Highiliners

by William B. McCloskey Jr.

  “Yeah,” Seth broke in, “I hear skippers get settlements at the end of a season that the crew never hears about, no matter how hard they’ve busted their asses.”

  “Watch your talk in front of a lady,” said Steve anxiously. For a moment they focused on Adele, as Seth apologized and she accepted, and then the women were ignored again.

  “Well,” said Jones, “you’d better understand, the skipper who owns his boat takes all the risk. He’s got to meet the boat payments. And insurance too, more and more of it these days. Hank! Let me get a pencil and show you how I’ve opened up my new boat for maximum hold and deck space—I figured out a trick here myself and it’ll be the only ninety-foot combination shrimper-crabber in Kodiak to have it. You other fellows are going to be interested in this too. Steve and Ivan, they’ve seen it, so you can move closer.”

  “Gonna be some boat, Boss,” said Steve. “But like I’ve said before, all that new gear to figure out? The old stuff works. Me and Ivan know it back and forth.”

  “If I was to allow it, you’d still be pulling web by hand,” said Jones. “Me, I’m only fifty-two, and I’m ready to try the new things. Hank, I’m going crabbing to the Bering Sea with this boat—starting fresh on new grounds, just like I did with the shrimp ten years ago. If you’re taking the Nestor up there next March we’ll be greenhorn skippers together. With all that’s happening out there, I want to see some of the action.”

  “One thing I don’t like about this new boat,” said Adele. “He’ll be less easy to track down, fishing out there where it ought to be left to the bachelors.”

  Jones, his head turned from her, winked.

  Hank learned the meaning of his reaction when they started fishing alongside each other on the winter shrimp grounds north of the island. Many wives, Adele among them, owned home sideband radios and monitored the fleet from their homes only a few miles away. Adele called Jones whenever she chose, as if it were a telephone. One morning, while Jones was in the sweat of a haul, with seas breaking over deck and winds blowing in the forties, she demanded to know the exact time of his arrival in harbor so that she could plan dinner. Jones answered patiently. As soon as she signed off, a chorus of anonymous clucks and hoots came in from other boats.

  The designated radio frequencies and the sideband were a vast party line of communications for skippers. They complained, swapped knowledge, compared catches, sought emergency parts, often merely rambled. Out westward Hank had remained on the fringes even after taking a command, because the talk was so dominated by Norwegian words and experiences. Now, back in his own Kodiak country, and with Jones around, he became an easy talker, hedging some information on his hauls and sharing the rest. Jones and he developed their own code, and Jones sometimes steered him onto better grounds.

  Hank delivered his shrimp to Swede Scorden’s cannery. On the first occasion, he sauntered through the processing lines, enjoying his new role as he greeted anybody he recognized from the old days. He avoided Sandra’s old desk near Swede’s office, occupied now by a girl who appeared less bright and intelligent, but once inside his feet lifted easily to face Swede’s on the desk. The bottle and glass were slid toward him, and he caught a cigar.

  Swede had aged more than might be expected over two years, and his gestures now included a restless glance and hands that always fidgeted with some object.

  “Making lots of money?” asked Hank for openers.

  “Why ask that?”

  “Just want to make sure my six cents a pound’s fair share, buddy.”

  Swede took the comment seriously. “It’s fair, it’s fair. You know yourself there’s not more than fifteen percent recovery from these little shrimp, so figure nearly forty cents a pound we pay you for the parts we can use. And I hear you fellows want to squeeze us for more. Shrimp only pay to keep the plant open. They’re so expensive to process I couldn’t make a real profit unless I could double the capacity while holding down the work force. We count on big runs of humpies and dogs to keep us in business. And look at the low salmon hauls for the last couple of summers. The fact is, for three years I’ve operated in the red, and Seattle’s going to shut us down if they can’t find somebody to bail us out. Don’t think this cannery’s alone. Incidentally, do you ever hear from my former secretary?”

  “Nope.”

  “Sandy was a nice kid. Your loss, you dumb bastard.”

  You’d have to meet Jody, Hank thought.

