WARRIORS

by Warriors (retail) (epub)

  Jones watched the water coming away in sheets from the warehouse roof. His dad and the other lodge members had stuck to their jobs. They were trying to stretch a tarp over the central battleship on their float. The palm tree beside it had so collapsed in the rain that its colored paper hung limp around a metal rod now seen poking through the trunk. Red ink dribbled across black on the banner lettered Pearl Harbor Remembered Forever! Maybe he should go help them. But the girl’s hand was on his arm again. Name: Agnes? No, Adele.

  “I just don’t know what I’d have done without you,” she exclaimed as she returned his jacket. “I do hope I haven’t ruined it.” Jones shrugged and put it back on, dripping wet. As for his white dress cap, she held it, touching the emblem before handing it back.

  From a group of men—most of whom wore checked wool shirts—a big guy whose black hair poked from under a wool cap declared: “Well, count me in if we still log-buck and chop later this morning. Slippery, but yeah! That’s what we come in for.”

  “Sure, day in town for everybody. What the hell?” said another. “Jeannie gets antsy out there on the boats, and it’s been a month since we came back to civilization. If the ladies get their fill of shopping I’ll call it a good day.” Men and women came over to shake Jones’s hand and to clap him on the back. In the months since his discharge he’d avoided such contact. Now, suddenly, he found it wasn’t that bad, with a bright girl beside him.

  Up came John Rosvic, Gus’s dad. Unlike the others, he wore boots and oilskins. As always, he was clean-shaven.

  “Just delivered,” he explained. “No call to take off early till my boy Gus gets home. Writes he’s having a good time in Tokyo, helping to straighten out the Japs.”

  Jones shook his hand gravely. Like his own dad, John Rosvic, with his square Slavic face and calm, sturdy manner, was part of what Jones had daydreamed of seeing again during all the mud and chaos of the war.

  “Well, sir, like I said when I first got home, when I left him, Gus was doing okay there in Jap-land.” And as earlier, Jones didn’t bother to mention that Gus had begun to have his pick of the Jap girls any night he pleased. Had often seen to it that his buddy Jones, shy with girls, got the best of the leftovers.

  “Writes that since the time you buddied with him last October you wouldn’t recognize Tokyo—its gotten so lively. Misses you, Jones.”

  Jones deepened his voice. “Write Gus I sure miss him too, sir.”

  “I know you enlisted earlier than Gus so you had the discharge points.” John Rosvic looked around and saw that others were listening. He raised his voice to include them. “You know my boy Gus is helping guard American headquarters over there. Writes he’s actually seen General Douglas MacArthur. Seen him more than once. Once got a salute back from the General. And for that matter, he’s even had a look at the Jap’s Emperor Hirohito. For what that’s worth.”

  “Just think of it,” said one of the women. “Little Gus over there a friend of General MacArthur.”

  “Now Jones, son. Don’t be such a stranger. Hardly seen you at all since you’ve been back, after you first came to call. Fishing alone on your boat, off from the rest of us, most times. Why don’t you come tie with the other boats at night, son? We want to hear your stories. You know how welcome you’d be to come have dinner aboard whenever you please. Or back here at the house for that matter. The wife, too—she wouldn’t mind hearing a few war stories.”

  “Thanks, sir. I’ll sure keep that in mind.”

  The rain continued to dump. In one corner of the warehouse, boys from the high school band had settled themselves atop coils of black pump hoses as they played patches of “Stars and Stripes Forever” without any coordination.

  At last, people left Jones alone. He sought a corner, hoping that the girl named Adele would follow. She did. Now he didn’t know what to talk about. “Been here long in Ketchikan?” he ventured.

  “Seems more like two years than the three it’s been. That’s how much I’ve settled in. My pa came up with the Coast Guard, you see. But now he’s reassigned to Seattle and moved there with my ma and younger brothers.” He liked the sound of her voice. A little bit husky, but clear as a bell. Despite the loan of his jacket, she was wet enough that her hair had lost some of its curl and her pretty green dress hung damp against her knees, but she didn’t complain.

  “To tell you the truth, I like it here,” she continued. “I have a nice job at the bank, and anyway it’s time to be on my own. You know, growing up with the military, you’re never in the same place all that long. Now I have all kinds of friends in town.”

