WARRIORS

by Warriors (retail) (epub)

  “Question, then—since I’m talking to the big office, and fishermen never get told what goes on—you talk all the time to fancy government biologists, right? They’re saying them fish-counters don’t expect a good run. That right?”

  “Coming little, I fear they say. Let’s wait and see, eh? The salmon have already appeared at False Pass. So we know they’re coming. Perhaps the biologists made a mistake. An announcement very soon, but I’m glad to tell you now. Today is Thursday, yes? Expect fish into the Kvichak here by next week. So you must be on the water and towed into position.”

  “What’s this I hear about some guys going on strike? Not fishing?” Swede considered, then said casually, “A few up in Dillingham, perhaps. Making unreasonable demands with a new union that nobody recognizes.”

  “That the one I hear picketed your ship’s unloading?”

  “A little. A little. A new union of people who wish to disrupt.”

  Jones in his turn appeared to consider. Finally: “Yeah. Okay. Ain’t my concern. You tow us out and we’ll be there.”

  “Good! And so, Jones. You’re fishing this season here then with my company?”

  “You got it.” Jones’s eyes narrowed. “Your company? I knew you’re busy making out. But you’ve bought this outfit?” Any vestige of a smile vanished. “You ain’t one of them commies, are you? Taking over?”

  “Never!” Swede controlled his outrage at the idea. Started to add that he was indeed now the boss of this cannery and no damned Russian Communist would ever infiltrate here, but checked himself. If Jones didn’t know yet, he’d find out soon enough. And it made no difference between them. As for the boat assignment—new or old—a good manager didn’t intercede to give his friend a better boat. That way led to the end of order.

  A car drove up. It nosed among the boats scattered on the pier before stopping. Not a company vehicle, Swede noted in annoyance. Visitors should have checked in at the office and not been allowed to roam wild, possibly to interfere with operations. The driver-side door opened, and a government official got out. So nothing to be done but to be polite.

  “Yes. Hello.” Swede shook the official’s hand while trying to remember his name. “You see we are busy preparing.” Big fellow gone heavy, a politician. Not truly of the fishing business. He’d seen the man only once before, at a meeting in Seattle when the company had sent him to sit on the sidelines and furnish production data when necessary. The fellow had brought a pile of books to the table, had read from them to make some point of no importance while sweat made his glasses slip.

  “Mr. Sorman or something, right? How are you? They said at the office you’d be down here. John Goss, Department of Commerce in DC. Just flown into Naknek here today. Got an important visitor I’m showing around.”

  “Scorden, sir.” Swede disliked the man immediately.

  “Right.” Goss held open the passenger door and a Japanese man stepped out. He wore a dark suit and a striped silk tie. He peered around with interest, then with a slight bow proffered his hand. Swede accepted the hand for a brief shake. The grip was firm at first, but then lost its tension. At least, thought Swede, better than the limp-at-the-start handshakes of the few other Orientals he’d encountered.

  “Mr. Sorman, meet Mr. Surafurie,” said Goss. “He’s come over from Japan to talk about re-opening the sales of fish and fish products to his country. Our office in DC is giving it some priority. Call it a directive from the top. Way top.” He raised an eyebrow and paused for effect, before resuming. “Now that Japan’s a base for our armed forces going to Korea, there’s a lot of business opportunity opening there. Do all we can to help, right? Thought we might show Mr. Surafurie around a bit here.”

  “I am Kiyoshi Tsurifune,” the Japanese said mildly and added in reasonable English, “I am at your service, Mr. Scorden.”

  At least the Japanese fellow pays attention, Swede decided. What could he take the man to see that would not violate what might be considered company secrets, which he could then be called to answer for? (Could this man, in fact, be a Communist creeping in from the other side of the world? The careless Mr. Goss would hardly know the difference.) Should have been given time to make a phone call to the Seattle main office, or at least to Ketchikan.

  “;Desverre . . . uh, unfortunately, I do not speak Japanese,” Scorden said to gain time.

