Breakers

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Breakers Page 13

by William B. McCIoskey Jr.


  He narrowed the gap between pots to six and a half minutes, then to six, taking turns on deck himself except in roughest weather when his helm had priority. In conscience once, after halting work when waves had snapped three lines in a row to pots now lost on the seafloor, and the deck slanted so that everything loose tumbled from side to side, he asked them around the galley table: “Want to slow down, guys?”

  “But Boss,” said Mo, “we’re highlining.”

  Terry told a joke. They all laughed and then, except for Seth, who had the wheel, fell asleep where they sat.

  PART II

  1980-1981

  BERING SEA,

  ALASKA

  8

  HANK’S HOLE

  KODIAK AND BERING SEA, MARCH-SEPTEMBER 1980

  But it’s an hour from town,” said Jody. “And you just saw the road for yourself.”

  “Hour’s run straight to heaven. Look at that view. After months at sea, that’s how I want to see my water.” The building site sloped down through great pine trees. He kicked at snow to clear a mat of fragrant needles. Trees and brush framed the bay. They blocked the shoreline and valanced the sky to confine the water like scenery in a picture. Kodiak town jutted like a peninsula miles away. Dock lights from the canneries sparkled under the gray March sky. “Smell that pine. And see those red berries? Get us a couple of big woofy dogs and never have to pen them. The kids’ll love it.”

  “No electric line this far from town. And no water line.”

  Why doesn’t she understand? he wondered. “We’ll dig a well. Purest kind of water, good for the kids, no chemicals. And one thing the pioneers never had was a generator. We’ll have enough electricity to party at midnight.”

  “And how will the kids get to school in the winter?”

  “Four-wheel drive.” His arm went around her shoulder. “Twenty acres, all to ourselves. Twenty acres! Just feel this solitude. Of course if you like, we can rent a room or two in town to stay over on bad nights. I guess we can afford that too, the way I’m scooping money from the crabs.”

  “Stay over, and leave the woofy dogs to eat berries?”

  He laughed, glad she was joking. “Picture windows everywhere. Water view from the living room, fireplace in back. Bedrooms looking out into the woods. Except maybe the master bedroom, put that upstairs looking over the water. Maybe a tower with windows in all directions. You’d certainly go for that. Your own wheelhouse without getting wet.”

  “Steering where?”

  “Shh.” The real estate agent approached from the car, where she had gone to fetch the plat. “Don’t let on how turned on we are.”

  Two weeks later Hank flew back again from Dutch Harbor, having left Seth to skipper for the last of the season’s tanner crabs. He and Jody signed the contract. To Hank’s satisfaction he’d offered fifteen hundred less and bargained a thousand reduction. He sketched plans for the house, asking Jody what she wanted every step of the way. They included space in the wet room for a washer and dryer, anticipating the time when a generator could power them. Windows were his special preoccupation—space everywhere to look out and enjoy the surrounding beauty. A separate building would house the generator and workshop, and an open shed he’d build himself would shelter off-season boat gear. An outhouse would have to do for the time being of course (water view from the seat, through graceful pine trunks), although he sketched in a proper bathroom and then, at Jody’s frown, a second one.

  As soon as they signed the papers he rented a dozer, bumped it slowly two and a half hours from Kodiak over the potholed road, singing to himself all the way, and cleared the house site of trees and scrub. Later he rented a backhoe to scoop out enough foundation for drainage and even a root cellar. Amazing, the skills he’d learned since coming to Alaska seventeen years ago as a greenhorn kid!

  After bringing the Jody Dawn back from Dutch at the end of tanner season—Seth could have done it, probably, but Hank could not admit this to himself—he declared construction parties to lay foundation blocks, dig privy holes, build sheds and such. Seth, Mo, and Terry all took it in sport, gladly pitching in for endless beer and barbecue. Odds declined, always with the self-deprecating smile that made it acceptable. He had his own house and family in town to tend.

  Henny and Dawn liked the place without question. The boy, nearly five, stomped boots through slush and meltwater trailing his dad. Dawn, a year younger, brought up the rear jealously, fussing at “Henry” (ignored) to walk around puddles and behave. Tomboy like her mom, people said. Pete, a toddler at one and a half, stayed close to his mother, unsure of the new surroundings. Jody tucked him under her arm like baggage as she moved from site to site. His little red boots kicked from behind and sometimes slipped off—they were Dawn’s castoffs, still a size too large. Jody retrieved them from the mud and slipped them back on, often with more patience than she showed to the others.

