Chapter 1: Clean Slate

When he got back to the room, it took thirty-five minutes to shower, change and throw everything he had into his duffel. He kept glancing out the window as he packed. The room was on a week-to-week lease, cash in advance. The manager would do no more than shrug when she found him gone. He moved the refrigerator and retrieved his cash from behind the baseboard.
It was dusk when he pulled onto I-5, merging the old pickup into the long lines of headlights heading north on the ebb of rush hour. As he drove, he kept watch on his rearview mirror. North of Sylmar, the traffic began to thin and he turned on the radio. The Doors were on, Riders on the Storm. It had come out on their L.A. Woman album a couple of years before. The afterglow of the sunset gave the smog an evil gray-orange cast, and in the east, in the gathering darkness over the San Gabriels, heat lightning flickered. He’d always liked the song, but it sounded different now.
Northward momentum and the need to be far away carried Pete through the night. He was thinking about one of Dale’s countless stories. Those were the glory days of the king crab fishery in the Bering Sea. Dale had talked about how much money a guy he knew made commercial fishing up there. Dale’s stories were always about big money and easy scores. Pete was thinking the Bering Sea was a long way from Los Angeles.
The brakes gave out on a steep hill on Pine Street in Seattle. He limped to the Alaska ferry terminal and boarded the Columbia using first gear and the emergency brake to ease himself down the ramp. The Columbia carried him up the coast of British Columbia and through Southeast Alaska, a little over a thousand miles north to Juneau. Pete planned on fixing the brakes in Juneau, catching another ferry north to Haines, and driving to Anchorage. In Juneau, he found that to drive to Anchorage required crossing the U.S. - Canadian border twice with attendant checks of I.D. at the Customs stations. He sold the truck and purchased an airline ticket from Juneau to Anchorage.

The Alaska Airlines jet to Anchorage was packed with tourists. It was his first time on a plane since the return flight to the States. As cramped as he was in a window seat in the back of the plane, it was far more comfortable than the military transport he had flown back from Da Nang. When his eyes closed, the sound and feel of the jet brought memories rushing back, almost overwhelming him. When he opened his eyes to the tightly packed cabin of silver hair and bright pastels, expectant chatter and pretty stewardesses, he felt an almost lurching disorientation.
From Anchorage he was on Reeve Aleutian Airways to Dutch Harbor, but the flights were delayed for a day and a half waiting for weather in the Aleutians. The chain, as he heard the others waiting with him call the string of islands, stretched from the tip of the Alaska Peninsula, almost all the way to the Kamchatka Peninsula of Siberia and formed the boundary between the North Pacific and the Bering Sea.
Most of the crowd waiting for this plane were young fishermen, lots of long hair and beards, jeans, Carhartts and wool shirts, Uniroyal rubber boots with the tops rolled down or expensive cowboy boots. A few government employees, also in jeans but neater and carrying briefcases. The big processing plants in Dutch Harbor were owned by the Japanese, and several Japanese businessmen in suits, wary of the boisterous fishermen, stepped politely over those on the floor sleeping off their celebrations. Pete found a corner and tried to blend into the background.
A young man seated near Pete kept pestering the gate agents and announcing to the group at large, "Don't leave, fly Reeve!" It was funny the first time or two you heard it, but you could tell that had been a long time ago for the young women at the desk.
To give the ticket agents a break and stop him from constantly drawing attention to their vicinity, Pete started asking the guy a few questions. He learned that the young man's name was Bob; he was from Bellingham and had been crewing on a crab boat for two years, which rendered him an expert. Bob was eager to share his wisdom about crab fishing in the Bering Sea, about "Dutch" as he called it and Unalaska, the Native village of Aleuts that lived side-by-side with the booming fishing port.
Bob talked of the weather, worst in the world he claimed, 60 to 90 mile per hour winds blowing straight down from the Arctic, gusts to 130, waves big enough to break over the bridges of 120-foot boats. He told of days without sleep when you were on the crab, or times when the temperature plunged and freezing spray formed ice on the superstructure, the desperate race to pound it off with hammers and baseball bats to keep the boat from growing top-heavy and capsizing. He also talked of the money to be made, crew shares of seven percent, more money per trip than most folks made in a year, and of the good times between the seasons.