  The Japanese declared at once, “This makes no problem, sir. Not best, I apologize, but I have studied English very hard, and can understand. It will be very kind of you to show me your factory.” He looked around. “Very small boats for the fishing, I see. And are there no engines, only equipment for sail? Therefore must I ask. Are such vessels efficient?”

  Goss pulled himself to a full height and smiled benignly. “Interesting point there. Our government, just this year—1951—has changed regulations in Bristol Bay to allow fishing with an engine. Not in time for a lot of conversions this season, though I hear there are a few engine boats around already. I’m told the boatyards are booming with orders, though. Anyhow. Let’s go look at your catch and sales projections for the year, okay? See where we might accommodate this Mr. Surafurie.”

  The United States government surely understood what it was doing, Swede decided. Despite sending a representative so clumsy with names. “Follow, please,” Swede ordered.

  This Mr. Scorden was an appropriate American headman, Kiyoshi noted. Acted with authority without needing to wear either jacket or tie. His own dark suit and silk tie again seemed out of place. Mr. Scorden’s smile was studied and not necessarily cordial. Businesslike. Appropriately. He had a chin that was clean-shaven and boxlike, with blond hair combed neatly—very Western. Kiyoshi had met the man’s coolly appraising eyes with a smile he hoped was confident and polite. He’d controlled the impulse to bow and had instead offered his hand, preparing to tighten his grip. Indeed, he’d needed to grip hard when they shook hands, although, unaccustomed to such pressure, his hand soon lost tension.

  “Long flight, eh?” Mr. Scorden said it almost as a challenge. The man’s eyes seemed to add: and what did you do as a Japanese in the war?

  “Yes. Yes. Long flight. Thank you.”

  “We are now busy here in Bristol Bay, you see. Today the fishermen are launching their boats. You wish to watch?”

  “Very interesting. Yes, thank you.” To himself, Kiyoshi noted that this Scorden did not exactly have the American accent. Or was this merely another way of placing words in English than the one he had studied?

  Mr. Goss coughed to draw their attention. “First, instead of that . . . I told Mr. Surafurie he could see some of your canned or frozen stuff right away. Test their good quality, you know. See how good our American quality is.”

  “Not possible. The fish have not yet been caught. As you can see, the boats are just being placed into the water.”

  Goss frowned. “Somebody might have told me before I came all this way. Before I brought this Mr.—uh—Surafurie.”

  Mr. Scorden suddenly turned impatient. Annoyed, even. “There is never red salmon at the plant before the boats catch them, sir. This is easily found in all the writings available.”

  Kiyoshi liked this man. He was not a fool.

  “What country’s your home?” Mr. Goss asked suddenly.

  “America.”

  “No, I mean, your accent. It’s not from the USA.”

  Mr. Scorden took a while to answer. “Sweden, then Norway, sir. But I am a citizen and I have declared the oath of loyalty to the United States.”

  “Well, good for you. But I could tell right off that you weren’t born here.”

  “So. I must work harder to speak.” Mr. Scorden did not seem pleased. Kiyoshi watched the open boats—obviously fishing vessels—that workmen were bringing out from a warehouse. Other boats had already been placed on the wide dock and were being readied for sea. A crane lowered one vessel into the water far below the pier. Yes, he had read that tides in Bristol Bay were extreme. It pleased him to see actual e
vidence of his research.

  “Didn’t know you had such low tides,” said Mr. Goss. Mr. Scorden merely shrugged.

  “The low tides of Bristol Bay are famous,” Kiyoshi declared. “This is a famous fact.” He controlled adding further that this was a fact known to all the world; he was rewarded enough when the fish plant manager gave him half a smile.

  15

  MUG-UP

  For Jones, it was like a drink of cool water to arrive again in Bristol Bay and find how little had changed in the past decade. Japs had torn apart other places in the world since he’d last come to Bristol Bay as a kid boat-puller for his dad, but they’d shitted on nothing here. In Naknek village were the same weather-beaten buildings and neat onion-domed Russian church, surrounded by the same bare landscape—all of it precious for having stayed the same. For not changing with the times. And at the cannery were the same oak and cedar double-ender fishing boats stored in the warehouse, the same ferocious tides that lapped up and down against barnacled pilings. Inside, the same clank of the iron chink machine on the processing floor, ready to head and gut salmon when the time came, and the same leathery smells of tons of fish that had long since been scrubbed from wood and concrete.

