Klee Wyck (11 page)

“Wants a few minutes to midnight—then I shall put you off at the scows.”

“The scows?”

“Yep, scows tied up in Cumshewa Inlet for the fish boats to dump their catches in.”

“What shall I do there?”

“When the scows are full, ‘packers’ come and tow them to the canneries.”

“And I must sit among the fish and wait for a packer?”

“That’s the idea.”

“How long before one will come?”

“Ask the fish.”

“I suppose the Indians will be there too?”

“No, we tow them on farther, their engine’s broke.”

Solitary, uncounted hours in one of those hideous square-snouted pits of fish smell! Already I could feel the cold brutes slithering around me for aeons and aeons of time before the tow ropes went taut, and we set out for the cannery. There, men with spiked poles would swarm into the scow, hook each fish under the gills. The creatures would hurtle through the air like silver streaks, landing into the cannery chutes with slithery thumps, and pass on to the ripping knives.… The Captain’s voice roused me from loathsome thoughts.

“Here we are!”

He looked at me—scratched his head—frowned. “We’re here,” he repeated, “and now what the dickens—? There is a small cabin on the house scow—that’s the one anchored here permanently—but the two men who live on it will have been completely out these many hours. Doubt if sirens, blows, nor nothin’ could rouse ’em. Well, see what I can do.…”

He disappeared as the engine bell rang. The Indian girl, without good-bye, went to join her uncle.

Captain returned jubilant.

“There is a Jap fish boat tied to the scows. Her Captain will go below with his men and let you have his berth till four a.m.; you’ll have to clear out then—that’s lookin’ far into the future tho’. Come on.”

I followed his bobbing lantern along a succession of narrow planks mounted on trestles, giddy, vague as walking a tight rope across night. We passed three cavernous squares of black. Fish smell darted at us from their depths. When the planks ended the Captain said, “Jump!” I obeyed wildly, landing on a floored pit filled with the most terrifying growls.

“Snores,” said the Captain. “… House scow.”

We tumbled over strange objects, the door knob of the cabin looked like a pupil-less eye as the lantern light caught its dead stare.

We scrambled up the far side of the scow pit and so on to the Jap boat; three steps higher and we were in the wheel house. There was a short narrow bench behind the wheel—this was to be my bed. On it was my roll of damp blankets, my sketch sack, and Ginger Pop’s box with a mad-for-joy Ginger inside it, who transformed me immediately back from a bale of goods to his own special divinity.

The new day beat itself into my consciousness under the knuckles of the Japanese captain. I thanked my host for the uncomfortable night which, but for his kindness, would have been far worse, and biddably leapt from the boat to the scow. It seemed that now I had no more voice in the disposal of my own person than a salmon. I was goods— I made no arrangements, possessed neither ticket, pass, nor postage stamp—a pick-up that somebody asked someone else to dump somewhere.

At the sound of my landing in the scow bottom, the door of the cabin opened, and yellow lamplight trickled over a miscellany of objects on the deck. Two men peered from the doorway; someone had warned them I was coming. Their beds were made, the cabin was tidied, and there were hot biscuits and coffee on the table.

“Good morning, I am afraid I am a nuisance.… I’m sorry.”

“Not at all, not at all, quite a—quite er—” he gave up before he came to what I was and said, “Breakfast’s ready … crockery scant … but plenty grub, plenty grub; … cute nipper,” pointing to Ginger Pop. “Name?”

“Ginger Pop.”

“Ha! Ha!” He had a big round laugh. “Some name, some pup, eh?”

The little room was of rough lumber. It contained two of each bare necessity—crockery, chairs, beds, two men, a stove, a table.

“Us’ll have first go,” said the wider, the more conversational of the two. He waved me into one of the chairs and took the other.

“This here,” thumbing back at the dour man by the stove, “is Jones; he’s cook, I’m Smith.”

I told them who I was but they already knew all about us. News travels quickly over the sea top. Once submerged and it is locked in secrecy. The hot food tasted splendid. At last we yielded the crockery to Jones.

“Now,” said Smith, “you’ve et well; how’d you like a sleep?”

