The Wild Shore: Three Californias (Wild Shore Triptych) (3 page)

We all unstuck ourselves from our tracks and took off running. The noise continued, and appeared to follow us.

“What is it?” Mando cried.

“Scavengers!” Nicolin hissed. And the sound cranked up and down, closer to us than before. “Run faster!” Nicolin called over it. The breaks in the road surface gave us no trouble at all; we flew over them. Rocks began clattering off the concrete behind us, and over the embankment that the freeway ran on. “Keep the shovels,” I heard Del exclaim. I picked up a good-sized rock by the road, relieved in a way that it was only scavengers after us. Nothing but fog behind me, fog and the howl, but rocks came out of the whiteness at a good rate. I threw my rock at a dark shape and ran after the others, chased by some howls that were at least animal, and could have been human. But over them was the blast, rising and falling and rising. “Henry!” Steve shouted. The others were down the embankment with him. I jumped down and traversed through weeds, behind the rest. “Get rocks,” Nicolin ordered. We picked up rocks, then turned and threw them onto the freeway behind us all at once. We got screams for a reply. “We got one!” Nicolin said. But there was no way of knowing. We rolled onto the freeway and ran again. The screech lost ground on us, and eventually we were into San Mateo Valley, and on the way to Basilone Ridge, above our own valley. Behind us the noise continued, fainter with distance and the muffling fog.

“That must be a siren,” Nicolin said. “What they call a siren. Noise machine. We’ll have to ask Rafael.” We threw the rocks we had left in the general direction of the sound, and jogged over the ridge into Onofre.

“Those dirty scavengers,” Nicolin said, when we were onto the river path, and had caught our breath. “I wonder how they found us.”

“Maybe they were out wandering, and stumbled across us,” I suggested.

“Doesn’t seem likely.”

“No.” But I couldn’t think of a likelier explanation, and I didn’t hear Steve offering one.

“I’m going home,” Mando said, a touch of relief in his voice. He sounded odd somehow—scared maybe—and I felt a chill run down me.

“Okay, you do that. We’ll get those wreckrats another time.”

Five minutes later we were at the bridge. Gabby and Del went upriver. Steve and I stood in the fork of the path. He started to discuss the night, cursing the scavengers, the old man, and John Appleby alike, and it was clear his blood was high. He was ready to talk till dawn, but I was tired. I didn’t have his stamina, and I was still shaken by that noise. Siren or no, it had sounded deadly inhuman. So I said goodnight to Steve and slipped in the door of my cabin. Pa’s snoring broke rhythm, resumed. I tore a piece of bread from the next day’s loaf and stuffed it down, tasting dirt. I dipped my hands in the wash bucket and wiped them off, but they still felt grimy, and they stank of the grave. I gave up and lay on my bed, feeling gritty, and was asleep before I even warmed up.

2

I was dreaming of the moment when we had started to fill in the open grave. Dirt clods were hitting the coffin with that terrible sound,
bonk bonk bonk;
but in the dream the sound was a knocking from inside the coffin, getting louder and more desperate the faster we filled in the hole.

Pa woke me in the middle of this nightmare: “They found a dead man washed up on the beach this morning.”

“Huh?” I cried, and jumped out of bed all confused. Pa backed off, startled. I leaned over the wash bucket and splashed my face. “What’s this you say?”

“I say, they found one of those Chinamen. You’re all covered with dirt. What’s with you? You out again last night?”

I nodded. “We’re building a hideout.”

Pa shook his head, baffled and disapproving.

“I’m hungry,” I added, going for the loaf of bread. I took a cup from the shelf and dipped it in the water bucket.

“We don’t have anything but bread left.”

“I know.” I pulled some chunks from the loaf. Kathryn’s bread was good even when a bit stale. I went to the door and opened it, and the gloom of our windowless cabin was split by a wedge of muted sunlight. I stuck my head out into the air: dull sun, trees along the river sopping wet. Inside the light fell on Pa’s sewing table, the old machine burnished by years of handling. Beside it was the stove, and over that, next to the stovepipe that punctured the roof, the utensil shelf. That, along with table, chairs, wardrobe and beds, made up the whole of our belongings—the simple possessions of a simpleton in a simple trade. Why, folks didn’t even really
need
to have Pa sew their clothes.…

“You better get down to the boats,” Pa said sternly. “It’s late, they’ll be putting out.”