Bob told Pete how hard it was to get a job on a crab boat and the names of some good boats and skippers and a few to avoid. He told him he would be lucky to find anywhere to stay in Dutch and that if he didn't have a sleeping bag he was in trouble. Pete was glad he had stopped at the R.E.I. store in Seattle and found a bag big enough to fit him.
A fisherman next to them, who Pete had thought was asleep, pushed his ball cap back from over his eyes and stretched. "Our Bobby here is generally full of shit, but he seems to be mainly telling you the truth. Unusual for him. Except that Bobby hasn't been up long enough to see any really bad weather. It can be a lot worse than that."
They gave him advice on finding a spot on a crab boat, "Walk the harbor, ask at every boat you pass that looks like it can stay afloat. Everyday go back and ask them all again. Things change, guys get hurt, sick, go crazy, or just can't take it anymore and quit. The Elbow Room at night. When the boats are in port, that's where the crews are. Listen to the talk. Which skippers are good, which are bad, who's just lost a crewman. Ninety-five percent of what you hear will be bullshit, but you'll still learn. If you see guys get hurt in a fight, get cut, or get so drunk or stoned there’s no way they can work the next day, find out what boat they're on and show up the next morning and ask if they have a spot. If you're in the Elbow Room and somebody offers you a job while they're drunk, show up the next morning, but don't count on them remembering or still thinking it is a good idea even if they do."
The other fisherman gave Pete an appraising look and offered a final word of advice before pulling his ball cap back down over his eyes. "Your size you're not likely to fit into the survival suits on most of the boats. Lots of them are in crappy condition anyway. If you can afford it and get on a boat, first thing go to Alaska Ship Supply in Dutch and buy yourself a suit you can get into in a hurry if you need to. No need to do a lot of talking about it, but do it and have it."

They came down to Dutch through the clouds, buffeted by the winds, the plane giving little lurches and drops. The stewardesses, balancing up and down the aisle, collected the last of the drinks just before the tires skidded onto the runway. Pete's first impression of the Aleutians, as soon as he stepped out of the plane and down the steps on to the tarmac, was the wind. The wind here was a constant living presence; it forced you to lean against it, to hold onto your cap or anything loose. When you looked around the island it was obvious that the wind here was king. It sculpted the hills, refused to let trees grow, and kept the buildings squashed low into the land. Even when he walked inside what was rather grandly called the terminal, the wind provided an unceasing low background moan.
After several days, he found a tiny room with a shared bath at an exorbitant price. He realized later how lucky he had been to find that. He liked walking the harbor, but hated asking anybody for anything. Day after day, he forced himself to walk along the rows of boats and ask every boat if they had any jobs open. He wasn't good at asking and knew it, but found in his walks that he would run onto crews wrestling with crab pots, or hawsers, or engine parts, or any of the hundreds of other heavy things that had to go onto or come off of the boats. If it looked like they could use a hand and he wasn't intruding, he would stop and without saying anything, help. He didn't get a job this way, but he developed a number of acquaintances who would give him a wave on the docks or drink a beer with him in the Elbow Room at night and offer him tips on job possibilities.
The Elbow Room, when the fleet was in, was a solid pack of humanity, fifty men for every woman, half a dozen deep at the bar, every table packed, fishermen pissing in the sinks in the restroom because the line at the trough was too long. A dense fog of smoke hung throughout the bar and the roar from everyone shouting to be heard, the drum of excitement of a boomtown overwhelmed even the sound of the wind outside.

Pete, who hated crowds, skipped many nights to stay in his room and read, but sometimes he found solace in the anonymity of the crush and roar. This was a crowd where he didn't stick out. He was in a corner one night, nursing a beer, when a guy he’d met fought through the crowd. "Hey, Pete, see that stocky blond guy over there, the one with the tequila shots? That’s Mike Reredon, skipper of the Suzy Q. She's a good boat, just got in from Bellingham. I heard one of their deckhands broke his arm when they were coming across the gulf in heavy weather. Might be a chance."
Pete thanked him and after a minute of mental bracing pushed his way through the crowd. "Howdy. I'm Pete McLaughlin. I heard you might have an opening on your boat?"
The crew wedged around the table all turned to look. The skipper studied him through bloodshot blue eyes. "My experience, you big guys are mainly lazy shits who eat more than you're worth and then spend most of the time hanging over the rail puking it back up. I got no time for lazy shits and I hate people who puke on my boat. What boat you work on last?"
"I haven't been on a boat yet, but I work hard and I don't get seasick."
