“Yah, Jody Dawn, ” came the accented radio voice of Arne Larsen from the Northern Queen. His boat was barely visible astern, flat and gray as cardboard through the snowflakes. “Yah, Hank, I hear it’s southwest blowing up de Shelikof like a fuckin’ sonofabitch.”
“She’ll be a cold one, Arne.”
They chatted for a while, and Joe Eberhardt joined in. It became a conference of partners on the new joint venture they had formed. Hank watched a whirlpool in the current kick his bow to port with the strength of a battering ram. The boat shuddered. He righted back to course automatically. On the afterdeck Ham gave a whoop, evidently enjoying the action of the Whale as much as Hank did.
Terry bounced up the ladder into the wheelhouse, wiping grease from his hands. Hank motioned him over. “When you line up those rocks to starboard with the end of those rocks to port on Koniuji Island, you should change course to port about twenty-five degrees.”
Terry studied the scene, checked it on paper at the chart table, and declared, “Got it.”
Hank knew that he had. Terry was a man worth training for the future.
The sky had cleared by the time they left Whale Passage and traversed Kupreanof Strait. Shelikof Strait intersected their course like a T. Thirty miles across the water gleamed the creamy mountain jags of the mainland. The sea between was a field of whitecaps that the wind drove in furrows. Three boats, all approximately Jody Dawns size, pressed down the Shelikof in the direction Hank was headed. The boats pitched up rhythmically, then slammed down to be half hidden in waves.
“Everything’s battened?”
“Ham’s thorough. But I’ve checked anyhow.”
Hank looked back at the afterdeck. Ham was shaking the taut chain that secured the big steel otter board portside. “Get him inside before I turn. He’s having such a good time there I’m not sure he has the sense to come in by himself.”
“He just ain’t used to being in charge of anything, Boss. Now that I’ve told him I’m engineer and he’s deck boss, he’s got to go over everything again every few minutes. Don’t worry. I’ll still look over his shoulder.” “You’re comfortable with our two new men?”
“Same as you. I’ve drunk with Jace and even once punched it out with him over I forget what. He’s got a lot of mouth, and sometimes hits the booze. That’s why he’s never been more than a season on any one boat. But nobody complains about his work. I took a chance hiring him while you and Jody were having vacation in Seattle. It’s only for two months, so we’ll be fine. Your new man Tom from back east, he looks a little seasick right now, but you say he knows his way around boats. We’re in good shape.” Terry examined the chart and the sounder again, peered at the land on both sides and the water ahead, then said, “I’ll go give Ham a hard time for kicks, but don’t worry, he’s doing good,” and left.
The wind and sea caught them broadside when they left the final shelter of mountains on Kodiak Island. The boat rolled to the usual clangs and clicks, but Hank heard no ominous bangs from loose gear. He gradually altered course around Cape Uganik to steady off a few miles from land, then headed southwest into the wind. The bow lifted, then smashed down into churning water. Spray hissed up in sheets and broke against the windows. Hank adjusted his legs automatically to the motion, and turned up the heater a notch.
Ham’s voice bellowed from below, then to heavy footsteps Ham himself appeared. He dripped from cap to boots. “Ain’t this the right kind of weather, sun and all!” he exulted, then turned businesslike with, “Everything secure, Boss.”
“Good. I haven’t seen Tom. Is he asleep?”
“Seasick. From practically the time we left the dock, from the minute the boat rocked so you could hardly feel it. Pukin’ in a bucket now, out of the wind. I thought he was a fisherman, Boss.”
Hank now wondered himself, but said, “Different water, different boats. Give him time.”
Terry joined them with a joke about it raining fish from all the water on the windows. They finally faced squarely down the channel. Suddenly, “Oh Jeez, look at that!” exclaimed Terry and Ham together. The sight startled Hank also. He had expected activity, but nothing like that ahead. Through rivulets pouring down the glass they saw that boats packed the horizon.
An hour later, late sun glistened on hulls and masts that surrounded them on every side. Hank needed to steer carefully between them. With the current running windward, large foreign processor ships pulled at their anchor chains and water eddied around the mawlike ramps of their sterns. Smaller boats like his own, unable to anchor in the hundred-fathom water, maneuvered under way with barely a space between them. What would it be like when the fish arrived!
