The Big Both Ways (25 page)

The three men hunched in the corner picked up their bags, left money on the table, and walked quietly to the door.

The storm had blown up the Inside Passage and the sky was a blue dome over Campbell River. A light wind carried the smell of cold salt water and wood sap up from the sawmill’s holding pond. The three men turned the corner of the muddy street and the steamship dock came into full view. The
Admiral Rodman
sat against the backdrop of the wooded islands like a stately hotel.

“I ain’t getting back on that fucking ship,” Ray said.

“That was a Seattle cop back there,” Pierce hissed.

“So? That don’t settle my stomach none.”

“Would it settle it if he recognized you and started asking about what the hell you’re doing up here?” Conner was breathing hard as he pushed toward the crewmen’s gangway.

“How the hell’s he going to recognize me?” Cobb stopped in his tracks.

“You’re the one told us that a Seattle cop was snooping around. He came out and talked to your wife. Isn’t that right?”

“So?”

“Listen, Ray, don’t you think your wife might have given him a picture of you or something?”

“She ain’t got no pictures of me.”

“Great, Ray,” Pierce said. “You stay here and explain it to him.”

“We ain’t done nothing wrong,” Ray blurted out, a steady whine building into his voice.

“Not yet. But we’re planning to kidnap someone and obstruct an official investigation.”

“He don’t know that.”

Pierce stopped and turned to Conner. “I agree. Just let him stay. I’m sick of his bellyaching anyway. I didn’t want him coming along. He forced his way on this trip. Let him stay here and make friends with the Seattle police.” Then he turned to Ray. “I’ll
see you around, buster. Write when you get out. We’re taking the whiskey with us.” Pierce took the bottle that Ray had bought at the package goods store and walked toward the ship.

McCauley Conner shrugged his shoulders, picked up his bags, and hurried to follow his friend.

The two of them grew smaller against the backdrop of the ship. Hundreds of gulls were paddling in the calm water around the ship, and when the steamship’s whistle blew they rose into the air, filling the space between the men with their lonely cries.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Ray Cobb finally said. He grabbed his bag and started running toward the gangplank.

The
Pacific Pride
was traveling past Campbell River on its way to catch slack tide at Seymour Narrows. The narrows moved a great area of tidal current through its gap. Johnny was anxious to be past it before the flood could bring some sixteen knots of current along with the spring tides. There were also the notorious rocks that lay barely submerged under the low tide mark: they caused whirling pools along the surface. The
Pride
was just able to make the low slack. The
Admiral Rodman
, because of a loading delay in Campbell River, had to wait eight hours at the dock for the next chance to go through the narrows. When the steamship passed the boat again, it would be in the middle of the night.

Johnny stood at the wheel and continued wiping the glass port in front of him. There was wet gear, clothing, tarps, and a tent strewn all over the interior of the boat. Moisture was rising off the gear and becoming trapped on the inside of the boat’s ports.

“Darn it,” Johnny said. “I should rig up a fan.” He opened the side port next to his elbow to let the moisture out.

They had said very little once they all got safely onboard. Johnny hugged Annabelle and touched her hair, and tears streamed down his face. He said he couldn’t have lived with himself if she had drowned.

He would have been hard-pressed to explain what he had done. He didn’t want to steal the girl. He had seen the dory back by Dodd Narrows, but he didn’t want to give her back. The current was fair, the boat was running well, and he assumed she was sleeping soundly. He would wait for the dory on the other side of the narrows, or maybe not. He didn’t know what was best but it just didn’t feel right to bring the rough-looking blonde back on the boat. By the time he realized Annabelle was gone, the current had turned against him and there was no way to go back until the tide changed. He had spent the next day fitfully searching the waters on both sides of Dodd Narrows, but he had missed the dory when it had pulled into Mary’s cove and the ruined compound of the Brother Twelve.

The blubbering skipper crouched in front of her, and Annabelle patted the top of his cap. “It just wasn’t right, Captain. I’m supposed to be with Ellie.”

“I know,” he said.