“I should like to sleep very much indeed,” I replied, and without more ado, hat, gum boots and all, climbed up on to Smith’s bed. Ginger Pop threw himself across my chest with his nose tucked under my chin. I pulled my hat far over my face. The dog instantly began to snore. Smith thought it was I. “Pore soul’s dead beat,” he whispered to Jones, and was answered by a “serves-’er-right” grunt.

It was nearly noon when I awoke. I could not place myself underneath the hat. The cabin was bedlam. Jones stretched upon his bed was snoring, Smith on the floor with my sketch sack for a pillow “duetted,” Ginger Pop under my chin was doing it too. The
walls took the snores and compounded them into a hodge-podge chorus and bounced it from wall to wall.

Slipping off the bed and stepping gingerly over Smith I went out of the cabin into the fullness of a July noon, spread munificently over the Cumshewa Inlet. The near shores were packed with trees, trees soaked in sunshine. For all their crowding, there was room between every tree, every leaf, for limitless mystery. On many of their tops sat a bald-headed eagle, fish glutted, his white cap startling against the deep green of the fir tees. No cloud, no sound, save only the deep thunderous snores coming from the cabin. The sleeping men were far, far away, no more here than the trouble of last night’s storm was upon the face of the Inlet.

The door of the cabin creaked. Smith’s blinky eye peeped out to see if he had dreamed us. When he saw Ginger and me he beamed, hoped we were rested, hoped we were hungry, hoped Jones’ dinner would be ready soon; then the door banged, shutting himself and his hopes into the cabin. He was out again soon, carrying a small tin basin, a grey towel, and a lump of soap. Placing the things on a barrel-end he was just about to dip when the long neck of Jones twisted round Smith’s body and plunged first with loud splutters. Still dripping he rushed back among the smells of his meat and dumplings. Smith refilled the basin and washed himself with amazing thoroughness considering his equipment, engaging me in conversation all the while. After he had hurled the last remaining sud into the sea he filled the basin yet again, solemnly handed me the soap and, polishing his face as if it had been a brass knob, shut Jones and himself up and left me to it.

We dined in the order we had breakfasted.

“Mr. Smith,” I said, “how am I going to get out of here?”

“That is,” said Smith with an airy wave of his knife, “in the hands of the fish.”

“They haven’t any,” I replied a little sulkily. The restriction of four walls and two teacups was beginning to tell and nobody seemed to be doing anything about releasing me.

“Pardon, Miss, I were speakin’ figurative. Meanin’ that if them fish critters is reasonable there’ll be boats; after boats there’ll be packers.

“Easy yourself now,” he coaxed, “’Ave another dumpling?”

Ginger and I scrambled over the various scows getting what peeps of the Inlet we could. It was very beautiful.

By and by we saw the scrawny form of Jones hugging the cabin close while he eased his way with clinging feet past the scow house to the far end. Here he leaned from the overhang and like a magician, produced a little boat from nowhere.

He saw us watching and had a happy thought. He could relieve the congestion in the scow house. He actually grinned—“Going to the spring. You and the dog care for a spell ashore?” He helped Ginger across the ledge and the awkward drop into the boat, but left me to do the best I could. I was thicker than Jones and the rim of boat beyond the cabin was very meagre.

The narrow beach was covered with sea drift. Silence and heat lay heavy upon it. Few breezes found their way up the Inlet. The dense shore growth was impossible to break into. Jones filled his pails at the spring and returned to the scow, leaving us stranded on the shore. When the shadows were long he returned for us. As we were eating supper, night fell.

We sat around the coal-oil lamp which stood upon the table, telling stories. At the back of each mind was a wonder as to whose lot would be cast on the floor if no packer came before night. Little fish boats began to come. We went out to watch them toss their catch hastily into the scows and rush back like retrieving pups to fetch more.

There was a great bright moon now. The fish looked alive, shooting through the air. In the scows they slithered over one another, skidding, switchbacking across the silver mound till each found a resting-place only to be bounced out by some weightier fellow.

The busy little boats broke the calm and brought a tang of freshness from the outside to remind the Inlet that she too was part of the great salt sea.

So absorbed was I in the fish that I forgot the packer till I heard the enthusiastic ring in Jones’ voice as he cried, “Packer!” He ran to his cupboard and found a bone for Ginger while Smith parleyed with the packer’s Japanese captain. Yes, he was going my way. He would take me.

