“Follow who, buddy?” cried another. “Everything’s screwed when some boats go out fishing and you tell the rest of us to stay dry.”
“Yeah, who’s following? Those of us who went along with you and stayed dry last week? What did it fetch us except losses?”
“Show some guts here!” barked Ed suddenly. “Like we just finished doing in the war with the Krauts and Japs. They’re not paying enough for our fish. And it’s up to us to make sure they don’t keep walking all over us—and around us, like that picket line.”
“Yeah,” muttered voices from the audience.
The speaker resumed in a more reasonable voice. “And that’s why we’re holding out against the canneries—the greedy canneries!—for more than just forty cents a whole red salmon. You know that comes to a whopping seven cents a pound, and that much only if you’re lucky enough to catch just little fish. You following now?”
“I sure follow that we ought to get more for each fish. Or get paid by the pound. I sure follow that. But look what’s happened. Seattle boats went ahead fishing last week anyway. And you’re still telling us to stay ashore with our thumbs up our asses.”
“Then do I need to tell you?” At the lectern, Ed shuffled through his papers. “Canneries here offer us forty cents? Get this. Prince William Sound fishermen, just like you, get fifty-five cents for their reds, Kodiak gets sixty-four cents, and Cook Inlet gets a few cents more than Kodiak! We don’t roll over, and when the canneries see we don’t, they’ll give in. And the higher price we demand’s going to make up for that loss of a few days’ fishing.” Another man stood up. “They say Bristol Bay’s so far away it costs the canneries more up here to operate. That they can’t afford to pay us more. Got anything to say about that?”
“I say it don’t cost that much more. That’s what I’m saying.”
“Then what about this? One cannery’s already started shipping their Native workers back home since there’s no work for them. Cannery at Pederson Point, I hear. Don’t matter one bit to any Seattle outfit that’s got canneries everywhere else.”
“Come on! With Bristol Bay’s the biggest red salmon run in the world, probably? Bigger runs most years than even the Fraser? Don’t kid yourself. Up here, canneries get rich!” Ed turned back to the first questioner. “Then okay, buddy. My point. Listen now: any of you here who last week went fishing and didn’t go with our strike call—strike call from your brothers on the water. If we strike together now, lose a few fish up the rivers, we’ll quick make it up in price when the canneries have got to cave. Then we get paid what we’re worth in years to come. Any more questions?”
“I guess not. It’s just that, the fish are running now. Not that many this year either, they say. I come up here to make pay. Not to sit on my ass and watch fish get away. Or watch other guys catch them.” The man sat down slowly.
Gus nodded toward the door. He and Jones slid outside, slapping mosquitoes from their faces. “Maybe about time we wised up and joined ’em. This strike won’t last more than a day or two more if we pull together. Time to bring the canneries to their knees.”
“Well, I finally see it clear!” exclaimed Jones. “Now I know what that Jap back there’s waiting for. Same thing as the commies. Fight our old union with a new one. Make everything here go broke and then come take over. Gus, things are working just fine as they are. And the fish ain’t going to wait for us to change things. If some of these guys want to stay out, I say let ’em.”
“Oh, Jones buddy, you’re behind the times! You think the canneries can pack fish without fishermen to catch and deliver? This new union’s going to crack things wide open. We hang together and the canneries have to go along. I didn’t fight Japs for four years to come home and get fucked by Seattle fat asses. Look, we finally got the politicians back in DC to break the cannery hold up here against power boats. You wait. Next year or year after that at the latest, you won’t see a single double-ender sailboat like yours this season banging on the reds here. Except in a museum. Give it a year and you’ll switch over. Get a good price with this strike, and in one season instead of two your boat’s paid for. Your own boat with an engine, not a cannery handout. Canneries won’t hold us by the balls no more. We’ll tell them, instead of them telling us, what price they’ll pay.”
“You’ve got it wrong!” Jones declared. “You break up our Seattle union, and you leave the canneries free to fuck you in any way they please. I’m outta here.”
“Come back inside. Come on. Just to listen, okay?”
