Prisoners of the Williwaw

by Ed Griffin

  There was a thud, followed by another thud. Then she felt the plane start to skid down the runway. She raised her head and looked out the window. Her eyes opened wide in terror. She watched the whole runway grow longer behind her as the plane slid sideways. She turned and looked out the other window and saw the barrier at the end of the landing strip coming at her.

  "Jesus God, we're going to die!" Judy screamed.

  The plane shuddered and swerved back and forth, eventually slowing down. Rain pelted the fuselage.

  There was silence for a moment, then Judy's sobs filled the plane. Latisha unfastened her seat belt and hugged her. "It's okay, we're down now."

  "Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus. Look at this place." Judy gestured toward the windows, obscured by sheets of rain.

  "Adak. We're on Adak," the pilot said over the public address system. He sounded surprised. People applauded, but one woman in the back yelled out, "You lousy bastard, when you gonna learn how to fly?"

  "We're taxiing in to the Pat Kelly Air Terminal," the pilot continued. "The temperature's 41 here, it's raining, and the wind's running between 35 and 50 miles an hour. That puts the wind chill around 15 degrees Fahrenheit. So bundle up out there!"

  The plane came to a stop on the runway near the terminal and she watched four federal soldiers roll steps up to the door. Two of them, one male and one female, climbed the steps, came into the plane and began searching everyone as they got off. She watched as woman after woman was searched and then left. She could see the bottom of the stairs as each woman descended and her man struggled across the tarmac to greet her. Was it the fierce wind and the driving rain that made them act like strangers to each other - or was it that they were almost strangers?

  And then, there he was, James T. Gilmore himself, walking across the runway, neat prison pants, an expensive looking parka, dignified, important looking, dressed to perfection even as a prisoner, but looking quite annoyed with the force of the wind.

  Her stomach fluttered. She wanted him. She wanted to ride the wild whirlwind with him. She stood up, got her carry-on and walked forward to be searched.

  Chapter 7

  Frank put his parka on and started to open the door to the runway. He wanted to wait outside for Judy's plane. The wind yanked the door from his hand, blew it open and then sent it hurtling back at him, nicking his elbow. He walked out into the rain, rubbing his elbow. How can I get control of these convicts, he thought, when I can't even control a door?

  The biting, shifting wind fit the day. "When do we eat, Villa?" "No indoor crappers? You gotta be kidding." "Heat don't work in my apartment, Villa. I got rights, ya know." "I ain't standing by no generator. Get somebody else."

  There was just one more group to settle, the ones inside, waiting with him for this plane. As each family landed the Feds released the convict, let him greet his family and then Frank assigned them housing and gave them their federal hand-out of two hundred dollars.

  He heard engines in the distance and saw her plane coming through the clouds, buffeted by the wind. One bounce, two and then a terrifying, sideways skid. Oh God, don't let it crash. No, no…. Thank God.

  Judy, who didn't like anything out of the ordinary, would be in tears by now.

  Why had she come?

  The door from the air terminal cracked open and the wind whipped it all the way open. Doc hung on with two hands. "Frank," he yelled over the wind, "help me. Guy down."

  "The plane. Judy's on it."

  "Fuck that. Help me."

  Frank followed Doc to the road outside the air terminal, where a convict lay along the edge. "Looks like drugs," Doc said. "Fucking Gilmore selling bad shit already."

  Frank helped Doc pick the man up. He recognized him from the Anchorage airport. "Gonna be lots of wide open spaces on this Adak Island," he had said to him. "Just like Montana."

  The two struggled to get the man to Doc's clinic, the wind driving rain into their faces. The man, though barely conscious, shivered. As they approached the clinic, he collapsed between them and they carried him the rest of the way into the clinic.

  "I gotta get back, Doc," Frank said. "Keep me posted."

  Frank ran back to the air terminal. His mind whirled with confusion. Twenty-four, thirty-six hours ago, he had gone to his tutoring job, stood in his cell for noon count, and then suddenly the prison door slammed on sixteen years of routine and he was chained to a guard on a flight to Anchorage. The first flight this morning to Adak, the handcuffs off - and terror of terrors, he, Frank Villa, #108392, an unresisting, docile prisoner, was the man in charge.

