“Then put the man on!”
Hank took the mike but kept his gaze on Seth who handed it casually. “Yo, Gus.”
“Now, Hank. I don’t want this to go overboard. Your boy there sounds pretty confident. I’ve watched you bring up fish right steady, but I’d say it’s no sure thing you’ve got the bigger catch, since you broke-down crab-pot men don’t know a snag from a snarl about longline while my boys are pretty good.”
Seth gestured to Hank. “I’m going down to check the guys. Hinda Bee says okay to double each bet.”
Suddenly Hank felt defensive, and uneasy. “We’ve already got enough bets. You haven’t made more, have you?”
“Yesterday. Everybody here except Odds and the Jap. We each raised bets individual with our beer buddies. Guess you’ve been too busy dealing with Japs to notice. Now we’re just crankin’ it up another notch.”
Hank kept his voice even. “Guess I should be told when anybody but the captain uses the boat radios.”
“Guess then you’d better state your rules.”
Hank considered quickly. Kodama had seen what was happening. On the CB, heartily: “Gus, you turkey! We hear you, and will get back. Our main worry is not to see your boys starve this winter while we spend their money.”
“You worry all you want, Hank. Oh my! I need to close off now. Need to trim the boat so she don’t sink under all this weight of fish.”
Hank turned back to Seth, who hadn’t moved, and kept himself firm without anger. “I’ll state my rules now. You’re number two man here. Respected as such. You did the research on longline, and on deck what you say goes.”
“Goes if I say it in fuckin’ Jap.”
“Up here, you’re free to answer radio calls when you’re on hand and I’m not, so long as I’m informed. That means call me to the mike or tell me soon, not tomorrow. But outgoing calls go through me. Except Mayday emergency if I’m . . . not there. Got it, Seth?”
“Got it clear how you’re still playing navy officer prick. But this ain’t the navy.”
“I can live with prick.” He tried to make it light, but Seth’s jawed scowl stayed unyielding while his fists remained clenched. Go it all the way. “All right, then, while we’re at it. No more calling Kodama a Jap.”
“What else is he?”
“He’s a crewmate with a name. You’re not Jones Henry with a burn. Maybe Jones had an earned wartime burn against the Japanese, but not you.”
“You’ve gone sappy, pulling in some foreigner over us.”
“With us. We’re entering a tight Japanese market and he’s the expert. You see how he pulls his weight on deck?”
“Yeah. And it changes everything. Leaves some of us no place to go but out.”
Hank felt suddenly set on a course he’d often put out of mind. He’d gone shares with Jones Henry for his first boat. Had it hurt Jones to give up a piece of a boat he’d owned and possessed? Jones had done it to keep the generations going. “Okay, Seth. Soon we go back to Kodiak and kiss this boat back to Adele. Then you’ve got a choice. We’ve talked around this before, but maybe it’s time to decide. I’ve saved my Jody Dawn but I’m going to the bigger boat for black cod, and I’ve offered you the choice to skipper Jody Dawn if you want. You’ve done it for weeks at a time. I trust you for the whole show. Then you can play by your rules out there so long as you keep my boat safe and fishing.” Hank forced a grin. “And you can hire who you like.”
He’d seen it before. Offer Seth real responsibility and his eyes glanced off target while the face lost resolve. “Not the same,” Seth muttered. His breathing turned heavy. “We grew up in this together. People called us a team, once, you and me. Not separate on different boats.”
“We still are. But teams change direction.”
They stared at each other, neither willing to break away.
“Hey, up there in skipper heaven,” shouted Terry from deck. “Stop ol’ Kodama-san from gaffing in halibut or get down here. He’s filled the checkers faster than we can . . . Come down with the peasants and get blood on your shoes.”
Thus began their biggest run. A fish came up on nearly every hook. Flat thrashing halibut became their single sight. Even the stink of a looming curious whale now barely stopped them for an instant. A fistful of guts thrown its way was (except on Kodama’s or Odds’s part) more an objection to the stink than an offering.
