Raiders

by William B. McCloskey

  As Dawn launched into her recital, Henny shuffled from his own bedroom wrapped in a blanket Indian fashion. “Who cares about your old dream,” he muttered. The hood pushed his hair down to his eyes. “Morning, Mom.” They hugged.

  “Mommy cares, that’s who. Because it was a very interesting dream, and I can’t wait to tell my very best friend Melissa.”

  “Last week you said ol’ Linda was your best—”

  “A person can have two very best friends so that’s how much you know. Isn’t that right, Mommy?”

  Jody chose not to answer.

  “Mommy? Isn’t that right?”

  “Possibly.”

  “See, Henny. See?”

  Jody patted her son lightly on the buttocks to point him toward the kitchen. “Blue shirt on the ironing board, that’s what you wear today.”

  “Okay.”

  “What should I wear, Mommy?”

  “That green corduroy jumper’s nice, honey. I washed it two days ago and it’s hanging in your closet.”

  “Well, I think my denim jumper’s better, because we’re making a sand table of Africa today and the boys in my class are very messy.”

  “That’ll be fine. And your yellow top.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it goes well.”

  “But I like my red top, why not my red top since I like it better?”

  Jody kept her voice even. “Then make sure it’s clean.” (And I was an even worse pain, she thought. No wonder my mother chain-smoked, and escaped to those damned bridge games whenever she could.) She walked to Pete’s room. The child’s nose peeked from covers wrapped around his head. She snuggled him lightly. He woke, wrapped arms around her neck, and they exchanged a smacking kiss. “Now up you go, teddy bear. Move it along.”

  He wriggled away with a grin. “No.”

  “Oh yes, buster.” She laid out his clothes.

  “Okay.” He jumped from the covers and began to dress.

  Dawn was already dressed and breaking eggs into a bowl as she told Henny, whose morning chores included feeding the dog and cat, that he’d better hurry.

  Nothing was wrong, thought Jody. Warm house, good kids. Except the main thing.

  The bumpy hour to town was routine. She had herded the kids quickly into the van so that their raincoats shed little water to increase the musty smell that had settled over everything during the prolonged rain. The sky remained gray, without a shaft of sun. Water bubbled over the sturdy planks bridging the stream. Scrub stretched to the foot of green mountainsides whose snow peaks rose only dimly through haze.

  Three horses grazed in a paddock that had been cleared and fenced. “See the horses, Petey?” announced Dawn. “Their names are Jackie, Major, and Sweetpea.” Pete continued to turn the pages of a picture book and mouth the words printed in big block letters.

  “You talk-talk about those horses every day,” grumbled Henny.

  “But those are my very favorites of all the horses in the world, and Petey ought to know.”

  “If he doesn’t know he’s deaf.”

  Jody had already talked to the owners about riding lessons for Dawn. They’d said it would be better to wait till the child turned at least eight, but they’d go with seven and a half if her legs reached the pony’s stirrups. It would be a surprise next spring—at least by March the days would be growing longer—although it would add one more commute and clutter up the precious town-free weekends.

  From an empty road the traffic increased by a vehicle or two after they passed a settlement, then swelled to a dozen cars and pickups near the Coast Guard Base. When they reached the bend overlooking cannery row and the harbor, with frame houses scattered in the mist down the slopes on the other side of the road, a string of braked tail lights slowed passage for the final quarter mile into town.

  Jody dropped Henny and Dawn outside the elementary school and waited until they disappeared inside, then drove to another building and walked Pete to the kindergarten classroom, then parked for the day. (Other moms at the office let their kids walk the blocks to school. If Hank were home and available, she’d also feel that relaxed.)

  At her desk in the social services office a drug-abuse client already waited, restless and impatient to be done with his mandatory check-in. Cleo, the secretary, had already spiked four phone messages to be returned. One, from the hospital, reported a client gone from methadone back to mainline overdose and they needed papers at once. The next was from a fellow fishing-wife, to set up lunch to plan strategy before the town council in three days in their fight to deny pleasure boats a slip at city docks. (At least this part of the day’s for my own stuff, she thought, and scribbled under Council Talk on a clipboard: “Not enough berths as it is to tie boats that work for a living.”) Another note, from Adele Henry, wondered where she and the children were. (Catching a breather from you, Adele, much as we love you.) The final note, from a name she didn’t recognize, asked her to call.

