Bush Blues

by Sheldon Schmitt

  BUSH BLUES

  THE ADVENTURES OF ALASKA’S POLICE CHIEF SNOW

  SHELDON SCHMITT

  VIRGINIA BEACH

  CAPE CHARLES

  Bush Blues:

  The Adventures of Alaska’s Police Chief Snow

  by Sheldon Schmitt

  © Copyright 2018 Sheldon Schmitt

  ISBN 978-1-63393-639-3

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other – except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters are both actual and fictitious. With the exception of verified historical events and persons, all incidents, descriptions, dialogue and opinions expressed are the products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  Review copy: this is an advanced printing, subject to corrections and revisions.

  Published by

  210 60th Street

  Virginia Beach, VA 23451

  212-574-7939

  www.koehlerbooks.com

  A portion of the proceeds go to the Sitka Raptor Center https://alaskaraptor.org/

  DEDICATION

  To Esther, Shelby, Steven and Sean.

  Thanks for your love and support.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1: THE CRASH

  CHAPTER 2: THE BEAR

  CHAPTER 3: THE RESCUE

  CHAPTER 4: THE VILLAGE

  CHAPTER 5: THE JOB

  CHAPTER 6: THE CRIME

  CHAPTER 7: THE WALRUS

  CHAPTER 8: THE VISIT

  CHAPTER 9: THE BREAK

  CHAPTER 10: THE VILLAIN

  CHAPTER 11: THE AMBUSH

  CHAPTER 12: SNOW

  CHAPTER 13: UPRIVER

  PROLOGUE

  Chief Snow didn’t see Buck Nelson until it was too late. Nelson barreled into Snow like a linebacker, driving the chief into the dirt. The chief lay stunned, feeling all of his old injuries.

  Nelson had been wary of Snow ever since he showed up. He thought the police chief might suspect Nelson was up to no good. And there was no way Nelson was going to let this cop screw up his good thing. They were out in the middle of nowhere. No one around. Easy to get rid of the body, Nelson thought, and tough to prove what happened.

  Nelson was a quick thinker. And bold—not afraid to act on instinct. It was why he had acted so nonchalant and congenial at first. Nelson wanted Snow to relax. And Snow did. The one advantage that bad guys had over other normal people was their willingness to kill without hesitation. Do the deed without stopping or remorse. Nelson had decided. It was just a matter of whether Snow was stupid or green enough to give him the opening. Once Nelson saw the chance, he did not hesitate. He was all in now; Snow was a dead man.

  Snow hit the ground hard but instinctively rolled away. Nelson recovered quickly and scrambled back on top of Snow, grabbing for his throat. Snow squirmed and pushed with his legs, first one way and then the other, old wrestling moves that usually worked at getting out from under. But Nelson was strong and countered each move. The two tussled for what seemed to both like an eternity. Snow kept Nelson off his throat, but Nelson’s power and size ground Snow down.

  Snow bucked once, hard, got a little space, and slid his hand to release his weapon. He pulled the gun out, but Nelson knocked it loose and grabbed the chief’s throat.

  Snow began to panic and fought like a maniac as darkness crept into the corners of his vision. He grunted and wheezed as Nelson tightened his grip.

  CHAPTER 1

  THE CRASH

  Togiak Police Chief Snow sat behind the only other passenger, Frank N Beans, in the white, battered Cessna Cherokee. The plane had a thin red stripe down the body and up the tail. Its single propeller was in front, with wings on the underside of the fuselage. The passengers and pilot had to clamber over the wings to gain entry through small, lightweight cabin doors, climbing on hands and knees, ass in the wind—a feat that often brought smiles to those waiting their turn.

  The interior had tan faux-leather seats that had seen better days. The cabin doors had scratched Plexiglas windows, and they fastened shut with a latch at the top intended to make an airtight seal. But not in this case. The Cherokee hissed and moaned in flight as air wheezed through the door seals.

