Читать книгу Spawn of the North - Barrett Willoughby - Страница 11

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Sockeye was pondering this question as he climbed aboard the Gas Gulper and departed for the float at Ketchikan.

Now that he stood alone at the wheel, his face under his straight-set little hat was serious. He was worried over the calamity that had befallen Sunny Cove on the eve of the run. And he knew every fishman in the vicinity was watching to see how he'd bring the big cannery out of its predicament. Eagle Turlon, like all powerful men, had his enemies who would be glad to see Sunny Cove fail in its pack. And Sockeye, loyal to his plant with the intense loyalty characteristic of the fishman, was quite ready to lie, beg, or steal if need be, to promote the welfare of the cannery he had served for over ten years.

He nosed his craft through a fleet of seine-boats clustered along the City Float. On the float, and on the dock above it, men were nervously pacing in the sun and standing in groups talking. Expectancy, suspense, showed in their faces, for every one of them, fishermen, cannery hands, packers, and merchants, were players in the fish game, the most costly and uncertain gamble in the North.

Already, before a fin showed, millions had been spent preparing the canneries, the fishtraps, the fleets of seiners, tugs, and salmon carriers for the run. Sunny Cove alone had invested a quarter of a million dollars. Now, all up and down the coast every bit of gear was in readiness; and man, having done all in his power, was waiting on uncertain Nature.

In the old days, at this tense, waiting season of the year the Indians with special festivities had invoked the favor of the Fog Woman, mother of all springtime things, and especially of the salmon. Sockeye had often seen them, shamans and high-caste Thlinget chiefs, magnificent in beads and blankets, standing at the mouths of spawning streams chanting the salmon prayer as the mists rolled in from the sea:

O Fog Woman! Call your North-born children home! Bring us the Supernatural Ones! The Swimmers! O Life-Giver! Let not their coming be bad, For without them we perish!

Today, an army of cannery workers under pay lounged in idleness in every packing plant on the coast of Alaska, awaiting the run and the legal opening of the season. And while they waited they discussed the vital question: Will the salmon come in sufficient numbers to enable us to put up our packs in the short six weeks the Government permits us to fish? Or will this be another disastrous year of fish famine that will plunge the entire coast into debt?

Sockeye withdrew his thoughts from these questions and devoted his attention to easing the Gas Gulper alongside the Golden Hind lying at that part of the float reserved for Turlon craft. As he did so, another larger boat moved in a short distance away.

'Sockeye!' There was a glad note of greeting in the hail.

The foreman looked up to see a dark young man, arm upraised, grinning at him from the deck of the newly arrived boat, Who Cares. 'Holy—Sailor!' he yelled joyously, slapping his hat over one ear. 'Jim Kemerlee!' He made fast his cruiser, leaped to the float, and trotting to the Who Cares, started to scramble aboard. 'It's been a long time since our trails crossed, kid, but there ain't anyone I'd rather see.'

Kemerlee helped him over the side and stood a moment, hands on Sockeye's shoulders, looking down at the sturdy little man. 'Sockeye—you old fishhawk!' he said affectionately. 'It's darned good to lay eyes on you again. How's everything at Sunny Cove?'

'Lousy, my boy! Putrid! For Pete's sake sit down here on this webbing. I've got to talk to you.'

The two settled themselves on a pile of fishnet and the foreman began pouring out his tale of woe. Jim Kemerlee listened, his eyes steady and thoughtful. But at the end he shook his head.

'Count me out, Sockeye. I'm not interested in any superintendent's job this season.'

The foreman burst into another persuasive discourse which met with the same response. Then, with the appearance of accepting the other's refusal, Sockeye said: 'Well, maybe I am asking too much of you, kid. I keep forgetting it's your dad's old cannery. But tell me, what you been doing with yourself—galloping up and down the coast?'

'Oh, I've been getting a new line on timber and fish with a view to carrying out some little plans of my own. And at the same time I'm reporting to the Bureau of Fisheries on the number and condition of the chief spawning streams.'

'How's that?' demanded Sockeye with a suspicious look. 'Are they going to make it harder for us fishmen than it already is?'

'On the contrary, they're trying to protect us. It won't be long, old-timer, before Uncle Sam will have weirs and tallymen posted at the mouths of all Northern rivers. You've heard the plan, of course: they'll not open the season to packers until enough salmon have passed upstream to the spawning grounds to insure the perpetuation of the run.'

