by S. L. Stoner
“You said ‘if’ she gets a crew? You mean men don’t want to sail on her?”
“Heck, no! Every sailor working the coast knows the Karluk is a hell ship. And not just because she’s near rotted out. Like I told you, her captain’s a drunken bully. And he’s reckless. The crew that ships with him ain’t any better. No decent man will come out of that trip alive.”
He gestured again, “No siree. Looking at that hull, I wouldn’t give a chicken’s butt on her chances of returning from the Arctic.”
“The Arctic’s rough sailing?”
“St. Elmos Fire, I thought you said you worked Frisco. That’s where most of the Pacific whaling fleet berths. Ain’t you heard the stories about ice packs sneaking up on ships and crushing them like they were eggs? Or whales and icebergs stoving them in? Ain’t you heard about seas fifty-foot high and ice so thick on the rigging that the ship plum sinks from the weight of it?”
The old man shook his head, lost in the memory, obviously not expecting Sage to answer. “I sailed whalers for ‘nigh on to thirty years, and I tell you, sure as I’m sitting here without my thumbs, that any man shipping out on that there Karluk is a dead man floating.”
A thunk against a wharf piling grabbed Sage’s attention. Tobias Pratt had returned. The high crown of the dirty tan Stetson hat slowly rose above the wharf edge as the hat’s wearer climbed the ladder, a bow line clutched in his gnarled hand. Sage nodded a quick goodbye to the old whaleman and strode to the top of the ladder, reaching for the line that the wheezing man gratefully released. He clambered up the final rungs as Sage looped the line around the iron hawser.
FIFTEEN
PRATT’S STRUGGLE TO ROW THE boat across the river current and climb the ladder left him gasping for air. He bent over, hands on his knees, so that Sage saw only the top of his soiled hat, his hunched shoulders, and his booted feet. “My Lord, I believe I’m near to having me a heart spasm,” the old fellow gasped.
The whaleman’s cackle floated to them from his perch atop the crate, “Well now, Toby. Looks like, today, the good Lord is watching after you. This young man’s been looking for you. Seems he wants a job rowing your boat.”
Pratt stopped his gasping and straightened. His calculating blue eyes traveled over Sage’s frame. “You ain’t too big in the muscles, are you? Fact is, you look a little scrawny,” he said.
Sage smiled slightly, “I’m plenty . . .”
“Don’t bother spinning no stories, ‘cause I’m not going to believe them anyway. We’ll see how you get on soon enough. I don’t believe nothin’ nobody tells me ‘cause every single man I talk to is a damn liar.”
The old man perched on the wooden freight box cackled again, “Toby, you keep flapping that miserable yap of yours and you’ll be beating your own record and lose this man before he even touches an oar. And here I thought I heard you worrying about a heart attack.”
Pratt twisted his lips into a grimace and deliberately sent a brown stream of tobacco juice in the heckler’s direction. “Don’t be telling me how to run my business, Thimble, you nosy old sod.” He turned to face Sage. “I pay a dollar a day starting out plus vittles and a bed at my boardinghouse. I expect you to be ready to work at any time. The tide rules the ships, and I can’t be dillydallying around while you spark some whore. I say ‘hop’ I expect you to hop and that’s it. If you want, you can give it a try.”
“I’ll accept your . . .”
”Get your rear in gear. Don’t stand there gawping. I ain’t gonna pay you for doing nothing.” Pratt turned away from Sage and stomped down the wharf on a pair of bowed stumpy legs. His path was straight as an arrow, not deviating an inch to avoid the dangers posed by the men trundling crates to and fro. Instead, it was they who paused to allow him passage. For Sage, it was different. He had to dodge right and left to avoid colliding with the again-speeding hand trucks.
From behind him, the now familiar cackle sounded one last time and Sage heard Thimble call, “Don’t be taking Toby personal, he hates everybody equal. Heh, heh, heh.”
Well, at least I managed to brighten up ole Thimble’s day, Sage thought as he hastened to catch up with the squat man whose rolling gait moved him along at an unexpectedly fast clip.
As Sage overtook Pratt, the crimp shot back over his shoulder, “You watch and keep your yap shut ‘cause you don’t know nothing and I’m not going to waste my breath explaining things to you until I know whether I’m going to keep you around or not.”
