Hank knew he was trapped and taking it like a brat, pout and all, yet he kept his angry expression. Terry and Mo wouldn’t care, but how to explain to Seth?
Swede in passing put his hand on Hank’s shoulder. “Tell you what. It’s about eight hours before you float again. Come settle business after we tuck in this very fine mutual friend. Then I’ll have my chopper fly you to Jody’s camp for a couple of hours.”
Hank hesitated. Being bought. But he nodded.
Jones had a final word. He pointed at Hank who was about to help him up. “Keep that man away from me.”
When they had left, Hank looked for something to do: took crackers from the closet, poured himself orange juice, brought a spoon for jam, left it all idle on the table. His men watched and waited. “New assignment, guys. Consider it orders, like the military.” But what if they talked on the dock? He attempted a smile. “Sealed orders until we get to sea, like the military.” They still waited. “That’s it. Hit the rack.”
“Skipper Jones has sure gone off his rocker.” said Terry. “It’s too bad. Time for him in the old folks’ home.”
Mo became solemn. “I sure don’t like the way he talks to you, Boss. You hadn’t ought to take that.” He considered. “Poor Ham. Not his fault Skipper Henry’s gone kook.”
Seth reached over to take the crackers and jam. “Jones Henry used to be a great skipper. Now let him stay down in California with the other crackpots.”
Hank decided to make a speech. “I want you to understand. We’d be worrying about how to speak German or Japanese except for men like Jones. And others who didn’t make it back. Nothing we’ve done matches what they did at our age. I might have been pulled into lousy Vietnam, but I did my year’s hitch and came home. Jones and Swede had to stay for the years until their fight was over. Their own skin was on the line every day. The stakes were homes and families. And along the way they saved our future who hadn’t been bom yet to piss them off.” His voice was turning husky in spite of himself. “I’m not being corny. If Jones Henry hates and won’t forget, let him, he’s earned it. Don’t ever badmouth Jones in front of me. And don’t let me hear you’ve done it somewhere else.”
Seth and Terry nodded, each impressed in his way. “Didn’t know any of that,” said Mo in wonder.
Hank left. He walked heavily along the pier and up toward the office. With low tide and boats beached the issue of strike-breaking was moot again for a few hours. Boat noise had quieted. The steady hum of generators had taken over. In soggy ground away from the boardwalk he found a few stems of yellow survivor flowers to pick. A drizzly pale light etched masts and gleamed over emerging humps of mud in the river. Gulls began to gather for their next low tide’s fill. He hated and loved it all.
20
JODYLAND
NAKNEK, 4 JULY 1982, 4 A.M.
A thick buckle snapped into a thick belt. Hank had not ridden a helicopter since Vietnam days. The pilot turned the engine key, and the cockpit filled with odors of oils finer than those on boats. He hoped the metal floor wouldn’t heat and melt the chocolate bars in the box his feet straddled. He laid the yellow flowers safely on top. The chopper rose straight, engulfed in noise, as the brush beneath blew flat and panorama unfolded.
Except for the straight road, the land stretched nondescript. Life lay along the wide Naknek River where lights still twinkled in pale morning. From above, the cannery roofs became a pattern of clustered gables and long metal strips hugging the shore. Masts of gillnet boats beached together formed a leafless forest. His own Jody Dawn at the other end of the pier looked small and vulnerable. A handful of the small gillnetters carefully plied the channel toward the mouth, but two larger boats had grounded on the mud. Four other cannery complexes squatted like bright towns along the shore. The village itself was scattered wider. Its buildings blended with the ground. Beyond the river mouth the sealike Bristol Bay swept into misty horizon.
The pilot shouted above the noise without having thought to give Hank earphones. Hank tried to listen and asked for repeats, at last nodded and pretended to understand. He needed space to think. First face-to-face with Jody since they’d parted. Near the largest cannery on the south shore the pilot circled a weed-filled graveyard and yelled “Old Chinamen.” Hank remembered reading somewhere about the first canneries on the Naknek River built in the 1880 s. Those were the days of the imported coolies, before the advent of the heading-gutting machines called Iron Chinks. Ol’ man river, seen it all. Would Jody let him hold her?
