War of the Eagles (8 page)

“Better?”

“Yeah, better. If you're going to risk getting the Japanese mad at you, aim for the moon. Go after Kiyoka Azuma.”

“Kiyoka!” She was almost eighteen, beautiful and engaged to be married. “Are you crazy?” I snorted.

“My father always says he came to this country because you could shoot for the moon. Anything is possible.”

“Anything, Tadpole?”

“Almost anything, but … come to think of it, you'd better forget about Kiyoka. She's mine!” He tapped me across the side of my head, bounded up from where he sat and sprinted down the path, laughing.

Up in Rupert there were plenty of natives as well as whites and Japanese. I always thought people got along okay, although mostly they stayed with their kind. The Japanese pretty much kept to themselves in the fishing villages. Other than me, there weren't usually many whites or natives in Sikima unless they were there on business.

The place where everybody did come together was school. The Japanese and the Indians came flowing in from the forest and the little fishing villages, and the whites came in from the town. Everybody got along and there really wasn't much difference. Except for maybe in marks. The Japanese took their schooling very seriously. They worked harder, studied more, never missed days, even when they were sick, and they usually got the highest marks. Maybe this got a few people a little annoyed, but I figured it was only fair. Those who worked the hardest deserved to do best. Who could argue with that?

The Japanese always worked hard. When the salmon were running, they'd go out on their boats before the sun rose and stay out there until after the sun set. When they weren't fishing, they'd fix their nets, or till their little plots of garden between the rocks, or dig out those rocks to make their gardens bigger, or paint their houses. That was one of the biggest differences between my vil–lage and Sikima. Those Japanese didn't believe in letting any wood go free without a regular coat of paint.

My mother's people are more relaxed about life. I couldn't even picture any of them digging out a rock. They've learned to live around and with the rocks. It's not that they're lazy. They just don't spend time doing things like that. It's funny, my father seems stuck in the middle. He thinks the Japanese work too hard and the Tsimshian don't work hard enough.

What sticks in my head though aren't the differences, but the sameness. I've never met any group of people who aren't stubbornly proud of the way they do things, who don't think they are right and the others wrong.

.6.

“Can you go on a little trip?” my mother asked.

I eyed her without answering. A “little trip” could mean just about anything.

“Down to Rupert. Smitty is going down to pick up supplies. He asked if you could go and give him a hand.

Are you interested?”

“Are you kidding? Sure!”

“He's leaving in ten minutes.”

“Fantastic! I heard Rupert gets pretty exciting on a Saturday night.”

“If you call a bunch of half-drunk men staggering around the streets exciting,” she replied. “Grown-up men, if that isn't a contradiction in terms itself, acting like stupid little boys. You think they'd act so stupid if their wives or girlfriends or mothers were around?”

“You think Dad's acting up where he is?”

“Not your Dad. It's not in his nature to act like that.

Besides, he's an old married man with a grown son.

Most of these soldiers here are hardly old enough to shave.”

“I'm old enough to shave,” I noted, stroking my hand over the few straggly hairs on my chin.

“Almost. But for tonight, anyway, you aren't going to Third Avenue. The truck will meet the supply ship down off the main military pier. Before you go, make sure that eagle is okay. You feed it today?”

“Twice. Changed the water too.”

“Is it doing okay?” she asked.

“All right I think. It's still pretty nervous when peo–ple get too close, but then again nobody is getting too close,” I answered.

“Can't say I blame them. That bird could rip a man open pretty good. I hope you're being careful.”

“I am.”

“Good. Now you better get going. I don't want you to keep Smitty waiting.”

I took off my apron, balled it up, tossed it on the counter and raced for the door.

“No kiss for your mother?”

“No time for kisses,” I yelled back over my shoulder.

I could feel a wave of excitement across the base. People were talking loud, laughing, hustling around. Soldiers, hair slicked down, big smiles on their faces, spilled out of the barracks and anxiously waited for their buddies to assemble. There was a lot of good-natured kidding, shoving and playful conversation.

