Raiders

by William B. McCloskey

  While recovering aboard the Adele H, he had driven his crew and himself relentlessly. He’d needed the money, but above all he craved satisfaction against the Tsurifune clan. In Kodiak he’d brought his deliveries to any of the eager Japanese buyers but Tsurifune.

  “Don’t you guys ever rest?” Tom Harris had asked in admiration. But the Chesapeake Bay transplant had come to enjoy the challenge and he’d kept up.

  Terry would look Tom over through eyes bleary from lack of sleep. “Anybody keeps at this, like this, is nuts. If I never see another slippery black fish, I’ll. . .” He’d shrug and continue to coil. “Your turn to ice the buggers.”

  The wind had sometimes blown for days, with nearly as much force as the solid waves that hit them. Both wind and water had slammed them off balance as they moved. Without Hank’s drive they would often have quitted the deck.

  Inevitably Hank sometimes needed to fish his boat close to the Puale Bay, late of his command, since they shared the same grounds. At 130 feet it was a monster compared to the 58-foot Adele H. Hank was glad to be free of it, he told himself, even though some of his debt remained tied to its fortunes. Tolly Smith remained captain. The two friends, now wary of each other, communicated only if the gear of one threatened that of the other.

  Tolly had no choice but to take over from me, Hank told himself, but he still resented it. Tolly on his part knew that he had compromised himself. It troubled him, but he rationalized: I’m not taking anything from Hank that Tsurifune would have given back. His Jennie could now count on the full bank account that she deserved.

  The announcement to boats on the water that the black cod quota was filled for the year had set off a storm of horns and whistles. While Hank duly grinned at his men’s firecrackers and yells to other boats, the victory left him only tired and thoughtful.

  The victory turned embarrassing when he brought in the Adele H for its final delivery. Strangers waited around the pier along with people he knew from the fishing magazines and local papers. The strangers turned out to be reporters from Anchorage and Seattle. They converged on him when somebody said he had defected from the Japanese.

  “Not quite that way,” he hedged.

  Adele Henry arrived with a bottle of champagne and glasses. She threw her arms around him. “Daddy would be so proud that his boat helped do this. At last we’ve driven the foreigners from our shores!”

  A photographer posed Adele with Hank despite his reluctance. People later attributed the absence of Hank’s famous grin in the photo to his seriousness on such an occasion. The caption, when it was printed in a Seattle paper, read: “Kodiak beats foreign fishers, hits the bubbly.”

  In Anchorage between Council sessions, Hank called on Sollers to tie up loose ends. He learned that the Jody Dawn, rechristened American Victory, was now tendering fish to a Tsurifune cannery off Adak in the Aleutians. “That’s a waste,” he exclaimed. “She should be catching fish out there, not taking other peoples’ catch!” But he knew the waste: that he was not aboard her.

  Sollers’s advice was practical. “That’s not your boat anymore. Suggest you forget it. Sign these papers and get on with your life.”

  The sale of the Jody Dawn, after all settlements, would eventually provide him with enough money to pay his debts at last and to buy the Adele H from Adele Henry if he chose. Lost to him, however, was nearly $400,000 in boat payments and interest, the earnings of six years’ hard fishing. Most of that had come from the two seasons of now-vanished king crab wealth that might never again be duplicated for another try at big prosperity.

  Hank was unsure how deeply lay his debt to Swede and John. Clearly they’d pulled something, or the Tsurifune forces would not have released his house. Jody had seen Gains rush from the Kodiak office with a box, then recognized him at the airport cargo office, all this just the day before federal agents came to search the office. She and Hank surmised that he’d escorted incriminating papers back to Tokyo. Had Gains then called in a favor? Or had he saved out some papers and given them up for Hank’s sake? Their concern increased when the news came that Gains had been fired. Had his involvement with Hank been responsible?