  The plane held up to six people in rows of two with a small aisle in between. It had room for some freight and mail up in the nose and behind the passengers. The plane was very much like the pilot—a little haggard on the surface but competent underneath.

  “Buckle up, girls. We’re burning daylight!” shouted the pilot around the soggy stogie stump in the corner of his mouth.

  “Eee! I am ready to go!” said Frank N Beans.

  When he first came to Togiak, Chief Snow had struggled for months to understand the common Yupik expression, “Eee.” He learned it was generally a form of acknowledgment or agreement. For example, if someone remarked that it was cold outside, a response of “eee” could mean “Yes, it’s cold.” But depending on the body language and inflection it could also mean “It’s really cold!” or “Whatever.”

  Snow kept thinking he was missing nuances in the expression, but over time he accepted that sometimes things were just vague. It wasn’t long before he used the term himself.

  “No stops, straight through to Togiak,” remarked Chubby to no one in particular.

  Chubby, who was not all that chubby, taxied down the rough, checkered, snow-swept asphalt runway to face into the hard north wind. Asphalt’s much better than the usual bumpy, sand-and-rock runways in the bush, Snow thought.

  Chubby Libby pulled the throttle back full as the plane was still turning into the wind. Snow’s pulse quickened a little as the engine roared. He felt the vibrations in his bones and stomach. The familiar mix of excitement and anxiety took over as he looked into the threatening, gray sky to the west.

  Flying in a small plane allowed solitude. The noise made it difficult to hear, so passengers mostly sat quietly, contemplating the scenery below and the integrity of the flying machine carrying them. And so it was for Snow. The chief smiled as he reminisced about his first flight in bush Alaska, which was piloted by one and the same Chubby. Snow relaxed as the plane bumped, creaked, and roared into the air before banking hard to the southwest, from Dillingham toward Togiak some eighty miles away over treeless, road-less wilderness.

  The outskirts of Dillingham quickly passed. The land beneath was stark and stunning. Rolling hills and countless lakes and streams stretched in front of them, essentially untouched by humans. Despite the cold gray day, the view was awesome.

  Snow thought back to when had first arrived in King Salmon on a jet ten years ago to the day, on his way to report to work at the wild and prodigious salmon fisheries of Bristol Bay. Snow was looking to make the big money. He had landed a job working for a cannery as a member of the “beach gang.” It was a place to start. The real money was made on the fishing boats, or so he had heard. But working on the water was dangerous. Boats went down often enough that fishing was considered a high-risk occupation. But that didn’t scare Snow off; in fact, that was the real reason he was there. Snow was drawn to the danger.

  Somehow, he wound up on the wrong side of the Naknek River. The cannery where he had landed a job was on the other side of the Naknek River.

  Young Snow screwed up the courage to ask for help. He needed to catch a ride across. He was directed to Chubby Libbit of Libbit’s Flying Service in the summertime hustle and bustle of Naknek, a small fishing village whose population swelled with men working around the fishery.

 
Though it was getting late in the day, it was still light. In the Alaska summer the sun stayed up late and so did the people.

  Snow knocked at the frame house next to a small runway of sand and rocks. The house was neatly painted white with red trim, similar to the famous pilot’s whiskey-soaked eyeballs. The house appeared well kept with none of the usual array of junk, dead vehicles and animal carcasses that decorated the exterior of most homes in this area. Just the fact that it was neatly and fully painted was unusual. And bright white, no less. Snow timidly explained that he was looking for a ride across the river to the smaller village of South Naknek. There were no roads between the two Nakneks; you had to fly the mile or so over the mouth of the big brown Naknek River.

  “Hey, maybe you want to take a boat across the river?” barked Chubby with a laugh. “Skinny, you remember that kid that tried to row across to see his sweetie? He ended up miles out to sea before someone picked him up, lucky he made it alive. The tides and current are fierce out here and nothing to mess with, son. Lots of boats have gone down in the Naknek River.”

  Most people flew in a bush plane across the river for routine business, despite the fact it was only a mile away. Bush planes were as common as taxies and used the same way. Children in remote villages rode planes to school.