  Judy was going to be pissed if she got off the plane and he wasn't there to greet her. He let the wind, thankfully at his back, push him forward. "I'm going to be there for you, Judy," he had promised her.

  And inside the terminal, no doubt, a line of cons would be waiting for their housing assignments. Nothing was worse than a line of convicts with nothing to do.

  Rifle fire came from the hill in the west. Frank shook his head and started to jog.. Drugs and guns and his men battling with Gilmore's men over buildings - the garage, the officers' club, the power plant, the communications center and the airport. And all this in the middle of a screeching wind and rain storm.

  He had to get control.

  He opened the door to the terminal. Judy stood by his table. Seven years since he'd seen her and she was still the tight, short sexy woman he remembered. She didn't look very happy. "Yeah, sure, Frank, I give up my nice house, I come half way to Russia, and are you here to greet me? No."

  Frank bowed his head. "I'm sorry, Judy. A guy…"

  "And the lights went out twice and these inmates . . ."

  Hug her. Hold her, a voice inside him said. Tell her it's going to be all right.

  He put his arm on her elbow, then on her back, his body stiff and distant. He hadn't hugged her - or any woman - since before his crime.

  "Yo, Villa, let's move the line, whatta ya say?" The men waiting for housing grew impatient. "Kissy, kissy, with the wife later."

  Frank squeezed her. "I just have to finish with these guys. Not more than an hour."

  She pulled away from him. "Frank, do you know how long I've been traveling? I want to go to our apartment right now."

  "It's not going to take long."

  "Well, just drive me there and come back."

  "We don't have any cars."

  "No cars? Did you expect me to walk in this weather?"

  Frank did not respond.

  "How were you going to get my luggage there?"

  "Carry it."

  Judy gave an exasperated sound.

  "I'll hurry," Frank said. "Only a few minutes, Judy."

  She sighed. "I'll help you."

  "You don't have to help, Judy. Just relax. I'll be done soon."

  "You'll be done sooner if I help you."

  "I don't want you to have to work."

  The man waiting at Frank's desk said, "Would you two hurry up?"

  It was like their visits in prison - they talked past each other. But now there was no time to work on their relationship - men were waiting.

  "Maybe you could note what house or apartment each man has."

  "Okay." She pulled a plastic chair up to the table, took a tissue from her purse and wiped the chair off. "Damp," she murmured. Then she used another tissue on the tabletop in front of her. "Everything is wet here, Frank."

  He nodded. In prison things were colorless, they were old, they were dirty, but at least they were dry.

  Frank concentrated on each man as he came forward in the line. Every man was a potential ally or a potential enemy and he needed every man he could get. This was the way to get control, pay attention to each man.

  Frank glanced up and noticed that Gilmore himself stood near the end of the line.

  One after another the convicts and their families approached the table, Gilmore getting nearer each time. Frank's head spun. Yesterday the guards and the warden told him what to do. Now he was on his own,
free to do what he wanted - and free to make mistakes. Should a family be assigned to a house or to an apartment? Should he put his own people in one area or mix them in with Gilmore's people? The decision was his. No warden would affirm or deny his decision.

  He noticed the same disorientation in the men, unable to decide whether to live in unit 202 or 203 in the Marine barracks, even though both units were the same.

  The symbols of authority, the federal troops, were already backing out toward the door for the ride home on the plane Judy had come on. What he needed, what they all needed was stability, discipline, a firm government in control. He pushed his glasses back on his nose. He was the government.

  His knees hurt in the dampness and the scar on his neck throbbed. He'd gotten the scar on Angela's boat a long time ago, when the boon swung out of control.

  The door from the runway burst open and a man named Wilson slammed in along with a violent blast of rain. He carried a dead eagle. Frank had seen the man on the teleconference set up by the Bureau of Prisons. Wilson, an intense looking, thin, black man won election to the prison council because he said he was for the environment.

  "All right, Villa," he said as he spread the eagle's wings and threw the dead bird on Frank's table. "What the hell do you plan to do about this?"