  At Jody’s insistence they hired an architect to design the house despite Hank’s confidence that he could do it himself. When construction began, he might have stayed to assist the contractor and save money, but it made sense to go for bigger money on the Bering Sea. By the time the Jody Dawn left harbor in August bound for Dutch, the new home had the definition of struts and rafters. He hated to leave. His hands wanted to saw boards and hammer nails. And could Jody supervise it, with her unnecessary new job career-counseling at the high school along with newly elected duties on town council? She had kids to raise! His wife didn’t need to earn money. Almost half went to taxes on top of what he earned. Not quite half, with the state’s amazing vote in April to cover all state income taxes with oil pipeline revenues. But still!

  He watched harbor shapes recede until spruce-topped islands blocked all but white plumes rising from the fish plants. What a fool, to be leaving the crow of little Pete at every new sight, the chatter of Henny and Dawn splashing in his tracks, and Jody’s warm smell and murmur in his tired arms at night.

  At least the sun shone. The mountains of central Kodiak Island passed to starboard, vivid in the sweet-clear air. Little seiners worked the mouths and capes of the bays, Jones Henry’s Adele H among them. Nets rose like sails on power blocks. He called Jones on the CB. “Partner! Catching any?”

  “Seven brails last set,” came Jones’s wiry voice. “Five the one before. We ain’t had time even to eat. Got to go, about to purse again. You keep count if you see Japs out there taking our fish.”

  Through binoculars Hank watched crews strain bulging moneybags of fish to the rail, could sense the flap of frenzied salmon around his legs. Why wasn’t he there where he wanted to be! Yes, and back home. Tolly, buddy-riding to port aboard his Star Wars Two, radioed buoyantly, “Man, remember when we was stuck on those shitty little tubs, ass-deep in gurry every night pitching fish? And look at us now, riding free to the big money!”

  Hank watched for logs washed to sea from a recent storm. Some bobbed treacherously just at the surface, hidden by any chop or swell. He remained alert but dreamed along. In a few more years Henny would be old enough to fish with his old man. Even now the kid’s eyes caressed his daddy’s boat. Once Hank had watched him—it made the world sing at the time—rub his cheek against the hull the way some children caress a kitten. But did he want to expose his beautiful boy to such danger? Well, by then they’d be so rich from crab that the old man could afford to seine peacefully, chasing the salmon from May to October, just scratching along if necessary, pulling into coves when rough weather hit, taking no chances whatever others might catch. And Dawn, sparky like her mom—couldn’t leave her behind. A few years more, then Pete. Jody would cook. All-Crawford crew. By then he’d have cut Seth’s umbilical, restored the dear guy’s confidence that was still vulnerable to the lifeboat memory.

  When they approached Three Saints Bay toward evening: “Time to party, man,” radioed Tolly. “Have us a hunt and cookout, now the hens and storekeepers is left behind.”

  “Not for us. Long way to go.”

  If Hank ha
d wanted to nurse his thoughts and avoid the guilt of pleasure away from his loved ones, he should have refused in an empty wheel-house.

  “That’s a special place for my people, where the Russians first came,” declared Odds, his swarthy face turning long. “Used to be a nice little Native village there called Nunamiut and a cannery. Be nice, to go in there.”

  “Hank,” said Seth quietly, “It was all sort of a party, I guess, helping with your new house, but. . . you know?”

  Hank glanced at their faces, all watching him gravely. Mean work awaited them. He turned his boat and radioed Tolly: “Race you in.” The mood in the wheelhouse lightened at once. Hank did not need full power to arrive first at the shoals off Cape Liakik.

  It was a comfortable bash. They made their beach fire on a sandspit, far enough in for safe harbor, but also far enough from stream mouths to avoid bears pawing the salmon that crowded to spawn. Seth and some of Tolly’s crew made a stab at hunting since they had rifles that needed exercise. It was off-season, but that was a rule made for tourists, and who was to see, or care with such abundance of the wilds? Insects discouraged them more than the law. The black flies bit like piranhas, while gnats fine as powder, when breathed in, set them coughing. Seth and the others soon returned with a shrug after firing a few rounds, and added wetted branches to the fire “to smoke them nippin’ fuckers.”

