The Big Both Ways (29 page)

Ellie raised up her arm and called out to them, “Hey boys, we’re eating the halibut we caught. Wanna try some?”

Clyde turned and walked toward the white workers’ cabins without saying a word. The young Finn smiled and half-heartedly waved as if embarrassed, then he too walked away.

“Maybe not such a good idea, you being here,” Mr. Caroca said. He stood up with his plate.

“Any man who turns down a free meal of fresh-caught fish doesn’t have the sense that God gave a duck,” Ellie said, and she picked up her own plate to take it into the kitchen.

Two more days passed. A high-pressure system pushed in from the north and settled over the Canadian coast. Wind from the north whipped the waters of the channel into a washboard of short white waves, and the newly budding trees waved their limbs about as if they were waking up from a long sleep. Slip’s pile-driving crew spent the time shoring up the wharf and driving pilings for a new section of dock. Ellie worked in the machine shop and Clyde silently allowed her to sweep, organize, and take on the easiest and most tedious projects. Ellie whistled while she swept the metal filings and never once provoked a confrontation with the machinists.

The bookkeeper in the business office found a trunk of
National Geographic
magazines in a storage locker and gave them to Annabelle in place of some regular schooling. Annabelle was quite pleased and would bring treasures to the bookkeeper whenever she came across them. After the second day the bookkeeper had a fragile sea urchin nest and a raven’s skull on her desk.

Annabelle kept one ear cocked for the sound of the returning Lockheed Vega. Buddy spent most of his time either trying to look
at himself in Annabelle’s glasses or preening and chuckling to himself on the center rafter of their cabin.

On a Thursday, Ellie was setting up a shiv plate in the lathe for Nels. The big Swede had showed her how to center the chucks and get the plate level. It was a slow process, with hundreds of slight adjustments. Ellie had a feeler gauge mounted to read whether the plate was running perfectly parallel with the chucks of the machine. Once she got it tight and even, Nels would run the lathe and take some twenty-thousandths of an inch off of the plate so that the lines running between them would be pinched down tight and not slip off the puller.

Clyde was working on forge-welding a broken sprocket. He stood under the forge hood and gripped the tongs with leather gloves. Then he brought the glowing pieces out of the coals and set them in a jig he had set up on the anvil. He was pounding the parts together as Ellie finished up the preparation on the shiv plate. The shop was clean and most of the tools hung in their proper places on the walls and benches. Nels had been in a good mood that morning and had offered to teach Ellie this new skill.

Nels stood next to Ellie and eyed the feeler gauge as he spun the mounted plate by hand. Ellie watched with satisfaction as the indicator needle barely flickered, showing that the plate was parallel to the chuck. The chuck of the big lathe weighed close to three hundred pounds and was driven by a ten-horsepower electric motor. The motor had more than enough torque to start the plate spinning with a tug on the lever and a quick whir of the chucks.

“Now get the carriage back out of the way and we’ll cut this thing.” Nels made adjustments to the cutting tool and Ellie turned the wheel to move the carriage. Nels had his back to her as he said, “Now push the lever down and get her spinning.” Ellie reached back and pushed the lever, and as she did, she leaned against the machine and put her left hand on the inside edge of the carriage.

At first she felt nothing except a tug on the edge of her hand. Then there was the whining of the ten-horse motor as it bound up. She felt a numbness and a sense of urgency as Nels flew over the top of her to hit the cutoff switch. Then pain was shooting up her arm and Ellie felt a kind of stupid regret as she looked over to see her hand pinched between the chuck and the carriage table. Blood pooled out on the table like cutting oil, and Ellie leaned over and saw the little finger and ring finger of her left hand on the floor, nestled in a pile of metal shavings.

Of the rest she retained little memory. Nels had said, “Oh, good Christ.” Then he forced the big machine out of gear and the big chuck swung lazily in the opposite direction, and Ellie slumped to the floor. Clyde walked slowly around the edge of the big lathe with a broom in his hand. He stopped for a moment, walked slowly over to the workbench, and flipped over the main electrical breaker for the shop, thinking that they would be done for the day. Then he walked out the door to get the superintendent and the big greasy bohunk who was supposed to be the camp nurse, though no one trusted him with any of their ailments.