Meals became candy bars on the go. “Get your fuckin’ deck steaks,” Mo would call, tossing them around. When the bars gave out—who’d have thought three gross would go that fast?—they dipped crackers and even fingers into the peanut butter.
Seth shunted between spooky silences and explosions of convivial energy, although he continued work at full capacity when fatigue made even Kodama lag. He found ways to join Mo at the gutting or baiting jobs. Their muttered talk was unremarkable since the two had crewed together the longest; Mo had in earlier days been regarded as Seth’s shadow. Still, it seemed to Hank, they talked with unusual earnestness for mere work-chat.
Oilskin sleeves turned into conduits for salt water and sores; hands stayed cold and wet inside rubber gloves, while abraided circles around wrists rubbed increasingly raw. There began a tussle for Odds’s spare waterproof wristers, followed by hints, sometimes sour, that he share also his first pair, until finally both pairs became common property, and strip by strip they tore apart. Angry shouts increased although no one found the energy to pursue a difference further. Fingers opened only with pain. Arms throbbed clear to the neck. And, during only four hours’ sleep Hank now allotted them each night (without polling whether they agreed to it or not), big fish flapped over them, white then dark, throughout unremitting dreams.
Occasionally while they worked, Seth or Terry would remember the bets with the Hinda Bee, wipe hands, hose down, and stomp to the wheelhouse to grab binoculars and study the distant rival boat. How low was she riding and thus how full? “OF Gus there’s got his rails almost to the water,” Terry reported on the next-to-final morning. “He’s low like us. It’s going to be close.”
Meanwhile, they had filled the side bins in their own hold, and they began to pile halibut in the hold’s walk spaces.
By sunrise on the day of the noontime closure Seth reported to Hank, “Hold’s plugged. Not even man-space down there. Time to stack on deck I’d say.” He peered through binoculars. “Shit. Hinda Bees doing just that!”
The morning weather forecast had contained no warnings. Hank studied the water. It was only choppy and the crests barely licked into the scuppers. “Stack on deck it is!”
They packed the checkers with halibut, then boarded off the rest of the deck and continued to stack. When at last the one-week season ended, they were wading through fish and gurry to their knees.
Hank turned the boat immediately toward Kodiak for the long trip home while the others finished gutting the last of the catch, hosed blood from every corner, secured canvas over the deckload, and with groans of relief peeled off oilskins grown clammy inside. Most of them headed for the bunks stuffing down only what food they could grab on the way. For a few minutes Terry studied the Hinda Bee riding low, but he nodded and the binoculars soon wavered in his hands.
Broad daylight though it was, Hank dosed himself on coffee and wake-up pills. He was as tired as the rest, but he was captain.
Only Seth lingered in the wheelhouse. He fingered charts and touched electronics boxes in a constant pace. Hank at last said, “Come on, buddy, go get some sleep.”
“I could take first watch.”
“Go.”
“Guess call me in an hour, then.”
“We’ll see. Go.”
“I. . . I don’t know. I mean, about taking over the Jody Dawn full-time.”
“Understood. Sleep on it. We’re friends either way. Scram now.”
Seth sighed, and slowly went below.
Alone, Hank placed the boat on autopilot, but kept himself from sitting down. Sleep beckoned in tunes and voices. Shapes of othe
r boats around him swayed with more than sea motion. Their images blurred, then focused back with razor clarity. He did push-ups to keep his blood pounding, held his breath until he needed to gasp, sang, and paced. Finally, assured that all the boats around him were keeping distance and course, he allowed himself to close his eyes while his hands gripped the rail by the windows. It gave him a grateful swoop into sleep, halted by his face bumping against hard glass. Radar and horizon check, grip retightened, another grateful swoop. Thus three hours passed.
At the sound of steps on the ladder he straightened. “You didn’t call me,” said Seth.
“Was doing fine.”
“If I skippered the Jody Dawn, could Mo go with me?”
Hank considered, taken by surprise. So that was why Seth had begun working beside Mo so often. He hadn’t meant to lose two men but he understood Seth’s need for a constant. “One good cook lost, but sure, if he wants.”
