Breakers

by William B. McCIoskey Jr.

  John stood mesmerized, blocking the doorway with one leg braced inside, his hands knuckled white around Mo’s belay line. Hank shoved him aside roughly. “Go help, dammit!” John stumbled to obey. “Carry Seth up to the wheelhouse!”

  At the controls Hank pushed the throttle and regained way to gun as hard as he dared toward the mouth of Uganik Bay. Even though the wind blew off their stem quarter it penetrated the glassless windows to chill his wet clothing—nothing but shirt and jeans since he’d been riding in the impregnable comfort of a heated wheelhouse. With the hold awash, dribbling out fish, they now rode more stable but lower. The deck dipped at the waterline. A wave could now flood through the galley from astern and pour down to the engine room. Like running in mud, how could he be in all places? Mo backed up the ladder with shoulders bent, his arms locked around Seth’s chest as he dragged him. Hank rushed to take over: “Quick, go back and dog the galley door, quick!”

  “Done, Boss. It’s okay, I got him, he’s puked a lot and talked a little.” Hank slapped Mo on the shoulder and returned to the controls.

  John trailed behind, holding Seth’s legs as he muttered: “Oh Jesus, never seen anything like this, and heavy . . .”

  When we’re safe, Hank decided, this boy goes. They propped Seth against the chart cabinet on the soggy carpet, kicking broken glass aside. Hank knelt and shook him. “Hey, open your eyes, say something that makes sense so we know you’re not as gassed as you look.”

  “Next time, I’ll fuh . . . fuckin’ steer.”

  Mo started to peel down Seth’s survival suit but, “Leave it on, keeps him warm,” said Hank hastily, not adding that the boat might still capsize. They raised Seth’s legs and drained water trapped in the suit as John grumbled that no wonder those legs had been so heavy. Water gushed out at Seth’s neck and he complained obscenely that they were drowning him a second time. Hank could have shouted and hugged him in relief, but said, “Reminds me of killing Rasputin, they had to try five or six different ways. Keep trying, Mo.”

  “What’s Rasputin, Boss?”

  “Jody 5, Jody 5, you read me?” from the sideband. Hank grabbed the mike and reassured Jones Henry. “I’m steaming back toward you through Kupreanof,” Jones continued. “You need me?”

  “Thanks, thanks, no, turn back and go on, but thanks, don’t lose your tide. See you tomorrow in town.”

  Jones’s tone relaxed. “Stove in your wheelhouse windows you say. That ain’t my twenty percent of the Jody S, is it?”

  “Sorry, partner, what else would it be?”

  By the time they reached Uganik Bay and easy water, Seth had wriggled himself free of the clumsy survival suit, and he and the others were making heavy jokes as they salvaged and picked through the mess. The pump in the fish hold gradually lowered the water and then drained it, so that they rode with freeboard again. Probably only a hundred of their few thousand fish had floated away. Mo found boards to shore up the lower half of the windows. Water had swept through the galley and among the bunks where sleeping bags and clothes had tumbled to the wet deck. They now wore an assortment of woolens, mostly wet, covered by oilskins that helped block the cold air.

  Hank stayed at the wheel. He ducked occasionally into his adjacent skipper’s cabin to separate wet books, papers, and clothes, then returned to watch for setnets and other obstructions. Fingers of snow remained on top of the mountains around the bay, innocent-looking pockets deep enough to bury a hiker. Rich green covered the lower slopes. The growth resembled grass from a distance, but he knew it for a wiry jungle two or three feet high. A bear pawed salmon from one of the stream mouths, glanced up at the sound of their engine, retreated a pace, then returned to dinner. Overhead, eagles soared on powerful wings, gliding around each other in easy patterns. A sea otter, afloat with all four paws in the air and a half-eaten clam on its belly, plopped from sight when the boat approached. Hank usually enjoyed the sights of nature’s process, but today he thought of rocks not far beneath the surface waiting to rip a boat’s hull. It was a world that made way for man but gave him no quarter.

  The boat passed through a series of sheltered inlets that allowed a passage skirting the rest of Shelikof Strait. The inland route took longer, and with time already lost they’d have to wait for the next slack at Whale Pass, not reaching Kodiak until morning. He remained tense enough that when John brought a bologna sandwich he waved it aside.

