by Terry Grosz
“Jacob, I am satisfied this man is what he says he is. 1 would suggest we hire him as our second shipwright,” said John Paul with a twinkle in his eyes.
“Lad, you just joined our crew, and if we can get a good ship, you will have a new home,” said Jacob as he stuck out his hand to seal the deal.
“Jacob, I have two younger brothers who were able seamen for six years, the same as me, and were landlocked as well here in San Francisco when our ship sailed in and the rest of the crew deserted. They tried their hands at gold panning and found the work hard, the meals few and far between, and the payoff poor. They have returned to San Francisco and live with me in a one- room flat. Would you and your mates be interested in talking to them about joining the crew as well?”
Jacob looked at Bill and grinned. If Dean’s two brothers were anything like the lad sitting before them, they would soon have two more good men on the crew.
“Finish your breakfast and then go get them and see if they are interested in going to the waters off Alaska on a blubber, oil, and sea-otter-hide run. If so, bring them back so Bill and I can take a gander at them,” said Jacob with a grin.
Dean wolfed down the last of his breakfast and bolted out the door as if this opportunity would vanish into thin air if he waited too long. Forty minutes later he returned trailing two other young men who appeared to be in their middle twenties. Dean introduced his brothers to the men sitting around the table, and for the next fifteen minutes or so Bill talked to the two newcomers about their experience, likes, and dislikes. Then Bill nodded to Jacob and Martin, letting them know these two new additions would make good seamen. Jacob welcomed the two new men with a handshake, as did the rest of the men sitting around the now crowded table.
As Dean rowed the men out to where the Raven rested at anchor, Jacob and Bill looked on keenly as they approached the vessel. Bill had the man slowly row the longboat around the ship as his practiced eye checked out her hull and superstructure.
“Jacob, from here she looks like a damn fine ship. But let’s get aboard and check her out from stem to stem before we settle in our minds what we want to do,” said Bill with excitement building in his voice.
For the next four hours, all the men carefully checked out the ship as she quietly rested at anchor as if not wanting to spoil the moment for her potential new buyers.
Jacob gathered all the men on the deck and, sitting around on whatever they could find, they discussed the condition of the Raven.
“Dean,” said Bill, “what did you see that needed fixin’?”
Without missing a beat, the young man said, “She will need some extra sail for the hold. Her bilge is fine. Her main masts are made from the finest oak. She will need an assortment of new ropes for the hold and rigging. She will need some new steering chains that are heavier than normal if we are going into Alaska waters, and she will need a complete resupply of water casks, food, and wood for the deck boilers and coal for the steam engine. Other than that, this is one fine-looking ship.”
“Bill, what are your thoughts?” asked Jacob.
“My thoughts mirror those of our newest shipwright. This is one of the finest ships I have been on in a long time. And Dean’s assessment on the steering chains is right on. Alaska waters and storms will try even the best of steering chains, and we need the best since we will be close in to the coastline most of the time, seal, walrus, and sea-otter hunting.”
“What say the rest of you?” asked Jacob.
For the next hour the men supplied their thoughts and suggestions, and when it was all done, Jacob looked over at Martin. Martin quietly gave a nod indicating that he was comfortable with his brother’s decision to purchase the ship.
Walking back into the port manager’s office, Jacob said, “We like what we see on the Raven. Who do we go and see to purchase the ship and settle up?”
“That would be the Carriage State Bank on Market Street,” the man answered with a grin.
“How do I get there from here?” asked Jacob.
“I will call you a carriage. How would that be?” asked the port manager.
“That would be fine,” said Jacob, “because that bank is where my brother and I have our money, as it just so happens.”
As the port manager sent a runner for a carriage, Jacob turned to Martin and Bill, saying, “The two of you go to that Longshoremen’s Office up near where we ate and see what you can gather up as a crew. I don’t want any troublemakers, just good seamen who are willing to work for a share of the take. Also, Martin, I plan on using the Spanish ingots to parley into our ownership of the Raven. Any problems with that?”
