he’s handsome, I know that much. And yet I’m stuck with my Ukrainian. Such a pity.”

Vasyl turned red as she patted him on his belly and kissed his cheek before walking off towards the kitchen. He looked back at the blond man in front of him.

“So you know my name. What’s yours, then?”

“Nechayev. Aleksei Nechayev.”

“Well Mr. Nechayev, my wife seems to think I should hire you.”

“Your wife is wise as well as beautiful.”

Vasyl rolled his eyes, grateful that Lara couldn’t understand that if she was still in earshot. She would have lapped it up with a spoon, no question.

“It so happens I’m short-handed at the moment and could use the help. If you think you can learn English here more power to you, but I’ll be damned if I’ll spend my time teaching you.”

Aleksei nodded. “I understand.”

“Fine then, you’re hired.” Vasyl held up his hand as if to caution Aleksei before he continued. “But I’ll tell you upfront I don’t like your kind.”

Vasyl saw a flicker of surprise and bewilderment flash across Aleksei’s face.

“My kind?” he asked.

“Russians,” Vasyl said. “What did you think I meant?”

Aleksei’s features softened into a smile. “Nothing. Nothing at all.” He cleared his throat. “May I ask why you don’t like my kind, Mr. Dzubenko?”

“Only a Russian would have the gall to ask. I told you I’m Ukrainian. That’s not reason enough for you?”

“I’m sorry, I…”

“Never mind,” Vasyl said. “The point remains; I don’t like you or your countrymen. You screw up, you’re fired. You understand me?”

“I certainly do.”

“Good. There’s a tent outside you can stay in – belonged to the idiot whose coat you’re wearing. You might as well take his tent too. I think we all know he isn’t coming back.”

Aleksei nodded and stood stock still, obviously waiting for further instructions.

“If you want to work, you start now,” Vasyl said. “Go back to the kitchen and Lara will get you an apron. You can start cleaning what little fish we’ve got today.” He scowled, remembering Aleksei’s inability to converse with his wife. “Just say apron to Lara, can you say that? Apron?”

Aleksei sounded out the word. “Apron.”

“There you go. You just spoke English.” Vasyl gestured towards the kitchen. “Now get going.”

He felt Rebecca’s eyes boring into him and turned to her as Aleksei walked away.

“How could you?” she said. “Don’t you care at all about Kenneth?”

“No Rebecca, I don’t. I care about my business and I care about keeping this saloon going. Whatever mess your boyfriend got himself into is no concern of mine.”

“You’re heartless!” the girl cried, running out of the saloon.

“Good riddance to ya,” Vasyl called after her.

He knew she wouldn’t be gone long, and her outrage over Kenneth would be replaced by her need to eat and earn a living. He’d bet his life savings she’d be back in the saloon tomorrow like nothing happened, smiling and looking for as many tricks as she could get once the rail workers came in the evening to spend their day’s wages. Vasyl wasn’t the only one who could easily forget about Kenneth MacNeil.

And as much as he hated having a Russian under his roof, he realized that Lara was right and it didn’t matter all that much. All that mattered was that the saloon continued to operate successfully. Vasyl had never been happier with his business than he was here in the Turnagain Arm camp. With its coastline butting up against mountains, the area reminded him of home and his childhood along the Black Sea. He was content and felt at home for the first time since he’d come to Alaska. So when it came to getting what he needed to keep his business and his home running smoothly, he’d hire the devil himself if need be.

It was just as well it hadn’t come to that.

Lara set the candle she was carrying on the bedside table and crawled into bed next to her husband, who was flat on his back and apparently contemplating the ceiling of their small apartment on the second floor of their saloon.

“Penny for your thoughts, love,” she said as she blew out the candle and settled back into her pillows, her hands resting on her stomach.

“I was thinking about Nechayev.”

“What about him?”

“I don’t like him.”

Lara smiled. “So tell me what else is new? You haven’t liked him since he first walked through our door. You don’t like the Russians. I’m well aware of that now, Vasyl.”

Vasyl shook his head. “It’s not just that. There’s something off about him.”

“I don’t think so…”

Vasyl interrupted before she could say more. “Look at how quickly he’s learned English. How long has he been here, two weeks? He speaks English as well as I do.”

“He’s a fast learner. What’s wrong with that?”

“No one is that fast. I think he was lying about not being able to speak English when he showed up here.”

“Why on earth would he do that?”

Vasyl shrugged. “I don’t know. But he must have been.”

“Some people are simply skilled at learning languages. And he hasn’t exactly had a choice, has he? You’ll hardly speak Russian to him. And none of the rest of us can speak his language. When you’re thrown into a situation like that, you have to learn quickly.”

“Are you forgetting who you’re talking to here? Do you not remember that I couldn’t speak a word of your language when I came here from Siberia? I had to learn it too, just like Nechayev.”