Beyond the river they began to traverse swampy land pocked like Swiss cheese with water holes. Gray sky reflected back at them from each puddle. The pilot tapped his shoulder, then swooped low to startle two caribou drinking. The creatures ran and he chased them with glee audible over the engine noise. Get on with it, thought Hank. He pointed ahead and tapped his watch while trying to remain pleasant. The pilot nodded. He headed across the water, passing the anchored factory ships and scattered gillnet boats. On the opposite shore they passed small encampments of tents and shacks. Smoke drifted from most even though it was four in the morning.
Finally they reached the camp that Hank recognized by Jody’s green door. Beach empty. She’d be inside. He yawned and stretched to cover his trepidation. They eased down on flat sand away from the buildings. The pilot shouted “Two hours,” then pointed to six on his watch and held up two fingers to make sure Hank understood. As soon as Hank descended with his package and crouched to safety the helicopter lifted and throbbed away. It left silence nearly as intense as the engine noise. Then dogs began to bark. A trio of them came to meet and challenge, but when he held out his fist to be sniffed their tails started to wag. A swarm of gnats found him at once, insects so fine he breathed some in and started to cough. The route to Jody’s led over ground too boggy for running. It held some of the same now-limp yellow flowers he clutched.
The green door was hooked loosely from within but a stick raised it. The hot, stuffy air inside at least discouraged the gnats. With only a small glassed square for a window he needed to wait. Slowly the outlines of objects emerged: pot vaporing on the stove, boots lined in a comer. There lay his beloveds rolled in sleeping bags alongside each other. The dim light caught their cheeks and nosetips. Jody’s long hair spilled around her face. He eased behind her head, knelt, and kissed her.
“Mmmmm . . .” she murmured, then started up, freeing an arm and striking.
“It’s me, just me.”
She woke all the way, recognized him, and freed her arms for a spontaneous deep kiss. He held her, breathing hard and blessing her response as he tried to maneuver around and alongside. She laid a hand on his arm and stopped him. Calm whisper: “The kids’ll be pleased. How long this time?” He tried to hold her again in the same way, but she eased from the bag impersonally, slipped on shoes, and walked to the stove. She was fully dressed.
He followed. “Less than two hours.”
She turned up the propane and drew over the two chairs. “Well. Nice to see you. I’ll make coffee.”
“Isn’t there any place private around here?”
She pulled back her hair. “I’ll wake the kids for you in a minute.”
“I want to be with you.”
Jody shrugged and shook her head.
He reached for her hand. “Look, in two hours we can pack you out of this mess. The chopper takes us back to Naknek, and by the time Jody Dawn floats we’re all together aboard. Like a new honeymoon.” She squeezed his hand but drew it away and busied herself at the stove. He continued, encouraged: “The kids’ll love it. We’ll keep Petey in halter and life jacket the way we did the others four years ago. My guys won’t mind sharing a cabin so the kids can have their own. They all like my—our kids. And my cabin: you know it’s good for two.”
She poured hot water over instant coffee. “You still don’t understand, do you?”
Her tone frightened him. “Understand that I screwed up, but for God’s sake Jody I love you. What happened isn’t
enough to lose what’s between us.”
“No, no, I agree.” He leapt to embrace her, but she held out his mug to block it. “Just sit and control yourself.”
“But I love you.”
“Well, Hank, I love you too. Sit and drink your coffee.”
He gulped the hot beverage and burned his mouth. If she’d only let him hold her it would do what words failed. On impulse he went to the doorway and brought over the box and flowers he’d left there—an excuse to stand facing her. “Chocolate bars. I made Swede open the canteen.”
“I’ll pass them around next campfire.”
“How about leave them here as a good-bye gift to everybody?” She looked at him so steadily that the answer was clear. “You’re not coming with me today. Are you?”
“Not remotely.”
“In a few days, maybe?”