“I don’t have any problems with that, Jacob. We have been carrying those ingots ever since our stepparents were killed, and I think it is now time to use them to help us achieve our goals. I know Mom and Dad would have approved, so go for it. And in a manner of speaking, it seems as if we have almost been cursed for as long as we have carried those ingots around. Especially in light of all we have had to do in order to keep them. But maybe that is just the Indian superstition in me, huh?” Martin replied with a grin.
* * *
Sitting in front of a banker, Jacob waited for him to finish the paperwork on purchasing the Raven. “There you go, sir. Everything is signed and sealed. You have purchased the Raven for the princely sum of $38,000. How do you propose to pay such an amount?” the man asked.
“My brother and I have in your bank a cache of gold coins, gold nuggets, and 126 Spanish gold ingots. I would like to cash all that in for coin and pay for the ship today,” said Jacob.
For the next hour, the bank manager and a clerk weighed out all the gold and arrived at a figure based on $16 dollars per ounce, which was satisfactory to Jacob. Then the bank manager wrote a draft on his bank for $38,000 to the owners of the Raven back in New York and converted the rest of the gold into U.S. gold coins and $50 and $100 gold territorial slugs from local banks and assay houses in the San Francisco area. After paying for the ship, Jacob and Martin were left with a balance of $157,800!
Jacob returned to the Sea Serpent Inn, where he met his brother, the rest of the crew, and fifteen more men of motley looks and seafaring attire. Buying all the men a drink, Jacob motioned Martin, Cain, and Bill into an unoccupied corner of the saloon and said, “What is the deal on all these men?”
“Jacob,” said Martin, “these all appear to be pretty sound seafaring men. Bill had at them with many questions while I just watched. He ended up with the best of the lot at the Longshoremen’s Hall, and unless I miss my guess, they seem pretty solid of timber and mind.”
“I count fifteen new men. I figured we only needed an additional thirteen after we took a look at the ship,” said Jacob with a questioning look.
“You are right, brother, but we found fifteen good ones and just figured if someone ever got sick or hurt, we would still have enough men to do the job. Besides, as you know, there is always plenty of work onboard, especially when the rendering work starts. With that, I figure we can keep all of them more than busy,” replied Martin.
“Good thinking, you three,” Jacob quickly replied. “Well, here it is. Our new home for as long as we desire.” He unrolled the bill of sale for their new ship, the Raven, for the others to see.
The three men each held the official document and then grinned at each other like a bunch of school kids who had just put a live frog in the teacher’s desk.
“Dang, Jacob,” said Martin, “when I said I wanted to see that great pond to the west, who would’ve figured that was where we would end up.”
Jacob just smiled at his brother’s words, as did Bill and Cain. Then the four men returned to the noisy gathering of seamen.
“Men!” said Jacob in a loud voice. “We have just had the good fortune to purchase a sound ship named the Raven. She is a three-masted whaler with an iron bottom and a reserve steam engine for emergencies and is of sound timber, having been built on the East Coast by master shipbuilders. She has a large, comfor
table crew quarters with a fire box below decks to provide heat. She also carries a large galley where half of us can eat at a time, good storage both fore and aft, a roomy officers’ quarters, and a double wheel up on the bridge by the captain’s quarters. She can pile on plenty of sail, and her masts and spars are of the finest oak. She is only eight years old and was abandoned by her crew when they arrived in San Francisco some days back.
“I need all of you to gather up your sea bags and be on Dock Number 3 by seven in the morning tomorrow. We will board her and make her shipshape while my brother, Cain, Bill, and I start making arrangements for the ship’s stores. All of us will fall to when they arrive and store everything below, both forward and aft so they are out of the weather and in balance with the ride of the ship. We will also be replacing our steering chains because we are going to the waters off Alaska to hunt walrus, fur seals, and sea otters. Now, let’s us eat and drink because it will be some time before we put in to shore for more of the same,” said Jacob.
There was a rousing cheer, and then the festivities began in earnest as the whiskey and rum flowed and the food ordered, and soon served, overflowed the tables.