Smith led me along the narrow plank walk and gave me into the Captain’s care. Besides myself there was another passenger, a bad-tempered Englishman with a cold in his head. As there was nowhere else, we were obliged to sit side by side on the red plush cushion behind the Captain and his wheel. All were silent as we slipped through the flat shiny water bordered on either side by mountainous fir-treed shores. The tree tops looked like interminable picket fences silhouetted against the sky, with water shadows as sharp and precise as themselves.

My fellow passenger coughed, hawked, sneezed and sniffed. Often he leaned forward and whispered into the Captain’s ear. Then the Captain would turn and say to me, “You wish to sleep now? My man will show you.” I knew it was “Sniffer” wanting the entire couch and I clung to the red plush like a limpet. By and by however, we came to open water and began to toss, and then I was glad to be led away by the most curious little creature. Doubtless he had a middle because there was a shrivelled little voice pickled away somewhere in his vitals, but his sou’wester came so low and his sea-boots so high, the rest of him seemed negligible.

This kind little person navigated me successfully over the deck gear, holding a lantern and giving little inarticulate clucks continuously, but my heart struck bottom when he slid back a small hatch and sank into the pit by jerks till he was all gone but the crown of his sou’wester.

“Come you please, lady,” piped the queer little voice. There was barely room for our four feet on the floor between the two pair of short narrow bunks which tapered to a point in the stern of the boat. To get into a berth you must first horizontal yourself then tip and roll. “Sou’wester-Boots” steadied me and held aside fishermen’s gear while I tipped, rolled, and scraped my nose on the underneath of the top bunk.

“I do wish you good sleep, lady.”

My escort and the light were gone. The blackness was intense and heavy with the smell of fish and tar.

I was under the sea, could feel it rushing by on the other side of the thin boards, kissing, kissing the boat as it passed. Surely at any moment it would gush into my ears. At the back of the narrow berth some live-seeming thing grizzled up my spine, the engine bell rang and it scuttled back again; then the rudder groaned, and I knew what the thing was. Soon the mechanics of the boat seemed to be part of myself. I waited for the sequence— bell, grizzle, groan—bell, grizzle, groan; they had become part of me.

Several times during the night the hatch slid back, a lantern swung into my den and shadow hands too enormous for this tiny place reached for some article.

“I am afraid I am holding up all the sleeping quarters,” I said.

“Please, lady, nobody do sleep when at night we go.”

I floated in and out of consciousness, and dream fish swam into my one ear and out of the other.

At three a.m. the rudder cable stopped playing scales on my vertebrae. The boat still breathed but she did not go. Sou’wester opened my lid and called, “Please, lady, the Cannery.”

I rolled, righted, climbed, followed. He carried my sketch sack and Ginger’s box. We took a few steps and then the pulse of the engine was no longer under our feet. We stood on some grounded thing that had such a tilt it pushed against our walking. We came to the base of an abnormally long perpendicular fish ladder, stretching up, up into shadow so overwhelmingly deep it seemed as if a pit had been inverted over our heads. It was the wharf and Cannery.

A bulky object mounted the ladder, and was swallowed into the gloom. After a second a spot of dim light dangled high above. Breaths cold and deathly came from the inky velvet under the wharf. I could hear mud sucking sluggishly around the base of piles, the click of mussels and barnacles, the hiss and squirt of clams. From far above came a testy voice … “Come on, there.” There were four sneezes, the lantern dipping at each sneeze.

“Quick, go!” said Sou’wester, “Man do be mad.”

I could not … could not mount into that giddy blackness; that weazened little creature, all hat and boots, was such a tower of strength to abandon for a vague black ascent into … nothingness.

“Couldn’t I … couldn’t I crawl under the wharf round to the beach?” I begged.

“It is not possible, go!”

“The dog?”

“He … you see!” Even as he spoke, Ginger’s box swung over my head.

“What’s the matter down there? … Hurry!”

I grasped the cold slimy rung. My feet slithered and scrunched on stranded things. Next rung … the next and next … endless horrible rungs, hissings and smells belching from under the wharf. These things at least were half tangible. Empty nothingness, behind, around; hanging in the void, clinging to slipperiness, was horrible—horrible beyond words! …

Only one more rung, then the great timber that skirted the wharf would have to be climbed over and with no rung above to cling to …