“God help me!” Without thinking further he bent over Jones, unzipped the watertight garment, and began to yank out the limp arms.
Jones roused sluggishly. “Hank?”
“Forgive me.” Hank continued peeling down the survival suit. “Forgive me.”
“Ha. Kiss the girls.”
“Oh Jones forgive me.”
“Stop blubber. Forgiven.”
Hank stopped. With a sigh for life itself he pushed Jones’s arm back into the suit and zipped it up.
The raft now floated and water lapped at his knees. Chill burned his legs. Tide had risen enough that current began to tug. Hank wriggled boots into the firm sand and steadied the raft. As soon as he got in himself, he knew, current would careen the flat-bottomed craft out of control into water bottomless and drowning-deep. “Chopper, chopper, come Swede fuck you.”
Like a click the lights of the Jody Dawn went off. Hank gasped. Had engine room flooded, generator gone? Anchor would still hold them. To sink in place, his ship? End of his own! Nothing left. The vanished light took sound with it except for water’s suck and thrash. Black world on all sides. Panic. Wild. Alone. Further cries stuck in his throat. Had she sunk? The water, now to his thighs, pulled in earnest. The raft had begun to buck in the swells. Harder to hold on. Raft would soon tilt. Decide something. He groped with his lips for Jody’s ring and kissed it. His legs no longer burned. They had turned numb. And heavy. Sleepy thoughts began to warm him like a mother-hand.
Flashlight beams waved from the Jody Dawn, and blessed shouts. They floated! Listen, he told himself now voiceless, pulling together all his effort. Listen. Jody on the beach, Dawn Henny Pete all waiting. Think! No chopper. No Swede and can’t wait longer. Into raft. Grab the line hand over hand. Maybe Seth’ll feel it, start pulling other end. If line breaks, raft floats even if current carries it. On to edge of earth. Life’s journey so be it. Slack tide to come on schedule. So also daylight. Wind stop eventually. Strand on flats in daylight. Chopper search. Ai—stay awake! Vision of gulls picking stranded salmon’s eyes.
As soon as the anchor of his feet left sand, current swung the raft into depth cutting his option to stand again. At the mercy . . . He clutched the rim and crawled over it, forward on belly over Jones’s limp legs. The umbilical line was strained taut as rock—danger it might tear grommet from rubber. Line seemed even to groan, or was that Jones? Hands turning numb. At first grip he cried in pain. But cry and hurt woke him to grip harder and blank against all but focus. Think! In trough of each wave came a second’s slack. Play line like there’s a fish on the end. Pull, give way, pull. Soon the only way he could grip the line was to clutch it into his body with arms and elbows.
Slowly the sea gave up line by inches until he’d gathered aboard a few loops, keeping them clear of Jones and himself. With the work he began again to shiver, back to life.
“Jones! You hear me?” No answer from the blackness. Toward the flashlights of the dark Jody Dawn he shouted “Coming in! Pull me!” and gripped back the line harder with each slack. Rain blurred his eyes and salt burned them too much to see more than waving spots. At least that bit of light.
Helicopter throb. Overhead, Swede’s machine passed, low enough for an instant of flattening downwash. It circled into the wind. Too late for steady legs on ground to catch the basket, so what did it matter? How could Swede find the raft from nothing but thin flashlight beams? Circled again. Mere luck if basket slapped raft, and no hands to grab it since nothing on the raft could belay the line he’d gathered. Let go the gathered loops, and the raft’s zip back over gained space would surely snap them wild and gone. “Jones. Help me!” No stir. A swell smacked him and entered the raft. What if Jones’s face had slipped beneath? “Jones. Least raise your head, man!” Nothing. “Jones. Your life! Wake it!”
“No more,” muttered a shell of Jones’s voice.
“Yohh, yohh,” Hank cried mindlessly. And suddenly, knowing Jones: “Fuck your life, you asshole. Get up and save my life, Hank’s life! I need you.”
Groan. Foot kicked out slowly against Hank’s leg.
“Up, Jones, up. Just sit up. For Jody’s sake! Save me”
Lights exploded from the Jody Dawn. They blinded like a knife in his head, and no hand free to shield eyes. His ship again in blaze whatever the breakdown! Suddenly the umbilical had slack. Snapped? He pulled wildly. It jerked back taut. Then slack. His ship’s whistle blew and he shouted with it. Gleam on the swells, on the vibrating lifeline itself and knuckles clutching, life again throughout the water!