  Jones closed his season early to pick up his new boat in time for the Bering Sea crab. He delivered his final load from the Adele H, tied her in the harbor, and prepared her for the transfer to another owner. Hank, as he moored at another float, could see Jones’ wiry frame bounding over the deck and superstructure, and the hulks of Steve and Ivan moving with moribund slowness.

  He met Ivan walking toward the ramp, carrying a box on one shoulder and a spare crankshaft on the other as if he were burdened by the weight of two crosses. ‘What’s Boss want to go sell our boat for?” he demanded of Hank. “New boat won’t have our smell to it, so big it needs another man. How’s Boss going to find somebody that can fish as good as me and Steve together?”

  Hank shook his head sympathetically.

  Steve followed behind. While not as miserable as Ivan, he was glum enough. “Hey, cheer up,” said Hank. “Jones Henry’s not changing, just the boat.”

  “Funny thing, Hank, that’s the trouble. Jones ain’t the same.” He put down his seabag. “Son of a bitch, he can’t look enough at the new gear in magazines, then he talks about it till you fall asleep. This new boat, she’s got more fuckin’ stuff. . .” He glanced over his shoulder toward the Adele H, and lowered his voice. “We’ve never fished but the one net on that drum, and now we’ve got to figure out all the tackle on a doublerig trawl. That’s the big change I’m scared of. And then there’s one little thing after another he’s added. Needs a new man. None of it’s going to be like the old fishing.”

  “Steve, you’re one of the best fishermen I’ve ever known. You’ll have that double rig down in three sets.”

  “But the new guy won’t understand Ivan the way I do, won’t want to put up with him. I see changing everywhere, and it was all better the old way.”

  Hank strolled along the boardwalk floats to where Jones stood prying the letters ADELE from the bow of his boat. He reached out to catch the A as it loosened, and they exchanged grins.

  “They’ll survive it,” said Jones. “Wish I had my design to do over. Just thought of something last night. Finish this and I’ll draw it. You’ll be interested. While I’ve got you. We need a better price for shrimp this year. I want you to be part of the negotiating bunch. I figure we’ll shock the canneries by asking for ten cents.” He winked. “Settle for eight.”

  “Sure they can afford it, Jones?”

  “Them guys? They’re gold-plated; don’t let your friend Swede shit you. Down in Seattle you ought to see the price of shrimp in the stores. They’ve never paid us our share. Plenty of fishermen around here support a strike. More than one has a new boat to pay off.”

  “Not the cannery’s fault.”

  “You a fisherman or a cannery manager? Listen, a cannery needs a strong, modern fleet or it loses the product. You don’t have seafood running into your nets any more, the way it was when I first started fishing up here. Oh no. A new boat with the latest gear is the only way you can do it. I’ll tell you, we have to stay atop, or fishermen from other parts of the country’ll move in. Adele reads a lot, she’s good for something. Back on the East Coast you find the Russians have fished out everything worth taking, down off Oregon and Washington it’s no better. Where’s the only place a fisherman can still pull more than scratch, eh? You’re coming to your own at a good time, Hank. Mebbe it ain’t the old easygoing life—has Joe Eberhardt stuck you with the tax forms and Social Security? No? Well, you’re lucky, so far. Paperwork the government expects might get worse every year, and you might have to deprive the old lady of a few dresses to keep up
on the latest electronics, and you might have to look harder to find the fish, but I’m glad I’m still around to take my part. It’s something to see, I say. This year we’re going to fight the canneries to make a real jump in prices we get. That’ll give us the strength of money. Next year, we’ll start on the foreigners. Nobody else is going to do it for us.”

  The final letter of ADELE dropped into Hank’s hand, and Jones patted the clean bow. “Nice boat here. Wish I could keep her along with the other. I’d make you permanent skipper.”

  Hank was genuinely flattered, and he said so.

  “Truth is, you’d better think fast about buying your first boat. Steel’s going up, I don’t know what all. Talk to your friend Swede about financing. Once you’ve got that first boat you’ve got tax shelters and capital construction to help you.” Steve and Ivan returned, glum as before. Jones ignored their mood as he gave instructions for shutting down. “One more thing, Hank. You going to marry that fine girl? Adele pesters me over and over, as if I’d know. She’s got no idea what men talk about on the boats.”

