by Chris Riley
“Nah,” I replied, “let’s just move around some, maybe go upstairs.”
Helping each other up, Danny and I left the galley and headed toward the wheelhouse. In the hall, I spotted Dave sitting near the door in the ready-room, adding the final touches to his rope harness. I wondered about that man and our confrontation just minutes prior. There was something about him I couldn’t read, something I couldn’t quite figure out. As I headed up the stairs to the wheelhouse, I thought about the conversation I’d overheard, days before, between Dave and the captain. Something about Dave’s past, about him letting things go. Something about Danny.
We met the rest of the crew once we got to the top of the stairs. Sometime while we were outside, Salazar had hobbled up to the wheelhouse. After coming back in, Loni also made his way up to check on the captain. Now the five of us huddled, pondering our situation.
“If you boys can suitcase those pots,” said the captain, “we just might get through this.” Fred stood heavily against the steering wheel, his knuckles white in their grip, sweat beading his forehead. He was using manual steering and a manual compass—old-fashioned sailing—and I wondered if the man wasn’t actually loving it, despite the mortal danger.
“I figure I’ll just keep us heading northeast as much as I can,” Fred continued. “That’ll get us closer to Kodiak, anyway. And when this bitch of a storm settles, we’ll be all right.”
“You want us to cut all the pots, Captain?” Loni asked. “Suitcase them all?”
“If you can,” the captain replied. “I know it’s a lot of money, but we need to lose as much weight as possible.”
I thought about how low the Angie Piper had sat in the water when that recent wave rolled through us. It seemed as if a hungry leviathan had swelled up from the deep to swallow a minnow. The captain was right, and we all knew it. If we wanted to stay alive, we had to get as many of those pots as possible off the deck.
From below, Dave bellowed, “All right, girls, let’s go!”
The captain looked at me, then at Loni. “You guys be careful, you hear? Salazar stays with me, but I want the rest of you back up here once those pots are gone. Got it?” Like a true captain, he was worried sick about his crew. It showed in his eyes. And for a brief moment, I saw half a dozen phantom stares come out of the man’s face. I saw my father’s and mother’s, the day I left home for the first time. I saw Mr. Wilson’s, that night he came over to tell my parents that his wife had passed away. I even saw the stare of Mr. Elmsworth, the high school swim coach, as I pictured it on the day when he gave Danny that apologetic “No.” And for a brief moment, I might have seen my own stare.
We struggled down the steps once again, cursing under our breaths. Since the rude awakening caused by the fall from my bunk, nothing had let up. Things had only gotten worse outside, which made the inside of the boat a navigational nightmare. It was crowded with obstacles and beveling floors, and anything and everything that could get in our way. I slipped halfway down the stairs, crashing into Danny’s legs, bumping my head against the wall. Blood poured out of the gash above my forehead, but I didn’t care anymore. As long as I could see, I didn’t care.
Danny helped me up, and the three of us eventually met Dave in the ready-room. He had his harness on; it was a simple climber’s rig that looped around both thighs, up his back and over each shoulder. Also, he had made a small loop on the rig, at the center of his back, where there dangled a large, steel carabineer. I marveled at the man’s ingenuity, and might have complimented him if I didn’t feel he would take the words as open sarcasm.
“Hey, weren’t we just here?” Loni said, chuckling. Unlike Dave, Loni never ceased to look for the unseen gem in life, wherever it might hide. “Nothing stupid, right Dave?” he added.
“That’s fucking right!” Dave replied. “Now listen ….” His tone was serious and to the point. “When we get out there, I’m gonna rig this harness to the picker. Loni, I’ll need your help. But then, get back to the hydros, understand? And Ed, Danny,” he continued with just a hint of contempt, “stay back and keep your eyes and ears open.” He handed me the bolt cutters once again, then gave me a queer look. I couldn’t tell if he was angry or just serious. I figured he was angry, but Dave confused me by adding, “Whatever happens, don’t lose these, Ed. Everyone’s counting on you.”
Once again, out the door we went, and that damn wind smacked us all the more violently this time around, as if furious that we had escaped her first beating. Mother Nature was in our faces now, bawling us out with a temper that rivaled Poseidon’s. And Lord if it wasn’t fifty degrees colder ….