  It was nearly ten in the evening. The sun, still an hour from setting, shone through the ceiling of gray-clouded sky to slice bands of orange across the green slopes and glow pink on the snowy higher peaks in the center of Kodiak Island. The place had a spooky quiet, a deceptive peace only yards from the tumultuous whitecaps beyond the entrance. Should never have risked Seth in the hold. (But Seth may have saved them from capsizing.) If he himself had entered the hold as he intended, would the others—no help from John—have been able to pull him free while keeping the boat stable, or would he now be discovering the secrets of the hereafter? How often would his luck hold? The image of Seth, unconscious, made him want to cover his head. My God, each of his choices bore death’s shadow. Some day he’d decide wrong.

  Down below, Seth yelled something jovial about cruddy socks that wouldn’t need washing now. Mo took up the noise with yells about cruddy shorts, and, judging from the guffaws and splats of wet cloth they had launched a battle. He needed an explosion too, his body ached for it. Instead, he leaned out a window and wrung water from his sleeping bag.

  Seth and Mo grab-assed until they generated the energy to finish cleaning. John did everything they told him, willingly. He must have sensed the thread by which he hung. By midnight they had reached Viekoda Bay. The sky was nearly dark, and Hank decided to drop anchor rather than risk standing watches. If the others were as drained as he, they all needed sleep. Mo, with a noisy groan of relief, fell onto his wet bunk without bothering to remove oilskins or boots, and in a minute he was snoring. John undressed, and huddled under a salt-clammy blanket. Seth wandered aft, ostensibly to check damage, but he remained to kick at the hatch absently and look out over the water.

  Bone-weary, his stomach still knotted, Hank hesitated by the damp bunk in his cabin, then climbed to the bridge on top of the wheelhouse to stare at the black mountains and black water. The smell of vegetation wafted in, with a strength increased by their days of nothing but sea odors. He was sick of wondering what he should have done better, but putting it from mind gave no peace since it remained as malaise. Could have killed Seth! If he went back to crewing on somebody else’s boat—Jones would have him gleefully—he’d still make enough, yet be done with the decisions. And when the time came to horseplay he’d let off steam, gobble a fistful of food, crash into his bunk, and be snoring in a minute.

  Seth appeared and settled quietly on the storage chest beside him. They said nothing for a long time. Hank counted the years they’d been together—eight from the time as greenhorn deck slaves on that old Norwegian’s dragger, shoveling shrimp until they ached; four from the time they nearly died together on the life raft with Jones, Ivan, and Steve. No one had ever shared more of his life’s grit. He broke the silence to keep from getting maudlin. “Can’t sleep?”

  “Guess I like smelling the air. You all right?” Hank said that he was. “No sense your feeling bad over anything happened today. You done the right thing each step of the way as far as I could see. As any of us could see.”

  “I thank you for saying it. I’m not that sure myself.”

  Seth rolled some pot from his leather pouch, took a drag, and passed it over. “Paper’s half soggy but she’ll draw.” Hank refused. He had tried to discourage Seth from smoking the stuff, with the mitigating knowledge that he and Jody had stopped only since the kids came. “You need it, come on, everything has a time and place, in the words of Henry Crawford.”

  Hank laughed. “Is that the kind of shit I feed you guys?” He took the joint, lit, and drew, holding the smoke in his lungs until a cough forced it out. The ligh
test finger of repose passed through him. He lit again to fortify it. “Well, you know, Jody would give me hell if I lost a deck boss, so I got a little shaken.”

  “You got shaken? Those damn survival suits might keep the water out, but they just as like to keep it in. Hot inside? Like flushing a toilet the way I pumped sweat, man. There I was down in the gurry kickin’ fish, and after a minute the sweat started bangin’ into my eyes, and the hands in that thing? Try wiping your face some time with big stiff flippers! I didn’t mind a bit that little cold shower.” He rolled another joint and took a long, slow draw before handing it across. “Thought for a minute you wouldn’t get me in time. My arm got tangled, one of those boards, it must have jammed against me. That was last I remembered. Then next thing I woke up, I thought Fuck, I got to puke, guess he got to me after all.”