Hank continued to weave the boat south beyond the cone-shaped headland of Cape Karluk. They scanned the national flags that flew beneath the stars and stripes from the foreign buyers while looking for the one with a Japanese red circle on white that would be their own joint-venture buyer. (He’d forgotten its name: Something-Maru) Counting the foreigners became a game. Hank and Terry, on opposite sides of the boat, began to identify and call out their count while Ham told them to go slow as he wrote them down. Before they stopped they had identified ten Japanese and eleven North Korean ships, as well as a half dozen Soviets, and one each from Portugal, West Germany, and Taiwan. They had also begun counting the smaller boats, all of them American, but gave this up after reaching fifty-three and arguing that some had been logged twice.
“That you, Hank?” came the familiar voice of Gus Rosvic over the CB. “I can’t seem to shake loose of you, son.” Gus had taken a winter break from longlining black cod in the Gulf aboard his Hinda Bee to fish roe pollack aboard the larger medium trawler, Thunder; which he co-owned. In answer to a question from Hank, “Delivering to the West Germans. You know what they done to us in the War, but at least they’re our own kind.”
“Best reputation out here is the Soviets, Gus.” The second voice was playful. “They aren’t slanty-eyed either.”
“Mess with Commies? President Reagan calls them Evil Empire, and he should know. And don’t tell me about slanty-eyes. Last year, less choice, I started here with a South Korean I see back this time. No damn good on payment, so I left ’em.”
“Left ’em pissed, I hear,” said another voice.
“That’s their business, Luke, but tell you what. Last year after I went over to the Krauts, them Koreans couple of times tried to cut off my gear. Turned course and run right over it. They’d best not do that again.”
“The Taiwan boat did that on me. Or it just got in my way, couldn’t be sure. It’s crowded out here, Gus.”
“Just the same.”
When it grew dark, lights on all the boats made the water seem a town, albeit one whose lights rose, fell, and dipped.
Hank left Terry in charge of the helm and sought out his Chesapeake Bay friend. Tom was crouched in a sheltered corner of the afterdeck with a bucket beside him. A bare deck bulb reflected on shoulders that were shivering: a man diminished from the clear-eyed waterman at his own tiller on the Chesapeake. “Hey there, man!” said Hank heartily.
Tom looked up with a sheepish smile that accented his cheekbones. “I don’t know what. Weather to my boat never done me like this.”
Hank kept it easy. “Guess I win the argument for shittier weather than yours. You’ll get your legs, don’t worry. Come on inside.”
“Later, maybe. If I smell some things in there, I’ll like to puke again.” He pulled a loose wool shirt tighter.
Hank brought a blanket from his own bed and wrapped it around Tom’s shoulders. “Once we get working gear you’ll just laugh about this.”
Tom’s inflamed eyes glanced up and then to deck. “If the old man see me now, he’d say told you so.”
“Who’s going to tell?”
“I’d appreciate that.” Tom pulled part of the blanket over his head. “And I appreciate this. I’ll make sure not to mess it.” He turned to the water. “Just look at them lights. I never seen so many
big boats, and all for fishing. Except in pictures. This is some sight. Worth the trip, almost.”
“Then I’m glad you came.”
A spasm of retching seized Tom. His whole body shook although he held the blanket clear of the bucket. When it was over: “Oh shit,” he muttered. “But Hank, I won’t let you down when the time comes.”
“I’m not worried,” assured Hank. But he wondered.
23
OVERLOAD
SHELIKOF STRAIT, LATE JANUARY 1984
The late January wind continued from the southwest, blowing bitter cold, but the sky stayed clear. The fleet that waited for the pollack to arrive quickly sorted itself after a fashion, with fishing boats clustered near the foreign buyer ships to which they would deliver. Hank kept the Jody Dawn in sight of the ship sent by the Tsurifunes to receive and process his catch, and close to Joe Eberhardt’s Nestor and Arne Larsen’s Northern Queen. All they needed now was the fish.
The screen of the Jody Dawns color sounder flickered with layers of the yellows and greens that depicted depths of open water rather than creatures. An occasional pip of orange or red would reveal a fish or two swimming past. Sometimes the red became a whole splotch, and whoever was minding the wheelhouse would call Hank to watch. But the red would drift on, with not enough other red behind it to be interesting.