“Ooh-wee,” Loni began, “let’s get this night over with already!”
We stumbled out onto the deck as a group and made our way over to the hydro machine, tucking ourselves up against the superstructure for cover. I brought up the rear, and this time I quickly secured the door into the ready-room before I followed everyone.
Dave and Loni mumbled something to each other, and then they both lunged toward the picking crane, timing their movements with the list of the boat. One error in judgment now, and a person would find himself hurtled into the main-stack of crab pots. Or worse, over the rail and into the sea.
“Hook me up,” Dave hollered. His hands gripped the picking crane, while Loni struggled to fasten the carabiner from Dave’s back onto the crane cable. Twice, our Polynesian deckhand almost went over the starboard rail after the boat pitched hard against the waves. And twice, Dave grabbed Loni by the shoulder and reeled him back.
“Get this fucking thing hooked already!” Dave said. He looked over at Danny and me, and then shouted, “Get ready with those cutters, Ed!”
“I’m ready!” I hollered back. I looked down at the tool in my hand and thought for a second. “Wait a minute!” I added. “Just hold on!” I made my way back inside the boat and grabbed a length of rope from the ready-room, which I then lashed to the bolt cutters, making an improvised sling. When I returned on deck, Dave was glowering, but his face relaxed when he saw what I had done.
He nodded, taking the bolt cutters after I approached him. “Good thinking, Ed,” he said, strapping them across his shoulder. “You’re full of surprises tonight.”
Thinking about Dave’s words, the way he said them, brought to mind my actions of the past, and how I had at one time treated Danny. I thought about my own motives, as well as my ever-present confusion, which seemed to be the catalyst for all my grief. In the past, I had let this confusion turn me into the same man I was now staring at, and that was the toughest realization ever. On that night at McCrawley’s, Dave had given me a look, a knowing look that I was just now beginning to understand.
The wind tore through my raingear, bringing me back to the present and chilling my bones into an aching misery. I stepped back against the superstructure, next to Danny, and braced myself. We watched as Dave and Loni proceeded with the plan to cut loose the pots.
“Okay, Loni, get me up there!” Dave’s bellowing voice ripped through the howling cacophony of the night. “Starboard side. Let’s cut those fuckers loose!”
Slowly, Loni worked the levers of the hydraulic system, and then I focused intently on Dave’s feet. A sliver of separation turned into a half-inch gap, which turned into a good foot off the deck, and then Dave’s body began to swing like the pendulum of a grandfather clock.
“Hurry the fuck up!” Dave shouted. If Loni lost control of the crane’s “cargo,” Dave’s body would succumb to the will of the ocean and the sway of the boat. He would likely turn into a bloody pulp after slamming against the picking crane, the main-stack, and then the superstructure. “Get me up there!”
Loni was frantic, working the levers faster now. Dave rose ten feet off the deck, across the starboard rail, and over the churning waves of the icy sea. I imagined the horror of a cable snapping at that moment. Would we even bother trying to save the man, if he fell right then? Could we? In seconds, the deluge of swirling water would gulp his body down
and suck him under the Angie Piper, spitting him out no less than a minute later, and somewhere into the darkness fifty yards away. Dave would be gone forever.
Almost as bad for us, our vessel tipped hard to port when a large wave rumbled over deck. In no time, we were waist deep in the frigid sea once again, while Dave’s body now swung midship, out of control, dangerously close to the main-stack. I clung to my handhold, afraid of being washed over the rail. Then I watched as Dave’s knee clipped the corner of a crab pot, causing him to recoil in obvious pain.
“This is fucking crazy, Loni!” I hollered.
Loni didn’t respond. His body straddled the hydraulic controls, eyes staring a direct path to Dave. He was attempting to regain control of the situation. His hands worked furiously over the levers, never mind that we all stood in a river of icy water. Loni cursed and spat into the wind, yet thirty seconds later his skills prevailed. He had Dave suspended off the starboard rail once again, and with a deliberate pace, inched the man toward the outside edge of the main-stack.