“Then . . . maybe.”
“Congratulations!”
“I didn’t say yes all the way, yet.”
“Take your time and be sure. You’ve slept?”
“Enough.”
Hank slapped his shoulder. “Then she’s yours. You know the way. But call me, no bullshit, if seas pick up even a little.” He drifted toward sleep even before he reached his bunk and tumbled in.
Next day at the fish plant it remained for them to unload. After sending up the fish on deck, Terry, Mo, Ham, and Odds crawled down into the icy hold to dislodge each slick carcass and heave it into a cargo net. Filled, the wide-meshed net rose, dripping slimy brown ice. Seth on deck checked the scale attached to the net as it rose, and Hank on the pier checked weight again just before the net disgorged into a hopper. Since every pound might count toward the bet, even the loss from drippage might be at issue.
The Hinda Bee had arrived just enough ahead of them to be unloaded first, so that her final count was established. Gus Rosvic sauntered over to stand beside Hank. He peered at the scale and scribbled the weight of each netful. His crew gathered on the side of the dock to gaily heckle Seth while they too watched the scale. A heavy rain bothered no one. Farther off under an umbrella stood Adele Henry, wearing her now-routine boatside bandanna and slacks, with high rubber boots on her feet for the occasion. She was discreet enough for once to leave alone the men who had fished her boat.
Kodama stood apart again, his services unneeded. It puzzled him, such different aggression in these Americans! The aggression that he understood and felt came from the samurai’s need to defeat the enemy and destroy him. These people gave the same energy to mere competition, and the loser merely shrugged without disgrace. He stroked his chin and made himself appear unconcerned, although, he conceded wistfully, it might have been agreeable to have placed money of his own with the others and be included in their comradely levity. When he saw Captain Carford’s wife, whom he was expected to call Jody but of course could never do, hurry over, kiss her husband lightly, peer at the scale and joke with Captain Rosvic, then hurry off with a wave announcing she needed to pick up the children, Kodama’s ache for his own family made him turn away.
Both boats contained an approximate 50,000-pound hold capacity. The Hinda Bee had managed with its deckload to deliver 54,831 pounds. Slowly the cargo netfuls that rose from the Adele ITs hold passed the 50,000 mark and approached 54,000, but the fish grew fewer. Seth knelt and called into the hold. “More, more, keep it coming!”
“Hardly more left,” called back Terry. With their final netful the Adele ITs total came to 54,297 pounds.
“Now that’s too bad you ain’t got a fish or two more,” soothed Gus. “But you crab-pot boys done better than anybody expected. We almost hate to take your money.”
“We do appreciate your concern,” said Hank, keeping an easy humor. “Just give my guys time to hose down and we’ll settle.”
“And then drinks and dinner’s on the boys of the Hinda Bee.”
“Thanks for the others,” said Hank, “but I’ll cut out to find Jody and my kids.”
“No no, Hank, them too.” Gus saw him hesitate. “Don’t worry. It won’t hurt a soul of us to watch our tongues for one night among your fine children.” He glanced at the staunch figure of Adele. “Guess we’ll invite the old battle-ax besides. She’s got to cough up five hundred dollars in bets to me, as I recall. That might quiet her for a change, poor woman.”
“Ohh, I’m so thirsty,” crowed Zack of the Hinda Bee from the pier as he stretched and capered. “Wonder if I can afford to throw a toot tonight and still buy me a Cadillac?”
Seth aboard the Adele //shrugged and gave him a wan smile.
The men in the hold began to scrub down with pressure hoses and disinfectant. Suddenly a Yahoo! echoed from the hollow space, followed by repeats. Terry called up, “Just lower that fuckin’ cargo net again!” Odds had hosed into a mound that they’d mistaken for unused ice, and there embedded throughout were halibut!
The extra fish brought their total delivery weight to 54,940 pounds. Hank announced the count, Gus nodded confirmation, and the deck of the Adele H erupted in dancing and shouting. Adele suddenly came to life, left her umbrella on the pier, and with a commanded “Help me down, boys!” climbed to her boat. Despite the gurry on their oilskins she only stopped hugging each of the crew—even the startled Kodama—when they backed away.