  “That’s . . . good.”

  “I think so.” She faced him. Expected him to speak next, it seemed. He glanced out the doorway where rain still fell like a curtain. Suddenly he wanted to hold her. But what if she drew back and walked away? She wasn’t just some kind of little fluff of the sort he joked about with Gus—that you could just shack up with. Should he risk telling her she was pretty?

  Instead: “Your dad’s Coast Guard? Good boys out there, Coast Guard. Men, that is.” He’d not considered it before, during the tension of battle landings, but now he volunteered, “They didn’t ever have to go ashore, of course, so they got off easy that way. But, you know, they brought us in their landing crafts straight through fire as close to the beach as they could. Times, some weren’t lucky. But others of them kept coming. Once—” The memory of it stopped him.

  “Oh! Tell me more!” She waited so long without speaking further that he felt obliged to say, “That’s it. Nothing more.”

  He hadn’t expected her eyes to mist and her voice to soften with: “Thank you for saying that much.” What should I do now? he wondered. Arm around her? Leave her be? He’d gladly have kissed just her brown hair that still held its sort of curl despite the rain. Hell, anything, gladly!

  Action (or rather, nothing) was averted when a man announced through a megaphone: “Okay, everybody. Decision time. We’ve got to parade in the rain or not at all. That’s how it looks. Are we rainbirds here in Ketchikan or are we not?”

  Good-natured groans greeted the announcement.

  “Ah, Yon, you’re vet already anyhow,” said Knute Jenson to general laughter. “I t’ink you can’t get vetter!”

  “Knute, you old square head,” laughed the announcer. “When would you ever be dry enough to notice anyhow? Now. I’ve been watching all the floats out there. Nobody’s given up and they ain’t getting any drier. Not only floats from VFW, Elks, Eagles, plus their Auxiliary, Emblem, Moose, and Lions, but I see the floats from Brownie Scouts and Mount Point and the Hospital folks and even our fair Queens all still holding out. And the Filipinos from the canneries on their float, all cooked up to celebrate new independence back in their home country, since we kicked out the Japs. Shrine band says it’s ready to go. Marchers I’ve talked to—Norway Sons and Daughters, VFW, Sea Scouts, and Girl Scouts, Coast Guard color guard, Pioneers, they all say go. So we’re going! Parade’s making up again for everybody who’s up to it.”

  Amidst scattered cheers the warehouse shelter began to empty. The girl named Adele turned away with an embarrassed smile, and when she looked at him again her eyes were clear.

  “Do Marines mind getting wet?” she asked with unexpected boldness.

  Jones Henry felt himself to be a man of the world at last as he declared, “Not if somebody cares to show them where they’re supposed to go.”

  She took his arm firmly—not with a half-cling as before. “Then you just come along!”

  8

  FISHBOAT

  Jones Henry woke to the buzz of the alarm clock, but the dream continued. He clutched his hands in panic when the rifle slipped away. Even felt sopping mud against his legs. With a groan he opened his eyes. There, through the hatch, which had been left open for ventilation, shone the dim early light silhouetting the points of spruce across the water. The malaise lingered, even though every bit of his legs and feet were dry and warm. Sweat still dampened his chest, fr
om the dream that had him staring into a Jap’s slanty eye before both men pulled their triggers. He wriggled his toes in the sleeping bag and folded his arms behind his head. The action released a mildly sour odor from the armpits of his long john top, which mingled with the smell of an untraceable gasoline trickle from the engine into the bilge. Boot socks and gloves hung on a rack over the stove, swaying gently with the rocking of the boat. But for being a man, he would have put an arm over his eyes and sobbed for relief. Did. Then, quickly, he anchored his feet on the chilly deck and started moving.

  He lighted the single burner under the coffee pot. The boot socks were dry as he slipped them on. Hip boots too had stayed dry inside. Wool shirt, dungarees, wool cap, all dry. He scratched a bit, then clumped outside, still stiff from the tension of the dream.

  A deep, slow lungful pulled in the clean scents of spruce and salty water. Amidst the chirping of birds, his piss splashed lightly overboard. Mist puffed over the surface of the water and made hazy the lowest trees on shore. But for all that had come in between, he might still be the young kid out with his dad in the same cove only six years before. No hurry today, if he wanted to take his time. His eyes scanned for any fin or jump of fish, but the water gave back only reflections.