For the first time, I wasn't just watching, but felt part of it all. Maybe I wasn't going to be doing the same things, but at least I was going to the same place.

When I got to the motor pool, Smitty was already in the cab of the truck, the engine going. I pulled myself up on the step, opened the door and swung into the passenger seat. We were taking one of the big double axle trucks called a butter box.

“Good to see you, Jed,” Smitty greeted me. “I ap–preciate your help,” he said, taking a big bite from a candy bar.

Smitty put the truck into gear and it ground and jerked into motion. We bounced out of the big barn housing the vehicles and he cranked the wheel sharply to the right to turn us towards town. Coming up to the front gate, he braked the vehicle and I braced myself against the dashboard as he brought it to a complete stop. Two soldiers blocked our path.

“Hi, Smitty. Can you give us a lift?” one of them asked.

“Sure, climb on board.”

They both circled around the front of the vehicle.

The hood of the truck was so massive they both disap–peared from sight as they rounded the front. They climbed in.

“Hi, Jed,” one offered. His name was Rylance. I'd said a few words to him when we met around the camp. He was always friendly and Smitty said he was okay.

“Are you going into town to do a little hunting too?” the other one chuckled. His name was Murdock. He was a nasty piece of work, always talking too loud and bullying people. I always made a point of avoiding him, although he was always asking me to bring him some–thing or other when he was in the mess hall.

“Hunting? In town?” I asked puzzled.

“Well, that's what we call it,” Murdock replied.

Both soldiers were in their dress uniforms. They had “MP” patches on their helmets and carried nightsticks.

The “MP” stood for Military Police and their job was to assist the local police with problems that developed with any of the soldiers.

“Maybe instead of helping Smitty tonight, we could convince you to bring along your gun and help us,” suggested Murdock.

He made me nervous. I'd heard he had a bad temper and enjoyed busting a few heads, just for fun. That at–titude, combined with his size, made him scary.

“If you think grizzlies and cougars are dangerous and unpredictable, you haven't seen anything until you see the drunks in town battling with each other,” continued Rylance.

“Sorry, guys, he's with me tonight,” Smitty said. “Be–sides, we can't have anything happen to Jed here. Between his hunting and his mother's cooking, he's the most valuable person in the camp.”

Soon we turned off the unpaved, uneven road lead–ing to the camp and onto the county road leading into town. Smitty geared up higher and the engine roared, this time much deeper, as we picked up speed. Look–ing to the side I saw we took up almost all the room and I was grateful there wasn't any other traffic on the narrow road.

“Where do you want to be let off?” Smitty asked the two MPs.

“Downtown, Third Avenue, right in front of the Royal Hotel,” Rylance answered. “If that isn't too far out of your way.”

“No problem. I figured that's where you'd want to be left off. It gets to be like the wild west there.”

“Naw,” muttered Murdock, “worse than that. I just hope everybody can hang on to their body parts tonight.”

“Body parts?” I asked.

“Yeah. Last Saturday night one guy got his nose half cut off in a knife fight.”

“Not to mention that other guy who had his ear bit–ten off,” Rylance added. “Blood everywhere.”

“Come on,” I said, “quit kidding.”

“He's not kidding, Jed,” Smitty said. “I was on leave last Saturday night. There was one big brawl. Couple of those American sailors got fighting with a couple of natives. Fight ended when one of the Tsimshians ended up with a mouthful of American ear.”

“That's disgusting.”

“Sure was, kid. Blood everywhere. I think that injun would've scalped him next if we hadn't jumped in,”

Murdock chuckled.

“Indians don't scalp people,” I said.

“No? Don't you ever go to the movies, kid?” Murdock continued. “Don't you know nothing about injuns?”

“Just what I'm told,” I replied through clenched teeth.

“Then you're real lucky to have me set you right,”

Murdock thundered. “After breaking up fights every Saturday night, I'm an expert on injuns. An expert.

Anyway, it serves that guy right. Any fool who would turn his back on a liquored injun deserves to lose his ear.”

