by Zane Grey
“Ahuh. I git you. Trainin’ under fatheads like thet Atwell…. No, siree, Kev, you jest can’t stand fer thet newspaper roast.”
“I don’t intend to,” returned Keven with cold dark grimness.
“An’ thet’s the hell of it. What can you do? … Kev, I reckon I’d hosswhip him within an inch of his life. There’d be somethin’ to make folks think, if you did thet. No rowdy stuff. No fightin’, though sure thet yellow cur wouldn’t fight nuthin’. But hosswhippin’ him? Thet would set better.”
“Garry, it’d be a good idea—if it were enough.”
“Hell, man, are you thinkin’ of killin’ Atwell?” queried the shrewd Garry.
Keven had no reply for that. Perhaps his cold tight face made words superfluous.
“Thet’d be natural,” went on Garry ponderingly. “It’d be just. But if you have any hopes fer a future, you can’t do it, Kev…. Atwell has money an’ friends. He’s in with Brandeth. They’ve got a political pull. Look how this cannery business is run. A few men gittin’ rich at the expense of the state. Of the taxpayers! Of such pore fishermen as you an’ me! … Thet’s what I hate about the good old U.S. Graft!”
“Garry, I’m afraid I’ve no hopes for the future.”
“Kev! See here, you lay off any serious intent on Atwell,” flashed the riverman, with sudden fire. “’Cause, by Gord, if you don’t, I’ll kill him myself.”
All Keven’s blood went with a shock back to his heart. He had never seen Garry look or talk like this. Strange little flecks danced in eyes as clear and intense as blue steel. Like sunlight quivering on ice! But there was no other beautiful feature about Garry’s visage. He could kill a man as easily as he could flip a salmon from the net. A tremendous loyalty to his friend seemed to emanate from him.
“Very well, Garry, I’ll lay off such intent—if I had it,” returned Keven earnestly. Garry must be deceived at any cost, or if not deceived, then protected. It was not his fight.
“I ain’t so damn sure about you,” said Garry. “Kev Bell, you’re as deep as the sea out there.” Then the intensity of him gradually relaxed. That vivid scorching flame died out of his eyes. “You oughta have some sense. If you haven’t, I gotta have some fer you. We’ve been screwed good an’ hard on this market fishin’. But thet ain’t nuthin’. Nuthin’ a-tall. You can find better an’ easier work. Huntin’ fer gold back up the river! Thet’d be fine. I’ll take a crack at it with you next winter, if you want to…. Kev, you’re gonna git well an’ strong again. You’re gonna git over this deal the Army gave you. An’ you’re gonna do fine—an’ marry some decent girl who don’t paint like a chippy an’ run around with ’most no clothes on—an’ you’re gonna be happy an’ mebbe have a boy who’ll beat the socks off you fishin’ fer steelhead.”
Keven laughed in utter incredulity and amaze at this raving partner of his.
“Garry, you’re getting softening of the brain,” he replied bitterly.
Instead of a volley of curses, Garry surprised him still further.
“Nope. It’s somethin’ I feel, Kev, an’ can’t explain. My mother had a queer way of seein’ things. I take thet after her. You’re gonna come out all right in the end, Kev.”
An unquenchable loyalty and faith and something even greater shone from the eyes of the riverman. Keven dropped his head, at last shamed before this outlaw among fishermen, this improvident roisterer, whose soul was bigger than his. For the moment Keven surrendered to a regurgitation of that which was the best of him and which died so hard. After all, that spirit which Garry seemed to believe was his might actually be his. He had been denying it, repudiating it for months. Passion and hate had engulfed it. Keven promised himself a lonely day, not along the seashore, but back in the hills, high up among the firs, where he could look down upon the river and ponder over his miserable state. But alas, the hills were far back, and the forest still farther!
“Look there! By gosh,” ejaculated Garry, pointing out across where the river flowed into the bay. Fishermen were rowing by in big boats heaped high with shining salmon.
“Another run on!” cried Keven eagerly. Under any conditions, sight of fish would have stirred him.
“Sure. An’ thet looks somethin’ like them fellers have been goin’ an’ comin’ all night. There’s other boats goin’ out…. Well, ding the luck! I knowed there’d be a big run. Yestiddy I had it figgered. I could have beat them yaps to it.”