  Above them, almost against their noses, towered the high jagged peaks that from sea provided a coastal landmark. “Ghosts up there watching us,” said Odds. “Maybe they’re called the Saints, but more up there watches than just saints.” No one offered him a beer, and Hank noted gladly that he passed the cooler without a glance. Odds and Jeff, a fellow-Aleut crewman from Tolly’s boat, took off through brush near the beach, barking like dogs to warn off bears and oblivious to the insects.

  “Now how’s a bear go?” whispered Terry. “Row-row-row, something like that? And a ghost? Maybe whoo-whoo-whoo. I’m just goin’ to sneak around the other way and—”

  “Sit down.” Hank made it a command. “They’d likely shoot first and then look. Leave ‘em alone.”

  “You want to make a joke of everything,” groused Seth. “You ever get serious?” Terry grinned, and shrugged.

  Mo and his friend Ham from the Star Wars Two, boxing and drinking buddies ashore—their present live-in girlfriends even looked alike—tossed a football between them. Soon they were aiming the ball like a bullet to see who could zero hardest at the other.

  Seth, and Tolly’s counterpart deck boss, Walt, waded in to their hips and snagged a few chum salmon still fresh enough from open sea to have firm flesh. From a spit over the fire delicious smells of searing fish skin blew along the beach.

  The two skippers set an example and drank sparingly. Hank lay back, slapping flies usually before they bit, and gazed at blue sky and raw, striated rock. The sun in early afternoon had already disappeared from the narrow valley. It was all going right—boat, family, house—yet he felt clouded. Tolly chatted beside him on the relative virtues of Jennifer and some new girl he’d met in a bar. “I mean, take Jenny, we party fine in every way. But the woman has a temper. What if we married and she turned all temper? I’ve seen enough of that, man. Not that I’m ready to tie any knots. There’s crabs to catch, you know? But Linda now, she’s sweet all the time. And she laughs a lot. Smells bad down around her snatch if you know what I mean, but. . . What do you think?” Hank grunted noncommittal wisdom.

  Terry waded in to snag more fish. He watched the spawners swim thick against his legs, suddenly threw his rod ashore and announced: “I’m goin’ to catch one of these fellers with my bare hands. Who bets? Twenty bucks anybody!”

  “Twenty, you got it,” said Mo and Ham, each without a break in their tossing stride. “Twenty, you got it,” called Hank, and Tolly echoed it. Seth shook his head, finally muttered, “Sure, twenty, don’t drown.”

  The struggle made even the football tossers stop to watch. Terry disappeared twice under water, jumped up spitting and cursing. “Oh shit it’s cold,” he announced merrily. “I got to do it soon or my balls’ll disappear in my gut.” The third immersion took so long that Hank rose, and Seth started toward the water. Slowly Terry’s head and shoulders emerged, his wet face a study of sly pleasure. Step by step he waded to shore. His arms locked a big chum salmon against his chest. “Shhh, don’t wiggle, shoo baby, shooo. I got bucks ridin’ on yooou.”

  “He’ll slip you yet,” said Mo. “Thumb him in the gills.”

  “Naah, she’s my friend, name’s Alice, ain’t goin’ to hurt my Alice. Back she goes after I collect my bucks.” Suddenly the fish thrashed its strong tail and slithered up past Terry’s cheek like a popped cork, over his shoulder. Terry grabbed and lost his footing. Seth hurried in, offered a hand, and pulled him back up.

  They had trouble through their laughs settling whether the bet had been won or lost. But Terry could not stop shivering. Hank rowed him back to the boat, made him peel down and wrap in blankets, and brewed hot tea.

  Odds and Jeff returned triumphantly. Odds held a rotten sliver of board with a trace of gold paint that he declared must have been part of an icon in an old Orthodox church. “Father Rostinoff back home, he’ll bless it I know and he’ll probably put it on the altar. The couple times I come over here from Old Harbor with my cousins in their motorboat, I never found this. It means good luck today, good luck for the whole trip I bet.”