Suddenly the room inside turned noisy with shouts. No one guarded the entrance now, and they went back in unchallenged. A man in the audience was shouting at the speaker Ed. “You’re good at pulling that army service crap. But if I look in your wallet, you so sure I won’t find a Communist Party card in it? Because half of what you’re spouting up there—”
“You’re calling me what?” Ed left his lectern and strode straight through the sea of people toward the man who called him commie. “Want to say that to my face, buddy? Got the guts for that?”
“Afraid to show all your cards, pal?” Others intervened before the men reached each other. The crowd formed separate knots around each aggressor. In the commotion, another man took the place at the lectern and pounded on it with a metal ashtray. “Order! Knock this bullshit off! They’ll screw us if we don’t stick together.”
Gus could now speak as loud as he pleased. “The fishermen’s union down in Seattle gets jerked around by the canneries and the commies because they’re all in it together. Your old cannery union down there’s signed a buddy agreement to deliver for forty cents a fish. That’s how they’ve sold us out! This new union’s demanding sixty. Demanding! And if we stick together we’ll get it. Sixty cents a fish. Maybe we’ll come down to, say, fifty-six or seven. Whatever—canneries can pay it. Hell, even the US military buys the salmon canned here. Make the army pay a couple cents more if that’s what it takes. Don’t they owe us that much after all we went through?”
The masses in the Vet’s Hall held a vote to support the strike. Men lined up to sign their names in a notebook at a table beneath the lectern.
“You with us?” Gus demanded as he stepped into line. Jones shook his head and left the hall.
21
ENCOUNTERS
The late June sky in Naknek never darkened completely. The night was merely a dingy gray as Jones made the trek back to the cannery compound. He walked the deserted road, idly slapping mosquitoes. He stepped off into the brush when the occasional truck rumbled by, debating whether to turn back, but he kept going. By the time he’d reached the road to the compound—bounded by dark shadows and the threat of lurking bears—he had no doubts left. He burst into a run.
Between the darkness and the speed, Jones nearly collided someone. “Watch where you’re going,” he muttered without apology.
“Very sorry, sir. Not looking.”
Jones peered through the half light. It was the Jap. “Yeah. Don’t hurt to watch where you’re going.” After reflection he added, “You might get hurt.”
The man started away. “Very sorry. Good night, sir.”
“We ever met?” Jones demanded, overwhelmed by the feeling he’d been getting lately that he had really seen this man before. Best to make sure.
“In office, sir. Three hours ago. Before, the time from delivery vessel at sea. Before, by vessels making ready for sea.”
“You know what I mean. Not just here. Somewhere in Jap-land mebbe. Few years ago?”
“All Americans of same age look the same, sir.”
“You can sure say that about all Japs. I guess you was in that war that we beat you in?”
There was a pause. “Hai. In war. All Japanese in war, sir.”
“And now you’re here, acting like you own the place. Think to tell me how I pew fish. You got no right here. Should kick your ass back to where you come from.”
“You are . . . violent, sir.”
“Yeah? What would
you do back there in Jap-land? If half the boats went on strike while your half was busy fishing?”
The Jap straightened suddenly, and the subservience in his voice dropped away at once. “Sir! I do not understand. However, sir. Everyone must . . . cooperate.”
“Cooperate how? Go on strike? When we close down the cannery, you and your people will come and take over.”
“All must make agreement good for everybody. American and Japanese together for the resource!”
“That ain’t what I was saying. Don’t know why I bothered.” Jones stared into the man’s face again. “I don’t see that kind of straight-in-the eye look from a Jap every day.” Jones’s eyes narrowed suspiciously as he regarded the man in front of him. “Say! A few years ago . . . You wouldn’t have been on Okinawa in a prison camp. Right after the Japs surrendered?”
After a short pause, the Jap muttered curtly, “Do not understand, sir.”
“Only seen one other of you people look me in the eye like that. Some fellow, an officer mebbe. Hard to tell with a uniform full of holes. Just before he keeled over. Never thought of it much but as I remember, I got him a medic because of that look. Later tossed him an old ground cloth. Mebbe because he’d started walking around like a man, not some dead fish. Not like the rest of you people always bowin’ and lickin’.”