  Jody’s day, started nearly three hours before, began.

  And Hank’s day: in the Gulf of Alaska two hundred some miles east of Kodiak, routine fifteen-foot seas smacked the metal hull of the longline vessel, Puale Bay. The ship rose, pitched, rolled to clanks of tubs securely chained, and steadied for seconds before the next sea-thud initiated another round. In the wheelhouse Hank’s legs bent automatically to absorb the motion. They had started the day’s haul three hours before, pulling line that had been laid to soak near midnight. Now daylight had begun to dim the deck lights and to soften the sky from black to gray. It replaced the phosphorescent underglow of foam caps with a soapy white.

  Hank checked his screens. The radar displayed boat blips beyond visual range. The depth sounder showed seafloor at four hundred fifty fathoms, half a mile down, where his line lay among black cod hooked or milling in wait to be hooked. He quartered the ship between troughs and kept its open fishing bay in the lee, flush with the incoming line. Lights from the work area slicked a path on the water. Only by pressing his forehead against a starboard window could he see the actual line with hooked fish coming aboard. It was sure as hell a glitch in the ship’s otherwise Japanese-efficient design.

  A spinning circle of glass centrifuged water within the pilot window and kept it clear no matter how heavy the bow spray. His ship had port and starboard screws for maneuvering, and the latest in SatNav, loran-C plotter, radar, color sounder—all electronics were state of the art. For the first month trying each new device to its capacity had kept him involved. Now after nearly a year they were all mastered and second nature, their challenge understood. How had he ever chased fish and crabs without them?

  The life of the ship murmured and called beneath him, from directed crew to thoughtless prey. He controlled it all aboard the 130-foot ship registered in his name, owned at least on paper. The thought made him stretch and smile. A lone seabird, perhaps stranded too far from land to return, rode a swell that rolled toward the boat. It flew free before the swell tumbled across deck, its white wings suddenly yellowed from a ship’s light. Then down it went comfortably onto the next swell, and plucked a stray bait that an unseen crewman tossed. “Take it easy, bird,” Hank muttered. “You’re lord of the waves just like me.”

  He poured himself coffee from an electric pot clamped against the bulkhead. Old and bitter. Through the mike to the deck speaker, he said, “Somebody bring fresh coffee to the bridge.” His own amplified voice echoed from below.

  A few minutes later Ham appeared. “Morning, Boss. Nice and fresh.” A once-blue cap was slouched over his face, its bill whitened by flecks of scales and bait. Some of the flecks clung to his wide cheeks.

  “Hey, you could have sent one of the junior apes up with that.”

  “Naaah, good excuse. This wheelhouse is something else.” Ham glanced around and headed for the color sounder. Its bright electronic yellows, greens, and reds reflected on his face. “Man, the stuff up here! Makes our old boat look like yesterday.” His eyes remained fixed on the screen.
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  “Go on,” said Hank. “Play with that knob the way I’ve showed you. Scale it fifty fathoms, a hundred, three. You won’t hurt anything.”

  “Thanks anyway, Boss. I’d be sure to break something.” He backed away. “But just look at all those colors.”

  “Remember what I told you they meant?”

  “Red means the big stuff’s down there, right? And yellow means there’s zilch.”

  “Good for you. How’s it going below, this morning?”

  “Oh . . . those big black fish, Boss, they keep comin’. Even in your dreams.”

  “Nothing beats steady fishing under shelter, out of the rain. And money you can count on. Does it?”

  “You said it.” Ham started to leave although his eyes remained on the color screen. “But it was sure nice, last summer when you sent Terry and me back to help Jody fish salmon for a while. Even if we didn’t make as much money. And remember how, Boss, when we was half this crew size with just Seth, Terry, Mo, and me, our good ol’ boat half this big and none of this fancy stuff? How we’d park in the wheelhouse between sets and talk or just watch the water?”

  “It was nice. Different.”

  After a silence, Ham said, “Well, lots of lines to bait. Don’t want to fall behind. Just call if you need more coffee.”