  "What happened?"

  "Can't you see?" he said, holding up the eagle's chest, revealing a bullet hole. "I want a gun. Next man who shoots an eagle, I shoot him."

  "No guns. Now get this out of here. We'll have a council meeting tomorrow morning to take action."

  "Fuck. More talk." Wilson picked up the eagle, spread its wings and held it high. "Look at this," he said to the line of convicts. "Isn't this a crime?"

  "Nice shot," someone said.

  "Assholes," Wilson exclaimed and left the building.

  Rudy, Rudy what have you left me with?

  Frank processed more people in line, Gilmore moving up each time. Frank glanced at Judy as one man left and another approached. Her smooth face, her shining hair, the smooth, sexy, tiny hands. He reached under the table for her, but then remembered that touching a woman could end a man in the hole. Wait, he reminded himself, I'm not in prison.

  The line moved forward. Here was Carvinere whose bossy wife was going to be in charge of the factory, then a beautiful little Asian-American girl and her mother and father, and then Red Miller, a heavy equipment operator, who was going to look after Adak's battered roads.

  Red was smoking a roll-your-own and kept blowing smoke in his face. Frank had sworn to quit from the moment he left prison, but his taste buds longed for a smoke. And it would settle his nerves.

  "Shit," he muttered to himself as Red left. Again the door burst open. It was Doc. Frank knew right away by Doc's face that the man from Montana had died.

  Doc stood right by Frank's table and said in a voice everyone in the line could hear, "Get out your tally sheet, Frank. One down, 299 to go. This guy got some of Boss Gilmore's bad shit and bought the farm in my clinic. I saw a con walking around with a shot eagle. I say spare the eagles and shoot Gilmore."

  "Just a goddamn minute." Gilmore stepped out of the line and came to the front. "I've been right here, waiting in this eternal line. Watch who you accuse, Doctor."

  "Are you selling drugs?"

  "No."

  "Bullshit."

  Gilmore turned and walked back into line.

  Doc turned to Frank. "Shoot that motherfucker, Frank."

  Judy stood up. "Frank, is this the doctor? Such language."

  "Who are you? Oh, Frank, sorry. Your wife?"

  "Judy, this is Doc Raymond."

  "I'm sorry, ma'am. Listen, Frank, I'm going to check around. Be back in a few."

  As Doc left, rifle fire sounded in the distance. Judy flinched. Frank put his hand on her arm "It's all right."

  But it wasn't all right, Frank knew. One day on this island and there were more guns than a Mafia picnic. The prison grapevine had been correct. Gilmore had arranged for Inuit fishermen to drop a shipment of guns and goodies in a remote lagoon.

  He closed his eyes for a second. God, he was tired. Rudy, Rudy, help me.

  "Hey, Villa, don't go to sleep." The man in front of him was Stokes, another council member.

  "Listen, Villa, I want a place high up. Tsunamis, you know."

  "Tsunamis?"

  "Big waves, caused by earthquakes. You know, don't you, there's an active volcano twenty-six miles to the east. It's called Great Sitkin."

  "I know." But he really didn't. One more problem to deal with.

  "So it could blow at any time. Flying rocks and thick clouds of ash. I need a strong building and something protected from the wind. Damn williwaw thing is for real."

  "The Marine Barracks lasted when the Navy was here."

  "That rifle fire. You've got to make it safe for us. What are you going to do?"

  "We're gonna have a council meeting tomorrow. We'll discuss it then."

  Frank shook his head as Stokes left. That whiny, prison complaining. Stokes did not say, "Here's a problem. I can help you solve it by this, this and this." No, it was: "You have a problem, Villa."

  How totally unprepared they all were for freedom and responsibility. It was enough to cause despair.

  Frank pushed his glasses on tighter. Gilmore was getting closer to the front of the line.

  He called the next man forward, a middle-aged man who wore coveralls. Stuck in the pockets of the coveralls were a crescent wrench, a pipe wrench, and a tape measure. A side pocket held a frayed copy of A Homeowner's Guide to Plumbing Repairs.

