It was a beautiful January day and the Japan Current brought enough warm sea air ashore to create a near-summer atmosphere, even though a small family of icebergs huddled in the channel, so they rode with the carriage windows open. At the glacier, whose former cave had been long obliterated by ice crashing down from the face above, they walked for some time along the front, touching the monstrous snout from time to time and even leaning against it when they stopped to talk.
'Missy told me the other day, Nancy, that I was in love with you.'
'I've always been in love with you, Tom. You know that. Since that first day in there,' and she pointed to where the blue-roofed cave had been.
'Could marriage ...?' He could find no words to express the careful definitions he had in mind. But she diverted his reasoning with a question which startled him:
'Did the boss's daughter in Seattle let you know she wasn't interested?'
Tom snapped his fingers: 'Did Missy tell you to ask that?' and she laughed: 'I don't need other people to tell me important things,' and from beneath her dark bangs she smiled so provocatively that he burst out laughing.
With Nancy he laughed quite often, and as they walked beside the glacier he thought:
What I said was right. We'll drift along and one day I'll say: 'What the hell?' and we'll get married. But now she stopped and turned to face him, saying softly: 'It wouldn't work. Not in these years, anyway. Maybe later, when we all grow up ... I mean when Alaska grows up ...' She said no more, and she resumed walking back to where the horse waited, but he remained motionless, standing close to the glacier, and he felt that like it he was moving slowly, relentlessly in an age of ice.
In due course he overtook her, and as they rode back to Juneau, night came down upon the surrounding mountains and the breath of untimely summer vanished. At the edge of town she pointed to a house lying on its side: 'Like Father warned you. Sometimes the snow comes crashing down. As if we had our own little glaciers.'
In the morning he told Sam Bigears to stop trying to find him a house in Juneau:
'I'll live in Ketchikan while we're building the new cannery. After that...?'
And next day he sailed south to his new obligations.
AS TOM VENN HEADED FOR HIS FUTURE LIFE IN KETCHIKAN, the salmon Nerka was receiving signals in the far turn of the Alaskan Gyre, warning him that it was time he started for home, and the message was so compelling that even though he was far from Lake Pleiades, he began to swim no longer in aimless circles but with undeviating direction toward his natal water. Sweeping his tail in powerful arcs with a vigor not used before, he shot through the water not at his customary ten miles a day but at a speed four or five times that fast.
In his earlier circuits of the gyre he had always been content to string along with his fellows, male or female, and rarely had he distinguished between the two, but now he took pains to avoid other males, as if he realized that with his new obligations, they had become not only his competitors but also his potential enemies.
From his accidental position in the gyre when these signals arrived he could reasonably have headed for Oregon, or Kamchatka, or the Yukon, but in obedience to the homing device implanted in him years ago, he followed his signal that wisp of a shadow of a lost echo and from one of the most isolated parts of the Pacific he launched himself precisely on a course that would lead him to Taku Inlet and Lake Pleiades, where he would undertake the most important assignment of his life.
On the first of May he was still one thousand two hundred and fifty miles from home, but the signals were now so intense that he began swimming at a steady forty-nine miles a day, and as he sped through the gyre he began to feed prodigiously, consuming incredible numbers of fish, three or four times as many as ever before. Indeed, he ate ravenously even when not really hungry, as if he knew that once he left the ocean, he would never again eat as long as he lived.
In early September he entered Taku Inlet, and when he immersed himself in its fresh waters, his body began to undergo one of the most extraordinary transformations in the animal kingdom, an ugly one, as if he sought a frightening appearance to aid him in the battles he would soon be facing. Up to this moment, as he swam easily through the gyre, he had been a handsome fish, quite beautiful when he twisted in the light, but now, in obedience to internal signals, he was transformed into something grotesque. His lower jaw became ridiculously prognathous, its teeth extending so far beyond those in the upper jaw that they looked like a shark's; his snout turned inward, bending down to form a hook; and most disfiguring of all, his back developed a great hump and changed its color to a flaming red. His once svelte and streamlined body thickened, and he became in general a ferocious creature driven by urges he could riot hope to understand.