The superintendent fired Ellie on the spot. He told her he’d put whatever wages she had coming toward the cost of the airplane to come take her out of camp. The plane could take her up to Ketchikan or down to Campbell River. If there was anything left over, the super said he’d send the wages on, but of course they both knew he never would.

Ellie sat in the office with her hand wrapped in gauze. The bohunk had given her morphine, which made her feel warm, sleepy, and sick to her stomach. Once she started to throw up in the trashcan and the bookkeeper told her to wait outside on the dock. Clyde helped Ellie up and they walked slowly to the airplane dock.

“This is a tough break for Nels and me,” Clyde said. “We were just beginning to be able to stand having you around.”

Clyde supported her by her good arm as they walked to the
dock. Ellie hobbled down the ramp and smiled weakly up at Clyde. “Am I going to fly in the Vega?” she asked.

“I believe you are,” Clyde said softly. “Listen, tell them to take you up to Ketchikan. Give ’em my name at the border. It’s clean. ’Course it’s not my real name but it’s clean all the same. Tell them you’re my daughter. Use my last name. You know what I’m saying.”

“Thanks, Clyde.” Ellie eased herself down onto a dock bench and leaned against the rail. “I’m not on the run,” she said.

“Like fun, you ain’t,” Clyde said. “Just give ’em my name. Then get yourself down to Creek Street and ask for Yvette. She’ll take care of you.”

“I thank you for that, Clyde,” Ellie said as she wobbled back and forth on the bench.

“Then you get yourself up to Juneau. The Party’s looking for you, I bet.”

Ellie looked down at the bundle of gauze around her hand. The blood was beginning to seep through the outer layers.

“You Red son of a bitch,” she said, and her voice sounded thick with shock. Then she leaned over the rail and wretched.

Slip came running down the dock.

“You won’t believe it,” Ellie said as he came near her. “I get to fly on the airplane.”

“Lucky break,” Slip said. Then he looked over at the blood seeping through the gauze. “I better come with you,” he said without thinking.

“You stay with Annabelle and the dory. I can’t take care of her. I’ll get a setup in Ketchikan, and I’ll send word.”

“I suppose so,” was all Slip said by way of an argument.

Soon the buzz of the Lockheed Vega wheedled its way above the sound of the wind in the trees. Then the big red plane passed overhead, tipping its wings in the direction of the dock. As it did, Annabelle came running down the ramp. She was holding something in her hands.

“I got your fingers for you, Ellie” she said. Her glasses were fixed well up on her nose and her expression was stern. “Maybe you should take them along to the hospital?”

“That’s nice of you, honey,” Ellie said, and her voice was sadder than the girl had ever remembered. “I’ll take ’em with me. Can use them for something, I guess.”

“Yes. I didn’t want to leave them on the floor,” Annabelle said, her voice quavering with both exhiaration and fear. The plane came in low over the waterfall and put down on the bay. Green water hissed and turned white around the big aluminum floats.

“That’s right, young lady. Those fingers would have just sat there waiting for the next cleanup man.” Clyde patted Ellie on the shoulder and walked up the ramp toward his own life in the machine shop.

“You go on up to Juneau. They got some work for you up there,” Clyde yelled over his shoulder.

The plane came in close to the dock and cut the engine. Willie jumped out the door behind the cockpit and stepped down onto a float. He unhooked a long paddle from a sleeve on the float and took a few strokes with it to help the plane reach the dock.

“So, we going north or south?” he called out.

“North,” Ellie said to him.

“That’s fine with me. I won’t even charge you for the ride, Blondie.”

“Every cloud has its silver fucking lining,” Ellie said just under her breath, and she threw her severed fingers into the water so the girl couldn’t see.