Blurred sight, but the lights seemed larger. Then he realized. Seth was driving the Jody Dawn head-on toward the raft. Figures of Mo and Terry moved on the bow, shadows in the glare. They too pulled slack. “No,” he called. “Too shallow. Need at least sixteen feet aft these swells. No.” His ship came closer. “No!”
The overturned hull of the Robin reared glistening a moment before the Jody Dawn hit it. Thud and crunch. The shadows of Mo and Terry disappeared. Hank watched helpless. No sound remained in his throat for the cry he felt.
So be it.
The line his men had gathered on Jody Dawn’s bow flopped back into the water. Sudden slack and the raft raced backward. Hank clutched, tried to buffer with his arms. The jolt pulled his shoulder in its socket, agony beyond pain.
With knees pressed into the side of the raft, he held with all his body. Flashes, sick. Don’t faint. Hold. He wanted life. Jody. He pressed his head against the thrumming rock-hard line and held.
Chopper downwash. An object glanced his head. Jones’s voice behind him: “Got it.”
The line he held eased. Arrested motion jolted him forward, face into sea before he pulled himself back. Automatically he pulled in slack, pain like screams through his shoulders.
Knees pressed into his back. “Got ‘im. Won’t let go.”
Hank managed to turn his head. Jones, face frosty-old against whisker growth, eyes like beads, teeth bared, had arms wrapped around a line leading to the sky. The rescue basket bobbed beside him in waist-deep water.
Swede’s chopper was towing them the final distance. So be it.
Dark minutes or hours later, hands pulled them up the stem of the Jody Dawn. Hands tried to pry open his elbows locked like gates against his chest. He cried in agony, then felt warmth and buzz and blackness.
When he regained consciousness he lay beside Jones on the galley floor, face to face. Jones was asleep, whitened hair slapped like seaweed, mouth open fishlike. Hank’s own mouth gasped into a puddle. Engine throb beneath deck plates. He looked to see Terry rubbing his legs, but felt nothing. “Boat smashed?” he managed to voice.
“Starboard bow’s a mess, Boss, but we’re still running. Seth’s on our way to the factory ship, factory ship’s steamin’ toward us got a doctor on board from Dillingham for you and Captain Henry.”
“Jones? Okay?”
“He sure looks tired, Boss.”
Hank tried to rise, fell back in pain.
Jones stirred. “Kiss the girl for me, Hank. Adele. If you got the nerve.”
“Kiss her yourself.”
“I will. I will.”
A moment later: “Guess he’s fainted,” said Mo.
But Jones had died.
24
OCEAN’S CHOICE
KODIAK, LATE JULY 1982
When Adele met them at the Kodiak airport Hank walked to her in a straight line. With his shoulder in a cast he could use only one arm, and stiffly, but he drew her close, gently kissed her cheek, and held it. Explain later. A black scarf around her neck still had the store-shelf smell.
Jody embraced Adele next. Serious Henny held back with Pete in tow. For once Dawn said nothing, but took Auntie Adele’s hand and stroked it.
“I knew it could happen someday,” said Adele calmly. “Always hoped it wouldn’t.” She wore the darkest brown of her wardrobe including slacks.
They walked to the dusty green pickup truck that for a decade had framed the fac
e of Jones Henry at the driver’s window. “Pastor Hall for the service of course,” said Adele. The Anchorage hospital had only this morning released Hank, but Jones’s body had arrived three days before. “I said good-bye to Daddy and had my grief. Then I gave him up to be cremated.”
“I suppose you’ll take him back to San Pedro where you live most of the year?” asked Jody.
“Daddy doesn’t like to be cramped. It was never his place the way it is here. And I’d miss him as much wherever he went. This way’s best.”
Under a warm July sun the children climbed willingly into the back of the truck and settled on dusty tires. They still wore their half-washed setnetting clothes.