Sage followed orders. He kept his yap shut. Pratt never did. Sage was treated to Pratt’s life story.“I been working the crimping business for over forty years. Started out in Frisco before moving up here to Portland. Used to be it was a good business. Now, it’s dying out. Busybodies are getting laws passed while steamships are making sailing ships and sailing men obsolete. Now, it’s the damn unionizing. Those dumb union bastards mobbed up and stoned a boardinghouse, can you believe it? This business is on its last legs, so if you’re scheming to snuggle next to this old man and take my business, think again. ‘Cause when I’m gone, the crimping business will be gone. So trying to cozy up to me won’t get you no more than an empty duffle.
“No more jabbering,” Pratt snapped, irritated as if it were Sage who’d been blabbing on for the last two blocks. Pratt, prattle. There’s an ironic coincidence. Sage smiled, although Pratt didn’t notice. Instead Pratt turned stern, saying, “It’s time I sign up some men. I don’t want you saying nothing that’ll scare them off, so you keep your mouth shut and your mug friendly, you hear?” He fixed an angry glare on Sage.
Sage, taken off guard by the unexpected necessity of replying, managed a quick “I hear you. Keep my mouth shut.”
Pratt stomped up to three slightly inebriated men. They stood with their backsides against a building’s brick wall, dingy canvas sea bags piled at their feet. The warm smile on Pratt’s face was likely meant to convey the idea that unkind words never crossed his lips. The chameleon in Sage admired Pratt’s instant transformation.“Well now, men, you look have the look of fine sailing men. Are you wanting a berth?” Pratt asked.
“Shit, Pratt. You signed us out on our last ship and let me tell you . . .” One of the men pushed off from the building to wave a wobbling finger in Pratt’s face. Sage stepped forward and the man calmed down, leaning back against the building and continuing with his complaint. “That ship weren’t all you cracked it up to be. We ate too much duff. Some days we couldn’t tell whether the black bits in that God-awful wheat-paste porridge was raisins or cockroach butts.”
Sage tensed for an explosion. None came. Pratt stayed in genial character, his inquiry mild. “What ship was that you sailed on, lad?”
“The Esther Lynn, around the Horn.”
“Ah, the Esther Lynn. Tell me, boys–her officers, they didn’t beat you, right? And you weren’t marooned or made to freeze from lack of clothes in them Antarctic seas, was you, lad?”
Another man tugged at the feisty one’s sleeve. “Leave off, Jack. We’d be lucky to ship out with old Pratt here and well you know it. He don’t crew no hell ships, and the duffle bag he gives you, well, it’s not full up, but he gives you a damn sight more than most crimps.”
At this, the third man piped up. “I know that’s right. I shipped out of this port a few years back, and once I’m on board, I see the crimp Mordaunt robbed my duffle. Instead of dungarees and coat, it was stuffed with a woman’s old corset and her mismatched shoes. It was the ship’s slop chest for me and I still came near to freezing ‘round the Horn. Don’t ya’ know, when I landed in Cape Town, I owed more for them clothes than what I’d earned. At least Pratt here provides a decent duffle and he don’t steal from it afore you go.” The man nudged the sea bag at his feet with a salt-rimed boot.
Pratt, seeing the tide flowing in his favor, pulled three white cards from his pocket and handed one to each man, saying, “You boys best stay with me. I’ll give you room, board, and a little bit of spending money for tobacco and drink whi
le you’re ashore here. I’ll be paid by your next captain when you sign on.” The three men exchanged glances and shrugged. They pushed off from the wall, shook Pratt’s hand and promised they’d turn up at the boardinghouse in time for supper.
Pratt turned to Sage, his face stripped of all joviality. “Pick up their bags and haul them to the house where they’ll be safe,” he ordered. When he again addressed the three sailors, his tone changed. He handed each man a silver dollar as he said with near paternal concern, “Take care, now, and watch what and where you drink. We’re experiencing a bit of a sailor shortage in port. Some of my competitors are using the blackjack and the knockout drops. There’s been more of that going on . . .”