“Why didn’t you, then?” queried Keven. “It’s tough for one man to set and haul a net, I know. But you’ve done it.”
To Keven’s amaze Garry gave him a queer glance and, without another word, stalked away in the direction of the canneries. Keven did not know what to make of this. Garry not fishing when the bay was full of salmon! Could he have gotten drunk and sold the net? No, for there it hung on their rack above the river. Keven stared. Somehow it did not appear natural. Evidently it had not been wet of late. He walked out to investigate. Limp, ragged, gray as ashes!
“I’ll be damned! Rotten!” he ejaculated in dismay, and took hold of the netting. It fell to pieces, as if the twine were a thousand years old. He stood a moment, completely nonplussed. A new net, of good material, kept with faithful care, rotting in a few weeks—the idea was preposterous. It had not rotted. Keven strode along the rack, feeling the net here and there, until the truth dawned upon him. Some kind of destroying agent, probably sulphuric acid, had been poured upon that net.
His rage, then, flaming so readily, paralleled that which the foul words of Atwell had engendered. This piece of villainy had never originated in the rum-soaked brains of Mulligan and his crew. Only another link in the chain meant to fetter Garry Lord’s capable hands! Keven saw through it.
Long he waited for Garry to return, brooding in the shade of the big pine that sheltered the tent. And his righteous anger alternated with grief. At length his partner came back.
“Biggest salmon ketch this year,” announced Garry simply, as he sat down to wipe the sweat from his moist face. The day was hot and the shade welcome.
“Garry, what was it that ruined our net?” demanded Keven, again inflamed.
“Sulphuric acid.”
“I guessed that. Who could have done it?”
“Any of our enemies. An’ most of thet gang is against us. But I reckon it was Mulligan who got one of his half-breeds to do thet little job.”
“But do you know? Can you lay it onto him? Have you any proof?”
“Nary proof. I went to the store an’ found out thet they hadn’t no acid. I asked the stage drivers an’ nuthin’ had come up with them.”
“Did you inquire on the freight boat?”
“Thet hasn’t been in lately.”
“What have you been doing?”
“Trollin’ every day. Ketched a few salmon right along. I sure got the hosslaugh from some of them fishermen. But we gotta live. An’ I reckon we can make wages.”
“All right. We’ll stick at it. But what we want to do most is to get something on these men. Mulligan and his crew. Or any of them who’re in that ring.”
“You’re talkin’ gospel. Kev. I’m glad you ain’t suggestin’ we borrow money again, to buy another net. They’d pull the same trick on us when we was asleep. Nope, Kev, we’re screwed, we’re licked, we’re done.”
“Garry, is it reasonable to connect Atwell with our misfortunes here?” asked Keven.
“It sure don’t seem reasonable. A big man like Atwell ruinin’ two pore fishermen! You’d have a hard time makin’ anyone believe thet. But hell! We haven’t the least doubt he’d be low enough. An’ this fox Priddy here—the guy who tried to git you to double-cross me. He’d steal coppers off a dead nigger’s eyes.”
“Garry, we can be slick enough to get the goods on them,” declared Keven, fiercely resolute.
“Sure, we oughta be. But what’ll we do then? I jest wanted to find out who ruined our net an’ beat the daylights out of him. But thet wouldn’t satisfy you.”
“N
o. I want to rile the people up the river. And through them the whole state. Throw the rottenness of it all into the Portland courts!”
“You’re talkin’ big. I was in Frisco when they cleaned up thet burg. Jest one guy did thet. He was a man, Kev, believe me…. But this ain’t Frisco, Kev. This’s only a little one-hoss coast town, pretty an’ sleepy, where ’most everybody is as honest an’ clean as daylight. They don’t know how us fishermen git jobbed—thet sooner or later the salmon an’ steelhead runs will be things of the past.”
“Garry, it’s more important to the people upriver,” declared Keven. “These folks here can get sea fish. But if the runs are blocked the farmers and townspeople all along the Rogue are going to suffer. They eat fish during the season and smoke them for winter use. Then take the fly-fishermen. They’re too many to count. They come and go. They spend money. They advertise the Rogue. And it is the most beautiful and wonderful trout stream in the West, perhaps in the world. Are a few men to be allowed to kill the food value and the sport value of this river?”