Adele handed Hank the keys automatically. With a light excuse Jody took them from him, climbed to the driver’s seat herself and motioned him onto the passenger side. “Take the middle, Adele, so we can talk.” Hank started to object, then acquiesced. For a while he watched on the way to town. Jody’s easy shift of gears and then mountains turning green from snowmelt, but soon dozed. He woke to hear Jody explain: “He’s slept most of the time since. The doctor said expect it. You remember how they were eight years ago, after all those days on that life raft.”
Hank turned from the window, seeking shadow. Raft again. Death again. Steve and Ivan dead that time but Jones, hadn’t he himself saved Jones by goading him back to life? But Ocean, you never give up trying, do you? This time you won. He heard Jones’s dry laugh while the warmth of detachment reembraced him.
“After that experience I’d begun to think my Jones was indestructible.”
“They were cold then, but they weren’t immersed. That’s the difference. Sixty-something’s not old for most things, but the coroner said Jones’s heart just gave out.”
“It was a big heart, Jody. Didn’t seem so sometimes but it was. Many’s the hungry kid looking for a boat he fed. And Lord knows the poor man didn’t like France any more than having a root canal, but he went because he knew I loved it.” Her voice wavered. “Paris won’t be the same without him, if ever I go back. I’ll associate every place with him, even if it’s to hear his opinion about eating snails.” Jody’s sympathetic laugh joined hers. “And Daddy thought the world of Hank. He’d never gotten on with our two adopted sons, you know. Those boys had hated the water from the start, and after Daddy tried to force it, they all gave up on each other. So he’d really come to think of Hank as his—. This last, about the Japanese, it about broke his heart.”
Silence, then: “It broke Hank’s.”
“Oh Jody.”
Hank roused enough to wonder what had been broken, then remembered. The sadness of it clouded his vision even with closed eyes. Facts drifted, then reordered in bearable form. There sat Jones across from him instead of Adele, telling how it was all in a day’s work. Jody Dawn’s bow rose as pristine as the day she came from the shipyard. King crabs stormed back to fill the pots. Jones raised his whiskey and they had a laugh over bad ‘ol good ol’ Japs . . .
He woke to hear Jody again. “Dislocated shoulder, and left arm so sprained it swelled triple. Seth said they had to cut him out of his wet clothes. All the guys looked older when I saw them.”
“I can imagine. But they’re so young they’ll bounce back.”
“Seth’s aged in a way that makes him seem more confident. Hank credits him using his head. If he hadn’t pumped out the Jody Dawn’s tanks and dumped their fish to raise the draft before running in, the boat could have been damaged worse. Seth did do something unnecessary. He turned out all the boat’s lights while he put the pumps on max, to keep from overloading the generator. It certainly gave Hank and poor Jones some bad minutes. But he was thinking.”
“And Daddy’s crewman? Is he all right?”
“Ham. Yes.” Jody measured her words. “You know that Swede’s chopper dumped him at our setnet site? Rode him over in an open basket through the storm. By the time we grabbed his legs and eased him down I think he’d forgotten even his name. He shook so much he rattled the basket, although we had to pry his fists from the ropes.”
“Poor boy. But he’s recovered?”
“Ham’s . . . having a different kind of trouble. I don’t know how much anybody’s told you. But there was only one survival suit.”
“Then it was certainly Daddy’s. He never sailed without that big orange bag.”
“Well. It was Ham who’d come aboard without. But Jones made Ham wear the one suit. Hank confirms it from their radio talk.”
“Oh, Jody. Daddy’d be alive today. He’s left me alone because of a big stupid kid!” She broke down. After a while she wiped her eyes. “Didn’t I tell you Daddy had a big heart? If I know the man, he probably reasoned it was his job to make sure his man came equipped. So he took the blame. Oh, the fool. Why do men have to be heroes? I already miss him so, Jody.”
“Ham’s afraid now to see you.”
“Well he should be!” After a silence: “You saw the wrecked boat, didn’t you?”
“I went for Hank’s sake, to see what he’d been through. After Swede had me flown to the hospital and I’d talked to Hank and knew he’d recov er, and went back to camp to pack and get the kids. Joe Penn, the camp boss, took his motor skiff.”
“Was it bad?”