  Old times. Nothing had changed. Launching and stepping into the boats was the last thing between Jones and being on the water. A week earlier, when he and his dad had arrived in Naknek on a company charter plane, their first job—along with all the other fishermen whose boats were owned and stored by the canneries—had been to help set up for the season. The hundred dollars offered for this work was entered against each man’s name at the office. A similar guaranteed sum would go on their settlement books at season’s end in late July, if, as the cannery expected, they stayed to help load the salmon pack onto ships and to close down the buildings. Whatever their deliveries on the water yielded in between, men coming to fish Bristol Bay could count on this run money. Like the old times before the war. No enemies but wind and tide, no Jap waiting behind a rock like a poisonous snake. You worked with every muscle, you were fit enough to take the weather in an open boat, and you did it all like a man in the rough company of other good men.

  But then, while breaking out the boats after talking with Swede, now puffed up with his new responsibility: “Damn if that ain’t a Jap he’s shaking hands with!” Here in Bristol Bay!

  “Not your worry, boy,” said his father. Jones shrugged and decided to put it from his mind. Management shouldn’t be his business when there were fish to be caught.

  “This ain’t much of a boat they give us,” Buck commented. No question the double-ender assigned them was old and beat-up. But she looked sturdy. He kicked at one of the oak ribs, then banged his knuckles against the ironbark sternpost. Yes. Sturdy! Everything about her pleased him. Sail. No engine noise. Just you and the water. Like the old days when Japs were only something you read about.

  That Jap now. Made a half-assed little bow to Swede. Now that he didn’t have a gun to blow off somebody’s face. Jones searched for the boat plug, found it lashed to a cleat, and wormed it into the bunghole. Tight fit, even before swelling in the water. She’d hold. As for the Jap. Looked somehow familiar from a distance. But who could tell one from the other?

  “Piece of shit, this boat,” growled Buck Henry, as he brushed one of the sides with his boot. “We shouldn’t still have to fish here under sail, what with engines everywhere else.”

  “It’ll suit,” Jones replied. “Likely enough them pieces gouged out along the rails will lighten her by a pound or two.” The whole place bustling with activity made him feel easy. “You still ain’t pulling the oars, far as I know,” he added in good humor. “So you don’t need to bother about weight any more than before.”

  Buck Henry accepted the light-hearted tone. “No other reason to bring you along.”

  The men on the dock, when Jones thought about it, were divided into two generations. There were those like his father, robust still but deliberate, moving in straight lines. If their caps happened to blow off you wouldn’t see much hair, and what they had was graying and plastered tight against their heads with sweat. Then there were the younger guys in their mid twenties, like Jones himself, with strands of hair popping like weeds from their caps, and legs that bore them in easy leaps from pier to boat—even with shoulders loaded. Tattoos showed on some of their arms when their sleeves were rolled back. Eyes cool, less merry than those of their seniors. War stories in the back of those eyes. Yet during mug-ups in the cannery mess hall, any talk of war came from the older men. From the ones who weren’t in danger of being called up again if this shit in Korea didn’t stop.

  Jones climbed into the boat and stomped on the deck boards to test their firmness. Sturdy. No machinery to break down here. The thought relaxed him, but for form’s sake he muttered, “Don’t know why I left my troller for five-six weeks of this.”

  “Money don’t hurt in a good season. And, for starters, no radio calls from your lady every few minutes.”

  Jones faced his dad. “Adele’s a good woman.”

  “Who ever said she wasn’t?”

  “Calls too much, but she’s a good woman.”

  “I never meant . . .” His father considered, then said carefully, “Not like she’s still got a kid to keep her busy. Your ma and I keep hoping you’ve started on another one. It breaks our hearts, son, but your little Amy’s not coming back.”