Most of the water cleared our deck in less than a minute, and now Dave was two feet from the first dangling pot. He reached for the corner of the main-stack, pulled himself closer, and then wriggled his feet into the sides of the stacked pots, finding footholds in the netting.
“How the hell are we gonna cut all these pots loose?” I shouted.
“One at a time, sailor-boy!” Loni replied, keeping his stare on Dave while his face broke into a crazy grin. “We gonna cut ’em one at a time.”
Dave jerked down on the bolt cutters just then—one, two, three solid times in a row. The sagging pot, which had been banging violently against the ship, plunged down along the bulwark and into the hungry waves, gone.
“I still think this is fucking crazy!” I shouted.
Two more pots hung near the rear of the main-stack, starboard side. Dangling haphazardly on edge, they were the next target as Dave vigorously motioned with his hand. He might have been yelling at us, but thirty feet through the wind, his was a dead man’s voice. A squall of white foam and snow hurried over the deck, briefly erasing Dave from sight. Concerned, I looked down at Loni’s hands and saw that they had gone motionless at the controls.
“One at a time, right?” I hollered.
“You bet,” Loni replied. The Polynesian was a basalt statue, focused at the hydro station, his eyes on Dave, completely indifferent to the raging storm around us. “Just gotta get him down to those other pots.”
Danny had been standing behind me against the superstructure, silently watching, until he stepped forward and tapped my shoulder. “Maybe we should climb up there to help him, Ed.”
“No way, Danny,” I replied. Our boat advanced into the trough of a large wave, and Danny and I fell back against the superstructure. “This shit is crazy enough as it is. We shouldn’t even be out here.”
The wall of white passed, and then Danny pointed at Dave, still perched on top of the main-stack. We watched Loni let out slack with the picking crane’s cable, allowing Dave to shuffle down to the other pots. It was visual torture just standing there. I felt a sudden urge to run forward and climb up the tower of steel, as Danny had suggested. But I knew that in seconds I would get thrown off the boat and into the water. The Angie Piper was swaggering through the seas in complete disorder, like an angry drunk, making the act of standing on deck hard enough. Climbing up and around the main-stack without being attached to the picking crane would be plain suicide.
It took several long minutes for Dave to scramble across the top. Twice, he lost his grip and tumbled, but the crane cable kept him from going too far. When he finally reached the other loose pots, he was close to the rear of the main-stack, portside. His body sagged against a hundred-knot wind rushing past with fierce determination.
“Come on, Dave,” Loni hollered, “cut them boys!”
There was no way Dave could have heard Loni, but strangely, it seemed as if he had. He shook his head, hunched forward with his body, extended the bolt cutters, and gave a sharp “jerk” against the chain. Then he changed his position slightly, and clamped down on another section of chain. About half a dozen times and five minutes later, there came a deep boom from above, as the pots fell in unison, clashing against the bulwark and right over the edge.
Those of us on deck cheered, but our enthusiasm died quickly. Dave was now frantically motioning with his hands to bring him down. He looked desperately tired, slumped down on the main-stack. Loni worked the controls to lift Dave’s body, and then lowered him straight toward the deck. Danny and I lunged forward and stabilized Dave as if he were a crab pot.
A cold sensation of hopelessness went through my mind when I looked at Dave. His face looked like aged granite: gray with fatigue, ragged, and dusted with flakes of snow. He wasted no time at all draping his limp arms over Danny and me. I unclipped him from the picking crane, and we helped him over to the superstructure, immediately sitting him down.
“What a bitch,” he muttered, shaking his head. “That wind is a bitch.”
“You wanna get inside, Dave?” Loni asked.
“Fuck that! We’ve got the rest of these pots to deal with. Just give me a second to catch my breath.”
“How’s your knee?” I asked. Twice, I observed Dave reach down and rub the knee he’d smacked into the corner of a pot.
“Hurts like hell. But I’ll survive.”
“You think we can climb up there now?” Loni asked. He pulled in the remaining slack from the picking crane, then hunched down with the rest of us. “Just untie, and pull the bastards down, eh?”
Dave nodded, and then paused, as if in thought. “I think so. As long as we’re quick. Gonna have to take turns doing it, though.” He stood and leaned against the superstructure, the color coming back to his face, while it surely drained from mine. The thought of having to climb the main-stack sent surges of arctic fear throughout my body.