“Well. . .” Jody hesitated. “Waves did their worst. Somebody might have taken an ax to the housing the way it looked. And the hull, split. And a net half buried in sand, plugged with rotting fish. Gulls everywhere. You can guess the stink and screech. It was weird to see it on such a sunny calm day with water lapping against a little hill, after such a storm. Ham started sobbing. He scratched and dug till he found the seabags and some boots. Then he couldn’t stop, he went kind of crazy, started throwing anything into the skiff. Rope scraps, empty soup can from what he said was their last meal, bent spoon, the cracked green shield from the starboard light. Joe and I finally just each took an arm and eased him away.”
“He deserved to feel guilty. But men shouldn’t cry like that.”
“At least not be caught doing it. Well, I left Ham at the camp. The kid runs to do any dirty work he can find. Pushes out in water over his waist without waders, comes back shivering, then just sits with his hands to his head until somebody makes him eat. He wants to come to the funeral but he’s afraid.”
Another long silence. “How do we get him here?”
“I can phone Swede from your house. Swede’ll see to it.”
“Daddy would want it. Think he has money for the plane? Maybe I should pay from down here.”
“Swede’s taken charge. Let him handle it. He and John Gains between them, I’m impressed. That helicopter rescue put them in danger. No one would have blamed them if they hadn’t done it. I’m . . . sorry . . . well, Hank’s devastated . . . that it didn’t help Jones.”
“I know. I know. It should have saved Daddy too. It just didn’t. Hank did all he could.”
Back at the house it was Jody who marshaled the forces. While Hank dozed in a stuffed chair by his picture window, she arranged for repairs to the boat and saw to plans for the day of the service.
Hank watched idly as winds ruffled miles of water all the way to the Kodiak piers. Somewhere among the distant masts was Jones’s nice little seiner Adele H, its door padlocked because the temporary crew had decid ed five cents a pound for pink salmon wasn’t enough to warrant the work of fishing. No fishermen, they. Adele would need to sell the boat. Pity. Insurance should reimburse for the wrecked Robin J. This wouldn’t be the the year to sell the Bristol Bay license if Adele could avoid it, with salmon prices down all over. Too much to think about. His legs ached and burned. Whenever he considered going to the kitchen for water, or beer, or a snack, he progressed as far as a preparatory breath, then decided to wait until Jody or Henny or Dawn came along. He desired nothing enough to seek it. The world was basically warm and cozy. His purpose was to observe its passage, nothing more.
Russ and Mark, the Henry s’ two adopted sons, remained as shadowy as the
y had always seemed. Russ, the drifter, was so out of touch that a letter to his only address, GPO Denver, received no reply. Mark had flown in from Omaha, where he worked as a computer salesman, for what he assumed was to be the funeral. But since Jones had been cremated, Adele felt no pressure during the height of the local salmon fishing to schedule the service other than late on a Saturday, so that fishermen could attend after the weekend closure. “I certainly wouldn’t have expected your father to give up a day’s fishing,” she explained.
Mark shrugged. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t.” He treated Adele sympathetically and even wrote a check (unsolicited) for a thousand dollars to handle small emergency expenses, but he remained detached. Bulging at the waist, he never removed his suit and tie. When she waved him off on the plane the next day she too was detached, almost relieved to see him go. A part of life that hadn’t turned out as she’d hoped.
Adele had then remained at the airport, sipping coffee from a vending machine, while she waited to meet the plane an hour later bringing in Hank and Jody. Sitting still opened time for memory whether she wanted it or not. Jones, inevitably, the rugged man fresh from the Marines whom she’d married and adored. Happy years, even seeing him off on other mens’ boats, since they were saving together for his own. Darling little Amy bom. Busy mother as it was meant to be even with the shadow of birth complications that left her unable to bear more children. Horrible midnight spasms. Dead little body from meningitis so laughing only hours before. Oh Lord, if you were watching as they say: Why? Adele hurried from the seat and paced the room, benches to counter blurred by tears.
Jones might have shared her grief for a week or two—give him that—but then the man had returned to his fishing. Sure, if adopting a child would help, he agreed. Too hasty, with her heart still buried in the little grave. Orphaned brothers five and six, minister urged. Boys already hostile to the world and nobody bothered to say. Passive, sullen, hating work. Love and firmness would change that. She did try. But her heart stayed with the lost baby while time slipped away. And Jones, convinced by the relation with his own fisherman-dad that all any boy needed to be toughened no-nonsense to boats, demanded while they shirked and glared.
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