With determination he swam toward his natal lake, but his course brought him to where the trap of Totem Cannery waited with its very long jiggers, making entry to the Pleiades River impossible. Bewildered by the barrier which had not been operating when he left the lake, he stopped, reconnoitered the situation like a general, and watched as thousands of his fellows drifted supinely along the jiggers and into the trap. He felt no compassion for them, but he knew that he must not allow this unusual barrier to stop him from fighting through to his river. Every nerve along his spine, every impulse in his minute brain warned him that he must somehow circumvent the trap, and he could do so only by leaping across the lethal jigger.
Swimming as close to the right bank as he could, he was encouraged by the cold fresh water that came from the Pleiades River carrying a powerful message from the lake, but when he attempted to swim toward the source of the reassuring water, he was once more frustrated by the jigger. Bewildered, he was about to drift toward the fatal center when a sockeye somewhat larger than he came up behind, detected a sagging spot in the jigger, and with a mighty sweep of his tail leaped over it, splashing heavily into the free water beyond.
As if shot from a gun, Nerka sped forward, activated his tail and fins and arched himself high in the air, only to strike the top strand of the jigger, which threw him roughly backward. For some moments he tried to fathom what had caused him to fail when the other fish had succeeded, then, with a greater effort, he tried again, and again he was repulsed by the jigger.
He lay for some minutes resting in the cool water drifting down from the Pleiades, and when he felt his strength returning he started swimming with great sweeps of his tail, and mustering all his strength, he sped like a bullet at the jigger, arched himself higher than before, and landed with a loud splash on the upstream side.
A workman from Totem Cannery, observing the remarkable leaps of these two salmon, called to his mates: 'We better add two more strands to the jigger. Those two who got across were beauties.'
It was crucial that Nerka survive to complete his mission, for of the four thousand who had been born in his generation, only six still survived, and upon them rested the fate of the Pleiades sockeye.
SINCE THE NEW R&R CANNERY AT KETCHIKAN WAS being planned for a capacity half again as large as Totem, Tom was kept so busy from the middle of January on, he had little time to think about the mournful way his two conflicting love interests had collapsed.
When he reached the site, the four major buildings had already been roughed out; they were enormous, and he gasped when he realized that it was up to him to finish off the eight or ten subsidiary buildings which would be required, and then fill all of them with the needed machinery. So he spent February and March installing crating areas, canning lines and the two great essentials: the Iron Chinks and the huge steam retorts for cooking. He did not like to think what this cannery was going to cost, perhaps four hundred thousand dollars, but he did know that once it started functioning, it would have the ability to pack sixty thousand cases a year, and that was a lot of salmon. In mid-March when it became apparent that some of the bunkhouses might not be finished on time, he sent a distress signal to Juneau, and on the next trip south Sam Bigears appeared with four expert helpers
. 'I still not work in buildings,' Sam said, 'but I work on them.' One of the men, to Tom's surprise, was Ah Ting, and when the local workmen saw him come onto the premises, they complained loudly that no Chinese were allowed in Alaska, but Tom explained that Ah Ting was an exception. They were not happy with the explanation, but when they saw how he could get the temperamental Iron Chinks operating when they could not, they allowed that he served a purpose.
During working hours Sam Bigears often paused to inform his friend Tom of happenings in Juneau, and certain bits of information were both pleasing and amusing: 'That crazy Siberian, what's his name, he got one of best houses in town and he and his wife have boardinghouse. He collect rent and she do all the work.' He said also that Matt and Missy had yet to find a house they wanted, but that Missy kept sticking her nose into everything: 'Call her Lady Governor, she tell everyone what to do.'
'Do they get mad at her?' Tom asked, and Sam said: 'No. They like what she say. Maybe like her interest,' and Tom said: 'She was always that way.' Sam said that she offered to work at one of the churches, but they wouldn't accept her because no one could be certain whether she was married to Murphy or not: 'But her girl go Sunday School that church.'