  Chubby invited Snow in for a drink as he finished his own warm whiskey with fellow bush pilot and drinker, Skinny, who was in fact skinny, with a beak of a nose. Snow was pleased to be offered a drink. He felt a little less apprehensive and not quite so young.

  At that time, Snow was eighteen years old. Although he was raised in Alaska, this was his first experience out on his own. His adopted parents were not thrilled about his Alaska adventure. Bristol Bay had kind of a Wild West reputation, even by Alaskan standards. But Snow was determined to go. He was itching to get away from home and out on his own.

  Skinny was a great bush pilot in his own right, but Chubby was the star of the show, or most any act in which he was a player.

  Chubby wore a blue captain’s hat with scrambled eggs on the brim. He wore the hat at about the same angle he sauntered, which was a tilted, John Wayne at Rio Bravo bravado stride. He talked around a half-chewed cigar that was as much a part of his appearance as his hat, which Snow never saw Chubby without.

  And here he was again, gumming a cigar and piloting Snow.

  As they flew south, Snow realized he had never seen Chubby actually smoke a cigar. If anything, he manically masticated those soggy stogies and, really, you didn’t want to look too close anyway. But he was a hilarious bullshitter full of the devil and demon rum. He could make most folks laugh just by showing up and saying something, anything—even those who did not particularly like him for some reason or another, and those people were around, to be sure.

  Chubby had a widespread reputation as one of the best bush pilots that ever jerked a stick, and he had flair, to boot. He was the antithesis of the old saying, “There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.” Although he knew these parts, he wasn’t from this raw country.

  Chubby was a white man of mostly Irish blood who had the look of an Irishman. He was ruddy in the face and nose and not a large man at all. But he seemed large because of his confidence and manner. He had a twinkle in his eye and a wry smile when not chewing a cigar. His hair was a reddish-brown wiry mop under his hat, with a couple white and gray hairs mixed in. Most of the time he wore jeans and a brown bomber jacket that was worn white at the shoulders and elbows. He almost always wore dark brown, leather deck slippers in the summer.

  The fact that he was a hard drinker did nothing to diminish his reputation as a pilot. In those rough days in the bush, he was an aviation pioneer. His reputation was surely enhanced by his affinity for the drink and his ability to handle it. Hard drinking was part of the culture.

  Snow remembered fondly that first meeting with Chubby and how no adult had ever offered him a drink before. He remembered that offer of a drink made Snow feel a little braver and just a little more of a man.

  That night years ago, no adult had ever offered him a drink before. Snow listened to Chubby and Skinny trade lies while they drank until Chubby suddenly turned to Snow with a bark.

  “We’re burning daylight! Grab yer gear, boy!”

  Snow startled to life, shouldered his beat-up green seabag, and hustled to keep up with the side-winding Chubby, who led him out to an off-white Cessna 206.

  Chubby fiddled around for a few seconds and fired the plane up, wasting no time in barreling down the short gravel-and-rock runway on spongy tundra tires. Rocks smacked ominously on the underside of the plane. Chubby took off with the wind and headed right across the river into a thick fog. They were flying blind.

  “Don’t worry, kid! The fog usually hangs on the river. It’ll clear on the other side.”

  And, sure enough, it did. Chubby dropped the plane down and came in right over the river bank, about forty feet above a house that Snow later learned was occupied by the cannery superintendent. The super’s name was Odd Snortstad, and his personality fit the name. Right over the house, Chubby pulled the throttle back and forth, revving the engine to buzz the super and let him know he had a passenger to pick up at the airport. Chubby laughed and barked, “That always drives old Odd crazy.”

  The buzzing always seemed to startle Odd, who would spit out a couple curse words before smiling about it. But the super was enchanted with Chubby like most people and put up with the local pilot’s rude and flamboyant ways. What was he going to do about it anyway?

  Chief Snow reminisced about working at the cannery for a man named Odd. Lots of odd names, or nicknames, in those days. It was different then, he thought. Wilder or newer or something.