At seven the next morning, Jacob, Cain, and Martin stood on the end of Dock 3 and looked over their charges. It was plain that many had more than enjoyed the previous night’s festivities, but every one of them stood steady on the end of the dock in anticipation of sea duty once again. As two longboats took the men and their gear to the Raven, Jacob and his handpicked companions moved into San Francisco on a spree to supply a ship for the waters off Alaska. Two weeks later, the ship had been supplied to the gills. Many cords of oak wood for the crew’s quarters and the deck’s rendering boilers had been stowed aboard as well as small mountains of coal for their steam engine. In addition, the hold had been stuffed with new wooden barrels to hold the oils rendered from the walrus as well as those filled with drinking and cooking water. Bill and Dean oversaw the replacement of the steering chains and added a larger rudder to make it even safer and more maneuverable when moving among the rocks off the Alaska shoreline.
On the day of departure, as the tide turned and the wind freshened, the anchor was lifted from San Francisco Bay, and the Raven, as if happy in its own right, moved gracefully out to sea. Turning north, Bill steered the Raven towards southeastern Alaska and the fabled sea-otter hunting grounds. By the time they arrived, the men and ship had been shaken down and were operating as an efficient team.
That first evening on the hunting grounds, Jacob, Martin, Cain, Bill, and John Paul, who was now the first mate, gathered in the captain’s cabin for a special dinner. One of the men who had been hired in San Francisco had previously served as a ship’s cook. As it turned out, he was a good one, possessing many fine culinary skills. That evening for their dinner, the men feasted on Pacific black brant, sea geese killed from the deck as they had flown by, beans, cornbread, and an apple pie made from dried apples.
“Here is to a meal fit for a king and a good voyage ahead,” said Jacob, holding up a cup filled with whiskey. All the men did likewise, and soon they fell to the dinner, eating as if it had been a long time since their last meal. As Martin reached for the decanter holding more whiskey, he noticed that it was sitting on top of a single Spanish golden ingot.
“Jacob, what is this?” he asked as he hefted the brick of gold.
“Oh, I couldn’t sell off all of the Spanish gold. We had too much family history in them, plus we lugged them around for so many years, I kind of got attached to them. So I kept one back for good luck and to remind us of our roots,” Jacob said quietly.
For a moment, the melancholy of the moment reached all around the table, with each man aware of his own history and that of the golden ingots. Then Martin hefted his glass and said, “To us, our parents, mountain men, the vanishing West, and our time.” That broke the spell, and the men fell once again to their dinner, followed by the still steaming apple pie from the galley.
The next morning, three longboats were lowered into the inland waterways just north of the Russian community of Sitka. In one longboat as a shooter sat Cain, and in the other two sat Martin and Jacob. Soon the bodies of the hapless otters were being hoisted aboard the Raven for pelting and rendering. For the next two weeks, the Raven’s crew shot hundreds of otter and a few seals as they moved farther and farther north along the coastline of southeastern Alaska. Then, as summer beckoned, Jacob, Martin, and Cain decided it was time to fill their holds with valuable walrus oil. They asked Bill to set a course for Saint Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea.
Sailing up through a break in the Aleutian Islands through Unimak Pass, the Raven proceeded to the northwest side of Saint Lawrence Island into the broken sea ice. There the gunners in the longboats shot hundreds of the trusting walruses off their icebergs, and soon the rendering fires burned day and night as the light walrus oil was funneled into waiting wooden casks. Once filled, they were bunged shut and stored below decks in ever-increasing numbers.
On one occasion, Bill said to Jacob, “Boss, the ship is riding lower and does not react like she did to the tiller when we were empty. It is pretty plain we are taking on a good load of hides and oil, which will please the crew over their shares when we sell our cargo.”
“Well, since we are here, we will kill and render as many animals as we can, but when you feel the sea ice is closing in and we need to scoot south, it will be your call,” said Jacob.
Soon more and more storms rolled in from the Bering Sea as the summer waned, making the shooting and hauling of the heavybodied walruses back to the ship by longboat problematic.