Smitty and Rylance were staring straight ahead, out the window. Murdock wasn't stupid. He knew my mother was native. He was trying to be an ignorant goof. Actually I didn't think he had to try very hard to be a big goof.

It was probably a natural talent.

Turning on to Third Avenue, I could sense things would be getting busy before the night was out. Al–though it was only seven-thirty, there were already lots of soldiers, sailors, merchant marine and a smattering of locals, wandering the streets. Judging from the con–versations floating in through the window of the truck, a few had already been drinking.

Smitty eased the big truck over to the side of the street, right in front of the hotel. The brakes squealed as it slowed down. Even before we'd come to a complete stop, Murdock flung open the door, climbed out onto the step and leapt to the ground.

“Have no fear, I am here!” he bellowed to a group of other MPs and a couple of RCMP officers who were stand–ing there. I guess he wanted to make a big entrance.

Rylance turned to me and shrugged. “Don't waste any time on anything he says, Jed. He's just that way.”

I nodded.

“Thanks for the ride, guys,” he said and climbed down from the truck.

Smitty put the truck back into motion and we con–tinued down the main street.

“He's right, Jed. Most people are pretty good about things. Others are just jerks. It wouldn't matter if it was

Indians or Germans or women or Martians. People like Murdock got to have somebody to hate. It makes it easier to bust their heads if he don't like them, and that's probably what he really likes, busting heads.”

“How come jerks like him can always get away with it?”

“Not always, it just seems like always,” Smitty an–swered. “Matter of fact I was thinking about beating the crap out of him myself.

I looked at Smitty in amazement.

“Course then I remembered he's big enough and mean enough to break me into little bite-sized pieces,” he chuckled. “You got to remember there are other ways of getting back at people like him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, let's say the next time he orders you around or demands something different from the kitchen, you know, like a hotter cup of coffee. You just take that cup, and when there ain't anybody looking, you just spit in it.”

“Smitty!”

“Or put some dirt in it, or maybe a little pinch of pepper, or some soap,” he continued.

“I can't do that! It wouldn't be right!”

“Sure it would be. Nothing wrong about giving a jerk like Murdock exactly what he deserves. Next time he bellows, ‘Hey, boy, get me another coffee!' you just say, ‘Yes, sir, right away, sir,' and then you take it into the kitchen and throw in a little of that stuff we put in the latrines. It would feel right. He's just like them toilets … full of crap.”

We both broke into laughter.

“But what if I get caught?”

“Don't get caught,” he answered. The famous words of my Naani. “You know what the worst thing about Murdock is? He says he's mad about all them ‘drunken injuns' but he's at least partly responsible for them being that way. Murdock is one of the biggest bootleggers around. He smuggles in booze and then he gets some–one to sell it to the natives. He makes sure that nobody, none of the other MPs or police, bothers his guy while he's making all that cash selling the booze.”

“How can he get away with it?”

“Easy,” he shrugged. “Most people don't know, most of those who know, don't care, and those who know and care are too scared to do anything.”

“Does Major Brown know?”

“No way. If the major knew, then old Murdock would be spending his time digging new latrines.”

“Ever thought of telling?” I asked.

“Nope. Nothing worse than a snitch. Murdock will get what's coming to him, sooner or later, with or with–out me.”

Coming up to the gatehouse of the dry dock, Smitty slowed down and again we came to a halt. A guard car–rying a rifle on his shoulder came walking smartly out to meet the truck.

“Orders,” the guard said curtly.

Smitty reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out some papers and handed them to the guard. He examined them and handed them back.

“Go straight down, turn right onto pier three. Your ship is docked at the end.”

“Thanks,” Smitty replied. He put the truck in gear one more time.

We rolled up to the ship, a supply vessel called the
Gypsy Rose
. It was a private boat under contract to the Canadian Navy to do non-military work. Almost all the ships that belonged to the Navy had been sent to guard convoys traveling to England. The few that remained were far too valuable to be used to deliver groceries.