Jody told him by radio that Justin Rider in Seattle had sent him a new contract, thirty pages long on legal-sized paper. She’d studied it as best she could. “It does appear they’ve separated our house from the rest. You’ve managed that for us, Hank, thank God. But didn’t you say they were going to separate payments for Jody Dawn from Puale Bay? The language there gets so full of legal words it isn’t clear. I think we should have a lawyer read it before you sign anything again.”
Hank agreed. Suddenly Terry called his attention to a red mass on the sounder. “Talk about it later, Jody,” and he signed off.
Tom Harris remained seasick, to his abject humiliation. Not that he gave up. He appeared at the wheelhouse for his assigned watch, but so weakened—the limp from his war wound had become more pronounced even though he tried to hide it—that Hank ordered him to bed and kept the watch himself. Tom reluctantly went down to the two-bunk cabin he shared with the other new crewman, Jace. A few hours past midnight, when Ham, on watch, went to wake Jace for his relief, he found Tom back on deck bundled in a sleeping bag and blankets. Jace for his part could not be roused beyond a groan and turns in his bunk. The cabin smelled strongly of booze.
Easygoing Ham shrugged at all of it, found an additional blanket for Tom, and with a yawn assumed Jace’s watch on top of his own. Being in charge of the entire boat surrounded by lights like a carnival was not unpleasant. He thought of folks back in Idaho and their usual reminders a few weeks ago at Christmas that he was almost thirty and should settle down, and wondered now that Seth was going to make the plunge with this Marion whether it wasn’t time for him also, even though no girl he’d met in pickups or even bunked with was good enough to compare to his mom for the long pull. He had pretty well decided it was time when the black sky began to pale. He watched the gradual arrival of the sun, first pinking a haze over the Kodiak mountains, then etching masts and flooding the snow peaks of the mainland with dazzling white. This is all I need, he decided. Just like this.
After waking, Hank checked briskly with Terry who was now on watch, and at breakfast saw a bedraggled Tom sitting inside the doorway for warmth. “Come on, man, this is dumb,” he declared. “Get in your bunk for a while.”
Tom’s red-rimmed eyes looked up at him. “Not in there, Hank. I’m good here.”
Ham set a platter of eggs and sausage in front of Hank, who asked routinely, “Jace back asleep after his watch?”
“He didn’t exactly take one.” Ham explained the situation.
Hank left his platter, and banged open the door to the cabin where Jace was sleeping. Heavy snore. The place reeked of booze. Even, Hank thought with disgust, of piss. No wonder Tom preferred a cold deck! He snapped on the light. Tom’s unused upper bunk was bare and neat. An arm in a dirty sleeve dangled from the shadows of the lower bunk. Around it lay a jumble of clothing and boots. Hank shoved aside an open satchel. Glass inside it clinked. He pulled out two pocket flasks of whiskey along with a fifth. His flashlight beam inside the bunk caught a wet chin and a hand clutching a near-empty bottle. Hank pushed Jace’s shoulder. “Get up.” The man merely rolled his head, muttered a snottish obscenity, then started again to snore.
Hank gathered the bottles and threw them overboard, washed his hands, and returned to his breakfast. He tersely instructed Ham to clear the bunk in a cabin they used for storage. “Then get Tom in there comfortable till he pulls around.” Up in the wheelhouse, while he called on the radio to find a boat returning to town, he demanded of Terry, “Where’d you pick up this boozehead?”
“Everybody said he’s a good worker, Boss. When I checked him out hangin’ around the dock he looked sober.” Terry seldom turned apologetic. “I didn’t know he’d throw a toot like this. But lots of guys just need a couple hours to sleep it off.”
“Hours? When they don’t bring their own garbage. This fucker planned for a whole trip! We’ll do with one hand less.”
“Right. Right. Sorry, Boss.”
No boat was going to town. All had committed to wait for the fish.
Hank’s anger grew. Sleeping off a drunk was acceptable, but to bring aboard a supply of booze to drink at sea desecrated his boat and reputation! After pacing long enough to control his first impulse he returned to the cabin. The stench disgusted him afresh. He grabbed Jace’s shirtfront and yanked him from the bunk. The man merely flopped on the deck. “You! What’s-your-name. Outside! Move!”