“Sometimes you begin to understand, and then you just slip back. Flowers for me? Thank you.”
“Sort of wilted from a couple hours ago. I didn’t think they’d be growing here too.” She put them in a plastic cup with water: didn’t discard them. He was grateful. “You know, the chocolate bars—I thought you’d hide them somewhere for the kids one by one, not the whole crowd.”
“Hiding? Do you know your daughter? And just where around here, incidentally? Hiding would challenge her to find them. Although then she’d probably try to ration them herself with lectures to Henny and Pete about rotting teeth.”
“We’re raising a little Jody.” He laughed, hoping she’d take it right. She did.
“And a little Hank I believe, assuming you were sober and thoughtful as a child. Pete’s the wild card. His speech may be coming late, but he’s got bubbles I don’t see in you or me.”
“We have a beautiful family. When are we coming back together?” She remained standing. After a few sips of coffee: “I’ve come to accept your adventure in Tokyo,” she began quietly. “It untied my apron strings. I found the energy to shoo Mother back to Colorado where she belongs and to quit my job in town. And now I’m here being Jody again, not Mrs. Hank. Life’s become less complicated.”
Where was this leading? he wondered uneasily. “That’s good, I guess. But what about us?”
“The children are fine,” she continued as if he had not interrupted. “They’re having a big experience. They miss their daddy now and then, but they’re used to his being off on his boat and there’s no reason you can’t come see them when you want. We’re doing all right without you, Hank. For myself, I don’t need that house so far from town, or any other part of future aggravation—”
“Jody!” Now he was frightened.
“—if it comes with the wrong price.”
“What would have happened if I’d never told you?” he blurted. “Wouldn’t things be just as always? The reason I told was so it wouldn’t—”
“You simply don’t listen, do you? Well, to answer it, you’re not that good a liar, Hank. We’d have gone on for a while. But in your mind it would have come between us. And someday again you’d have felt oh so lonely and sorry for yourself away from home, and eventually . . .”
“No, Jody. I love you. Never again. Look, we’re rid of that mother of yours and it can all go back to where it was.”
“I never paid that much attention to my mother, but she did used to say that men are all excuses and good intentions but deaf. That was her experience. I didn’t expect it to be mine. I’ve never admitted that fishermen’s wives fall into the same danger as Army wives. Their men away and lives to keep filled. The Army was like a club that absorbed its wives into little excuses to keep out of trouble. There were coffee klatches after the kids were safely dumped into school, and committees, and bridge parties, and four o’clock martinis, stuff to fill the day. I vowed it would never happen to me.”
“It hasn’t. Leave your mother out of this. It’s about us. About getting back to our life.”
“When I brought Mother up here,” she continued, “I’m not sure what I’d expected to happen, but she was falling apart and I was all she had. We’d never really got along. Well, she did pull herself together, whether you saw it or not. Even though the kids couldn’t stand her and she didn’t make a place for herself here, she pitched in with the chores and stopped feeling sorry for herself. She even phoned one of her club friends back in Colorado and found they missed her. I sent her back in shape to resume the life she’d made. And, important for me, watching her reminded me again of what I won’t let happen here.”
“I’m not some army colonel. It won’t happen.” Hank glanced at his children soundly asleep, but refrained from looking at his watch. Precious time running out before the chopper returned. “Jody, tell me what you want. Move back to town? We could do that, I guess.”
“Too bad you don’t see for yourself.” She poured more coffee. At least they were talking.
“I never had a place to call home until Kodiak, since the Army sent my father all over the place. Dad’s death and Mother up here started me looking back. We were on post in Germany, I think. Somebody on the club grounds had a big shepherd or Doberman on a chain. The dog was crazy to get free. Snapped and barked all the time. I was about Dawn’s age, about five, ready to do anything I wasn’t supposed to. That dog didn’t scare me. I couldn’t get enough of watching how he’d leap, and the chain would catch him midair and jerk him back. He’d choke, whine a little, then leap again. Maybe I liked the way he didn’t give up, or maybe I was just contrary enough to think it would be fun to set him loose. Whatever, I walked into his circle. All of a sudden teeth were in my arm and I was on the ground with more teeth coming and all I could do was scream. You can guess the noise. Mother came from her bridge game or something, all dressed in high heels. She might have just stood there screaming for help since there were gardeners around. Instead she ran straight into the circle and pulled me out while the dog tore up her leg.”