'Insure my foot!' roared Sockeye, punching his hat to a pugnacious angle. 'Suffering Ike, kid! If we run up against any more restrictions we won't be able to pack enough salmon to feed a goldern seagull! What with the bloody Fish Commissioner cutting down the number of our traps and closing the rest of them over Sunday, we might just as well go jump in the bay!'

'Come on now, Sockeye! Don't try to put any of that old fish talk on me. I've canned too many salmon myself. Can't you see the industry has reached that stage where some restriction is necessary? The depletion of the run is——'

'Depletion? Talk sense! The run's just as big as it always was. Last summer at Sunny Cove we packed more salmon than ever!'

'Sure you did, you old highbinder!' Jim laughed. 'And how? By fishing sixteen traps against the twelve you had the year before, and the ten you had the year previous to that. And unless Turlon has changed his tactics you did some fine juggling to evade the Sunday closing law that provides for the escapement of salmon to the spawning grounds. And you bought fish from every pirate lifting a trap in your section, didn't you?'

'You're darned tootin' we did!' proclaimed Sockeye with a loud air of virtue. 'Why shouldn't we? We've always done it. We'll keep on doing it. You college fishmen make me sick!' He spat disdainfully over the gunwale. 'You may have the science of economics by the seat of the pants; likewise you may be able to tell the age of a salmon by his scales; but by the Holy Jumped-up, it's us old roughnecks who built up the canning business in Alaska!'

'I'm not disputing that——'

'And our methods can't be so all-fired rotten since this Territory now puts up two thirds of the world's canned salmon. Two thirds, my lad! That's the record. And it's the result of the time-tested methods of men like Eagle Turlon and your own dad, Jimmy. Don't forget that—your own dad, God rest his soul!'

Kemerlee nodded. 'You pioneers did build up a wonderful industry, Sockeye. But the credit isn't altogether due to your methods. Remember, you had, seemingly, a limitless run of fish each year and you carried on with no eye to the future. It was a case of every man for himself, let the Devil care for those who came after.'

'Most cert-taint-ly!' agreed Sockeye heartily. 'And how do you young folks think you're going to manage it?'

'If Alaska's going to hang on to that record we're so proud of—no, I'll make it even stronger—if the industry is to survive at all, salmon men have got to work together to preserve the fish that lays the golden egg!'

'Awh-h-h!' began Sockeye, pawing the air in deep disgust. 'You talk like a bloody Government fish bulletin.'

But the younger man went on with an earnestness that commanded silence. 'Look here: Why did the packers come to Alaska in the first place? Because they'd fished out the rivers of the South—the Sacramento, the Humboldt, the Columbia—fished them out by your pioneer methods, Sockeye. They came to Alaska, virgin territory, and for the past forty years they've been playing the fish game in the same way—a glorious, lawless, short-sighted way—every man for himself.'

'But——'

'Hell, don't get the idea that I'm blaming them, Sockeye. Pioneers, in no matter what line, are highly individualized. They have to be. They are the men who strike out alone, and necessarily each one must be for himself. But the pioneer stage is past, Sockeye. If we persist in the old individualistic methods, our fish are doomed. Already Alaskan streams are playing out. They——'

'No such thing!'

'They're playing out,' repeated Kemerlee firmly. 'Now it's up to us fishmen to do something to preserve the run. We can do it by uniting to observe the fish laws. But how many coöperate? Witness Eagle Turlon—gone off to Siberia to hunt virgin streams. Do such men have the interest of the country at heart? I should say not! Get the money and to hell with the country is their attitude. But with me, Sockeye—why, I was born here! Alaska's my country, my home. And, by God, I'm for anything that will secure its future—whether it be fish laws, or the cannerymen's agreement against pirates.'

'Pirates!' bawled Sockeye. Then, as if overcome by sudden weariness, he abandoned all argument. 'Oh, damn it, Jimmy, quit fighting with me. Can't you see I'm sunk?' His little hat sat evenly on his big head; his wide shoulders sagged. 'This fish game is just one thing after another. But instead of quitting it cold like I ought, I keep on like a darned fool, just to see what can happen next.'

He poked a cigarette into his mouth and allowed it to hang there unlighted. 'I stuck to your dad, kid, in all his ups and downs until the day he died. But now, when I'm up against it, you don't give a continental whoopee what becomes of me,' he bleated. Bringing his hand down on Kemerlee's knee he looked into the young man's face with eyes he strove to pattern after those of a stricken deer.

