“How’s the fishing up there?”
He grinned. “Tie a rope on a broom handle,” he said. “That’s all the gear you need. Wait till you see that water. So clear you can drink it.” He got up as a group sauntered into his restaurant.
I smelled the sweet scent of the woman before I saw her. Her hair was a tumble of black brown curls, snapping with glints of copper, and bouncing on her shoulders. She sat a few stools away from me, tipped her head back like a sunbather, and her hair shimmered. Her knitted suit hugged the swell of her breasts and communicated the mold and movement of every muscle. She moved a leg to cross over the other. I glimpsed her calf muscle roll and bulge against the nylon. The idealist part of my nature still controlled the animal. I didn’t hear her voice. She was just a beautifully alive creature that entranced me, that made me linger over my coffee like an old man watching the glory of a sunset. She never looked my way at all. If she had, I would have turned crimson.
STATEMENT OF LIVING AND WORKING CONDITIONS
U.S. Naval Station, Kodiak, Alaska
26 November 1951
GOVERNMENT: The U.S. Naval Station, Kodiak, Alaska, is under regular Navy jurisdiction. All civilian employees are subject to Seventeenth Naval District and regulation, including naval discipline, during their presence on the station, whether during or outside regular working hours.
GENERAL: The station is part permanent and part temporary. It might be termed to be in “Pioneer State” without paved streets, walks, etc. Prospective employees should not expect metropolitan conditions.
CLOTHING: Civilian employees should provide themselves prior to departure from the United States with heavy clothing for winter, rain clothing, and overshoes for both winter and summer. Work clothing, rain clothes, and overshoes and boots are obtainable in the town of Kodiak. Prices for all of these articles are higher than in the States.
BEFORE I LEFT FOR KODIAK, I needed some gear, so I bought a suit of neoprene rain gear, a Filson cruiser jacket, and several sets of Duofold long-john underwear. I was beginning to feel like an Alaskan before I even got there.
My departure date was approaching fast. At the Alaska Recruiting Office I filled out a few more forms and was told to bring all the gear I wanted shipped.
My seabag had all it could hold. I lugged it down to Pier 91, went to Transportation to establish my priority for the Sunday flight, and got my orders from a Navy clerk who had the charisma of a stereotypical undertaker.
At 11:35 A.M. on Sunday, July 27, I would meet the Navy bus and proceed to McChord Field in Tacoma. My last chore at the pier was to transport my bulging seabag across a high footbridge to Household Effects. Sweat poured in trails all over my face when I arrived and deposited the fat, canvas sausage. The neatly dressed woman who checked my gear was careful that I didn’t get too close to her and gave me the definite impression that the sooner I left with my perspiration, the better.
Harry Mae served me a thick, orange fillet of king salmon with cream sauce for my last supper.
“The kid’s going to Kodiak,” he announced to several others along the counter. That started something.
“You’ll be walking across the backs of salmon,” one said.
“… want to fish near the crick mouths when the tide’s turning.”
“When you see a bear stand thirteen feet high, then you seen something!”
“It’s rugged with them winds up there, but you won’t find a better place to save money … if you don’t gamble. Lots of that—and drinking, too—man, oh, man!”
Harry poked around under his counter. “Try these,” he said. “Tied ’em myself.” He handed me several artificial flies, some attached to Colorado spinners. “Take these plastic bags, too. Just as good as a creel. And,” he added, “drop me a line.”
At 1:30 P.M. I arrived at McChord Field. The flight was not scheduled to leave until 4:20 P.M. Things hadn’t changed much since my service days.
The DC-4 transport plane had bucket seats, heavy canvas stretched over metal crossbars. A blanket was spread out in the aisle, and a Black Jack game was in progress around it. Some sailors, slouched and sullen, were showing the effects of their leaves; others hinted of anxiety. Several civilians were reading magazines. A Navy Chief sat with his head hanging, dropping lower and lower until it rose abruptly, only to loll on his chest and start a new cycle.
The motors roared. I fastened my seat belt. The plane began its taxi into position.
So long, Seattle, I thought. We didn’t really get acquainted.
Two time zones away to the north, Kodiak waited in the Territory of Alaska.
Territory. That had a good sound.
Author’s journal, circa 1952
I am anxious to get started and get settled once more. Kodiak lies ahead, a land that I have never seen. Just a point on a map, a place where a giant bear lives. And now I will enter a new field of vision, and I must like what I see there, for I have bound myself for twelve months. I must work hard, I must be faithful to my notebook, and if I do these things I might someday show some doubters that I had the stuff after all.
CHAPTER 3
The Transplanting
My face pressed against the window. The Alaskan coast was coming into view. Conical spikes reared out of vapor that ringed their chocolate-colored bases like feathers. Cloud layers sliced mountains across their middles to give the illusion of floating triangular peaks. Beyond them loomed the alpine monarchs, giant, thrusting spearheads chiseled from alabaster, dwarfing their spruce-skirted subjects. Clouds piling against the jagged land upheaval reminded me of heavy surf caught with a high-speed camera just after its explosion against the rocks. On we drifted over a white desert that hid the sea.
One of the passengers pointed to a hole in the fleece.
“Anchorage,” he said. I didn’t see a city. All I glimpsed was a mountain veiled in the freshest green, then some planes on a landing field, just before the clouds erased the earth again. Kodiak wouldn’t be far now. The plane began to buck and stagger, now plummeting, now surging in a fizzy, floating upwards. I pulled my seat belt tighter.
When we finally slanted in for the Kodiak approach, I looked at my watch. It had been ten hours since we left McChord. Subtract two for the time difference. We hit with a shuddering jolt and bounced. The engines thundered. Concerned, frightened looks, almost panic, and then everyone jabbered with relief as the wheels touched down again, this time on the runway.
Nobody seemed to know what to do with a group of men arriving after midnight. In bewildered knots, we tied and untied over the hangar floor until a Navy bus arrived, blinking its headlights. The sleepy-eyed driver didn’t seem to know or care where he was taking us. At the first stop, there weren’t enough bunks available for everyone. Success at the second stop.
As I collapsed into my bunk, my head throbbed. In the bunk next to me sprawled a sailor as pale as a corpse. I asked him if I could get him anything, but he just smiled weakly and shook his head. His ashen face was the last thing I remembered.
I awakened