  “John always seemed to me such a jerk,” mused Hank. “Always so buttoned down, even fussy, and sucking up everywhere. The guy started to piss me off almost from the day I hired him in my crew. He worked hard enough, but I was glad when he left to start climbing the office ladder. You know how I used to call him Asshole John? Yet this isn’t the first time he’s gone to bat for me. Remember during crab days in the Bering, when Seth took a shot at the Japanese trawler that scraped over our pots? State Department was out to crucify me, and, according to Swede, John softened the Japanese to intercede with State. Then when Jones Henry and I were in the life raft, and Swede was the only one willing to drive a chopper in that storm to save us, it was John who volunteer-crewed.”

  “Sometimes you don’t judge people that well, do you?” Jody said mildly. She had settled into enjoying the home they’d almost lost, and, while vowing to herself that this didn’t end it, had gracefully relinquished her summer captaincy for salmon on the Adele H so that he could work the only boat available to him. “And I’ll say it again,” she continued. “Kodama might have doctored his reports, but it wasn’t his idea, and he was suffering for it when I put him on the plane. I wish you’d at least call Japan to see how he is. If I did it they might make the wrong inference.”

  Hank had remained adamant. “He was part of their package.”

  Between Council sessions that mattered to him, Hank wandered the hotel lobby and meeting rooms. He felt detached and depressed, although he forced himself to liven whenever people greeted him.

  “Here he is,” said Gus Rosvic, and pulled him into a conversation with other longline skippers who had come from the black cod grounds. They were now gathering their forces to pressure the Council to ban even American boats from using trawls, pots, and gill nets to catch black cod. Only longliners. “I could run a junkyard with the ghost gear I’ve pulled up,” Gus asserted. “Cut every bit of it by draggers.”

  “Gus, you ol’ firecracker,” joked one of the younger captains. “You used to blame every bit of that on the big Jap longliners.”

  “True enough, Luke. Those Jap buzzards laid their lines thick as cable and dumped it around like spiderweb. That’s true enough—but not the whole truth.” Gus’s shrewd eyes surrounded by sun wrinkles peered around from under his cap. Hank marveled at how occasion could change Gus from mellow old-timer to an adversary almost vicious. “Mebbe we’ve won that fight, Luke, though don’t trust the State Department boys in D.C. not to find some way around it. But if it ain’t one kind of raider out there, it’s another. Now we’ve got to settle things with our own.” He turned to Hank. “Time you saw that, son. Got to fight for every little bit of what’s yours.”

  “I hear you.” Hank knew that turf fights and rivalries lay ahead. If the Council allowed all gear types to continue on the black cod grounds, longlines would snag gill nets and snap off on pots, and trawls would shred everything in their path while ripping open their meshes on pots and the anchors of other gear. Each fight in the fishing game now led to the next. It had once seemed so simple.

  Shoji Tsurifune entered the lobby from a taxi. He held only a briefcase, although another Japanese behind him carried suitcases in his hands and under his arms. As always Mike’s hair was sleek and his dark suit impeccable. When he saw Hank walking toward him his face assumed a cordial expression. “Well, Hank,” he said calmly, “I see you’ve survived the evil little yellow men.”

  Hank had planned to be contained about it, but Mike’s smoothness irritated him at once. “Come off it, Mike. Don’t pull guilt on me. A Harvard man? You’re enough American to answer for yourself, not hide behind being Japanese. You simply tried to trick me. That’s universal with some people wherever they come from.”

  “You’re talking nonsense, Hank. But you surely succeeded in doing us mischief.”

  �
�And you knew how to screw me.”

  “If you corner a dragon, don’t whine if the dragon defends himself.”

  “At least the reptile part’s right. You took my boat. I won’t forget.”

  “Your debt-laden vessel in which we’d invested a fortune. Father and I were saving what we could from wreckage.”

  “I’d trusted at least your dad. Is he here now, or back in Tokyo hatching new schemes?”

  Shoji’s lip twitched. It appeared to be a disturbing question. “Here later, perhaps.”

  “And I don’t know all of what you did to my man Kodama, but you hurt him.”

  Shoji sighed, waved the man beside him with suitcases toward the check-in desk, and turned back calmly. “Hank, Hank, this fellow wasn’t ‘your man,’ as you call it. Mr. Kodama is a Japanese employee who understands his position.”

  “He’s a hell of a fine fisherman.”