He glanced secretly at his watch and hoped her tale was over. “Wow. Good for her. Bad for both of you.”
“Blood and stitches, you can imagine. Poor dog shot of course. Father rushed home from his maneuvers somewhere. After he made sure I was all right, he whacked me where there were no stitches to make sure I understood that dogs on chains stayed that way.” She laughed deep in her throat, and he joined. “But what I really remember: no praise or sympathy for my mother. He gave her hell for not watching me better. We went by rules. I felt sorry for her, just for a while. I don’t know whether my father had a girlfriend in every foxhole but I never saw him affectionate. In this case it was the rules that mattered, not Mother’s feelings. I suppose playing bridge was what Mother settled for. It’s not what I’m going to settle for with you, Hank.”
He rose and held her shoulders, hoping she’d put down the cup and come to him. “Never, never again, Jody. If you’d only believe how sorry . . . how sick I was after . . .”
“Another dog story,” she said less seriously. “I had a mutt that would tear up the garbage even though he was smart enough to know the rules. Then he’d whine on his belly to show how sorry he was. But a week later, garbage over the kitchen floor again and the dog on his belly. Mother finally gave him away. It was my pet but I didn’t hold it against her. Mother did have a standard.”
“I’m no dog. Never again. I swear it, Jody.”
“Being married to a fisherman is one thing if that’s his reason to be away from home. But, swear all you like, if you then give yourself excuses when you’re far from home or long time away, you might as well be sneaking around comers in Kodiak. We know that’s the way some do here, men and women. I’m not giving myself up for that. It’s trust, Hank. I’ve given you mine. I don’t want you regretting things you can’t do. If your mind’s not clear about it, take back your freedom and give me back mine.”
He pulled the wilted flowers from the jar for want of something better, and took them to her. “I pledge you my trust. It weakened once. It won’t again.”
She accepted the flowers, a
nd kissed them lightly. “Then expect us back in time for school in September. Meanwhile come visit as often as you can. Even if I’m busy you know you’ll find your children, and they miss their dad. So do I.”
Relief, and suddenly he began to weep. Just as suddenly she was holding him.
“Come outside,” she said, and offered her hand.
A few houses away she motioned him to wait, slipped the hook, and entered. Soon a woman he’d met before, fully dressed but rumpled and sleepy, left buttoning a parka and carrying floppy waders. She nodded to him pleasantly and continued to Jody’s cabin.
“Come,” said Jody. Instead of hooking the door she bolted it. Then she held out her arms.
They tore at each other, strewing clothes. Still half-dressed, skin electric against skin, they eased together into lumpy quilted folds on the floor. Their mouths sought everywhere like parched drunkards. At climax he capped her cry with a groaning roar. Then panting, together, his face between her breasts. Her smell was dark, soapless, salty, like earth and sea.
After minutes he roused and felt with one hand for a blanket alongside the futon. He picked a splinter from his knee where it had slipped from the padding, and she kissed it. Then they helped each other undress all the way, and lay covered making love again serenely.
He caressed and caressed. She accepted, did the same. “Oh Jody, my God I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too.”
Bangs, clicks, and voices outside. Suddenly firecrackers rattled. Jody stretched, kissed his chest, then rose businesslike and began to dress. “Barbecue and Roman candles tonight. Can you make it?”
“How I wish!” He reached up. “But I still have forty minutes now.”
“That’s you. Work time for me.”
“They’d understand.”
With hands on hips but in good humor: “Apparently you still don’t.”
“Sorry, sorry.” He watched with head propped on arms, admiring, his spirit full. It was the bright, sure Jody of their courtship.
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