Jones heard the sharp intake of breath, before the Jap, soft voiced again said, “Forgive me. I must go.” Well, Jones concluded. It was a mistake back then being nice to a Jap. Mistake again now.
On Sunday morning, as rain poured down outside, Jones stayed buried under his covers. He had the upper berth above his dad at the cannery bunk room assigned to their boat and Nick Sandstol’s.
“Where’d you go last night, boy?” Buck Henry demanded once. “After you spouted off at that poor Jap, you just disappeared. Didn’t see him again either.”
“Humph.”
“That fellow Swede invited me to stay and we played crib. Nice to sit at a table with legs on the floor, not rocking on some boat. Lamp with a shade. Elbow room. All dry. Don’t appreciate those things until you’ve gone without them a few days.” Jones made no answer. “Swede’s a nice fellow. Wasn’t he at your wedding?”
“Long time ago, Dad.” Jones pulled a blanket over his head and rolled toward the wall.
Later, Buck made another incursion: “Lunchtime here’s mainday dinner, boy. You skipping that?” he asked.
“Alarm goes off at three tomorrow morning, Dad. Till then, it’s warm under the covers. Leave me sleep.”
“That what the Marines taught you? I hear it’s steak and ice cream. You expect me to bring you some?”
Jones groaned. A few minutes later he crawled from the bunk, stretched, and stepped into the dungarees he’d tossed over the back of a wooden folding chair.
In the mess hall, fishermen and cannery workers had divided into separate tables almost automatically. The benches on one side were occupied by people from the cannery floor on changing shifts. A few of them, white and Native women alike, still wore the waterproof hair caps from the lines. Some of the men wore smaller paper caps atop shorter hair. All of them working today, Jones noted. He’d forgotten that cannery was routine, still processing Saturday’s delivery. Then they would have their own Sockeye Sunday on Monday while the boats caught new fish.
In walked boss Swede with the Jap following beside him. Both were wearing suits. They went to the table reserved for management, where a woman took their orders.
Thick as thieves, Jones thought. Even ifI joined that strike tomorrow, they’d still get all dressed up and get rich.
Gus Rosvic edged in beside him at the long table. “Maybe the last chow I’ll get here,” he muttered. “The old man’s not happy about it, but I told him. We stay dry tomorrow. Going to support that strike. The canneries are cheating us with what they pay. What about you?”
Jones didn’t need to consider any longer. “A strike’s just what the commies want. Wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what the Japs want too. If everything falls apart, they take control. So no. We’re fishing.”
“You still don’t get it.” Gus took up his tray and moved to another table.
As on the week before, the monkey boat waited at 3:00 a.m. The boats rowed to it and tied in line for a tow to the river and the fishing grounds. This time Buck made sure their boat was placed at the tail of the line, so they didn’t have to swallow exhaust or bear the strain of a long tow behind them.
Jones counted boats around him. Maybe one or two fewer than last week. Some might have fastened to another tow. No big difference if any had decided to stay dry and support the strike. And out on the water it made little difference what the Japs were trying to do. Truman wasn’t going to give away Alaskan fishing grounds to the Japs just because they’d weaseled into them before the war. Any more than the Seattle union was going to give up their hold in Bristol Bay just because the commies were infiltrating everywhere. That breakaway union business had been all talk.
They worked the Bay principally from north of the Halfmoon Bay mud flats to further south off the Deadman Sands. Buck Henry may have complained that he lacked the advantage of an engine, but when they needed to move under sail, he worked with cool precision whatever winds or gusts might blow. He could drive the boat on a lick of breeze or heel it under a steady easterly. At those times, Jones gladly jumped to his commands as in the old days. Okay, Jones admitted, in a rare moment of enjoyment. Maybe I can kill Japs better than he’ll ever imagine, and maybe duck being shot myself, but the old man still has things to teach me. Things worth knowing. That we wouldn’t be doing if we had an engine. Or if I hadn’t helped beat Jap ass in Okinawa. Good feeling. Old man’s still got it.