"Everybody gets seasick, and what the fuck would I want with a greenhorn? Can you even tie a carrick bend?"
"Yeah, I can." Pete inwardly thanked the guy on the dock who had showed him how. Pete had spent a number of evenings in his room with a length of rope, practicing it and other knots he’d been told were essential.
"Ron, give him that half-assed piece of rope you're using for a belt. You're sitting down; your pants aren't going to fall off. Now give it to him."
Pete tied a good carrick bend in the slightly greasy rope in three seconds and handed it back to the skipper. The skipper studied the knot and then Pete. He downed another of the tequila shots sitting in front of him and then grinned slightly. "You might do. You know our boat, the Suzy Q? You get your stuff and go down there. Lars is on the boat. You talk Lars into letting you on the boat and you still want to go fishing, you have a job, one trip only, one quarter normal crew share. Lars won't let you on the boat, you hang around and I'll see what I think about it when I'm sober tomorrow."
Pete thanked him and started shoving his way through the crowd. As he left he heard the drunk with the rope belt say, "Asshole. Wait till he meets ol’ Lars. Ol’ Lars hates everybody."

He stuffed his gear in his duffel bag and headed down to the harbor. It took him a while to find the Suzy Q, a good looking boat about 110 feet, side-tied outside an older, slightly smaller, crab boat. There were no lights inside either boat, and he didn't want to wake the guy, but the skipper had been explicit.
Pete climbed carefully across the deck of the first boat and paused before crossing to the Suzy Q. He called, "Hello, the boat!" but nobody answered and he tried again several times. Pete's eyes were adjusting to the dark, and he could see a little better in the shadows. He decided he should climb on the boat and knock on the cabin door. If that didn't wake this Lars up, at least he would be on the boat and would wait there until the crew staggered back.
As he swung one leg over the bulwark, there was a snarl and a dark shape launched itself out of the shadows. Pete swung his duffel bag in front of him to block the lunge, but the force knocked him backward off the Suzy Q. He rolled backward into a crouch and saw there, still on the boat, the meanest looking dog he’d ever seen. Pete knew dogs, but he couldn't figure out for sure what this one was. Maybe one of those big hounds; Irish wolfhound or Norwegian elkhound, part Airedale, maybe part Chesapeake, all parts big and mean.
The dog was rigid on the other side of the rail, lips drawn back in a snarl, a low growl thrumming from its throat. "Hello the boat! Hey, Lars, you in there? Can you call off your dog? Lars, you there?" The second time he hollered the name Lars, he noticed that the dog, without ever stopping its snarl, cocked its head several degrees.
"Lars? Lars? Is that you, fellow? Is your name Lars? You old Lars who hates everybody? You who I'm supposed to be having my job interview with?” The dog continued to growl but cocked his head several more degrees and looked slightly confused. "Lars, I need this job so I'm going to get on the boat. It’d be a lot easier if you’d let me. We're going to get along fine. I'm not too good with people these days, but I get along with dogs just fine. You know what they did with dogs over there, Lars? They ate them. Don't worry. It wasn't a habit I picked up. You going to let me on now?"
Pete slowly extended a hand toward the dog, but the instant his fingers crossed the rail the dog snapped. Pete jerked back in time and began talking to the dog again. He talked softly and steadily and smoothly and tried telling the dog to sit or to lie down. None of it had any appreciable effect. Several times he tried to offer a hand to be smelled, but each time, the moment it crossed the boat's rail the dog would snap forward.
"Lars, I appreciate you staying on your boat and I realize you could jump over here real easy and try to chew my throat out, but I'm going to get on there with you now. OK, easy boy, here I come. Honest, we're going to be friends."
Pete braced himself and shoved the dog back with his duffel. The dog immediately figured out what he was trying to do and tried to come around the duffel at him, but Pete used the bag as a battering ram, sometimes knocking the dog backwards off its feet. He managed to get both legs swung over the bulwark, but as soon as he advanced on to the deck the dog began to circle him, trying to get past the bag, to chew on his throat. After the twentieth or thirtieth circle, the dog quit circling and settled on a strategy of eating its way through the bag to get to him. The dog was biting into the bag, tearing out big hunks of heavy canvas. Pete didn't mind holes in his underwear, but hoped it wasn't the end with his books or new foul-weather gear.