  “Tell Adele that if Jody said yes, I’d do it tomorrow.”

  “My old lady’s a fixer. Dont say that if you don’t mean it.”

  The shrimp season wore its course into February. Hank had struck a good pace with his crew at the start, but without Jones around he began to grow restless. One day, in the heat of bringing the bag to the rail, when he saw better than they did some mistakes they were making, he found himself yelling at them, in the manner of Joe Eberhardt. On deck the men continued as before in handling the potentially dangerous weight, until Dan jerked loose the pin and emptied the shrimp. Then, led by Seth, they started pelting him with trash fish from the haul. He started to laugh, but they did not.

  “You know what’s the trouble,” he said at dinner to break the silence. “I’m up there jumping out of my skin because I see things you don’t, and I can’t do it myself. Maybe that’s what bugs Joe, too.”

  “It’s what skippers have to put up with,” said Andy.

  “We’ll take that shit from Joe,” added Seth, “but not from a relief skipper.”

  Hank glanced at their stern faces. Dan was in the pilothouse relieving the wheel, but it was still three to one. He had not thought of being skipper in those terms before.

  When the Adele III came gleaming into the harbor, Hank was on hand to catch its lines. Adele and Jody watched also. She was a splendid white boat, with a high bow and a wide afterdeck, so much larger than the old Rondelay and Adele H that Jones looked dwarfed in his enclosed pilothouse. He tooted whenever they waved, until Adele exclaimed, “For heaven’s sake ignore him, or he’ll never bring it in.” She had packed boxes of cheese, smoked salmon, cake, and other special food. Hank had brought bottles and jugs. An open house began on the boat as soon as the lines were secured, announced by a final tattoo on the whistle.

  Indeed, compared to Jones’ former boats, this was a palace. Even though it was only twenty feet longer than the first Adele H, the enlargement had doubled Jones’ former deck and hold capacities. Soon the boat was crowded with other fishermen who came to admire. Jones held court by the wheel, showing off his twin radars, scanning sonar, and fine-tuned depth recorder. On deck Steve, his wide face flushed with pleasure, showed off the big vapor lights, the high-pressure hydraulics, and a variety of lesser innovations. Only Ivan remained aloof. When Jones led friends through to the engine room to inspect the new diesel and the special circulating pumps, he pretended to be mending his clothes. In the galley, Adele presided over food and coffee, but the booze, by Jones’ specific direction, stood unattended on the table for help-yourself.

  The inside was soon blue with smoke and shoulder to shoulder with people. Backed against the far end of the galley table, Harry the new crewman banged his guitar and roared songs. Others joined in or shouted their unending exchanges on gear and engines above the noise. It turned dark around four. Outside it had started snowing, but groups continued to spill over the deck and onto the float. Despite stacks of plastic glasses, bottles passed overhead and went the rounds by open neck. At one point on deck some Norwegian crewmen burst into a boot-stomping dance. At another, a small fistfight ended with a man in the water and another snuffing blood into the snow. (Neither left the party, but the man overboard came inside.) When the alcohol was gone—Hank had brought six gallon jugs of whiskey plus several bottles of Scotch and rum—the momentum continued regardless.

  By some time in the early morning—other booze had come and gone in the interim—most people had staggered home or back to their boats. Suddenly, there stood Ivan, swaying and popeyed, his face as stony as Frankenstein. A bottle dangled in his grip and the other hand was bleeding. He clumped across the room on legs like straight pieces of wood, smashed open the door that stood ajar, and continued out on deck in a straight line. Steve stumbled after him, calling for help. Jones and Hank wobbled to their feet and followed. When Ivan reached the back rail he turned and started swinging the bottle. “Fuckin’ change,” he roared. “Change ain’t gonna—change ain’t—fuckin’—” The bottle broke against the side, but he continued waving the jagged neck. It was Jody, unsteady as the rest, who coaxed him to drop the glass stump into the water and to come back inside. His hoarse, guttural diatribe continued. They could not sit him down. He smashed whatever he encountered.

  Steve planted himself face to face with Ivan, sighed, and knocked him unconscious.