  Jones busied himself test-rapping the boat’s cedar planks with his knuckles. Finally: “Adele and I keep trying. I’ve told you that before. I’m going to get the mast.”

  “I’m right behind you.”

  “Only if you leave off about kids. Otherwise I can do it by myself.”

  “You forget how heavy that mast is. Won’t speak of the other again, boy.”

  “Some likely!”

  A whistle tooted from one of the buildings. Others around them stopped working. Jones welcomed the interruption. Bristol Bay was supposed to be a breather from the fights and sorrows back home. He stretched, feeling the pull of his muscles. “Mug-up first suits me.” He and his dad joined the rest making their way toward the mess hall.

  On the road they crossed paths with Swede Scorden. He was accompanied by the Jap and the American who’d come in the automobile. Jones stopped short and pushed back his cap for a clearer view. Japs did all look alike. But hadn’t he seen this one before? Not in a suit of course. Jap now playing a big shot, when all that any of them deserved was a bullet.

  The Jap returned his gaze, paused, then made a little bow like they all were wont to do before pulling a knife. Jones narrowed his eyes, the most acknowledgement he was willing to give, before continuing in a straight line to the mess hall.

  “Looks like he knows you,” said Buck Henry.

  “Not likely. All Japs act that way.”

  In the mess hall, they filled thick mugs from the coffee urn, took fistfuls of fresh baked donuts from an array of plates, and elbowed onto benches at the long tables. Jones glanced at the others around him. Some had ridden aboard the company plane coming north. He’d probably know them all before season’s end, boat to boat on the water. Even get pissed at one or the other if their nets got snagged. Or grateful for help in trouble. Jones stretched and settled in, comfortable at once. These fishermen were a bunch apart from the Italians and Norwegians who sat at other tables, talking in foreign languages—as if this wasn’t America. Young and old, like him and his dad, the men around him all wore some variety of smudged woolens. Some, like himself, had red long john sleeves peering from underneath shirts that had been cut above the elbow. Their black or red caps all had logos from some fish gear or engine company. A few days of stubble grew on most of their chins, the telling sign that there were no wives here to boss them around. This was where he belonged. Not in some kitchen like the one Adele kept, with frilly curtains and artificial flowers on a damn bumpy embroidered tablecloth.

  The man at Buck Henry’s side turned at once. “Okay, Buck. What do yo
u and your boy think? This new union. A strike make any sense to you?”

  “You kidding, Russ?” Buck pulled the damp stub of a half-smoked cigar from his pocket and, after a couple of tries succeeded in lighting it. “Stay dry, with the fish about to run?”

  “I say that too. We came up here to catch fish. You think the cannery’s going to open for mug-ups and dinners if we don’t give ’em fish?”

  Buck wrapped his thick fingers around his mug and leaned back to blow out a cloud of blue smoke. “You tell me who’s ever made out alright with a strike up here—except maybe the cannery people—with us so far from everything.”

  “Yeah!”

  From across the table, someone said, “Let those new union fellows bitch all they want. We’ve already got our union getting us the best it can.”

  “I’d expect you to say that, Jack,” drawled the man named Russ. “You’re a Seattle union man all the way.”

  “And talking sense.”

  “Yup. And talking sense. This time, at least.” Others joined him with a laugh.

  Jones had paid little attention to the talk of a new, rival union and their threat of a strike. All he wanted from Bristol Bay was a time like before the war. “Seems to me—” he began, but someone else spoke over him.

  “Yeah, but forty cents a fish and no more? They ought to do better than that for us.”

  “If our own big union under part of the CIO in Seattle can’t do better by us, what do you think some local start-up’s going to get?”

  “But they say the big AFL’s behind this new one.”

  “AFLs now commie-run I hear. Need I say more?”

  Somebody tapped Jones on the shoulder. “Slide down, buddy.” It was Gus Rosvic. He wore a yellow cap with an embroidered red fish instead of an advertisement. Jones made room gladly. “You here? Didn’t see you before this,” Jones said, happy to make conversation that wasn’t about some damn union. “If you ain’t got your boat assigned yet, better get down there.”