  “Tsurifune company has many superb fishermen. They are all unemployed because you Americans have closed your waters. Even more now shall be unemployed.”

  “And you’ve screwed your man John Gains too, I hear.”

  “I’m afraid being our man was John’s illusion. He surely tried to ingratiate himself. An efficient, energetic fellow. How much Japanese did you ever learn to be with us, Hank? But our watchmen reported more than once that while John worked late in his office, commendable, he’d be seen examining off-limits files. At last we decided to distrust him.”

  Hank wondered about Swede, who probably knew more company secrets than Gains, but ventured instead,”! guess every business has its secrets.”

  “Shall we change the subject? In spite of everything, Father wishes you well.”

  “Did he instruct Kodama to cheat on my catches?”

  “I don’t believe that you understand survival, Hank.”

  “Survival’s what hooked me in with you.”

  “Not greed to get your share and more?” Shoji smiled, but his face was not pleasant.

  Hank paused long enough to consider. “No. Just my share.”

  “A buccaneer’s share, if you’ll permit me. You Americans are hoarders, you know. The fruits of the ocean should be there for those who need it, not—”

  “Those who need, hell. You mean for those like yourself, who raped it before we stopped you. Who’ve already fished out their own waters.”

  “Look to yourselves also for greed, Hank. Do you think that American competitiveness, and the technology you love so to keep improving, will keep you from overfishing now that you have the opportunity?” Mike closed his eyes and retained his dignity. “You have all, so you can take all. This is the understandable way of the world.”

  “We have our own mouths to feed like everybody else.” Hank stopped himself. Their argument was backing into truths on both sides and could have no answer. “Greet your dad back for me. In spite of what I feel, I hope he’s well?”

  “Oh, genki, genki. Father did enjoy you. He’ll be glad to hear that you’ve survived.”

  They found nothing further to say. After a silence they exchanged courtesies halfway between an American nod and a Japanese bow, then parted in opposite directions.

  Hank had advanced toward the elevator only a few steps before John Gains stopped him to shake hands. John still wore the same kind of dark suit and sober tie as Shoji Tsurifune, and his black hair had the same sleekness. What do I owe him? Hank wondered, and took the proffered hand.

  “Now, Hank,” Gains began without preamble, “I suppose, since I saw you with the Rosvic crowd, that you’re committed to longline for sablefish. But I hope you’re not working to ban trawls. You’ve trawled, so you know a net can be tuned to fish clean. And you’d know, for example, that trawl doesn’t take the horrendous toll on seabirds that longline hooks do. Soon environmentalists are going to be all over longliners on that. And trawl has other advantages. The two groups of us should be joining forces to ban pots and gill nets from the black cod fishery, not fighting each other.”

  “Hello yourself, John, and what’s it to you?”

  “You should have my card. Here. I now represent the United Trawlers Association.”

  “That’s a quick jump from the Japanese pocket!”

  “Indeed.” Gains continued unfazed. “I saw you talking to Shoji there. Sharp fellow. We’ve remained friends, but the company didn’t have room for my personal growth anymore. So, best to give notice, though the director himself tried to keep me. It wasn’t hard with my experience to find a new place up the line.”

  “I was afraid they’d dumped you. Glad it’s different.”

  “Thanks for your good wishes, but it was a matter of business.”

  Hank hesitated, then continued, “If you’re still on such good terms, do you ever see the old man? What’s he up to?”

  “The director? I hear he’s in New York now, they say to sell some of those gosh-awful paintings.”

  Hank frowned. “He loved those paintings.”

  “And was smart enough to invest in ones that accrued in value, I hear. Frankly, they all looked like a joke to me, although I took the time to learn about them. Now I believe he’s trying to raise enough on them to save the family company.”

  Hank glanced toward the spot where he’d quitted Mike Tsurifune. “They’re in that kind of trouble?”

  “Unpopular American lawyers who fight Americans for foreign fishing rights don’t come cheap. I’ve seen some of their bills. Too bad.” He gave a thin smile. “Don’t worry, Hank. They’ll probably weather your turning them in. Just don’t expect them to trust you again. Of course, if you have what they want, they’ll do business.”