Kemerlee burst out laughing. 'I'm on to your sob tricks, old-timer!' He placed an arm across the foreman's shoulders and swayed him affectionately. 'No more palavering, now, about that superintendent's job at Sunny Cove. You see,' he added, 'I've staked out a little strip of land at Green Waters, and during my spare time this summer I'm going to cut logs there for a hunting lodge. I started to run down there this morning but——By the way,' he broke off, 'whom does that boat belong to?' He indicated the little cruiser lying alongside the Gas Gulper: the Golden Hind, gay as a holiday in its cream paint with orange-and-black trim.

'That? Why, Eagle Turlon's girl owns it. You must have seen her tearing around in it summers when she's home.'

'I haven't been in this neck of the woods for ten years—at least not during the summers. Seems odd I never met Turlon's youngsters when we were growing up.'

'Eagle always parked his girl in schools down in California, while your paw thought there was no place like the State of Washington for you boys. And Turlon didn't build in Ketchikan until after your paw died. Dian spends summers up here—when the Old Man'll let her.'

'But she's not here now, of course?' Kemerlee's voice was very casual.

'Holy Sailor! I forgot! The little devil certainly is here! Got in last night. Heaven only knows what she'll be up to now that Eagle isn't in the country to hold her down.'

Sockeye came to his feet with a groan of recollection and stood a moment lost in thought. Then he turned impulsively to his companion, who had also risen and was apparently studying the lines of the Golden Hind.

'Jimmy ...' He hooked a hand through the younger man's arm. His voice grew tender. 'Remember how happy we all were when your dad built Sunny Cove on the site of that saltery he'd been holding for years? Are you hard-hearted enough to let the old plant go hay-wire this summer for want of a superintendent? You with no job at all on your hands?'

'What's the matter with your stepping into the superintendent's shoes yourself, Sockeye? You can hire another foreman. And it would be a big chance for you.'

'No, Jimmy. No. I'm not big enough to handle Sunny Cove. I'm an inside man, and you don't seem to realize that I'm not as young as I used to be. Why, I've got—I've got'—Sockeye, who'd never had a sick day in his life, searched his mind rapidly for appropriate diseases—'I've got kidney trouble!' he blurted triumphantly, clapping a hand to the middle of his back. 'And toothache!' He cupped his jaw with the other palm. 'I'm a sick man, Jimmy, and Sunny Cove, the cannery your own dad built, is in danger right now of falling behind in its packing record. Try to realize that, kid. Your dad's old cannery. The biggest, finest, God-damn salmon plant in Southeastern losing its packing record and you standing by letting it happen.... Look here, Jim! Suppose you had a free hand to run the works in your own way, wouldn't you take over Sunny Cove—anyway, until Eagle gets back from Siberia?'

Kemerlee did not answer at once. When he finally withdrew his thoughtful gaze from Dian Turlon's cruiser there was an odd smile on his lean dark face. 'Your eloquence, Sockeye'—his blue eyes took on a look of light mockery—'coupled with your most distressing decrepitude, would wring tears from a doorknob. What a joke it would be on Turlon if——' he broke off, hesitated a moment, then continued. 'Let's talk further about this proposition of yours. Perhaps I might change my mind about that job.'

Half an hour later, Sockeye hitched his shoulders complacently and displayed his beautiful false teeth in a wide grin. 'My boy! You've saved old Sockeye's bacon! It puts new life in me to see a Kemerlee in charge of Sunny Cove again. Now we'll show 'em how to put up a pack that is a pack! Have your plunder ready, son, and we'll chase over to the plant the first thing in the morning.'

'That suits me, Sockeye.'

'And now, ta, ta! I'll sasshay up to the Turlon house to see what Dian intends doing while she's here. Got to keep her away from Sunny Cove, if possible. And—oh, I forgot, Jim. Dian's a nice youngster, but you steer clear of her. In the first place, she's engaged to some rich guy down in California and——'

'Engaged, eh?' Kemerlee's suddenly narrowed eyes moved toward the girl's cruiser as if he expected to see her there.

'Yeh. And, furthermore, she isn't good for you if you want to stay healthy in the fish business. She got Noel Thomas in Dutch a couple of seasons back. Eagle not only fired him, but he fixed him so far as the salmon business is concerned on this coast. So give Dian a wide berth, Jim. She's bad medicine for a chap like you.'