“Umph.” Still swallowing bread, I put on shirt and shoes. “Good luck!” Pa called as I ran out the door.

Crossing the freeway I was stopped by Mando, coming the other way. “Did you hear about the Chinaman washed up?” he called.

“Yeah! Did you see him?”

“Yes. Pa went down to look at him, and I tagged along.”

“Was he shot?”

“Oh yeah. Four bullet holes, right in the chest.”

“Man.” A lot of them washed up like that. “I wonder what they’re fighting about so hard out there.”

Mando shrugged. In the potato patch across the road Rebel Simpson was chasing a dog with a spud in its mouth, yelling at it, her face red. “Pa says there’s a coast guard offshore, keeping people out.”

“I know,” I said. “I just wonder if that’s it.” Big ships ghosted up and down the long coast, usually out near the horizon, sometimes nearer; and bodies washed ashore from time to time, riddled with bullets. But that was the extent of what we could say for sure about the world offshore, in my opinion. When I thought about it my curiosity sometimes became so intense that it shaded into something like fury. Mando, on the other hand, was confident that his father (who was only echoing the old man) had the explanation. He accompanied me out to the cliff. Out to sea was a bar of white cloud, lying on the horizon: the fog bank, which would roll in later when the onshore wind got going. Down on the river flat they were loading nets onto the boats. “I’ve got to get on board,” I said to Mando. “See you later.”

By the time I had descended the cliff they were launching the boats. I joined Steve by the smallest of them, which was still on the sand. John Nicolin, Steve’s father, walked by and glared at me. “You two take the rods today. You won’t be good for anything else.” I kept my face wooden. He walked on to growl a command at the boat shoving off.

“He knows we were out?”

“Yeah.” Steve’s lip curled. “I fell over a drying rack when I snuck in.”

“Did you get in trouble?”

He turned his head to show me a bruise in front of his ear. “What do you think?” He was in no mood to talk, and I went to help the men hauling the next boat over the flat. The cold water sluicing over my feet woke me up good for the first time that day. Out to sea the quiet
krrr, krrrrrr
of breaking waves indicated a small swell. The little boat’s turn came and Steve and I hopped in as it was shoved into the channel. We rowed lazily, relying on the current, and got over the breakers at the rivermouth without any trouble.

Once all the boats were out around the buoy marking the main reef, it was business as usual. The three big boats started their circling, spreading the purse net; Steve and I rowed south, the other rod boats rowed north. At the south end of the valley there is a small inlet, nearly filled by a reef made of concrete. Between the concrete reef and the larger reef offshore is a channel, one used by faster fish when the nets are dropped; rod fishing usually gets results when the nets are being worked. Steve and I dropped our anchor onto the main reef, and let the swell carry us in over the channel, almost to the curved white segments of the concrete reef. Then it was out with the rods. I knotted the shiny metal bar that was my lure onto the line. “Casket handle,” I said to Steve, holding it up before I threw it over. He didn’t laugh. I let it sink to the bottom, then started the slow reel up.

We fished. Lure to the bottom, reel it back up; throw it in again. Occasionally the rods would arc down, and a few minutes of struggling ended with the gaff work. Then it was back to it. To the north the netters were pulling up nets silver with fish flopping after their lost freedom; the boats tilted in under the weight, until sometimes it seemed their keels would show and they would turn turtle. Inland the hills seemed to rise and fall, rise and fall. Under the cloud-filmed sun the forest was a rich green, the cliff and the bare hilltops dull and gray.

Now five years before, when I was twelve and Pa had first hired me out to John Nicolin, fishing had been a big deal. I had been excited by everything about it—the fishing itself, the moods of the ocean, the teamwork of the men, the entrancing view of the land from the sea. But a lot of days on the water had passed since then, a lot of fish hauled over the gunwale: big fish and small, no fish or so many fish that we exhausted our arms and wore our hands ragged; over steep slow swells, or wind-blown chop, or on water flat as a plate; and under skies hot and clear, or in rain that made the hills a gray mirage, or when it was stormy, with clouds scudding overhead like horses … mostly days like this day, however, moderate swell, sun fighting high clouds, medium number of fish. There had been a thousand days like this one, it seemed, and the thrill was long gone. It was just work to me now.

In between catches I dozed, lulled by the swell, waking up when my rod jerked into my stomach. Then I reeled the fish in, gaffed it, pulled it over the side, smacked its head, got the lure out and tossed it over again, and went back to sleep.

“Henry!”