  Hank wanted to prolong it. “Say, uh . . . does your buddy Mo ever write? How’s he doing out there with Seth? I talk to Seth all the time, of course.”

  “Oh. Doing good. Good. I guess. He did send a postcard from Dutch Harbor. Picture of a mermaid with big . . . tits, you know. Wrote that’s what comes up in their nets now they don’t have, like, my ugly face to look at. Funny stuff like that. I sure wish . . . Well, you know, Mo wasn’t such a bad cook.”

  Hank felt like lingering over it. “No, he wasn’t.” He started to tell Ham to sit a while.

  “Hello! Hello! Ham sleeping?” Kodama’s voice came so sharp and loud that it must have been positioned by the stairs to the wheelhouse. “Where is Ham? Time Ham working. Somebody better wake Ham.”

  “Shit, Boss, he saw me bring you coffee.”

  Hank glanced away. “Talk to you later. Thanks for the fresh.”

  “Sure, Boss, any time.” And Ham was gone.

  “Last hooks aboard from today’s line one,” came Terry’s voice over the speaker from the fishing deck below.

  Hank set course for the next line several miles away, checked radar and visual to ascertain clear passage, shifted the steering onto gyro, and paced his wheelhouse. Kodama might ride the guys a bit but he did keep the fish coming aboard. The operation clicked like the factory it was, converting fish into money. But Jody Dawn, dear Jody Dawn indeed, his Jody Dawn with her good ol’ team. He did a few push-ups, adjusting them to the ship’s motion. Mo’s straight-out cooking had been nice, although the chow that Arty served was okay—even though it swam in grease. And Seth was missed, sour face and all—Seth and Mo now making money out in the Bering on Jody Dawn, part of a Japanese joint venture of the kind they’d all hated. Seth might complain, but at least he worked from a wheelhouse just a hop to deck, in touch with his crew.

  He rose panting, checked position and controls, then dropped to force a few more push-ups. The strain felt healthy, genki, first-rate Japanese word that encompassed well-being. Well, Kodama kept deck in genki shape. And tomorrow when the Japanese freezer ship came to take their month’s catch, there would be that Japanese wardroom hospitality with volleys of interesting food.

  Without warning the earth-soap odor of Jody’s hair filled his nostrils from nowhere. Oh Jody. The smell and taste of her neck and breasts followed: something between daisies and melons. He could feel his arms drawing her bare shoulders against his bare chest. Wet skin and warm. The rub of it smoothed and caressed all the way down his legs. Thinking of it turned his penis stiff against his pants like a schoolboy’s. And then her whisper while her hand explored his back. He checked the ship’s bearings, then did more push-ups.

  The memory of her light voice touched him more than physically. Her presence: he felt wrong without it. He glanced dispassionately at the metal and the black plastics of his wheelhouse, bare despite all the electronic wonders he’d assembled. Bare also the home he’d designed, with its thick carpeting and picture window, if Jody wasn’t there. Any place without her lost its savor.

  Oh Jody. What if he ever lost her? He’d put her out in that remote, beautiful place when he knew she’d rather be close to town, and now he went off to sea for months. What did she do every night without him? What if she ever tired of the distances that fishing put between them? Met some fellow tied to land who came home every night? Who liked the kids and they liked him? His children! Growing up without him. The thought of their soft, warm little bodies tumbling over him brought a new ache of loss.

  She’d forgiven his Helene affair in Tokyo, but never, really, his allowing Tsurifune to connect the security of their house with his boat. Why hadn’t he read more closely the small provisions in that contract? Even though his earnings for the year had accumulated, Tsurifune father and son still—with Shoji’s trademark pleasantest assurances delivered third-hand through the agent on the freezer ship—had applied the money against the big longliner without letting it pay off debt on the house or the Jody Dawn. He needed to talk with them again face-to-face.

  Melons. Like melons fresh and ripe, Jody’s precious scent. . .

  “Puale Bay, you read me? Over.”

  Hank hurriedly grabbed the radio mike. “Tolly, you horse. Where’ve you been?”

  “Scouting, my man. Finding new places I’ll never tell you about. And gone into town. Some of us don’t run a factory ship that freezes cargo, we need to ice down and deliver ashore. But we have a load now for your Jap freezer ship since it’s here. She’s due alongside you tomorrow, right?”