But he missed the rumble of an engine and breezy, grinning Gus Rosvic motoring by to bug him.
Then, some time midweek, Jones and Buck moved under sail to a spot where several boats were grouped off the sands. There bobbed the Rosvic boat with Gus and his dad working their net.
“Changed your mind?” called Jones. Gus pulled a few feet more web over his roller before acknowledging. He looked up only to say: “Union caved. Not enough boats to support us. Couldn’t hold out. Price stays at forty cents a fish. You happy?” He returned to gripping web.
Jones felt both relieved and sorry. Maybe he should have joined them after all. But the failed strike did change one thing—Gus stopped pestering him with friendly insults and challenges. Even when their two boats fished the same water, Gus Rosvic kept to himself.
Most of the boats fished in groups of their own nationality. That way, if nets tangled, you could straighten things back and forth in your right language instead of some gobble in half-Italian or Slav or Native. Their boat now fished regular buddy with Nick Sandstol’s. One day a few birds began to squawk a few hundred feet ahead, where Nick and his puller Luke were hauling in. Netted fish lay around them on deck. But bad sign: the portion of net in their hands was clotted with twigs rather than fish, while from the way they tugged and the web stretched without moving it was clear they’d snagged. This was no time to yell over a joke. Jones watched them strain, then with apprehension went aft to check his own net. Half the corks had sunk out of sight. The current flowed in ripples around their boat. There was no way to tell whether the sunken part of his net lay free or snagged unless they started to haul.
Buck, who had wrapped himself in the bearskin rug to nap between sets, rose at his call to assess the problem. “Best get out them oars. Try to pull us into deeper water and break that snag.”
Just then, three boats under engine power rode past a few hundred feet away. Gus Rosvic waved from one of them but didn’t bother to call over. He now fished, and even delivered, in a different pack, more and more removed from fishermen under sail.
“Yep,” said Buck. “An engine sure could free us from this snag easy.”
“Unless you snagged the screw itself!” snapped Jones.
But the old man was right. A propeller snag was
remote, while the oars promised a hard pull that might or might not do the job until high tide freed them. And why would you spike a fish in the side if you could help it? Common sense to leave him whole the way you’d caught him, if only from respect. Right and wrong had been easier to see, back in Okinawa.
22
SOUTHEASTER
A day later it was so calm that a westerly puff from shore—although it wafted in a few mosquitoes—barely lifted a streamer tied to their mast. In company with Nick Sandstol, Buck and Jones were fishing a channel familiar to the older man. It cut between the land-based mud flats of a creek and a range of offshore shallows, both of which watered over at rising tide. The two boats had filled their nets reasonably on the flood. With sails dropped and under oars, they first maneuvered to throwing distance so Buck could trade Nick two hardboiled eggs for a chocolate bar. Then they anchored far enough apart to keep their nets separated, but still close enough to call cheerful insults to each other as they picked the fish from their nets.
With the fish stowed and the net itself hosed and salted against temporary rot, Buck called over, “Wind’s down. Might as well go beached here for the ebb. I couldn’t tell you a better place. We’ll lay in deep water just off the edge of this bar, then slide the boats free again when the tide lifts if we need to.”
“Good plan,” called Nick. “Finest!”
“Makes no sense to row somewhere else when your spot’s just laid out for you like this,” Buck added comfortably to his son. He kicked the anchor line to make sure it held. The anchor’s shaft already showed as the water receded. “Keeps us steady when the tide comes back in. Low tide might ground us for a while. But the new tide’ll just float us anchored in the same place, all set to keep fishing this channel if it suits.”
Jones nodded in agreement. The old man knew what he was doing. When his dad spat a mouthful of red tobacco juice over the side and offered over a plug, Jones took it gratefully. Old-timer stuff. Part of tradition, in open water when neither cigars nor cigarettes stay lighted. The hard tobacco taste filled a gap, after a steady supply of beans and meat eaten cold from a can—or scorched and lukewarm from the little primus—and nothing hot but coffee. Let it all stay the same!
WARRIORS Page 25