Even with her hard feelings about Johnnie trying to steal her, Annabelle was happy to be back onboard the
Pacific Pride
, and she showed it. She put Buddy’s cage on the shelf above the skipper’s half bunk. The defiant bird sat atop the cage, still refusing to enter. Ellie, on the other hand, remained frosty toward the skipper, and this, in a strange way, gave her the run of the boat. She pointed and ordered where to hang all the wet gear, and the hangdog skipper did nothing to resist.

As the storm blew itself out, Slip and Ellie agreed to travel with Johnny up through the outer island passages to the cannery just south of the Alaska border. There they would see if there was any work and make their choices. They would travel long days to make up his lost time, and they would have to hit every narrows at the optimum time even if that meant pushing past daylight. It would take three days to get to the cannery.

As they passed Campbell River, Johnny opened his side port all the way and looked over the waterfront. The black hulk of the
Admiral Rodman
hunched in front of the town. Smoke from
a dozen chimneys rose a few hundred feet, then smeared to the north over the ridge. There was a slight ripple on the water and the lights of the houses built against the hill were beginning to blink on. Johnny was tired and wished he were going to sleep in a bed on land. He wanted to be able to walk away from his troubles, but of course he couldn’t. He set his course for the mouth of Seymour Narrows. As the sun moved low against the hill, he closed the port to save some of the heat in the old boat. He reached out to wipe the moisture off the glass so he could see the water sliding under the bow.

Johnny had heard many stories of the tidal currents along the Inside Passage. Old men who had fished the northern grounds told stories of whirlpools big enough to tip a seine boat on its side and suck a skiff straight down only to shoot it up again in pieces. There were Indian legends about spirits that lived under the water and reached their bony fingers to embrace unwary mariners. Johnny hadn’t given much weight to these stories but it was easy to be dismissive when sitting around an iron stove in the chandlery back home. As he traveled north and the familiar country gave way to densely forested hills wearing different shades of green, he began to feel the iron grit of fear build up in his stomach. The cedar trees dripped over the steep-sided passages and the current blossomed up in cauliflower forms. Sometimes rips came when he didn’t expect them and the water moved quickly in two directions at once. The ravens that sat on the branches were as big as cats and some of them seemed to grow horns as they heckled the boat from their perches.

Despite its fearsome reputation, when they got to Seymour Narrows the waters were mild. The rock that had claimed so many ships was a benign ripple in the channel, leaving plenty of room to maneuver. Once they were past the narrows a steamship overtook them. Johnny put his hand outside the port and waved it up and down. There looked to be half a dozen people standing on the back deck of the ship and one of them waved in return.

They spent two days drying out their gear in every warm part of the
Pacific Pride
. The smell of boiled coffee and mildew saturated the wheelhouse. Slip and Ellie slept long hours in their bunks and dozed off at almost any time of day. Annabelle played with Buddy and looked at pictures in catalogues piled in one of the drawers. Johnny gave them all lessons on steering and assigned them all, including Annabelle, regular shifts to stand watch. But Johnny never was long off the bridge and if he slept during the day, it was only lightly in his half bunk near the helm.

The big both ways river pushed and pulled at the boat so that when the current was against them they slowed considerably and the trees along the steep-sided fjords seemed to creep past. But as they learned to ride the current to their advantage they were able to slide along as if they were sitting in a streetcar. Ellie loved steering the big boat and often stood watch for Slip. Annabelle would not relinquish her turn at the wheel. She kept a close eye on the brass clock above Johnny’s bunk, and when the first second ticked of her watch she would haul her wooden box out, stand up on it, and begin to review their course.

Turnips and corned beef simmered in the pot all day long as they drove up the narrow passages. They passed tugs with barges and fishing boats with men sleeping on the webbing piled on the back decks. Annabelle would wave and most often the men would raise their heads and wave lazily back. Slip drank coffee and mended his clothes. He put salve on his blistered hands and cleaned the cuts on his face. His bruises were turning from dark purple to jaundiced yellow. Each morning he made coffee and flipped pancakes on the big diesel stove. They all ate, stayed dry, and became drowsy in the hum of the engine.