Ellie turned to Annabelle. “It’ll be a week or so, I bet. You stay here with Slip and Buddy and I’ll either send for you or come get you myself. Okay?”

“Okay,” Annabelle said, then added quickly, “a week.”

“A week, sweetie. No more.”

Slip helped Ellie up into the plane.

“Don’t be puking in the plane. Okay, beautiful? Use the paper
bag I got here,” Willie said, and he started to strap her into one of the passenger seats. But Ellie pushed her way up from the seat and climbed up into the copilot’s seat, leaving a faint spatter of blood on the floor.

“All right then,” Willie said, and he tilted his cap back and followed her to the cockpit.

The prop spun and the engine clattered. The wind from the plane pushed Annabelle’s braids back over her shoulders. She held the side of her head to hold on to her glasses. The plane moved out into the bay, the wings tipping slightly back and forth as it floated over the small waves rolling in from the inlet. Then the engine blared so that it rang off the side of the mountains, and the floatplane skidded over the water and lifted into the air. It banked toward the inlet, then rose above the level of the ridgeline and disappeared to the north.

Slip and Annabelle stood there looking after the Vega. The storm of the plane leaving was replaced by the everyday shoosh of the waterfall and clatter of the plant.

“Well, I got to get back to work. You going to be okay until dinner?” Slip asked without looking directly at the little girl.

“I’ll be fine,” she said, and she walked slowly up the ramp, passing the superintendent coming down.

He looked in the direction of where the plane had disappeared and asked, “She get out of here okay?”

“Yes,” Slip said. He took his work gloves out of his back pocket, slapped them against the side of his leg, and made a motion to walk up the ramp and to work.

The superintendent kept looking in the direction where the plane had disappeared. “We lost half a day’s work in the shop because of this.”

“She got hurt pretty bad.” Slip slapped his gloves against his legs again.

“Then there’s all the whispering and gossip that goes on when an accident like this happens. It slows everything down.”

“I suppose so,” Slip said. Now he was staring down at his feet. He was half-expecting what the superintendent was going to say next.

“You can draw your wages. I’ll be expecting you and the girl to be out of here by tomorrow night.” The superintendent started to walk away without waiting for a reply.

“Now, hold on,” Slip called out to the man’s back. “Why in blazes are you firing me? I didn’t have a thing to do with that accident.”

“I knew you were a couple of Reds when I laid eyes on you. No woman like that works in a machine shop unless she’s up to something. Well, you can leave together. Draw your wages and I’ll have somebody help you put your boat back in the water. You can get some grub for the little girl, but I want you out of camp.”

“I ain’t no Red, mister,” Slip called to the man’s back as he walked away. “I’m just trying to get by.”

“Get by somewhere else,” the superintendent called out over his shoulder, then disappeared into his office.

SIXTEEN
 

When the
Admiral Rodman
came toward the dock in Craig, George Hanson was standing on the deck drinking a cup of coffee. Craig was a small fishing village on the outside coast of Prince of Wales Island. The ship had made a stop the night before at a large cannery and would put in at Craig to deliver cargo and pick up a few passengers. This was an unusual route for the steamship line, but there was a delivery of livestock for Sitka in the hold, and the captain had decided to come up the outside coast and then go to Ketchikan on the return trip down the inside.

George had spent the morning watching birds. He had never watched birds before in his life but this particular morning he had watched birds and finished reading a novel. He even talked with a young couple on their way to Alaska for the first time about the healthful benefits of rain for the skin. None of these things really held any interest for him but somehow on the ship they were pleasurable diversions.

George watched the small boats paralleling the
Rodman
’s course toward Craig and he waved from the deck. They had crossed Dixon Entrance the day before and he had been up to walk the deck in the easy swells that rolled in from the Pacific
Ocean. He wore light cotton pants and a pair of old tennis shoes he had last used when he and Benny had gone surf casting on the coast at La Push. When he put the shoes on he remembered the day with happiness and he even rolled the cuffs of his pants up to walk on deck.