  “Whatever you did for me, John . . . I appreciate it.”

  Gains’s driving energy eased. “Just old crewmates, Hank,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have saved your boat. And you can thank your fellow Seth for having pocketed one of their documents besides what I might have . . . contributed.”

  “And Swede?”

  John told him that Swede had also been fired. Since Swede had made nothing of it, few people knew. John became even quieter. “I used to turn up my nose at him a bit because he didn’t try to get any further ahead. And the drinking. I’m afraid he reminded me of my father. I might have told you Dad was a plumber, but I’m sure I didn’t mention the booze. I’ve struggled uphill all the way. It’s made me devalue people who don’t need to fight. Or don’t appear to. Swede’s a straight arrow.”

  “So are you, John.”

  Gains shrugged, although he seemed gratified, and his brisk manner returned. “Catch you for a drink later, Hank. I’ll try to convince you that trawling for black cod is good.”

  “I’ll try to be convinced.”

  That evening he talked with Jody in Kodiak. In their fatter times she might have been with him in the big city during Council, even preparing for a jaunt to Hawaii. Tonight she sat again in their living room overlooking the water while Dawn and Henny bent over homework, each at a separate table. But she sounded content.

  “I’ve got to do something for Swede,” he said.

  “Yes! But I think you also need to call Kodama. You didn’t see his devastation.” Hank was silent.

  During the ensuing day of Council affairs, it became official that the Japanese had lost their black cod quota for good, since Americans had proven they could catch it all. The Japanese through their lawyers managed, however, to gain a recommendation for extra Bering Sea pollack and true-cod allotments, as partial compensation for the loss. The Council in this case made a practical concession. There might otherwise have been a lawsuit from the more militant segment of the Japanese fishing industry, charging that the U.S. broke long-term commitments.

  All right, Hank decided, and called Kodama. He reached him at the Tsurifune office since Kodama had no phone at his home. The conversation was both reassuring and unsatisfactory.

  “Busy,” said Kodama brusquely. “Many problems in company for keeping busy.”

  “Are yo
u able to talk?”

  “Of course.”

  At least, Hank decided, guilt had not crushed the guy as Jody had feared. “Are things okay with you?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  Hank went straight to his question on the expensive call. “Kodama-san. Did they force you to change my catch reports?”

  After a pause: “Company policy important.”

  “That’s not my point.”

  “Hank-san,” said Kodama quietly, using Hank’s given name for the first and only time, “all things not the point.” His voice had suddenly lost its vitality.

  Hank felt a surge of affection and sadness, but he could find no words for comfort. “Hit ’em hard at the Judo-kan, buddy,” he said lamely in parting.

  “Kodo-kan,” Kodama corrected, but without his signature snap. “Hai. Of course.”

  When Hank reported the conversation later to Jody, he admitted that he was glad he’d called. From the phone booth in the hotel lobby where he was speaking, he at last saw Swede. His friend wandered the corridor like an old bear, scowling, even hunched. Hank started out toward him.

  Shoji Tsurifune eased into his way. “Father wishes to speak you,” he said curtly. “Please follow to his room.”

  “I didn’t know he was here.”

  Mike made no answer. He led the way to the elevator without speaking further, and conducted Hank to the room. Inside, Director Tsurifune sat behind a table. A lamp cast a glare on his bald head and created dark shadows on his face. Hank remembered him at a similar table in the same hotel only months before, seated like an icon but with his wrinkled face full of vital authority and humor. Since then the director had aged. His back remained straight—even straighter than before—but his face was now a rigid mask. “Thank you to come, Mr. Crawford,” he said, and gestured toward a chair.

  “Sir.” Hank sat, but did not relax.

  The director then glared up at his son and nodded.

  Shoji Tsurifune remained standing. His voice was precise, without the usual bright mannerisms. “My father wishes to tell you, Hank, that he is dishonored. His son did not consult or tell him of altered catch reports in the fishery. Also, Father did not know that I withheld your home after he had agreed to remove it from lien. Further, as regards your vessel, Jody Dawn —”