It was a little past three o’clock when they pulled into the Inland Packing cannery. Johnny was happy to see it, partly because he was eager to get off the crowded boat. The fjord was so deep that there had been no place to anchor for more than twenty miles. Along
this stretch of the coast there were a few trees clinging to the sheer rock at waterline. Streams fell down bluffs for more than a thousand feet. A deep-draft boat could motor directly under these falls and take on fresh water. But the walls of rock were so steep both above and below the surface, no boat carried enough anchor chain to put in for the night anywhere along this fjord.

The cannery was built back in the only shallow bay. The mountains came down in three walls around the bay with one opening directly behind the massive wooden cannery buildings. A river pushed down the narrow valley and rumbled down a rock falls into a shallow estuary.

The little anchorage was a bluster of sounds, the white noise of the falls echoing around the mountain slopes and the churning of the cannery machinery rolled on underneath everything. A pile driver on skids worked on the dock replacing a piling, the iron hammer rising and falling in a heavy rhythm, and somewhere in the midst of it all Annabelle could hear children playing.

There was a floating raft with a narrow ramp to shore, and small vessels were moored in the back bay. Johnny decided to tie up first and talk to someone at the plant to see where they wanted him to unload his cargo of box wood. It took only a few minutes to secure the
Pacific Pride
to the float and tie the dory alongside. Then Johnny was up the slick ramp to find a supervisor. Ellie slowly packed her dry gear into a suitcase.

“Now what?” she said aloud what each of them had been thinking.

“Do you think Johnny is going to kick us off the boat?” Annabelle said. She sat cross-legged on the short bunk, not giving any indication that she would leave willingly.

“We can look for a job, get a spot in the bunkhouse,” Ellie said. “Didn’t you hear the kids here?” She touched the girl’s knee with the tip of her finger.

The girl pushed her glasses up and scuttled out of the boat without a word to anyone.

As they walked up the ramp Slip combed his hair with a pocket comb, wiped it on his pants, and handed it to Ellie, then placed his cap on top of his head at a jaunty angle. “Got to try and look good,” he said, winking at her.

Ellie rolled her eyes but she took the comb and made a couple of passes through her hair.

They walked through the barn-style doors off the loading dock into the cavernous production line. There was a clatter of chains and sprockets. Belts whirred off of the main shaft that ran high up the center of the room. The shaft spun and turned the belts that ran to each of the machines. At each machine a person stood with a stub of a pencil and a notebook counting cans as they slipped past. There were clutch handles by each machine to stop the mechanical apparatus and a man in an apron standing near each one. There were white people and Filipinos, some Chinese and some Indians. At one end of the room Indians stood at steel tables cutting up salmon. Down the line, the Chinese were stuffing cans, and the Filipinos worked the steam cookers, labelers, and boxers. And most of the people holding the pencils and notebooks appeared to be white.

“It’s a split shop,” Ellie shouted over the clatter.

“What?” Slip cupped his hand to his ear.

Ellie pulled him closer so she didn’t have to yell. “All these people belong to different unions: the Indians, the whites, the Chinese, and the Filipinos, they’re all represented by different unions. Management can play one against the other.”

“Please, Ellie,” Slip beseeched. “We need some money and we need a place to live for a bit.”

“Relax. Your good looks are going to get us work, right?”

They walked through smaller rooms where caldrons of steam vented out across the floor. There was a carpentry shop where a crew of men hammered boxes together. Slip looked around and everything was in place; the hammers had numbers branded into the handles and the bins of nails were neatly marked. Ellie walked
out the door and down a hall. She walked with such purpose none of the tired men or women in the hall asked their business.

At the end of the hall there was a door to the machine shop. “Let me just take a look and don’t do anything,” Ellie said, grabbing Slip’s arm. He made a sour face and turned away from the door Ellie was ducking into.

The shop was cramped with machines, most of which Slip didn’t recognize. There were lathes, presses, band saws; there was a forge and a man standing at an anvil with a rounding hammer. He was wearing goggles and he looked up at them as they stood in the doorway.