“It’ll be suicide climbing up there,” I argued, pointing to the main-stack.
“It’ll be suicide if we don’t,” Dave replied.
“He’s right,” Loni added. “Using the crane takes too long, and we gotta get them pots down. We can take turns, one at a time, bring ’em down to the deck.” He looked at Danny, grinning. “And Danny-boy can help set ’em in the launcher.”
I trembled inside. We would run the pots down onto deck as if we were going to bait and launch them. It was the quickest method to dump all our pots. Taking turns, we’d climb up the main-stack, un-secure chain and rope, and then secure the picking crane. Our only saving grace was that we would pull from the front of the stack, unlike Dave, who had been toward the rear. But still … we’d have to get up there into that ghastly wind without being tied down.
“Hold on!” Loni shouted suddenly, as the Angie Piper pitched high into the sea, and another body of water rushed over the rail, flooding us waist-deep in misery. I grabbed Danny by his elbow and we braced ourselves against the superstructure. Every passing minute, every gust of wind, and every enormous wave brought with it a more bitter coldness than before. I clenched my teeth in pain and waited for the water to recede off deck.
“Let’s get this shit over with, then!” Loni hollered, as soon as the deck had cleared. “Dave, you run the hydros. I’m going up!”
“Here you go,” Dave replied, handing Loni the bolt cutters. “Take these. Don’t fuck around with the chains. Just cut ’em.” He stepped over to the hydro station, and then looked back at Loni. “You got a knife?”
Reaching to his belt, Loni gave a quick nod.
“Cut the rope, also,” Dave said. “Hell … just cut everything!”
Ten seconds later Loni was halfway up the tower of caged steel, the picking crane hook trailing close behind. Near the top, his speed slowed dramatically. His raingear flapped violently against the wind, and he clutched at the steel girding of the crab pots. When he finally made it, he craned his neck backward to look for the picking hook. I had never seen Loni move with such s
low deliberation. A chill rattled my bones. It would soon be me climbing up there.
With his hands now buried deep into steel and mesh, as if operating on a monstrous robot, Loni effectively disconnected the first pot. He pulled the picking crane over and hooked it, then scrambled to the side.
“Get ready, Danny!” I shouted.
Dave waited for no one. He had that pot lifted out of the main-stack and lowered toward the deck as soon as Loni was out of the way.
“Careful, Danny,” I said, “it could start swinging crazy any second now. Don’t try to grab it if it does!”
Just before steel met the wooden planks of the deck, I rushed in and grabbed the cage. I felt the fierce power of Mother Nature surge beneath my grip, tugging at the crab pot through the list of the boat and the churn of the violent sea. With a stab of fear, I knew that in seconds my strength would fail against the sudden jolt of a passing wave, and that box of steel would go berserk. But then I felt Danny take hold of the pot. He had listened to the warning: stay ready and move quickly. He pulled the thousand-pound cage over to the launcher. Dave lowered it into position. I unhooked the picking crane, then stepped back. The launcher squealed. Over the rail the cage went.
“Hooyah!” Danny shouted, as the ocean swallowed the pot.
“Hooyah!” I replied, smiling briefly, despite my growing terror of having to climb the main-stack, the ungodly storm, and the fact that we were men fighting for our lives.
“Fucking, Hooyah!” With this last holler, coming from none other than Dave himself, I almost burst into elated laughter. His hostile attitude was forgotten. Here was the point I had desperately longed for since that first altercation with the man, back in Kodiak. It seemed that Dave was finally coming around.
No time to think about any of that just then. We had a hundred and seventy more pots to get rid of.
Loni yelled down at us, at Dave, signaling for the picking crane; he had already cut loose the second pot.
Dave operated the hydro controls, while Danny and I waited. In less than a minute, we had the second pot at the launcher. Danny set it, I un-hooked it, and bam. Over the rail she went—hooyah! The speed with which we dumped those two pots gifted us with hope for mercy. I saw it in Dave’s eyes, as well as Danny’s. I sensed it myself, and it had me feeling warm again—until five pots later, when Loni climbed down.