Page 33 of Echoes of Twilight (Dawn of Alaska #4)

33

H e was an idiot. An utter and complete idiot. Sitting on the thin mattress, Mikhail hung his head over his knees, his back against the rock wall of the jail cell.

He’d known there would be some questions about Richard Caldwell’s death, but he’d assumed it would be treated like the death of any other man who ventured into the wilderness.

A few questions might be asked, but Alaska was harsh and brutal, capable of killing a man within hours—sometimes even within minutes. No one asked very many questions when someone died, and people asked even fewer questions when a man ventured into the mountains and simply disappeared, never to be heard from again.

Other than that long-ago expedition with Livy that he’d ended up in charge of, he’d lost only one man. One man in a decade of guiding expeditions, and he’d had a weak heart. He’d died one night in his sleep, camped high in the mountains, where the air was thin.

Marshal Hibbs had asked him and the others in the group a handful of questions when they returned, and that had been the end of any investigation.

He should have known it would be different with the Caldwells. Should have realized they were looking for any opportunity they could to attack his family.

And really, he couldn’t blame them. Richard might have been a snake, but he still could have done something more to prevent his death. That was his job, after all. To keep people alive in the most dangerous place in the world. And had he been standing closer to Richard, had he been faster walking out on the log rather than creeping along slowly, he might have been able to stop him from falling.

Or maybe he should have sent Heath across the gorge first and then had Richard help him carry the trunk. Or...

The door separating the jail from the administrative offices on Castle Hill squealed open, and the sound of boots on the dirt floor thudded closer. Alexei. He could recognize the clipped sound of his brother’s gait anywhere.

He pushed himself off the mattress and approached the bars.

“I’m sorry.” The words were out of his mouth before Alexei even fully stopped in front of him.

Evelina had come with him, a satchel hung over her shoulder.

Deep grooves appeared in Alexei’s forehead. “Sorry about what?”

“That I didn’t do more to prevent Richard’s death.”

“Were you negligent?” Evelina stepped closer to the bars and slid a thick stack of papers from the satchel. “Is there anything to this claim?”

He glanced at the legal papers, likely typed up in haste that afternoon so he could be arrested before Thanksgiving. “Of course there is. I should have stopped Richard from falling, just like I should have stopped the others from dying too.”

“What others?” The grooves in Alexei’s forehead deepened. “I thought Richard was the only man who died on the expedition.”

“I wasn’t talking about this expedition. I was talking about before, about all the other times.”

Silence filled the space between them as Evelina and Alexei looked at him in the lamplight flickering from the sconce on the wall.

Evelina eventually wet her lips, then took a small step closer to the cell. “I still don’t understand. What times do you mean?”

“When our parents died at sea.” Mikhail reached up, fisting his hair at the roots before looking at Alexei. “Don’t you regret not begging Father to go with them that day? Don’t you ever wonder if—had you been there—you would have been able to convince him to stay in Hoonah rather than try to beat the storm home?”

Alexei gave his head a slow shake. “I was in San Francisco studying naval architecture. I didn’t even know he was going to Hoonah.”

Mikhail swallowed. Alexei had never blamed himself? Not once?

“I was fifteen.” Evelina’s voice sounded soothing despite the darkness of the jail. “I never saw it as my responsibility to try and keep them safe.”

“Surely I’m not the only one who has regrets about that day,” he whispered. “What about Sacha? Does he wish he would have done something different?”

Again, Alexei shook his head. “You’d have to ask him to know that for certain, but he’s never expressed anything like that to me.”

“Is that why you guide all these expeditions?” Evelina tilted her head to the side, her eyes latched to his. “Are you somehow trying to redeem yourself for what you feel you didn’t do when Father died?”

Was he trying to redeem himself? Was that what this was? “I just don’t want any more senseless deaths. We’re surrounded by it. I try to use the talents God has given me to keep people alive, but after this...”

He pressed his eyes shut against the burning sensation threatening to overtake them. “I’m sorry for not being stronger. For not being better. For giving the Caldwells an easy opportunity to attack us.”

“Using your talents doesn’t mean you have to be perfect, or that whatever you try to do needs to end perfectly.” Alexei stepped closer to the cell door, his brows drawn down. “Look at Jeremiah. He spent years warning the nation of Israel to repent or God would judge them. No one listened, yet Jeremiah stayed faithful. He was imprisoned, beaten, and mocked, and yet he said, ‘The Lord is good unto them that wait for him.’”

Alexei pulled a small Bible from the pocket of his coat. “And do you know when he said that? After he was captured and imprisoned, as he was watching the nation he loved fall? He said that it’s ‘of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning.’ That’s how great God’s faithfulness is.”

Alexei slid the Bible through the bars. “It’s in Lamentations three. You should read it while you’re in here. Or better yet, read the whole book of Jeremiah followed by Lamentations. Then you’ll get a full idea of what happened.”

Was Alexei right? Was he so focused on being perfect as a guide—on preventing everyone from dying—that he was missing some bigger truth that God had for him?

Mikhail took the Bible. It was small and slender. “I don’t know what to say.”

“And about our parents’ deaths.” Alexei swallowed, the muscles of his throat working overly hard in the dim lighting of the jail. “There’s nothing for you to feel guilty about. I have a feeling it’s the same way for the people you’ve lost in the wilderness too. They were in God’s hands, every last one of them. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. ‘Blessed be the name of the Lord.’”

Was it really that simple? Did he really just need to lay those deaths at Christ’s feet and recognize that God was ultimately the one in control, not him? He hung his head. “I just... I feel like I tried so hard to bring the missing scientists home safely. I never expected it to land me in jail—or create problems for our family.”