Tom never asked how Nancy was doing, because he could not be sure how much Sam knew about their feelings for each other, and he certainly did not want to say, but whenever Sam spoke of the girl, he listened attentively: 'She win big writing contest, which not surprise me. She good at writing, but she also win what they call oratory. That was surprise. She speak "Tlingit Land Rights" and I think she win because Lady Missy one of judges. She like what Nancy say. Me too.'
Thanks to Tom's driving energy, and the hard work of men like Bigears and Ah Ting, Ketchikan Cannery was ready on time, and since the runs of salmon in these southern waters were even more copious than those in Taku Inlet, the big buildings were soon working to capacity and the Juneau men returned home. As Ah Ting left, some of the older workers in the Iron Chink shed told Tom: 'It's good to see that one go. No place in Alaska for a Chink,' and Tom said: 'Aren't you from Seattle?' and they said they were, and Tom surprised himself by saying: 'Then it's not your problem, is it?'
Ashamed of his curt retort, he returned to the men and said: 'You know we couldn't have had this place ready without his help,' and the matter was dropped.
His display of temper disturbed him, because on his jobs in Dawson, Nome and Juneau he had been known for his unruffled disposition, and he wondered what had caused him to change. But when he reviewed his recent behavior he came sights. 'Hello, Tom!' she called out with unladylike vigor, and to her mother's surprise, as well as Tom's, she ran to him as soon as she left the gangway and planted an enthusiastic kiss on his cheek.
They spent that long day seeing what Ketchikan had to offer, and the little town of six hundred went out of its way, with a band concert, a barbecue and a parade back to the ship, which sailed at dusk.
The Rosses had provided a stateroom for Tom, but he had barely entered it when Mrs.
Ross asked him to accompany her as she walked the upper deck, and once again he was awed by the easy graciousness of this woman: 'It was Lydia's idea, this trip. She knew... well, the truth is, I gave her living hell for the way she treated you at Christmas. No, don't speak. These things happen sometimes, Tom, and we're powerless to stop them. But we can correct them. And that's what she wants to do.' She chuckled.
'I'm not sure she wanted to do it, but I made it very clear she had to.' They walked some more, and she added:
'That's when she suggested this cruise. What a brilliant idea!'
'I respect your daughter enormously, Mrs. Ross. I've never known anyone like her.'
'Nor I. She's special, if I say so myself. But then, as you know, so was her grandmother.'
'She didn't have to apologize.'
'She wanted to, when I pointed out how horrid she'd been.'
Later Tom walked the same deck with Lydia, and she too astonished him by the frankness of her comment: 'At Christmas, Tom, I thought I was very much in love with Horace.
He seemed the proper answer to everything. Now he seems rather fake, and to tell you the truth, I very much wanted to see you again. Because, as Father told me at the time, you're real.'
He could not believe what he was hearing, but then she said: 'I doubt I'm in love with you, Tom. I doubt I'll be in love with anyone till I'm much older. But the talks I had with you on that hill, they're the best talks I've ever had, and when Horace blathered on about his family and his school and the keen fellows he knew, I couldn't help thinking of you ... and reality.'
They made almost a complete circuit in silence, then Tom said: 'I wasn't really hurt at Christmas. I thought that that was the world you were entitled to and I knew I didn't belong.'
'Oh, Tom!' She burst into tears and stopped to lean against the railing. Reaching for his hand, she pressed it and said: 'Forgive me. It was Christmas and I got caught up in all the to several conclusions: I've been working at top speed for too long. I need a rest.
But then a deeper reason surfaced: Working with Sam Bigears reminded me of what a great girl Nancy is. I want to see her again. And when he announced that he would be sailing back to Juneau with Sam, he accepted the fact that the unintended drift toward Nancy he had spoken of to Missy was under way, and he muttered: 'Let it happen.'
Before he completed arrangements for other men to run the cannery during his short absence, an R&R supply ship arrived from Seattle, and the captain had a personal message for Tom: 'Mrs. Ross is arriving on the next Montreal Queen, and her daughter will be with her. They want to spend the day inspecting the new cannery, and when they sail for Taku Inlet, Mr. Ross hopes that you will accompany them. They'll spend a few days there, then catch the Queen on its trip back to Seattle.'