“Yeah!” I said, sitting up and checking my rod automatically.

“We got quite a few fish here.”

I glanced at the bonita and rock bass in the boat. “About a dozen.”

“Good fishing. Maybe I’ll be able to get away this afternoon,” Steve said wistfully.

I doubted it, but I didn’t say anything. The sun was obscured, and the water was gray; it was getting chill. The fog bank had started its roll in. “Looks like we’ll spend it on shore,” I said.

“Yeah. We’ve got to go up and see Barnard; I want to beat the shit out of that old liar.”

“Sure.”

Then we both hooked big ones, and we had a time of it keeping our lines clear. We were still working them when the blare of Rafael’s bugle floated over the water from the netters. We whooped and got our fish aboard without delay, slapped our oars into the oarlocks and beat it back to Rafael’s boat. They parceled some fish out to us, as some of the boats were about foundering under their load, and we rowed into the rivermouth.

With the help of the Nicolin family and the others on the beach, we pulled the boat up onto the sand and took our fish over to the cleaning tables. Gulls soused us repeatedly, screeching and flapping. When the boat was empty and pulled up to the cliff, Steve approached his father, who was shaking a finger at Rafael and lecturing him about some twists in the line.

“Can I go now, Pa?” Steve asked. “Hanker and I need to do our lessons with Tom.” Which was true.

“Nope,” old Nicolin said, bent over and still inspecting the net. “You’re going to help us fix this net. And then you’re going to help your ma and sisters clean fish.”

At first John had made Steve go to learn to read from the old man, because he figured it was a sign of family prosperity and distinction. Then when Steve got to liking it (which took a long time), his father took to keeping him from it. John straightened, looked at Steve; a bit shorter than his son, but a lot thicker; both of them with the same squarish jaw, brown shock of hair, light blue eyes, straight strong nose.… They glared at each other, John daring Steve to talk back to him with all the men wandering around. For a second I thought it was going to happen, that Steve was going to defy him and begin who knows what kind of bloody dispute. But Steve turned away and stalked over to the cleaning tables. After a short wait to allow his anger to lose its first bloom, I followed him.

“I’ll go on up and tell the old man you’re coming later.”

“All right,” Steve said, not looking at me. “I’ll be there when I can.”

Old Nicolin gave me three rock bass and I hauled them up the cliff in a net bag. A gang of kids splashed clothes in the water, and farther upstream several women stood around the ovens at the Marianis’.

I took the fish to Pa, who jumped up from his sewing machine hungrily. “Oh good, good. I’ll get to work on these, one for tonight, dry the others.” I told him I was going to the old man’s and he nodded, pulling rapidly at his long moustache. “Eat this right after dark, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, and was off.

The old man’s home is on the steep ridge marking the southern end of our valley, on a flat spot just bigger than his house, about halfway to the peak of the tallest hill around. There isn’t a better view from any home in Onofre. When I got up there the house, a four-roomed wooden box with a fine front window, was empty. I made my way carefully through the junk surrounding the house. Among the honey flats, the telephone wire cutters, the sundials, the rubber tires, the rain barrels with their canvas collecting funnels, the generator parts, the broken engines, the grandfather clocks and gas stoves and crates full of who knows what, there were big pieces of broken glass, and several varmint traps that he was constantly moving about, so that it was smart to watch out. Over at Rafael’s house, machines like those scattered across Tom’s little yard would be fixed and in working order, or stripped for their parts, but here they were just conversation pieces. Why have an automobile engine propped on sawhorses, and how had he gotten it up the ridge, anyway? That was just what Tom wanted you to wonder.

I kept going up the eroded path that ran the edge of the ridge. Near the peak of the spine the path turned and dropped into the crease south of it, a narrow canyon too small to hold a permanent stream, but there was a spring. The eucalyptus trees kept the ground clear of underbrush, and on a gentle slope of the crease the old man kept his beehives, a score of small white wooden domes. I spotted him standing among them, draped in his beekeeping clothes and hat. He moved pretty spryly—for a man over a hundred years old, I mean. He was ambling from dome to dome, pulling out trays and fingering them with a gloved hand, talking all the while, I could tell, despite the hat that hid most of his face. Tom talked to everything: people, himself, dogs, trees, the sky, fish on his plate, rocks he stubbed a toe on … naturally he talked to his bees. He shoved a flat back into a hive and looked around, suddenly wary; then he caught sight of me and waved.