The Sea Runners by Ivan Doig Read Free Book Online Page B

alive, Rosenberg will take it out on him."
    "What of rifles? How many can Braaf here lay his fancy fingers on?"
    Melander replied that they had the advantage of two read}' at hand: Karlsson's long-barreled .69-caliber hunting rifle and the military weapon that would be plucked from Bilibin. Then on the night of the escape, Melander continued, Braaf would gather them a few more. "Six, to be exact."
    Braaf blinked rapidly and Karlsson looked mildly surprised, but it was Wennberg who blurted :
    "Great good God, Melander, eight guns all together? We're going in a canoe, not a goddamned man-of-war!"
    "Name me a better cargo, can you, Wennberg? Do you think the ravens arc going to feed us on this journey, and the bears will guard us with their kind teeth? We don't know what in hell-all we'll face, but I want plenty of ball and powder to face it with. Aye? If you wish to come along naked, so be it."
    Wennberg grumbled, then offered that if Melander was so fanatic on firearms, lie was willing to help out. A sentry's rifle had been sent into the smith shop for a new butt, plate; He could hold the gun hack by saying he hadn't got around to affixing the repair yet.
    Gravely Melander congratulated him on entering the spirit of their enterprise.
    "There, Braaf, he's made you amends. You'll need to pluck only five firepieces when the time is ready."
    Braaf said nothing.
    Karlsson too stayed unspeaking, but he had begun to have a feeling about Wennberg. There was something not reckonable, opposite from usual, about this blacksmith. As when the eyelid of a wood duck watching you closes casually from the bottom up.
    Wennberg was not done with the topic of weaponry.
    "Just where'll our little storekeeper get these guns, anyway?"
    "You do take three bites at every berry, don't you, Wennberg? But since you bring the matter up..." Melander turned his long head to Braaf in the manner
of an indulging uncle. "Braaf, what of it? Where can the guns best be got on our night?"
    "The officers' clubhouse," Braaf responded with entire matter-of-factness. "The gun room."
    For the single time in all the unfolding of the plan, Melander blanched. Karlsson pulled once at his thin nose. And sardonically, Wennberg: "Next, Braaf, you'll want, to parade up to the Castle Russians and ask can we have their underwear for warmth on our little journey."
    Braaf shrugged. "Sauerkraut is in the smelliest barrels, guns are ¡11 a gun room."
    Melander found voice, restrained Wennberg, chided Braaf, and the matter began to be argued out.
    It emerged that Braaf likely hail it right. That the collection of rifles racked like fat billiard cues within the officers'gun room—on one of his invented errands that wafted him into all crannies of the settlement Braaf had spotted the weapons—and which were used for shooting parties when the governor's retinue went downcoast to Ozherskoi, this small armory was New Archangel's richest trove of firearms unguarded by sentries.
    But, as Wennberg demanded, not without suspicion, why unsentried ...?
    "Because of the padlock 011 the door and the chain through the trigger guards?" Braaf suggested.
    This silenced even Wennberg.
    Karlsson at last spoke up.
    "There's a second stick to this cross. The officers
and company men coming and going. They flow in and out of that place day and night."
    "I can mark us a safe time," Melander mused. "But snatching those guns loose..."
    "Wennberg," murmured Braaf.
    "Mister Blacksmith!" Melander proclaimed.
    "You squareheaded sons of Chores," Wcnnherg said unhappily.

    The waiting became a kind of ghost attaching itself within each of their lives, as if a man now cast two shadows and one somehow fell into his body instead of away. The outer man had to perform as ever—do bis work, eat, sleep, carry on barracks gabble—while inside, this sudden new shadow-creature, the one in wait, bided the next six weeks and six days wholly in thought of the immense voyage ahead.

    Melander as he waited studied the