The three of them turned away to swagger down the sidewalk in their rolling sailors’ gait, heading deeper into the North End. There they’d find saloons thick on the ground, loose women and free eats aplenty to accompany the bottomless beer mugs. All of it calculated to empty their pockets. The three seemed like decent fellows. Sage hoped they wouldn’t encounter trouble.
Pratt began marching back in the direction of the Couch Street wharf, trailed by Sage straining under all three duffles. “What’s your name anyhow, and where are you from? I ain’t seen you around the port before,” Pratt asked.
“Twig Crowley, from San Francisco . . .”
“Humph. ‘Twig Crowley’ and my name’s ‘turkey in the straw.’ No mama ever named her son ‘Twig.’” Sage gambled, kept his mouth shut and sure enough, Pratt kept on prattling. “Ain’t no never mind. Like I say, if you can pull an oar, I’ll keep you. Otherwise, you’ll be on down the road. We’ll find out soon enough. The Clarice will be rounding Swan Island about now. She’ll just be anchoring when we reach the river.”
Evidently, Pratt was mulling over his exchange with the three sailors because he said, “That’s the problem, you see, what those men said. I’m getting squeezed by the law and making less profit while my competitors use every lowdown trick you can imagine, and then some, to get rich. ‘Course, you look like you’ve a bit of the snake in you, so maybe you admire men like that. ‘Twig Crowley,’ sure you are. Like I was saying, no decent woman ever named her son ‘Twig’ and a man that ain’t proud of his given name can’t be trusted. My mother named me ‘Tobias’, and I’ve never claimed to be anyone else.”
Sage kept his trap shut. He wasn’t sure Pratt even noticed. Each block grew longer as the weight Sage carried grew heavier. These duffles must be filled with rocks. Sure can’t be gold from the looks of their owners. A few men passing by took a second look, as if bemused at the picture of an empty-handed, yakking Pratt, being trailed by an overloaded, staggering Sage. A few street dwellers, both men and women, called out to Pratt but he merely flipped a friendly hand in greeting without slowing. Nothing slowed the man’s rolling gait or his yammering–neither the greetings nor Sage’s total lack of response to the questions the old crimp threw out over his shoulder. Sage, when he wasn’t shifting the load to lessen his pain, contemplated the probable pleasure of cotton balls stuffed in his ears. Painfully clear now was the meaning of Stuart Franklin’s crack that there’d be no choice whether to listen to the old crimp.
“Take me, mine’s an honest operation. I don’t hold with bribing the port master, and I don’t make the police part of my game. And I never ever use the underground. I’m taking a serious risk here. Maybe I feed and house those men back there only to have them ship out for someone else or head off inland looking for gold. That’s why I take ahold of their duffles up front.” Pratt paused at a curb to scrape horse dung off his shoe sole. Even that activity failed to stop his flow of words. “They take off, I’m out everything I put into them, including the advance money I paid them. By the bye, I don’t pay my runner in advance. You’ll be paid at the end of the day and not a minute sooner. So don’t waste your breath asking.”
They reached a quieter street, running westward, up from the river bank. Pratt paused to doff his hat at two soiled doves. They giggled and the raven-haired one called out, “Mr. Pratt, dearie, send a sailor boy or two our way. Us girls needs a favor and a drink.”
Pratt nodded agreeably without pausing in his tirade. “Anyway, if you stick around, I’ll send you out scouting for men. So listen up, because there’s my reputation to uphold, and I don’t want any green runner drumming up worthless men. The best men are the professional sailors like those three back there. Next best is soldiers, ‘cause they know where to jump when ordered. After that comes the country bumpkins–lumberjacks and farm boys. They’re worthless as teats on a boar the first month at sea. Spend most of their time hanging over the railing feeding the fish. Once their guts calm down, they know how to work hard.”
Here Pratt stopped on the sidewalk and turned to shake a pudgy finger in Sage’s face. “But don’t you ever drum up an Indian, because they’re trouble.”
Curiosity at this unexpected warning spurred Sage to ask, “Why?”
“Boy, you are one ignorant fella, ain’t you? An Indian man works real hard and they make good sailors, but the federal government watches over them, and the captains don’t like tangling with the federal government. Something bad happens to an Indian aboard ship and everybody’s got a problem–starting with the crimp who put him there.” Pratt pulled a large brass key ring from his pocket as he mounted three brick steps. “We need to drop off them duffles because, with any luck, you’ll be having to carry a few more before the day is out.”