One evening, as the tired and windburned men ate supper, Bill said, “I think it is time we take what we have and run south. Storms in these latitudes can be rough, and I noticed the smoke from several other whalers on the horizon yesterday. All were heading south. I think we best follow. Besides, weather permitting, we can still take some otter along the coast of southeastern Alaska and Canada before we head back to Frisco.”
“What do you think?” said Jacob to Cain and Martin.
“Bill is our ship’s master and has been here before. I say we take his advice and head south,” said Martin.
“Yeah, I don’t cotton to freezing to death up here nohows,” said Cain with his typical grin.
“Then it is done,” said Jacob. “Just give us one more day hunting walruses, and with that we will have filled all our casks.” The following day, a quicker step could be seen among the crew as they moved around the ship. The thought of going home and spending some of their share monies seemed to lighten their feet as they moved around the deck. As promised, when the last of the hunters’ longboats were loaded back on deck in their housings, Bill turned the ship south and loaded on the sail. Throwing over the last of the rendered meats from the walruses, the men squared away the deck and holly-stoned all of the oily spots so they wouldn’t slip while working if hit with a storm.
Just off the coast north of Sitka, the Raven hove to as a winter storm lashed its decks with freezing seawater. The crew had to turn to with belaying pins and hammers to knock off the heavy load of ice forming on the decks and superstructure to prevent dangerous ice buildup and the possibility of a rollover.
Over the howling winds and salt spray, Bill yelled at Jacob, “I think we need to move farther south and get out of this ice. We are heavy with cargo anyway, and this extra ice freezing on the decks and rigging doesn’t do us any good in the steering department!” The howling winds made it necessary for Bill to repeat his words before Jacob understood.
With a wave of the hand pointing south, Bill set a new course.
South of Alaska in the Hecate Straits off the coast of Canada by the town of Prince Rupert, Bill and his second helmsman fought the wheel of the Raven for control. Because of the weight of her cargo, the strong, still howling onshore winds, and the iced decks and rigging, the Raven was responding to the rudder like a barge to Bill’s way of thinking. On deck, the exhausted crew con
tinued slipping and sliding as they tried to bust the heavy ice forming on everything. Finally Martin went up on the bridge to relieve the second mate manning the helm so as to help Bill at the wheel. Jacob was on the pitching deck busting ice with the men with a frenzy born of his innate survival instincts.
"Rogue wave, rogue wave!” shouted Bill over the howling winter winds.
Bill and Martin spun the wheel hard to starboard to meet this new threat. Slowly, ever so slowly, the Raven turned into the swiftly onrushing wave and, because of Bill’s skill at the helm, safely drove through the towering wall of water.
"Another one!” Bill shouted into the roaring winds and hellish flying partially frozen salt spray as he rung up full power from their hardworking steam engine, hoping the extra thrust and the wind in the sails would carry them over this wave as well. The Raven, like the good ship it was, swung into the onrushing wave, knifing through it as if it had been there before.
***
For two more days, the winter storm howled as it spun crazily out from the Bering Sea. Finally the winds subsided, as did the raging surf, and the sun finally shone weakly through the roiled heavens. Little Raven, son to Chief Orca of the Tlingit Indians, the Raven Band, rolled out from his sleeping furs and, careful not to waken anyone else sleeping in the long house, dressed and headed for the beach. As he always had, he would walk the shoreline in front of his tribe’s village to look for anything of value washed up on the sand by the recent violent storms.
Standing on the bank overlooking the shoreline, he was amazed at what he saw! Wooden casks were floating in the water and cast up on the shore. Bundles of sea-otter skins floated everywhere, and were stacked up along the surf line. Wooden wreckage floated and bobbed everywhere, signaling it represented flotsam from a large ship.
Running down to the shore, Little Raven began pulling in the valuable bundles of sea-otter skins and anything else he could find above the surf line. Then he spotted a partially sunken longboat bobbing in the surf at the water’s edge. Running over to the longboat, he swung its stern shoreward and dragged it up out of the still foaming surf. Peering inside the longboat, he saw nothing. Then he noticed the name on the longboat and smiled. The partially shattered transom board on the stern had a name painted on it in dark letters, and it appeared to be the same as his name—RAVEN...