  The man stuck out his hand. "The name's Nelson. They call me the Plumber." The man's firm handshake said, Here I am. What you see, is what you get.

  Frank had heard of Nelson. He was called The Plumber because he learned the trade by studying the pipes in prison and having someone read plumbing books to him.

  "Got somethin' for you," Nelson said, digging into a back pocket.

  "What?"

  Nelson pulled out a medallion made of plastic and handed it to Frank.

  "It's the god, Williwaw, the devil wind of Adak."

  A fierce god glared around the edge of a mountain, his cheeks full with wind, his eyes glinting with malice.

  Frank accepted the medallion and put it around his neck. "Thanks."

  "Made 'er in the prison craft shop, copied it from the US Navy. This is what we're up against here - Williwaw."

  Frank glanced up at Nelson. "Williwaw and some bad-ass cons."

  "No, Villa, it's just like plumbing. You tighten all the connections and the water goes where you want it to. Same with the cons. You tighten up and they'll do what you want. Williwaw's the problem."

  "Yeah. Yeah, well thanks for the medallion."

  The door from the outside burst open again. It was Doc Raymond. "Tough shit, Gilmore," he said, broadcasting to everyone in the room, "Us good guys got the power plant and the communications center and we got this fucking airport sewed up."

  Frank glanced at Gilmore, a few back in the line. Gilmore just smiled.

  Doc came right up to Frank's table. He looked and smelled wet, dank - like a damp basement. Frank asked him quietly, "What about the officers' club?"

  Frank wanted the club for a school and a family recreation center, maybe even for his own office. It was one of the few buildings not damaged by earthquakes or wind. The building had more than just the officers' club in it: an auditorium, a bar, a dining room and hotel-type rooms for bachelor officers.

  "SOBs got it," Doc said in a low voice. "I'm going to the clinic now and get set up. Send Gilmore over and I'll give him some electro-shock therapy with his feet in water."

  Doc left. The next man in line was the man Frank hoped would be his answer to getting control of this island, a con the others called The Killer Gorilla, Joe Britt. Britt had killed his first wife's lover, but then, in prison, when the mob tried to recruit him as an enforcer, he put two men in the hospital and two in the morgue. H
e would be perfect as a policeman.

  The big man - he was six foot tall and well over two hundred pounds - stepped forward with his wife, Maggie. They were holding hands. Frank remembered waiting in a line with Judy long ago, holding her hand, the two of them trying to get into public housing. Under the table he reached over and touched Judy on the leg, but then pulled his hand back quickly, afraid he'd done wrong. She smiled at him and reached for his hand, then touched his leg and put her hand on the inside of his thigh.

  Passion shot through him. Someone else would have to do this bureaucratic bullshit. He was going home with Judy.

  Maggie Britt was asking him a question. "I'm sorry. Once again?"

  "Where's the factory gonna be, Mister Villa?"

  Frank indicated a building near the runway. "Just call me, Frank."

  "Okay. Look, Joe, here's Bering Hill where we're gonna live. We've been studying the map you sent us, Mister Villa."

  Frank opened the strong box the Feds gave him and handed Britt his two hundred dollars.

  "Joe says we're gonna save some money and build a little cabin and Joe's gonna get a car and - listen, Mister Villa, Joe and I want to thank you for arranging all this. Oh - is this your wife? We changed seats on the plane."

  Frank made the introductions. He liked Maggie. Joe, her husband, was like a chained King Kong, but her simple love seemed more powerful than his muscle.

  Maggie went to the side of Frank's table and grasped Judy's hand. "Your husband has done such a wonderful thing."

  Judy nodded.

  "Where are you staying?"

  Judy turned to Frank. "What's it called, where we're staying?"

  "Bering Hill."

  "Isn't that wonderful? That's where we're staying. I can't wait to get there. How about you?"

  "I have to wait for Frank."

  "Why don't Joe and I take you up there while Frank finishes his work?"

  Frank looked at Judy. She was exhausted. And he couldn't just leave the cash box, especially with Boss Gilmore next in line. Maggie's suggestion was a good one.

  "I'd like that," Judy said. "I want to get settled. You'll be along soon, Frank?"