  Snow worked with a friend everyone called “Delirious,” a fellow from Bozeman called “Montana,” a guy from, well, somewhere, who they stuck with the nickname of “Crib Death.” And “Wild Bill” from Ohio was wild whether he was drinking or not. Such characters.

  The plane finally warmed up about twenty minutes into the hour-or-so ride to Togiak. The vibration, engine hum, and gathering warmth made Snow sleepy as he watched the snow-swept tundra and frozen lakes pass a thousand feet below. Snow looked out the starboard window over the wing. Off to the northwest, he could see the foothills of the low-slung Wood River Mountains and a series of large, deep lakes renowned for their excellent fishing. A dirt road led from Dillingham to the first lake in the chain, but after that you had to access the lakes by boat or floatplane. The lakes of the Tikchik State Park were a destination for avid and well-funded sport fisherman. World-class rainbow trout and dollies awaited those who made the trip.

  Directly below were miles upon miles of flat, brown, road-less lowlands dotted with a seemingly endless array of lakes. The winds blew like the devil out there, and the snow was swept clean except where it found a place to catch. There was hardly a sign of human existence. Snow machine trails were visible as they left the metropolis of Dillingham, the hub city with about twenty-five hundred people. But the trails soon petered out and then the vista below appeared untouched. Snow spied a puny shack beside one of the larger lakes and wondered about the people who built it. Why? And how? He imagined the hardy souls hauling materials and tools so far off the grid to build a simple shack. He wondered if he could do that.

  Frank N Beans dozed in front of Snow. Suddenly, Chubby steered the plane down at a steep angle. He banked around and barked something back at Beans and Snow, but Snow could not hear what he was saying. Snow could tell by the excited barking and cigar chomping that Chubby had spotted something and they were going down for a look. Chubby spiraled the plane down until they had done a 360 and were retracing their path, closer to the ground. Chubby wagged the wings back and forth and buzzed an unsuspecting brown bear below.

  “Look at that sumbitch!” Chubby yelled.

  Snow saw the brown bear as they were bearing down on it. It was on its hind legs and clawing at the air to swat the noisy
intruder. Snow winced as they passed over. The bear stood over ten feet tall. Chubby laughed and barked.

  Frank N Beans said something to Snow, revealing a gap-toothed smile under his thick black mustache. Beans’s speech, a wonder to understand even under ideal conditions, was impossible now, so Snow smiled and raised his eyebrows in agreement, as was the custom.

  Like the expression “Eee,” raising one’s eyebrows was a common means of communication with the Yupik. Raising both eyebrows usually meant “yes” or “I understand.” When he first arrived, Snow asked a local man a question several times. The man did not answer; he just kept looking at Snow with a look of surprise. Snow realized later that he had been responding. Snow had simply not understood that his look of surprise was him saying “yes” with his eyebrows.

  Frank N Beans fiddled around, getting comfortable again. Snow did the same as he thought about Beans. Frank N Beans is the reason for this trip to town in the first place, dammit, thought Snow. He had arrested him the night before and, after leaving Frank overnight in one of the two cells at the station, ended up transporting him to Dillingham for arraignment. What a goat rope.

  Beans was gentle and often unintelligible. He stood about five foot two in his white, rubber bunny boots and rarely got violent. When he did, he was usually drunk, which he often was. Snow had once seen him with a black eye from a skirmish with his brother, Stanley Beans, who had also been drunk as usual. But violence was an anomaly for the Beans boys. Frank was quiet in his ways and smiled a lot. He was small-boned and dark-skinned with a flat face. His head seemed too big and square for his body. His legs were so bowed that his bones looked curved. He walked in the side-to-side manner of a person who worked on the water all his life, making him look drunk even when he was less so. His eyebrows shot up all the time, which could mean just about anything. The natives in this country were very expressive with their eyebrows, Frank N Beans, more than most. His bobbed like a skiff at anchor in the wind.