Wondering what this assignment might imply there had certainly been no hint of anything like this at Christmas he felt a surge of excitement on realizing that he was going to see Lydia again, even though she had treated him so badly the last time. He tried to avoid thinking that the visit had any deeper meaning, but he did move about the cannery in a state of euphoria.
One decision was easily made: 'Sam, I won't be sailing with you back to Juneau.'
He said this almost mechanically, as if his decision not to visit Nancy Bigears was a free act without moral or emotional meaning, and that was the case, for it never occurred to him that in turning down Sam in favor of Mrs. Ross, he was also rejecting Nancy in hopes that something better would develop with Lydia.
The citizens of Ketchikan felt a sense of pride when some big passenger steamer sailed in, and since the Montreal Queen was the finest, newest ship in the Alaskan service, they lined the dock when the sleek Canadian beauty edged in. As soon as the gangway was dropped into position and secured to the dock, Mrs. Ross appeared at its top, attended by an officer. He was Captain Binneford, a trim, imposing seaman from eastern Canada with years of experience on the Atlantic crossing. Handing her along to Tom Venn, who ran forward to greet her, Captain Binneford said: 'Take care of this good lady. We want her safely returned when we stop at Totem Cannery on the return.'
As Tom reached to give Mrs. Ross his arm, he saw behind her Lydia, dressed in a white suit with blue nautical trimming. She looked like some carefully chosen young woman posing for an advertisement depicting a European voyage to Paris or Rome: she was an eager traveler prepared to see the celebrations and thought that this was my world.' They resumed walking, and after a while she said: 'My world is considerably larger than that.'
But when they said goodnight, well after one in the morning with the mountains of Alaska looking down on them, she spoke with another burst of frankness: 'I don't know what this trip means, Tom. I really don't. Neither of us must take it too seriously, but you must take with great seriousness the fact that I want to keep you as a friend.'
She laughed nervously, then added: 'And so does Father. It looks as if you're to be around for a long time, and I wanted to mak
e peace.'
'The pipe is lit.'
She kissed him and went to her room.
WHEN THE MONTREAL QUEEN MADE HER STATELY WAY up Taku Inlet, Tom Venn stood at the railing with the Ross women and explained the glaciers on the western shore. The best part of their adventure came when the big ship anchored at the very end of the inlet to disembark passengers for the twenty-minute walk to a hidden lake and the lovely twin glaciers, small and glistening, which fed it.
It was a sturdy walk uphill, but both the Rosses insisted upon taking it, and they were well worn when they reached the beautiful gemlike glaciers, so different from the others. Standing next to them, it was possible to imagine that they really were part of a living field of ice. 'They're the daughters of the old woman up there,' Lydia said, and they did indeed create that impression.
When they reached the cannery on the return trip down the inlet, Tom learned that Nancy Bigears was home for the school vacation, and when Sam came over to pay his respects, he informed Tom that Nancy still hadn't made up her mind what she was going to do. Mrs. Ross asked what options she had, and Sam said: 'Her teachers think maybe college,' and this so intrigued Mrs. Ross that she said: 'We've always wanted to educate bright young Eskimos.'
'We're Tlingits,' Sam said, and Mrs. Ross quickly said: 'I'm so sorry. Nobody has told me the difference,' and Sam said: 'No offense. Some my people not much to be proud of.'
'But I imagine you're very proud of your daughter.'
'I sure am.'
'Well, Mr. Bigears, if she's as good as you say, there should certainly be a way for us to get her into college. Could you ask her to come over while we're here?'
So on a bright summer's day, while the cannery was in full swing, Sam Bigears and Nancy came across the estuary to meet two women about whom she already knew a great deal. When they came into the office, Nancy, scowling apprehensively from beneath her sharply edged bangs, looked first at Mrs. Ross, who smiled at her reassuringly as if to make her feel at home, and then at Lydia, whom she was seeing for the first time and whom she knew to be her rival. Mrs. Ross, aware that the setting, with everyone staring at one girl and waiting to hear what she had to say, was too much like a legal procedure, sought to soften it: 'Nancy, sit here with me. We've heard such exciting reports about your work in school, we wanted the honor of meeting a girl who could do so well.'