Sage let the bags drop to the sidewalk while Pratt unlocked his front door. It was a two-story flat-fronted clapboard house. So, this was home to Pratt and the sailors he collected. There was a pleasing symmetry to it–what with the stoop and door both precisely centered on the ground floor and flanked by two perfectly matched windows to either side. Bright yellow gingham curtains splashed with blue periwinkles added cheer. Has to be a woman somewhere in Pratt’s crimping operation. Clearly, Pratt wasn’t inclined to spend money on the building itself since it sorely needed paint. A faint mossy color traced the wood grain on the otherwise naked clapboard, making it look like that greentinged driftwood you sometimes found on the beach. Across the second story, four double-hung windows fronted the street, curtained by dark drapes. No doubt to block the morning light for hung-over sailors.
“Crowley, quit gawping like a country bumpkin. I ain’t fixin’ to sell the dang building to you,” Pratt proclaimed from atop the stoop, aggressively jerking his thumb in the direction of the open front door. “Get yer fanny moving.”
Sage staggered across the threshold onto worn linoleum of an indeterminate brown hue. Despite, its scars and wear it looked clean. No black gunk scummed the corners. On the left side tucked behind the front door was a small alcove containing a cot and a single wooden fruit crate. Pratt gestured toward the alcove. “Drop them bags there for now, Crowley. This room here is your flop,” he said. Sage dropped his load as instructed and flexed his cramped hands.
“Get a move on, now. We got us a ship to greet,” Pratt growled and headed back out the door.
Minutes later they sat in the rowboat. Sage was glad that the river was low, slowing the current. It had been some months since he’d pulled oars. He rowed steadily and straight to the Clarice while Pratt kept up a stream of insults and unnecessary instructions until Sage at last tied the boat to the ship’s anchor chain. Pratt stood and grabbed hold of the chain, his beatific smile once more on display. Sage sat on the bench catching his breath and idly enjoying the fantasy of flipping the old man over the side into the water.
“Ahoy on board, men of the Clarice!” Pratt shouted upward before turning to say in a normal voice to Sage, “Used to be we’d climb the anchor chain. These days, it’s a crime to go on board without the captain’s permission. Afraid we’ll entice the men to desert with alcohol and promises of wild women.” While it was doubtful that a man of Pratt’s girth and agility could mount that anchor chain, Sage found the vision amusing to contemplate.
Overhead, faces popped up ab
ove the railing and eyes buried within webs of sun burnt wrinkles peered down at them.
“Hello there, men! Name’s Pratt. I’m offering you a clean boardinghouse, good grub, and I’ll make sure any man who comes with me sets sail with a good berth. No leaky buckets, no bad captains, no empty duffle.” Pratt fished around in the cloth bag he wore slung over his shoulder and removed a pint of whiskey. He raised the bottle so that the sun glowed within its amber contents. “I brought you a welcoming libation to enjoy while my runner here, ‘Twig’ (the contempt was there if you were listening for it), rows you to the dock so’s you can partake of the frolicking fun offered by the best port city on the West Coast! So, what do you say, men? You coming ashore?”
While he awaited an answer, Pratt cast a nervous glance over his shoulder. When Sage followed that look, he saw another rowboat making way toward the ship. Two men sat in the boat, scowls on their faces. Pratt hissed, “Don’t be staring at them, you idjit. Those are Kaspar Mordaunt’s men, and they’d sooner cut us loose from this anchor chain and dump us in the river than say ‘Howdy do.’ You move that belay pin,” Pratt pointed at the 12-inch wooden club that had been rolling about the boat’s bottom, “closer to your hand and be alert.”
Pratt’s next shout that sailed upward was tight with anxiety. “We can’t be waiting here all day, men. Let me tell you, I’ll treat you right, not like some others soon to tie up to your anchor.”
A rope ladder dropped down, uncoiling alongside the hull until it hung just a few feet above the rowboat. A pair of feet plunged over the rail followed by blue dungaree legs. Pratt sighed and sat, pulling a dirty white handkerchief from his pocket to dab at the sweat on his brow.