  Hank wished that Tolly would not have broadcast the information. “Noon, expected,” he answered curtly, and changed the subject. “You catching fish?”

  “When there’s fish I catch ’em, buddy.”

  A deep, new voice interrupted. “Yah, catch for de Japs. You makin’ it hard for de rest of us, you fellahs on de Jap payroll.”

  Hank felt himself flush. “Hold on,” he began.

  “I’ll second that,” said another voice. “We’re out here trying to prove Americans can take the whole quota, and you guys—”

  “Yah, us good Americans, and you fellahs—”

  “Sounds like Olaf Trygvisen there,” said Tolly heartily. “Your wife and kids still back in Norway, Oley? Last I heard Stavanger’s still where you call home.”

  “Dot’s different. Plenty of brothers and cousins in Ballard, dey pay American taxes.”

  “Guess I’ll add my two cents, Hank.” It was Gus Rosvic. “We hear, and it ain’t just rumor anymore, that Jap buyers down in Washington and Oregon, and in Prince Rupert, Canada, pay six cents more than in Alaska for black cod. Same fish, caught no farther off the coast than our grounds is. Now, we can’t afford to go all that distance extra, so we’re stuck with what they pay us. But I expect that you boys working for the Japs get that Seattle price. Am I right?”

  Hank felt his mouth go dry. “Sorry to disappoint you, Gus,” he said abruptly, and switched channels. Now he needed push-ups! Goddamn. Goddamn!

  “Oh the policeman’s feet are big, high-o the fuckey-o policeman’s feet are big,” sounded Terry’s voice coming up the stairs to relieve him. Deep voice for a man not tall. Terry bounced in wiping his hands on a cloth. “Hey, Boss, ready for relief? Battery water, oil and water temp, all just checked.”

  “She’s yours.” Hank kept his face averted in case it betrayed malaise.

  Terry stretched, and danced a few punches. “Got to wake myself up. Even though I just did two hours at the roller and then hit the engine room. Funny how, out here with everything like clockwork and a full six-seven hours of sleep every night, all you want to do is sleep.”

  “I know.”

  “Yet here we�
��ve got more sack time that you can count on, than ever we had on the Jody Dawn. It’s interesting, how that is. Sleepy, I mean. Maybe because there’s no surprises.” He handed Hank a fold of papers wrapped in plastic and sealed with tape. “Catch record for the freezer ship tomorrow. Mr. Production Master sends.”

  “How’d we do?”

  “You know ol’ Kodama. He don’t make public announcements to the peons.”

  Hank pulled off the tape and without looking handed Terry the papers. Terry wiped his hands again, read, shrugged, and returned them. “I thought we’d done better than this, to tell the truth. A fish about every three hooks whenever I was at the rail. The Japs and Koreans sure had it gangbusters here before we wised up and moved in.”

  Hank busied himself logging the new catch figures. It had certainly seemed that, earlier with the same effort, they’d caught more during the first monthly deliveries to the Tsurifune freezer ship. Yet he trusted Kodama’s figures. “Terry? How’s Kodama behaving?”

  “Mr. Kodama? No different. He knows his stuff. Ham still gets bugged. The others had his pickety-pick from the start so they don’t know different.”

  “And you?”

  “I look him in the eye. We get along.”

  They still had a ninety-minute run to reach the marker buoy of the next set. Hank checked Terry out on their course, then went below to make an appearance. Over the months he’d concentrated on fish location and ship handling, and paid less and less attention to the routine operations down on deck since Kodama obviously knew his job. Had things slowed even under Kodama’s steady drive?

  The deck might have been roofed, but cold wind blew across it from the open sides. After the close heated wheelhouse, Hank shivered. The scene had the usual repetitive factory bustle. Two men were lined up at the long baiting table spearing chunks of herring onto hooks under a speaker that blared a rock beat. At another table Ham and Arty stood amid a welter of red intestines and hose water as they sliced and gutted the fish just caught. Busy hands and blank faces all around. It could have been a shoreside cannery line except for frosty breaths and the occasional slosh of sea that hit the side of the ship with a thud and then gurgled around their boots and through scuppers.