The dog's teeth hung for a moment in the canvas and Pete grabbed it by the skin and hair at the back of its neck with his right hand. Instantly the dog was trying to twist around to bite his hand, but Pete lifted it clear of the deck and shook it. He managed to get his left hand around the dog's muzzle and wrestled the dog onto the deck and onto its back. He knelt over the dog, knees and elbows on the deck, his weight on the dog's chest and stomach, pinning it, both hands holding its muzzle closed and stretching the dog’s head back so he could put his face in its throat and talk to it.
He was still panting a bit, whispering to the dog when he heard a soft throaty chuckle, and a woman's voice said, "I need to thank you for the most entertaining evening I've ever spent in Dutch. Mike send you down to ask Lars for a job?"
Pete was so startled he almost lost his grip on the dog, and he blushed a deep red. He thanked the darkness and strained his neck up to try and see who was talking to him. "Yeah he did. Uh, excuse me, but where are you, and who are you?"
"Just a minute." Pete could now tell that the voice came from an open port on the boat the Suzy Q was rafted up to. In a moment, a light came on inside that boat, and then a woman in her early thirties, dressed in jeans and an oversized gray sweatshirt came out on her boat's back deck.
"Mike's not a bad skipper, but he's a mean drunk. Sending people down to ask Lars for a job is a favorite trick of his when he's drinking. You get bitten?"
"I don't think so, but I'm not sure I'm ever going to be able to let go."
"You know, when he started chewing though your bag I thought I was going to strangle, not laughing out loud."
"In another life, did you enjoy going to the Coliseum to watch Christians be thrown to the lions?"
"Aw, you were OK. If he got to you, you would have jumped off the boat. Lars doesn't leave the boat."
"Doesn't Mike worry about somebody hurting his dog?"
"Nah. He hates Lars. Besides, you're the first person I've ever seen fool enough to actually try and get on the boat with him. I never thought I would see anybody pick him up though, much less with one hand." She walked over to the edge of her boat rail and the light from the dock lights fell across her face. She gave Pete a very level stare, straight into his eyes. "If you tried to hurt him, I would have stopped you."
There was something about the look that made Pete not doubt her for an instant. "If he doesn't like Lars, why does he have him on the boat? I never heard of dogs on boats anyway."
"Not his dog, not his boat. They both belong to his father-in-law. An old Norwegian, Sig Petersen. Been one of the best captains up here for years and years. The family has three boats. Mike married one of the old man's daughters. The old man trusts Mike to be hell of a good skipper when he's out on the water, but he doesn't trust him not to cat around when he's in port. Insists that Lars goes along on the boat, to 'look after his share' he calls it. Thinks Lars won't let anyone on the boat who the old man hasn't introduced him to. Supposed to keep strange women off the boat."
"Does it work?"
She tilted her chin up a little and gave him another of those level stares. "Not always. When you were trying to tell Lars to sit or lie down?"
"Yeah. You heard that huh?"
"Sure. I was lying there just dozing off when you came down the dock. I've known Mike long enough to figure what was happening. One reason you couldn't get Lars to respond is that he only understands Norwegian."
"You don't happen to know a little Norwegian do you? Something you could say to Lars so I could get off of him?"
"I know a little when I need to. But if you're going to work on Mike's boat, it's probably better you and Lars work it out on your own. If the two of you can avoid any more yelling and growling, I'm going back to bed."
"Wait a minute. You're going to leave me here?"
"Yeah. I heard you tell the dog your name is Pete, is that right?"
"Yeah, it is."
"Pete, my name’s Helen, and I'll leave you with a couple of observations. The first is that that I heard you tell Lars you were fine with dogs, but not too good with people these days. You seem OK with people to me. The second is that I hope you figure out a way to get off Lars before morning comes and people start walking by. With so few women up here, a lot of these guys get sort of desperate, and people who didn't see how you got in that position with that dog might come to the wrong conclusions. Good night."
She went back into her cabin, leaving Pete blushing scarlet again. He realized that during their conversation the tenseness had gone out of Lars' body. He slowly eased his weight off the dog and then cautiously released his muzzle. Lars rolled quickly to his feet and retreated a short distance away.
Pete leaned back against the cabin to wait for the return of the crew and find out if he really had a job. He kept his duffel handy in front of him, just in case. He and Lars sat there in the dark, about ten feet apart, watching each other. He reflected that, on the deck of a crab boat in the middle of the night in Dutch Harbor, sitting on an upside down dog, he just had the longest sustained conversation with a woman, almost with anyone, since his family was killed.