Breakers

by William B. McCIoskey Jr.

  “You guys crazy?” asked John, quickly combing his thick black hair. “When we can meet the people who run this place, look around, and get a decent chow besides?”

  “I think it would be good if you went there,” said Hank stiffly. Maybe the asshole would get lost and miss the tide.

  John half-entered the van, looked back for them to follow, hesitated as Hank, trailed by Seth and Mo, sauntered toward the line of fishermen. “Don’t you guys ever look beyond your noses?” When they made no reply he shrugged, seated himself, and rolled shut the door.

  Hank and the others joined the line of fishermen, but they stood isolated. The closest group, men thick and middle-aged, spoke a language he couldn’t recognize, maybe Slavic. Others who grouped behind them spoke half in English and half in a rough Italian. A small knot of men had the brown, faintly Oriental faces of Aleuts.

  When the door opened, they climbed a narrow stair to a large, bright room with long tables. The line led past doughnuts, heavy pastries, bread, and slabs of bologna, finally to urns of coffee. “Good sinkers,” said Mo with a full mouth as he slathered margarine on the bread and made a thick bologna sandwich. “John don’t know what he’s missing.”

  They sat on benches at a long table beside the thick men speaking Slavic, who turned friendly when Hank asked knowledgeable fishing questions. They were Croats who lived in Anacortes, second generation, came up every year. “Everybody fishes in their own groups,” one declared. “So do the Squareheads, and the Wops, and the Aloots and Eskimos if anybody but theirselves knows the difference.”

  The van driver appeared beside Hank, annoyed and anxious, to say that he’d thought the jerk he’d driven to the dining room was the skipper the way he acted, and Swede would ream his ass if he didn’t get the real skipper up to the office. Seth and Mo found the idea of mistaking the Boss so hilarious that they had to stop eating to laugh it out.

  At the office, Swede’s manager went over invoice procedure, radio codes, and lists of the boats committed to delivering, all of it familiar to Hank from tendering with the Jody S. But it turned out that duties were expected beyond those of collecting and delivering: sales of basic groceries, laundry and shower privileges, even emergency engine parts and spot welding. Once this fleet left the docks the openings might continue without a break, and the tender was their supply line. It made him little more than a storekeeper. But having now committed he paid attention gravely.

  Two hours later they had stowed their gear on the scow and explored their new quarters. Hank aired the wheelhouse, which smelled of stale beer and smoke but had a new leather padded captain’s chair that both reclined and swiveled. The controls, radios, loran, and radar all looked workable without extra studying, although the actual feel of her in the water could only be learned underway. His own cabin, adjacent to the wheelhouse, was even larger than his cabin aboard the projected new crabber. Almost like shoreside living. Maybe bring up Jody and the kids if he stuck with it. (Sudden ugly vision. Lifejackets and tethered harness, no exceptions, for Henny and Dawn.)

  The galley and mess deck were spacious. Other spaces had washing machines, dryers, showers, and toilets. The previous crew, in their quick enforced departure, had left a mess of butts, paperbacks, beer cans, and sour linens. Mo brewed coffee, and collected everything from the galley table to wash it. John, who returned brusquely and said nothing when kidded about being mistaken for the Boss, turned-to to scrub even the toilets under Seth’s direction. Hank, seated at the galley table studying his new documents, noted that at least John worked hard without complaint.

  The door to the engine room flew open to a rush of machinery noise, then slammed shut as Doke, the inherited engineer, lumbered in wiping his hands. He stopped by Hank as he stuffed the rag into his coveralls. “That’s my seat.”

  Hank waved at the scattered papers. “I’m pretty well spread here.”

  “That’s where I always sit. That’s my seat.”

  Hank considered and decided to be agreeable. He slid his papers and mug to the other end of the table curved against banked seats. Doke squeezed in—his gut made it an effort—hunched glumly, and lit a cigarette. The man’s thick hands, black under the creases and nails, trembled. “Your engines ready for underway?” Hank asked pleasantly.

  “You never need to ask that, skipper. Fuel and water tanks topped, everything.” He pointed to Mo who had his hands in suds at the sink. “Tell your boys not to waste water.”

  “You’ve seen a few seasons up here, Swede says.”

  “You could say that.”

  “Been aboard here long?”