Jody appeared again with children in tow. She enjoyed the sight but hugged only Hank.
The men of the Hinda Bee took their loss in glum good humor and the dinner of the two crews was held as planned. Only the hosts who paid for it had changed.
Odds returned to his duties with the native corporation, glad for the extra money—it would be around five thousand dollars after all boat-share expenses were settled—relieved that his arms might soon stop aching all night. No wonder he’d left fishing! But he blessed the opportunity for communication with godlike whales, although by their third or fourth appearance he’d decided that they were indeed only whales, because God Himself could never smell that bad. The fact that Terry, Seth, Mo, and Ham, independently as soon as they had finished celebrating their victory, had bought him one to three pairs of new wristers each, earned only a wan thanks. He’d glimpsed the dark side of their souls and confirmed what he’d expected of whites. Only Captain Hank and Kodama had not worn the cursed things or at any time demanded them.
Seth, with sinking heart, declared himself committed to taking over the Jody Dawn. Mo, torn between allegiances to both Hank and Seth, and anguished by Seth’s urgent persuasions, finally asked Hank to break the news that he wanted to stay with Hank and the new venture. But, almost immediately, Mo began to reconsider, remembering all he owed Seth for teaching him to fish. Just as Hank at the Ship’s Bar was leading Seth up to the bad news, Mo burst in, his heavy face red and troubled, to declare gruffly, “Okay Seth, I’m with you.”
Kodama watched, understanding less than he imagined but judging it all. His aches and sores were like battle wounds to be endured and cherished. Happy he was to be there! These men didn’t shirk any more than did the dutiful Japanese, but neither would they have merely bowed and accepted hardship with heads lowered as would his endlessly enduring countrymen. He had begun to respect them all, even Seth. But he gladly heard the news that Mr. Sour Number Two was leaving.
PART III
The Wide World
OCTOBER-DECEMBER 1983
ALASKA, MARYLAND, ALASKA
16
UNFREE
KODIAK, GULF OF ALASKA, LATE OCTOBER 1983
The rain webbed first in the canopy of spruce, then plunked onto the rooftop, then collected below into puddles that overflowed outside the house. Jody turned up the heater and started coffee. As on most mornings she yawned by the big living room window, and studied the weather across the field of water that stretched from shore to the glazed lights of Kodiak miles away. The norther that had blown for days pushed rows of little whitecaps and bent the branches ashore that framed the sight. Out at se
a the blow across the Gulf of Alaska, unhindered by land for hundreds of miles, would have built a steady roll against Hank and the guys. She kneaded bare toes in the carpet, and savored the quiet.
Hank had now been more than ten months away on his big new long-liner for the Japanese. Even radio contact was spotty. He’d been able to grab only a few days ashore on two occasions when he’d found excuses to return to Kodiak for business, leaving the Puale Bay under Terry’s apparently uneasy command overshadowed by Kodama.
Jody looked out at distant rain-blurred lights. A second dark winter without her husband was approaching. Six thirty on a morning still so dark that her coffee cup remained a shadow in her hand. It was half a life without him. Now that her own adventure skippering the Adele H for salmon had ended for a second year, and Hank wasn’t there again when she had the time for him, she could wonder whether they weren’t losing something more precious than work satisfactions. Their lives were slipping on. The stimulus of running her own boat, in the faces of all those macho male types, had made her careless with his feelings. Hadn’t he trained her as best he could, reluctant or not, and ensured her success by giving her Terry and Ham off his Puale Bay for not one, but two seasons? It was time she accepted the fact that he’d put their home on the table as part of the bargain, even though the mere thought of it still turned her angry. But it was a fisherman’s nature to do anything to save his boat, and she’d married a fisherman.
“Mommy!” announced Dawn from her bedroom. “Are you there? Do you know what kind of dream I had? It was all about horses. Are you listening?”
Jody pulled herself together to face the day. “Listening, sweetie.”
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