  By dawn they were all asleep, flopped across the table and over the galley deck. It had been a good bash, one discussed appreciatively among the boats for the rest of the season.

  Fridays, as Jones said everybody knew, were only days to start a fishing trip if you wanted disaster. He wanted everything right. When Adele bustled aboard with a potted plant for his cabin, he wasted no time in explanation. It left the quickest way possible, into the water. “Jesus, woman, don’t you know you never bring dirt and green things aboard a fishing boat?” His upset was so genuine she did not become offended.

  On the deck below, Ivan, wallowing in shame, recovered briefly to mutter to Hank, “Shouldn’t even a woman come aboard the last day. Next thing she’ll bring some umbrella or black suitcase, and then we’ve had it.”

  “Shouldn’t even be saying the words, you drunk Aleut,” said Steve heartily. When he had become satisfied that Ivan’s lapse with the booze was temporary, he lost no chance to rub it in.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  Up above them, Jones grumped: “Don’t do to take chances, especially with a new boat that’s just breaking in.”

  “Of course not,” Adele said soothingly.

  Jones lowered his voice. “You never bring green on boats, never even paint ’em green. You don’t see that color in the fleet, do you? They say it makes the boat want to seek the green on land. Same way with dirt. Shouldn’t even talk about it.”

  “You’re jumpy as a colt.”

  “Best not to mention animals. Come on, let’s get you off the boat, woman. I’ll buy you lunch in town.”

  Hank, an auditor to both conversations, motioned the new crewman to the float. He explained quietly that umbrellas meant rain, and that a black suitcase resembled a doctor’s bag. “That’s the best I can figure those two.” He grinned. “Here’s one I can’t figure, but pay attention. Don’t talk about horses, don’t say the word if they’re on a superstition kick. I guess you’ve been around long enough never to whistle up a storm in the pilothouse, or to replace a hatch cover upside down to make the boat think she can go that way herself. Even an enlightened guy like me worries about these, from habit. Oh . . . with Ivan and Steve, you don’t want to whistle on deck either. They once threw me overboard for doing that.”

  Harry, a big, bright kid with glasses that were always fogged, said, “It’s bullshit, but thanks for telling me.” He had come from a small boat with a young skipper and crew.

  On Saturday under a bright sun, the Nestor and the Adele III started the four-day trip in compan
y to Dutch Harbor, and thence to the Bering Sea. They each carried a deckload of Jones’ pots—Hank’s were stored at Dutch. Jones’ new boat held nearly ninety seven-bys, twice that of the Nestor. The wind being westerly and moderate, they took the more sheltered route down Shelikof Strait around the northern and western sides of the island.

  As they cruised through Whale Pass, Hank experienced his usual remembrance of the Billy II disaster, of Spitz and the red-haired Pete. Even at slack current the tide rips boiled and kicked his bow. “Guess we’ve experienced something here together,” he said to Jones over the sideband. “Remember?”

  “Why do you think I jumped from Adele One to Three in naming my new boat? Watch your helm.” Jones refused to converse again until they had passed into the wide Kupreanof Strait.

  Jody came from below. Her auburn hair hung fluffy and loose in a ponytail, her denim shirt was crisp beneath a bunchy checked wool jacket, and her eyes were lively. “Hey, Skipper, you going to eat up here or have lunch with the fellows?”

  “I don’t know. You able to take the wheel?”

  “That’s what the cook’s supposed to do at chowtime.”

  The Shelikof seldom allowed easy winter passage. Before they had run its eighty miles the wind shifted, and a cold, clear northwesterly began pushing their stern. It blew spray that coated the superstructure with a film of ice. Not a buildup—on Jones’ boat nearby he saw no one on deck chipping, so he was not concerned. However, he followed Jones closer to the mainland for a lee. The snow peaks towered above the Adele III. They were higher and more jagged than those of Kodiak Island thirty miles across the strait, their lonely tops swirling with ice smoke against a blue sky. While the others steered and slept, Hank studied his charts and Coast Pilot to make sure he knew every inlet of the area. There were several, but the Pilot described none without cautions. As the mountains turned pastel reds under the last of the sun, he was glad not to be alone.