  “I didn’t want to lose a good survival suit.” The smoke was mellowing him enough to require no more than a slight further push to make him emotional. “Too bad you weren’t quick enough, before you stopped being useful, to grab those fish that floated away.”

  “I appreciate it anyhow, you bearded fuck,” Seth said quietly.

  Hank steadied his voice. “Any time, buddy.”

  The darkness deepened so that the water finally merged with the mountains, and the outline of the mountains against the sky became a blur. Brush crackled a few hundred feet away as some nocturnal animal moved about, and a plop of water signaled a salmon jumper who might in daylight have betrayed his entire school to the nets, but the brief night around them remained essentially silent.

  “John goes,” Hank declared.

  “Come on, he works hard on deck and he tries. I was dead-ass like that myself once, I don’t know about you.”

  “Come on yourself, Seth. Some guys don’t have the right reflexes. You want to protect every wimp, ever since the life raft and what you think happened. Sorry I mentioned it.”

  “I gave up and disgraced myself, you can say it. And I don’t want to see nobody go through what I did after that, not for something I can help. Remember how we dodged the rats, bunked in that warehouse waiting for any skipper to take us? Well John, he hitchhiked all the way from Kansas, then pounded docks and worked the slimer lines just like we did for months and months before Jimmy broke his arm and you took him on.”

  “My mistake, he looked strong. A kid who’d given up college after a couple of years like you, like I might have. I thought he’d make good company. Hundreds of kids pound the docks, Seth. The only thing you might owe them is a free chow in the galley now and then.”

  “Anyhow, I’ve spent good hours training this guy. Give him another chance.”

  Hank rose and stretched. “One more trip. Out of pity for a deck boss whose brain sprang a leak today. If John can handle the gear, it’s only because you taught him by rote. He doesn’t understand how it works. You’ll teach him emergencies the same way? A thousand different emergencies?”

  “He’ll click in soon.”

  “Let’s get some sleep.”

  2

  PUNCHBAG BLUES

  KODIAK, 4 JULY 1978

  Next morning as they approached Kodiak harbor drumbeats thumped across the water. Parades had already begun. As they passed the boat harbor en route to the canneries they could see bobbing gold tassels on banners that the Coast Guard marchers carried past the reviewing stand, then the swirling high school pompoms. They’d missed the morning ceremony for those lost at sea during the year. Hank had planned to ring the bell himself for Joe Larson, lost crabbing off the Aleutians in December, then to spend a minute holding Steve and Ivan in his mind’s eye to keep alive their memory.

  Jody and Jones Henry waited with the cannery crew to catch their lines. She wore slacks under a plaid shirt beginning to bulge. The ponytail of her auburn hair caught the light even under a gray sky, as she followed the course of the boat with eyes narrowed at sight of the boarded windows. Hank at the wheel attempted a grin and waved, but she only nodded.

  Jones, head tilted beneath a visor cap, wore his usual denim fleece-lined jacket over oilskin pants. A brailerload of dripping sockeyes rose from the Adele H moored nearby. He took in the damage with a few glances, then returned to work.

  When Jody came aboard she stopped at each of the men in turn. “Mo, that bandage on your arm . . . John? You look all right, I’m glad. Seth, your face is cut, did you put anything on it?” When she reached Hank in the wheelhouse she said nothing, just hugged his waist as he encircled her with his arms and held her. He breathed the clean smell of her hair, and savored the warmth of her body. The bulge was a precious part of it. The others busied themselves on deck. Mo and John pitched fish from the hold, including Seth’s share, while Seth did Hank’s job steadying the brailer and recording weights.

  “Well,” she said at length, releasing him, “this place is a mess.”

  “Should have seen it twelve hours ago.”

  “Are you hiding wounds under those clothes, or is it just what I see?” He shrugged, enjoying the attention, and found her a bruise to kiss. “Poor baby.” Then, seriously: “You’re tired. Was it bad?” He told her it wasn’t anymore, and she became cheerfully businesslike. “When Jones said your windows were smashed, I ordered new ones cut right away, and called the Seattle insurance people. Any other damage?”