  “Long enough to see a dozen crews come and go. Most last a season. Your boy going to bring back an ashtray or do you want me to throw my butts to the deck?”

  Mo dried an ashtray and brought it along with two mugs of coffee. Doke pushed his away. “I only drink tea. Coffee scrapes my ulcers.” He pointed to an airtight can. “That’s my special tea bags. Mine. I count ‘em, so don’t try anything. And scald my cup first, with water you see bubbling, not just lukewarm. You steep it for a minute and a quarter, no more no less, that’s seventy-five seconds if you need a diagram, and you won’t have no trouble with me sending it back.” Mo frowned with concentration as he listened, then turned to comply.

  “That’s a job you’d better do for yourself,” said Hank. “Then it’ll never be wrong.”

  “I’m the engineer, not the cook.”

  “My guys’ll be glad to serve you coffee like the rest of us, or tea as it comes.”

  Doke rose heavily. “I’ll talk to Swede about this.”

  The tide had risen enough that only six or seven feet separated the deck from the pier, but Doke’s belly made him slow and clumsy on the slippery ladder. Hank stayed at the table on purpose, but watched through the hatchway.

  “You told him,” muttered Seth.

  Without answering Hank went back to the wheelhouse and studied sandbars and depths on the chart. He’d have to be independent of this pisser. Be polite, even kind if possible noting ulcers and shaky hands, but no dependence. The chart table vibrated from the engine on standby. The pisser probably knew his business. Outside the window the mudflats had disappeared under rising water. Craft moved everywhere, pushing against streaks of incoming tide. The little gillnetters tied around him—now seaborne and light as the surrounding gulls—rose and fell on swells. White exhaust puffed from stems as boats passed under the mooring lines of other boats and escaped the pack to reach open water. Men at the lines now wore their oilskins, ready for spray and action. Some of the younger ones whooped. He felt the excitement building. Even his flat-bottomed scow came slowly alive with water beneath her.

  On the wharf, Swede drove up in his red golf cart as the fat engineer gripped it from behind, and jumped down the ladder to deck. Hank readied himself. A moment later, while the engineer was still positioning himself to descend from wharf to deck, Swede entered the wheelhouse and stopped to catch his breath. He now wore his tractor cap at the same fierce angle that had defined his authority when Hank stood before him as an awed greenhorn at another remote cannery fifteen years ago. The jaw was now less fixed, but the face had wiry lines grown permanent from the eternal scowl.

  “My guys hop to it, Swede, but they don’t take shit.”

  “Doke was here before you were bom. Back in hard times when they fished under sail. He’ll never let you down. Give him slack.”

  “I already have. This teabag shit pushed it too far.”

  “Teabag? What’s that? The man says you took his seat and told your crew not to bring him things. That’s not galley procedure with a senior man.”

  Hank laughed. “He’s more an old baby than I thought.”

  “He helped convert Orion from a military dry barge twenty years ago. It’s more his home than wherever he lives the rest of the year. Knows every kink in those tanks’ refrigeration. Knows how to keep thousands of fish at quality 31 degrees. Master welder besides. I assume you and your boys can we
ld in a pinch, but watch Doke and you’ll all learn something. And by the way. Stop calling my Orion a scow.” Swede lightened his tone. “Scows around here are those big tubs open to the sun that can’t keep salmon fresh for more than a few hours, need to cover ‘em with burlap at that. You’ve got a queen-of-the-fleet power barge that can hold your cargo fresh for days. Just close your eyes and forget the tanks on deck. Those klunks refrigerate and old Doke keeps them working. You’re passing through, Crawford. He knows Bristol Bay better than you’ll ever, so roll with him. Don’t make me keep saying it. I need you both.”

  “Nobody’ll take his seat, tell him. I never meant to. And he can expect his food brought to table if he can’t get it himself, but no chef’s specials. Tell him to behave like an adult and we’ll get along.”

  “I don’t have time to be a chaplain. There’s a Seattle shipment waiting to enter on this tide, eight hundred thousand flattened cans for one-pound tails, overdue a month, plus butter, dishrags, machine parts, all overdue, and you’re hogging my wharf space. Get to sea, Hank, and don’t give me any more grief. We’ve stopped the Japs from intercepting Bristol Bay salmon with our new two-hundred-mile law. You should appreciate that. Now sock-eyes are pouring in for the history books. Ours! So move it!”