“That just means you’re like the prophet Jeremiah, trying so hard to save those around you that you get yourself into trouble. It seems like a good problem to have.” Evelina smiled at him, then passed the paper in her hand through the bars of his cell. “But our legal system is probably a bit more evolved than the one Jeremiah faced, so I’d like to work on getting you out of here. As you can see on the paper, they’re charging you with negligent homicide, which is different than murder. It means that your negligence on the trail led to Richard’s accidental death, and had you been more vigilant with your responsibilities, Richard wouldn’t have died.”

“Yes, of course Richard would be alive if I’d been more vigilant. If I’d just walked farther onto the log or?—”

“No. You have to stop thinking that way.” Evelina cut him off. “Unless you want to spend the next ten years of your life in prison.”

He swallowed. Was that how long the sentence was for negligent homicide? He’d be thirty-seven when he got out of prison, so old he might not be able to guide anymore. He’d miss Inessa and Ilya becoming adults, finding jobs, and getting married. He’d miss the births of his nieces and nephews. And his own prospects for finding a wife at such an old age, after being convicted of such a serious crime would be nearly nonexistent.

“We have one big thing working in our favor,” Evelina said, her voice tugging him back to where he leaned against the cold bars of his cell. “It’s unusual to charge a guide—or anyone else who spends time in the wilderness—with any type of homicide. Deaths happen in the wild. That’s been commonly understood up until now. I’m going to try to get this case thrown out on that fact alone, so you never have to stand trial or testify. But if you do have to go to trial, we’ll need to prove that you weren’t negligent, that the temporary bridge you constructed was safe, and that you had a pattern of ensuring everyone’s safety for the duration of your time in the wilderness. Eventually you’ll need to testify, and I’ll practice cross-examining you, because we can’t, for any reason, have you admit that you should or could have done more to stop Richard from dying, regardless of your thoughts or feelings about the incident. Saying such a thing would result in an admission of guilt and a prison sentence. Do you understand?”

He nodded, even though he still wasn’t sure he was innocent when it came to Richard or his parents or anyone else.

Evelina took out her pencil and clipboard. “Let’s start by listing some of the safety-conscious things you did for the botanists.”

Mikhail glanced down at the paper she’d handed him. He was still holding it for some reason, even though the words were nothing more than a swimming jumble of letters bobbing across the page.

“If you expect me to understand anything on this paper, you’ll have to read it to me.” He shoved it back through the bars.

Alexei’s brows drew down. “Why do you need her to read it?”

He sighed. “Where’s Kate? Why didn’t she come to visit?”

“You’re asking for a doctor when you need a lawyer?” A frown crept across Alexei’s mouth.

Mikhail raked a hand through his hair. He supposed that if he needed help getting out of jail, he’d have to tell the rest of his family he couldn’t read. What was the point trying to hide it anymore? “Because I can’t read, and Kate always helps me with it.”

Alexei scratched the side of his head. “You can’t... I don’t understand.”

Evelina moved her gaze between the two of them. “Do you suffer from word blindness?”

He cringed. Blindness made him sound so helpless, and he didn’t want to be helpless. He had spent the past decade of his life working and training so that helpless was the one thing he would never, ever be.

Just like the prophet Jeremiah, who had spent his entire life warning the nation he loved that destruction was coming.

Just how helpless had Jeremiah felt sitting in a prison cell, after doing everything in his power to protect the people around him and failing so miserably at it?

“I still don’t understand.” Alexei looked at Evelina. “Are you telling me Mikhail can’t read?”

“Please stop,” he muttered.

“But why can’t you read?” Alexei stepped closer to the bars. “You went to school like the others.”

“Yes, and I sat through all the lessons the same as everyone else. But I just can’t... The letters move, all right? They don’t stay still. They bounce around the page, and the harder I try to focus, the more they move.”

“It’s called word blindness,” Evelina said. “I have a student who suffers from it. It’s something I learned about when I went to teaching school.”

Mikhail reached out to grip the cell bars. If only he weren’t so helpless. If only he weren’t a burden. If only?—

“You are not a burden. Not ever! Do you understand?” Alexei’s hands settled over his on the cold metal.

Mikhail blinked. Had he said that aloud?

He must have, because Alexei had a fierce look in his eyes. “And there’s no need to apologize or say you’re helpless when you have an entire family ready to back you up. Two are better than one, but you don’t have just one other person supporting you. You have the entire family. That’s twelve other people. No one is asking you to get out of this mess by yourself. None of us even want you to try.”

“But...”

“But nothing. Even Jesus needed help carrying his cross.” Alexei’s voice was firm, carrying through the jail with enough authority that the other inmates in the cells near the door were sure to hear him.

Mikhail opened his mouth, trying to formulate some kind of response, some kind of protest, some kind of way to prove he could get out of this situation by himself.

But before he could say a word, voices erupted from the other end of the jail, where the door separated the guard’s room from the cells—rather loud voices.

Alexei turned to look at the door. “Is that a woman out there?”

Evelina put her papers back into her satchel. “It sounds like it, but it’s awfully late for a woman to be visiting the jail.”

“She sounds distraught. Let me see if she needs help,” Alexei said.

Mikhail sighed. “There’s no question about whether she’s distraught.”

Evelina placed the satchel on her shoulder and adjusted the strap. “Perhaps her husband was arrested earlier tonight, and she’s just now learning of it.”

“No.” Mikhail winced. “That’s not it.”

“How do you know?” Alexei turned back to him.

“Because I recognize the voice. It’s Bryony Wetherby.”