  “Don’t think so. Later.” He put his arm around her again, and brushed his beard gently against her forehead in the way she liked. “I missed you, that’s the bad part.” They swayed together like teenagers at a prom, reluctant to release each other. “Kids good, I guess?” She nodded against his chest. “How’s the friend inside?”

  “I’d kick him back if I could.”

  A cannery hand came to say that Swede needed to see them. “Well,” said Hank as they climbed the open metal stairs in the noisy, echoing cannery, after passing a line of kids and Filipinos gutting belt-loads of salmon, “drink’s what I need.” At the bend, out of sight, he hugged her shoulder and touched her ear with his tongue. “I know what I need most. Let’s not stay long.”

  She put her hand to his mouth. “Darling, I’m goddamned spotting. Don’t ask the details, you’d just get sick. Dr. Bob says we ought to leave it alone for a few weeks to play safe.”

  “You’re in some kind of danger?”

  “Calm down. It’s part of the whole stupid business.”

  Maybe he shouldn’t have been so persistent about their having a third. What if it injured her? He went limp and drooped his head to make a joke of it but the day, which had begun to seem agreeable despite fatigue and the repairs ahead, had lost its promise.

  Swede Scorden, his lean jaw set as if he were still biting one of the cigars his doctor had made him relinquish, held a phone and blanketed the reports and papers on his desk with notes scribbled in a heavy pen. He motioned them to chairs, opened a desk drawer and produced a bottle, pushed it toward them, and set out glasses one by one, without lifting his gaze.

  “Want me to get you a chaser?” Hank whispered. Jody shook her head, but stopped him pouring at the one-finger mark. He gave himself a full tumbler, and drank half at one gulp. She frowned. He winked back as the Scotch burned smoothly down his throat.

  At a break in his conversation Swede snapped: “Any damage besides the windows?”

  “Shaft might be twisted but I don’t think so. Get Slim, we’ll start on it clockaround tomorrow. How long will new windows take? Why’d you call us to Kodiak anyway, instead of delivering ashore in Chignik? Cash buyers are all over the place there, taking your fish.”

  “I needed product here to keep my goons busy.”

  “You don’t even let your poor goons off to watch the parade,” laughed Jody.

  “And they come back drunk? Hold on.” Swede told somebody on the phone to check figures again and get them straight this time. “LSD confirmed? Then fire ‘em. Whole crew. Leave Orion tied to the pier, I’ll send replacement. Next opening’s when, six tomorrow night? High tide’s at four? Meet the first m
orning plane. No, they don’t work ashore for me either after drugs. Boot ‘em from the compound. I’ll pay fare back to Seattle to get rid of ‘em, but they camp at the airport until they fly.” He slammed down the phone, and spoke pleasantly. “Bristol Bay. Ever been there? Not to be missed.”

  Hank turned to Jody. “You heard. He’s still the prick of the fleet, still the cannery boss from the Middle Ages.”

  “So. Cash buyers in Chignik you say?”

  Hank took another swallow. “Paying a twelve cents premium. Watch out. Crews get restless when they see the numbers on those buyers’ signs. Your deals with skippers don’t reach the crews.”

  “Any boats contracted to me, caught delivering to cash buyers, go off my list.” Swede reached to find his cigar and snorted to remember he had none. “Unless my tender lets them down.”

  “Guys don’t need your company store anymore.”

  “Oh? When a boat busts its windows they’re still ready to kiss any part of me that sticks out. You know cash buyers who stock parts and keep a skilled boatwright on the payroll? Jody, how did such a mushhead land you? Go on, drink up, pour another, pass it over.”

  “You machos,” said Jody drily. “Hank’s had enough. And Swede, you dealer . . .” Her eyes narrowed. “Who’s the Darcy B cash-buying for in Chignik? I hear it’s for Swede Scorden.”

  “That’s crazy!” declared Hank.

  Swede half smiled. “Who told you that?”

  Jody smiled back. “Deny it.”

  “Hank, cage your wife. No, get rid of him, Jody. Come back alone any time, you’re the brain. Don’t look so shocked, sonny. Everybody in this game hedges his bets. Look at him, all virtue. Join the world, Crawford. All’s fair.” He poured, then shoved the bottle back across the table.