“Hell, no, if you can stop them. But as I’ve told you before, look at the white cedars—goin’ to Japan. Goin’ to build airplanes—our finest lumber. Gord Almighty! Can you beat thet? All fer dirty rotten money. An’ take the grand redwood forests, thet oughta stand ferever, jest because they’re so few, an’ so grand, an’ somehow part of America. They are goin’ like hot cakes, fer the same reason. Take the timber north in Washington. I was in a loggin’ camp owned an’ run by English contractors. Shifts of five hundred men day an’ night. Cuttin’ thet forest clean. Mowin’ it down, as if it was hay! It’s happenin’, Kev, all to stuff the pockets of a few hogs. Thet oughtn’t to be. It takes ten lifetimes fer such trees to grow. It’s horrible waste. It’ll dry up our rivers. Will the government do anythin’? Nix, no, never! These short-term guys stand with their hands behind their backs. Do they git ’em greased? You bet your life they do.”
“But, Garry, people can be awakened into revolt,” expostulated Keven.
“Kev, by thunder, you’re a pard to be proud of,” sang out Garry, as if wrenched by a poignant fact. “You’ve no call to be fightin’ for ideals. You gave your strength, your health, your eyesight—an’ fer what? Your good name was ruined by a potbellied slacker of a politics-made major. An’ now the mean little job of market fishin’, by which you hoped to earn an’ save a little—thet’s been screwed fer you. Yet you stand up an’ fight fer the right! … Kev, I gotta hand it to you. An’ all this—the thing thet you are—makes me feel you’ll come out on the top at the last. Otherwise, there ain’t no good, no justice, no hope on this green earth.”
CHAPTER TEN
OUT on the bay, where it narrowed to the river mouth, the green of salt water, coming in with the tide, met the darker bluish green water of the Rogue.
The gulls were screaming raucously, as they wheeled above the sandspit; the cormorants dove and fought in the shallow current along the edge; steelhead were flashing opal and rose in the sunlight; great leather-backed Chinook rolled on the surface. The tide ran in, chafing the beach, gurgling in little eddies, hissing low as it swelled on the front of the river flow. A well-defined line of demarcation, irregular and changing, showed where salt and fresh water met, to contend for the mastery. But the tide was the stronger. Slowly it gathered momentum to halt the river, and then to force it back.
This was the hour that Keven liked so well to fish. Sorely as he had been tempted, he had never let the fun and sport and thrill of rod fishing interfere with business. But hand line and heavy spoon could not wholly rob the work of its charm. While Garry rowed like a machine, Keven let his line back to drag the bright lure along the merging of currents. This day salmon ran large and plentiful. Smash! and the line would whiz through his hands. The strike never failed to make him jump. Then followed the short battle, always ending when a gasping salmon was hauled over the gunwales.
“Somethin’ doin’ today,” said Garry, for the tenth time, and he grinned his pleasure.
“Sure is. Now, Garry, you troll and I’ll row,” replied Keven.
“I ain’t tired yet. Reckon I’d never git tired watchin’ you fish. Kev. yours ears stick up like a jack rabbit’s an’ your eyes shine. Then when one hits into you, my gosh, you jump like a boy…. Fishin’ is fun, though. It was the love of it thet made me a market fisherman.”
No day this season had yet compared with this one. But few boats were out, and none of the Indian fishermen. Keven had the trolling at the mouth all to himself. By the time the tide had pushed the river back, to occupy the bay, he had half loaded the skiff with salmon. And even then the trolling remained good.
“Jest happened we hit it right,” said Garry philosophically. “Reckon it won’t happen again, wuss luck. We could make fair money at this rate.”
“I never thought of money,” returned Keven with a sigh.
“My Gord, boy, do you reckon I’m wearin’ myself out fer love of fishin’?”
“Garry, you’re like me. You’d fish for nothing…. Wow!”
“By gosh, you’ve hung a lunker. Let him run.”
“He’s taking all the line. Say, what a strike! Garry, row after him. I’ll bet this is the granddad of the whole bunch.”
It developed, at length, that he had indeed hooked a mighty Chinook. Ordinarily a forty-pound salmon would tow the light skiff for quite a while. But this one pulled it fast and failed to tire.
“If he heads out to sea we jest ain’t a-goin’, Kev,” declared Garry, as the fish drew them towards the outlet.