Ham watched from the door, concerned. “Maybe I’d better just help him move, Boss?”
“He’ll move on his fuckin’ own.” Hank restrained his desire to kick, but placed a foot on the man’s rear and prodded him a few inches across the deck. Jace muttered disjointed curses without getting up. He tried to drink from the flask still in his hand, then roused enough to throw the flask toward Hank. The glass shattered on deck.
Hank kicked his buttock once, then caught his breath. “Ham! Grab under one arm and I’ll get the other.” Jace stayed limp. His legs flopped like those of a puppet on a string when they lifted him. Up close he stank.
Tom Harris, sitting at the hatchway holding his head, stood and pressed against the bulkhead as they dragged Jace past. “I can take him over.”
Hank started to refuse, then decided any action would do Tom good. “Yeah, take him. Hold your nose.”
When they reached open deck, Hank drew a bucket of water and dashed it over the man’s head.
“Boss!” cried Ham. “It’s like ice out here.”
“On your feet or I’ll do it again.”
Jace glared up through foggy lids. The water had streaked through smudges on his cheeks from days past. The man’s boyish features and long sideburns might have made him handsome with grooming and a less sullen expression, but everything about him appeared ratty. His hair was matted, and long single hairs sprouted from his chin. But he’d found his tongue. “That’s . . . bad shit, Captain . . . I got rights.” Hank’s stare did not change. He drew another bucketful and started to raise it. Slowly Jace wobbled to his feet.
Hank kept his voice cold. “If I’d found a boat to town you’d be on it. You’ll get your ass back to town from Karluk. Ham, ready the life raft while I head for the village.”
“That’s a Klutch place.” Jace suddenly straightened and began to shiver. “You can’t dump me there. How’ll I get back?”
“Your problem.” Hank walked away. “Throw your crap together in your bags if you want to keep it.”
“Captain! Just let me sleep it off, then I’m okay.”
Hank continued inside, but he considered. He’d gripped the man’s arm and felt muscle in the bicep. The shithead might indeed be okay sober, and without
him they’d be shorthanded. While he thought about it he called over his shoulder, “Tom. You’re steady enough to help Ham with the life raft?”
“I’m steady.” Hank glanced back. Tom’s lean face had taken on color at last. It even wore a kind of grin.
“Skipper!” whined Jace.
Hank entered the galley. He felt angry no more, but agreeably stern. Could that have been admiration in Tom Harris’s expression? He decided that, with nothing better to do while they waited for the fish, heading the few miles back toward the native village would be a diversion while he played Jace and judged whether to keep him. No fisherman worth his salt wanted to be dumped. He detached his mug from a hook over the table, filled it from the urn, and climbed to the wheelhouse to change course.
Terry was talking to someone by radio. “Here’s Boss now,” he said, and handed the mike to Hank.
“Har har,” boomed Arne Larsen from the Northern Queen. “Hank! You having a little crew trouble?”
Hank frowned at Terry and covered the mike. “What did you tell him? That was our private business.”
“Told nothin’, Boss. Look at boats all around us. They heard you earlier asking about a ride back to town, and they’ve got binoculars. Even saw it was booze you threw over since one bottle floated. Somebody else just got on radio and said how he’d once hired Jace but fired him after a couple trips. Said you done right with that bucket of water.”
Arne continued his Norwegian laugh. “Back in old country ve tie a fellow like that who drinks booze aboard, tie by the leg and throw him over the side for a minute. Any bastard do that here now, dot’s vot I still vould do. Not soft like you, Hank. I see your boys getting ready the life raft. Going to dump him ashore, eh?”
Hank glanced aft from a wheelhouse window. Jace stood shivering alone on deck, his shoulders hunched, while the clumps of boots overhead told Hank that his own orders were being obeyed. This was power! The reminder gave him a rush and made him cautious at the same time. Returning to deck he kept his voice cold, and snapped, “Go inside with a mop and disinfectant. Clean out that cabin of mine you’ve shitted up. Then swab down yourself. Then we’ll see. Move it!” The sobered Jace moved.
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