The Alaskan Laundry by Brendan Jones Page A

wheelhouse of the tug. It made no sense, the idea of working so hard for a boat. She could find something less expensive, a double-wide trailer by the water. Then again, falling asleep in that hammock, having that piece of history, making it her home . . .
    Sighing, she went into the yard to begin feeding the fish.
    Â 
    The next morning when she arrived at work, Fritz shooed her. “Take the flatbed—just drive out Papermill Road toward the church until you see parked cars. Here, use these.” He handed her a pair of binoculars.
    â€œWhere am I going?”
    â€œTo the opener. Go! Just get out there before you miss the wolves.”
    She drove past Maksoutoff Bay, up the hill, past the Lincoln Log church and Salmonberry Cove, and back down to the water. And there they were, the seiners, forty or so tacking back and forth in the ocean. With the binoculars she made out names:
Storm Chaser
,
Perseverance
,
Leading Lady
,
Defiant
. Pointed snouts, gunwales just above the waterline, sodium halide mast lights as bright as near planets. Skippers in wraparound sunglasses leaned out of wheelhouse windows, smoking cigars, steel coffee mugs in hand. Crews dressed in bright orange and green raingear stood poised on decks. A horde of floatplanes buzzed overhead, on the lookout for balls of herring, Fritz had told her, the pilots reporting back on scrambled channels to the seiners.
    People had set up picnics on patches of grass and on the roofs of houses across the road, sharing jars of smoked salmon and pickled herring. A VHF radio from a car broadcasted the district commissioner counting down from ten.
    â€œNine, eight, seven . . .”
    â€œLet the dogs out!” someone yelled.
    â€œFive, four, three, two . . . Open season!”
    A roar echoed off the mountainsides as clouds of black smoke rose over the water. Rooster tails spewed from jet-powered skiffs dragging folds of black net from the boat decks, making a wall of mesh. Herring flashed like coins as the mesh drew tight, fish pocking the surface. She watched a deckhand punch the web, working to free a caught log, cursing loud enough for her to hear. Just off the rocks two boats barreled toward each other, neither conceding position, the larger one veering off at the last second. There was the screech of steel ripping, followed by a flurry of expletives over the handheld radio. The larger boat began to sink. Two other seiners gathered up their nets, positioned themselves on either side, squeezing the sinking boat between them, keeping it afloat. Like coaches at a football game, an arm on either shoulder, they nursed the injured vessel off the field, back toward the harbor.
    Thirty minutes later the fishery closed. She took the rest of the afternoon to hike up Crow Hill.
    The forest had turned chartreuse with spring, shoots of new growth spearing the soil. A few bears had been reported around town, groggy after hibernation, digging through garbage, one snatching a Labrador from its chain. Not wanting to take chances, she sang Prince’s “Kiss,” trilling the falsetto. A bottle of bear spray jostled at her hip, its plastic safety removed.
    A couple thousand feet above the sea she reached the lookout and watched as the fleet made its slow return to town. Newt was down there somewhere, working in that steam-shrouded processor. He’d probably go through the night.
    As she walked back down, she couldn’t escape the feeling that she was just beginning to scratch the surface of life on the Rock.
Give it to me. I’m ready.

22
    IN MAY , two months after the herring opening, Fritz called Newt back from the processor. Pink salmon had started to appear in the slough at the hatchery.
    â€œHere we go again,” Newt said, snapping on his bibs and duct-taping a hole on his Xtratufs. “Giddyup.”
    A few times she tried to drum up the courage to call her father back. To apologize, perhaps, for hanging up on him. Or to say