Chapter One Nearly 150 years ago, when Alaska belonged to Russia and was called Russian America, a little girl named Erinia Pavaloff lived with her family at the Nulato odinochka, on the banks of the Yukon River.An odinochka was a trading post, a place for the native people to trade their furs. The odinochkas belonged to the Russian American Company, which wanted all the furs they could get to send back to Russia. The Indians and Eskimos wanted the things the Russians had to trade, especially tobacco and tea.Not very many people lived in Russian America. Papa said it was a huge, empty country, not like the rest of the world, which was full of villages and towns and cities. There weren't even any villages along the Yukon, just a few Russian forts and odinochkas close to the mouth of the river. Papa said in all of Russian America there were only a few very small towns, and those were far, far away from Nulato.

He said that if Erinia were a bird and could fly up over the odinochka, she would see thousands of spruce trees and birches and cottonwoods stretching in all directions. And across the wide Yukon she'd see the flats, tundra with countless grass lakes and winding creeks glittering in the sun. And maybe in all that wilderness, maybe up the Koyukuk River above them, she might see a bit of smoke from an Indian camp, but that would be all.Thinking about all that emptiness didn't make Erinia feel lonesome. Erinia never felt lonesome, because everyone at the odinochka took care to see that she was happy. Mamma said they spoiled her.Besides Erinia and Papa and Mamma, seven other people lived at the Nulato odinochka. Mamma was Athabascan, and Lena Kozevnikoff was Aleut, but the rest were creoles.

That was what the Russians called native people who had Russian fathers or grandfathers.Old Man Kozevnikoff and Lena had a grown-up boy, Elia, and there were also Erinia's big brothers, Minook and Pitka, and the workers, Stepan and Mikhail. That made ten altogether.Erinia's big sister used to live there too, and then it was eleven. Her real name was Ekaterina, but they never called her that because it was too long to say. They called her Kate.She was very good and quiet, like Mamma, so Erinia didn't miss her too much.Kate was at Ikogmute, way downriver.

There was an odinochka there and a mission as well. The priest took a few children like Kate to teach there.Papa said perhaps Erinia would go there when she was older, but Erinia knew when that time came, she'd just make such a fuss that Papa would change his mind. She was never going to leave Nulato.The odinochka was made of logs and was built around three sides of a large, square yard. Erinia could run from one end of the building to the other without ever going outdoors.The windows were all in the front, looking out on the yard. Papa said there were no windows in the back so that only the front of the building needed defending in case of raids.

At opposite ends of the building stood two tall, square watchtowers, so people could climb up and look all around to see if danger was coming. Erinia was not allowed to go up into the towers because the stairs were so steep. She did go up sometimes, though, when no one was looking. She liked the way things looked from up there, smaller and squattier.All around the odinochka there was a tall, tall fence with a big gate. The fence and gate were made of spruce poles fitted tightly together, and the tops of the poles were cut into sharp points.Papa told Erinia that every odinochka in Russian America had a tall fence like that because of raids.When Erinia wanted to know why there were raids, Papa and Old Man Kozevnikoff said it was because after the Russians came into the country, people started to get diseases they'd never had before, and they blamed that sickness on the Russians.

And because sometimes they thought the Russians cheated them when they were trading.