  What? Astern and at first hidden by the cabin, there lay another boat at anchor! Only a couple hundred feet away. Snuck in late after he’d closed down for the night. If he’d craved company he’d be anchored with Dad and old Rosvic and the others, not in a cove with tricky shoals that he had sounded fathom by fathom to be by himself. Everybody knew he wanted to fish alone.

  With a squint against the brightening sky, he made it out to be Nels Knutsen’s troller Gunvor. Two figures at the rail were pissing to starboard, rather than the usual one. Then, the bigger of the two—Nels for sure—raised his big muscled arms for a yawn.

  “Ja, Jones, good morning,” Nels called.

  Jones started to turn away, to pretend he hadn’t heard, but then out of civility replied, “You come in late.”

  “Ja. With now my cousin from Norge. Yust arrived here not long ago. Now fishes with me.”

  The second man on the Gunvor climbed around the housing to the bow and started to pull in the anchor, hand over hand. Jones had heard about some cousin of Nels’s who’d fought the Krauts. Nothing he needed to hear. Enough to have his own memories. But: “Looks like you got a good man there,” he called to compensate for his evasion.

  “Ja. Not tall, but strong arms. Ve go now.”

  Jones watched the Gunvor glide from the cove. The cousin began to lower the trolling poles while Nels himself stayed free to steer. Company at night, that would be. But at work? He’d had enough of bumping against other shoulders. Alone, you went where the fancy took you—and kept secrets to yourself. Jones returned inside. The water in the pot was boiling. He dumped in two ladlefuls of coffee grinds, stirred the brown mass while it dispersed among the bubbles, and slid the pot to a cool part of the stove to steep. Nels on the move. That changed things. Let it be a race, then! He turned the key to start his engine. It gave its usual sputter, along with a fresh whiff of gasoline, but soon began to idle smoothly. He poured coffee and swirled in PET Milk from a half-clogged hole punched in the can. The hot liquid jump-started his energy. Yeah, Nels and that new cousin might top his catch if he didn’t move fast.

  Outside once more, early sun had begun to streak through the treetops, shooting beams of light into the misty air. Gray clouds rose in the opposite direction though, so with the lay of the breeze Jones figured it would probably rain. The anchor came up chain by chain in his bare hands. Cold, but unnecessary to wear out gloves and buy new ones—the supply bills were already too high. With the first kick into gear the engine lurched and took hold. His boat chugged ahead, leaving a wake as slick as pencil lines. She sustained the easiest of rocking, almost like a breath. The four trolling poles began to clack in their lashings, while the boat’s wooden hull groaned comfortably throughout its seams.

  Jones switched the engine control from wheelhouse to deck, pulled up his boots, snapped into his oilskin coat, and stepped aft into the sunken trolling pit to start his day. A piece of gut he hadn’t noticed during last night’s wash-down clogged the scupper. As soon as he flicked it over the side, a gull glided in from nowhere to grab it. The V-shaped cutting board, scrubbed the night before, still smelled faintly of disinfectant, but the fishy odor had seeped into the wood long ago and was stronger. Good smell. He honed his knives and replaced them in their slots handy to the board, then scooped some herring from the ice chest and slapped them down alongside the knives. At last, one by one, he unlashed and lowered the forward poles port and starboard, followed by the two longer poles astern. He adjusted each pole’s wing-like stabilizer and guided the assemblies to their working angles over the water.

  By the time he entered the wide sweep of Clarence Strait beyond the shoreside rocks, his boat, with its graceful poles extended, swayed like a dancer. A southeast wind sang a high note through the taut stabilizer lines. As he knew from the tables, flood current had just begun. He steered into it. Before getting competitive this morning, he’d planned to take his time and catch the flood an hour after it started, when experience told him the salmon turned livelier, but today with the Gunvor ahead of him, every fish might count. There she was, Nels’s boat, just ahead and already baited and fishing—to judge by the birds that swooped around his stern. Catching anything? Not enough birds hovering at the rails to signify more than tags of bait, it seemed. Jones squinted for better detail but couldn’t see signs of action. No other boats in sight at least. Well damn, he decided, I’ll catch more than those two together today. Show ’em. Hope then they’ll go somewhere else.