  Hank watched Swede on deck, cajoling the old baby who waved his arms indignantly but then subsided to listen with sullen mouth. By now most of the boats around him had cast off. Time to go. In good spirits he called down: “Swede! Get your ass off my ship so we can move. Mr. Doke, sir, I don’t need to ask if your engines are ready because I know they are. Right?” He pulled a signal cord that should have sounded a whistle, and it did: a good hooting blast. Seth and Mo were on deck in an instant, and John soon trailed behind. “Get up there and be useful, Swede. Cast us off!”

  Hank eased the throttle forward and felt it take hold, then tooted as the lines slacked. On the wharf, Swede lifted the aft hawser from the bollard and sent it slapping to deck at Mo’s feet, then held the bow line long enough for Seth to pull it in dry. Hank swung on the spring line, testing the current, then signaled and off it came too. Swede gave a rare grin and a thumbs up. The Orion was pushing water. She responded like the work-ox she was. Hank nosed her cautiously into the current, which gave him a long clumsy sidle into the channel rather than the quick possession that was his style on the Jody 5, but care controlled unwelcome surprises.

  Having stowed the lines, his men gathered in the wheelhouse and sought out perches for the ride ahead. This was going to be new for them all.

  4

  MONTEREY BABE

  BRISTOL BAY, JULY 1978

  Day and motion never ended in Bristol Bay. Hank watched a dark vermilion sunset streak the midnight sky and ripple on the water even as an orange dawn began to glow a few degrees away. Ships’ lights enough for a town lined the horizon. Smaller lights dipped and rose on swells that merely splashed against the stolid hull of the anchored Orion.

  The crew was sleeping until the next boat came to deliver. Old Doke had withdrawn into his bolted cabin which he kept padlocked during the day. The company’s flag, illuminated, flapped overhead in a steady breeze. Other tenders, like the Orion anchored just outside Fish and Game’s fishing boundary, kept enough space between them to pivot with the tide. Lights on the freighters at distant anchor etched masts and glowed dimly on superstructures. There were also red and green lights in motion that focused less easily, dimly outlining the little gillnetters.

  Hank, on the bridge, scanned through binoculars. He watched a bag of fish swing aboard the nearest tender from a boat alongside. On a nearby gillnetter that hugged the fishing boundary, two men worked under deck lights that glinted on their oilskins as they pulled their nets over the roller. The net came in slowly, burdened with lumps of entangled fish. Hank’s hands and shoulders itched with the desire to grip web and feel the flap of those big, angry salmon. Net so heavy with fish that the men had no time to pick it. Fish and web piled around their legs. So much fish, such weight, that a third man, probably the skipper, ran on deck and helped to pull. Without the Orion’s steady thrum of generators he could probably have heard their shouts. Did hear.

  He had slept poorly during the few days so far aboard Orionalthough the quarters were comfortable enough. Two deliveries back to the cannery proved he could handle the Naknek River’s tides and currents. He was earning his keep with the volume of fish the little boats delivered. But as a spectator. Scowl The abundance equaled any plug of crab or salmon he’d ever fished, and it kept pulsing in. On cloudy days he could look into the water and watch the dark bullet shapes swimming past in drill, crowded nearly thick enough to be scooped aboard. Down against the hull he could sense the brush of salmon despite their instinctive veer from objects in their path. Mystical, driven creatures. Their soul was all instinct when Nature told them to return to birth water. Their drive to death heightened the unquiet night. Nothing slept except the sidetracked men of the Orion.

  Doke’s heavy breathing heralded his climb to the wheelhouse. “What you want, skipper, want to get your boys off their asses. Here comes a delivery.”

  For all his dreaming over expanses, he’d missed a gillnetter just drawing alongside to port. The Monterey Babe, regular customer. Feeling foolish, he jerked the alarm and bounded down ladders to deck. He received lines with a nod from the breezy son while the jowly dad, his head poked out of the window, maneuvered the boat’s wooden hull alongside so lightly that it barely touched the fenders.