“We’ll follow him to Kamchatka,” retorted Keven. “Aw, Garry, we’ve got to catch this Chinook. I’ll bet he’ll go eighty pounds.”
“Come down, Kev. I never seen but a couple of eighty-pounders, an’ thet was ’way north of here…. Listen to thet surf out there.”
Indeed the boom and pound of the sea could not have been anything but dominant here, except to a deaf man. With tide at flood and a fresh breeze from off shore the thunder on the beach was incessant, deep, and heart-quaking.
Meanwhile the sun had gone down over the wide ridged expanse of ocean, which Keven could see out across the narrow mouth. Already shadows were forming under the low sand dunes, and near shore on the north side the water had begun to glance and gleam darkly.
“Ain’t you ever goin’ to land thet Chinook?” queried Garry. “I’m ’most starved. Hoss him in, Kev.”
“Ha! ha! ‘Hoss him in.’ You ought to have hold of this line.”
“Well, I’m willin’ enough, if you can’t lick him.”
“Thunder and blazes!” ejaculated Keven, aghast. “He’s making for that net.”
“Sure. Thet’s why I’ve been hollerin’. I seen it was comin’. Better cut him loose.”
“What? Like hell I will.”
“Kev. if I ain’t mistook thet’s one of Mulligan’s nets. He an’ his gang have gall enough to set nets an’ leave ’em. Somethin’ we upriver fishermen never dared do…. Ahuh, your fish is fast.”
“Yes, dang it. But I’ll get him or bust.”
“Better cut him loose, Kev,” repeated Garry soberly.
“Say, pard, are you afraid?” asked Keven, derisive in his excitement.
“Hell if you put it that way,” rejoined Garry, offended, and he backed the skiff toward where the net buoy bobbed on the surface.
Meanwhile Keven hauled in the slack line, which led them somewhat to the right of the buoy. Keven directed his partner to row close to the buoy, so that he could pick up the net rope. Soon he was hauling on the net and at the same time taking in his hand line. With a lunge and a roar the huge Chinook came up. That flurry was apparently his last, for he turned his great, broad shiny side up, and gaped with the jaws of an enormous wolf.
“Help, Garry,” panted Keven, as he tried to lift the salmon.
“Tip the skiff an’ slide him in,” replied Garry.
Between them they got the fish into the skiff, where it lay gasping, the most marvelo
us salmon Keven had ever seen.
“Oh! What’ll he go?”
“Some lunker!” ejaculated Garry. “Sixty-five, mebbe seventy pounds.”
The big spoon had become entangled in the net, and as Keven extricated it, with some difficulty, Garry suddenly burst out, hoarsely: “By Gord! … Look at thet net!”
“What? It’s all right. I’ve got the hook free. No damage done.”
“Look at thet mesh!” exclaimed Garry, low and sharp. His blue eyes shot fire.
Keven gazed from Garry back to the net, a fold of which dragged over his knee. It appeared to be made of smaller twine, more closely knit. Puzzled, he lifted it—spread it wide. Measured the net with eye and then with fingers.
“Four-inch mesh!” he whispered.
“Sure as you’re borned,” corroborated Garry.
“And the law allows only an eight-inch mesh?”
“The law allows! Haw! Haw! But thet’s the law, Kev.”
“Garry, we’ve got it on them.”
“Lemme look.” Then Garry reached over to spread the folds, sliding them back into the water, until he came to a line of heavier twine and larger mesh. The top of the net had a border of mesh which conformed with the existing law.
“Thet top is only a blind,” went on Garry. “Pretty slick, I’ll tell the world…. This net is deep an’ heavy; I’ll bet there’s twenty feet an’ more below. Look out! A boat comin’.”
Garry flipped the top line back into the water, where it disappeared, and sitting back to his oars, he added: “Stand up an’ be liftin’ thet salmon.”
Keven, further spurred by the creaking of oarlocks, did as he was bidden, while Garry rowed. A few strokes took them out from the shadow cast by the sand dunes. Still they could easily have been seen before that, if the approaching boatman had been looking. As his back was turned, however, there was a chance that they had not been observed.
“Hey, look out where you’re goin’,” bawled Garry, in quite unnecessary alarm, for the fisherman was some rods off. He backed water with his oars and then turned to look.