  They stayed through a full day, and might have lingered longer—Tolly’s boat had enough beer to keep it going, and once Hank gave in he relaxed—if a heavy wind hadn’t scooped down from the mountains. Williwaws might follow to trap them.

  Back at sea, the sparkling blue water of their Kodiak departure turned to roiling gray. A half mile out, the Three Saints peaks disappeared in wet haze. During the next day the rest of Kodiak Island and then the Shumagins passed only as traces on the radar. Everyone turned sluggish and slept except the watch. The urge to sleep extended day and night as the boat left the islands and plunged through busy water off the mountainous spine of the mainland. Once the sky cleared briefly to reveal the snowy cones of Pavlov and other dormant volcanoes. Wisps of smoke trailed from one. The smoke soon blended with clouds and the cones slipped back into hiding.

  The volcanoes pulled Hank from his ease. Brief window onto violence. It waits on land and water around me, he realized. Remember the hours it took Terry to stop shivering after (as they all finally conceded) he’d caught his fish. He clocked emergency steps in his mind. Then, with a grunt, he short-blasted the deck siren and timed his men. Seth appeared in the wheelhouse first, pulling on one boot, squinting to hide the panic that Hank knew lurked ever since the lifeboat. None took more than a minute to appear despite coming from full sleep.

  “Fire in the galley. What? Quick!”

  Terry yawned. “Come on, Boss, I was just there. You know if it was real we could—”

  “I said fire!” His tone made it frightening. They scrambled for hoses and extinguishers. Then he put them through man overboard and abandon ship, timing each. He watched critically—Terry small and quick, Odds and Mo large and deliberate, Seth driven, but all engaged as a team—and felt reassured. But: “Bunch of ass-draggers!” He blasted the siren. “It’s fire again, this time lazarette. Move!” The second time around they quickened each response, and the third time cut further seconds. The drills energized them, and for a few hours the wheelhouse turned bright with Terry’s joking.

  Next day they reached Unimak Pass and entered the Bering Sea, appropriately with a sudden blow that scudded foam across gray waves. Hank began plotting his crab chase. Jody and the kids became a wraparound for sleep alone, thinned from the everyday.

  In Dutch Harbor he loaded pots from his storage site alongside Tolly’s. The two boats worked at the same wharf, it seemed at the same pace, but Hank gave Seth a nod. Quietly, so as not to draw attention, they drove to cut seconds off the load-time for each big square cage. Then, when Tolly’s crew quit to s
leep at 2 A.M. in the dark, Hank, with only a three-quarter load, slipped mooring and headed to sea.

  “Done it again, Boss,” crowed Mo. “On to Hank’s Hole, right?”

  “Shhh,” Hank laughed, both proud and ashamed of himself.

  Odds shook his head. “Your best buddy, our buddy boat. That ain’t right.”

  “Tolly’s guys worked on me about your famous Hole, back at Three Saints,” said Terry. “I gave ‘em loran coordinates.”

  “You what?”

  “How do you know my coordinates?” demanded Hank. Now he’d have to fire the guy, automatic rule of the docks, and he’d trained Terry, liked him.

  “I don’t. It’s your secret, you lock us out of the wheelhouse at Hank’s Hole times. But it ain’t way up to the Misty Moon Banks, is it? That’s the only coordinates I know to give somebody, from a time with the halibut.”

  Hank laughed with relief.

  “That ain’t right either,” said Odds. “Trick our buddies.”

  Seth ground knuckles into Terry’s thick hair. “You are some fucker, you!” Terry ducked and laughed.

  Mo, a head taller than Terry, lifted him and danced around the wheel-house. “And this fish-hugger just cost me twenty bucks besides. What’ll I do with him, Boss?”

  “Put me down.”

  “Boss? He wiggles like a fish. What’ll I do with him?”

  Before Hank could think of a funny answer Terry punched straight up into Mo’s face. Mo cried out and dropped him, then stood bewildered, mopping blood.

  Terry’s voice was calm and even. “I’m sure sorry if I hurt you, Mo. My body ain’t a playground. I’ll fight you later, ashore, if you’re mad, but I don’t want to.”

 

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