  John appeared first on Orion’s deck, brisk and businesslike, oilskin coat buttoned, clipboard under his arm. Seth and Mo trailed sleepily, snapping the suspenders of their oilskin pants. Mo climbed up and opened the tank’s hatch. John pivoted his upraised hand and nodded up at Doke, who had taken his place at the boom controls below the wheelhouse. Doke nodded back and pulled a lever. To a grind of gears the heavy scale lowered from the boom. John controlled it with a guy line and swung it to the gillnetter. Father and son on the gillnetter’s deck hooked a bag of fish to the scale, and at John’s signal Doke levered it up. Seth and Mo pulled the dripping bag across the two rails and steadied it, suspended. John recorded the weight. The younger fisherman peered also at the scale face and scribbled the reading. At John’s nod, the bag rose. Seth yanked the draw cord and the fish tumbled into the tank.

  It all went like clockwork. Hank stood apart, not needed. The bags of fish were nothing that Seth and Mo couldn’t handle by themselves. Doke let no one handle his controls. He now responded to John’s slightest nod, while still routinely pausing at any signal or instruction from Hank as if it might be incompetent. John had aptitude for the ledgers and for ordering supplies. Why waste it? First time the fellow had been useful.

  Yet John had become subtly the man in charge on deck despite Seth’s seniority—the man who controlled the clipboard in work dominated by tabulation. (Storekeeping, not fishing!) John still pitched in to help move a hatch, and dressed for messy work he seldom needed to do, but look at the way he wore full oilskins against an occasional splash of gurry when Seth and Mo, who handled the stuff directly, seldom bothered with their coats.

  One day as Hank killed time with a magazine at his wheelhouse perch, noise of an argument rose from deck. He walked to the bridge and looked down. The Orion’s boom, controlled by Doke, was raising a canvas bag full of salmon from the gillnetter Esther N tied alongside. John signaled and the load stopped, suspended under the scale. He and a lean crewman named Jack from the Esther, both holding clipboards, watched the dial on the scale that weighed the bag.

  “Like before, it’s now you read it,” exclaimed Jack, and scribbled a figure.

  John waited calmly. Seth and Mo stood alongside. “Come on, man,” muttered Seth. “This is chicken shit.”

  “Wait. Wait,” said Gains coolly. An entire minute passed while gurry and blood dripped from the bag. At last he entered a figure on his own sheet. “Thousand twenty-one.”

  “Bull,” Jack exclaimed. “Thousand
twenty-threel”

  “You can hardly expect us to pay you for two pounds of slime.”

  “What the fuck kind of prick are you?”

  “I answer to the company.” Gains signaled Doke, the bag rose, Seth yanked the cord, and the fish were disgorged into the hold. The boom carried the collapsed canvas back to the Esther where Jack’s partner detached it and hooked in another.

  Hank called John to the wheelhouse. “No need to be that tight. Just give the scale a couple of seconds to settle.”

  John studied him, then shook his head. “I just don’t understand you. We’re not a charity.”

  “But I’m in charge.” Hank watched him return to deck, and lingered to make sure he complied. Storekeeper. Company man. Jack, partner on the Esther N, had called it right—company prick. No fisherman there.

  But no fishing boat this, either. By the time the salmon had reached delivery stage they were X-ed with bloody net marks, and a metallic stench rose from their bodies. No amount of washing and sliming would restore their brightness as it did for seine-caught and line-caught salmon. And the land, on days when blowing rain didn’t obscure the shore, was flat, brown, swampy. None of Kodiak’s still-snowy mountains and luscious July green. Time and place had left Hank Crawford behind, here.

  He’d studied the chart until he knew the names: official ones like Peterson Point, Deadman Sands, Johnston Hill, and Halfmoon Bay, and others penciled in by previous skippers: Dogleg, Fishhook, Banana Tree, Gravel Pit, Honey Hole. He could see from depth marks how the fish funneled past or through them. But he wasn’t dropping nets, merely collecting other men’s harvest. A ring of fat from idleness tugged against his belt.

  Another day, when the Orion had just anchored for business after delivery to the cannery, the Monterey Babe again drew alongside. Hank stood with hands in pockets, watching the father and son briskly open hatches and adjust the thick hook to bags of fish. Their little boat, freshly painted probably a month before, had already gained the scuffed look of heavy fishing that left no time for niceties, from the rail bared to the wood where bags of fish swung, to tom oilskins strapped against the housing, worn tires for fenders, and the chipped A in the name MONTERAY BABE on the stem. “Busy out there, eh?”