  He knew the coast well enough to eye its points in his head relative to each other and know the depth he trolled through. With that knowledge he set course a quarter mile astern of Nels’s wake and, after considering, a few feet to portside closer to the rocks, where two weeks ago, he’d fished best. Still on the same fathom curve some thirty to forty before the hundred-plus dip into the channel, to judge by quick sightings from shore. And from experience! The breeze blew off the oily boat odors along with the exhaust from the engine pipe. Jones breathed the fragrant air of trees and water, and without thinking, started to sing in a low grunt while he baited. Now. To it! He’d been toying with a new idea while still adhering to the method used by his dad and his grandfather before him. In the old way, Jones buried the hook in a whole herring—speared crooked so that it flapped in the water when under tow. In the new way—call it the Number Two way, that used baited artificial lures—he hung either a plug or a newfangled hoochie. He alternated the methods on the six hooks that each pole would tow through the water. On one pole he played it one-two one-two one-two on varying lengths of leader, thereby reaching different depths. On another he made it one-one-one then two-two-two. Scribbled it down in pencil, although he kept it in his head as well. A true fisherman used science. He also fixed a longer spread to the lower leg of each line in order to lure any deeper-swimming king. When kings arrived in force, time to target them exclusively. Use strategy. Wait until that boat ahead of him might have gone somewhere else.

  Under his breath he still voiced that “Da-da! Da-da-da! Da-da-da!” He had baited and lowered the aft starboard pole and started on the pole port-side before he finally placed the tune. “Stars and Stripes.” That was it. “Stars and Stripes Forever.” From three weeks before. The thing kept returning, wouldn’t leave his head. Marched to it in such rain that, before they’d gone for two minutes, his pants clung to his legs and shoes sloshed with water. Still, wouldn’t call it a bad day. Dried out, or at least warmed up, with a beer or two in the Legion Hall after it was over. More brews bought for him than any man in his senses could drink and everybody wanting to shake his hand. The old man proud of him—that was nice—getting sent free beers as well. Fireworks at dark when the clouds finally cleared. That girl Adele’s head on his shoulder for a whi
le during the fireworks.

  After a while the sun rose above treetops and sparkled on the water. “Da-da! Da-da-da! Da-da-da!” Sonuvabitch. All he’d ever wanted, right here! With each baited pole he let the gurdy spin so that the cannonball-shaped sinker hit the water with a satisfying plop.

  The little bell on the end of the forward starboard pole tinkled once. Jones’s quick eye caught a single bend of the pole’s tip. Then the pole straightened again except for its normal quiver from the boat’s forward motion. He watched. The tip did still bend a bit without straightening. Meant the drag of a single fish that showed no more fight. Coho, then, if not seaweed or some trash fish that wasn’t salmon. He judged it to be on hook three or four of the pole, so it could be either type of lure. After a minute to see if any of the pole’s other hooks would grab a fish, Jones reeled in the line. Nice little coho flapping there. Sure enough it was on hook four and thus, on that particular line, had struck the squid-like rubber hoochie. No mess with Japs had smudged his eye for trolling, learned trick by trick under the tutelage of the old man. The silvery fish flapped on the hook. A thump to its head ensured it wouldn’t twist free while he gaffed it aboard. Judged it a five- or six-pounder dressed. Hadn’t even gotten to swallow the bait that had hooked him.

  “Better luck next time ol’ fish. Mebbe,” Jones muttered in good humor. As for the chunk of uneaten herring, it was still soon enough after casting that it wouldn’t have lost its flavor, so Jones left it on the hook for another round. With a finger locked into the red gills to keep the fish steady, Jones quickly sliced out the whole gill structure and zinged it overboard. Quick enough that only a minimum of blood and gurry splatted on the deck. Predictably, screeching gulls converged to fight over the mess as it floated astern. A long slit up the belly opened the fish. His hand grabbed the gut assembly and pulled it free. Female, since there in the slimy pink mass lay the maroon roe sack. The cannery had announced only a week before that they’d now pay extra for roe. They shouldn’t have told him it was for the Japs. So the little slant-eyed fuckers already had the money to buy something he had to sell. With tightened lips, Jones Henry tossed the roe overboard with the rest of the guts.