The Winemaker's Daughter, page 15
“Cindy.”
She looks no older than fourteen. “Cindy . . . who?”
“Cindy who wants to know?”
“This boat belongs to Duff Almvik.”
“It does.”
“And you are . . . his help?”
She giggles, exhaling a mint-scented cloud of smoke. “Sorta.”
“Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“I’m only missing two days.”
A scratchy voice calls to Cindy from inside the living area of the boat. The hatch opens, and out comes a woman in a bathrobe, her hair up in a knotted bunch, drinking a wine cooler in a bottle, her fingernails bitten to pulp.
“You’re looking for Duff,” the woman says, draining her drink and chucking the bottle into the bay. “He’s not here.”
“Where is he?”
“You’re the second one to come ’round this morning. Some little guy with goggles was by earlier. Said he had work to do on Duff’s boat.”
“Tork Tollefson—was that who it was?”
“Didn’t get his name. He didn’t leave it either.”
“What did he want?”
“To work on Duff ’s boat, like I said. He did jabber at some length about Red Finns. Shit, I haven’t heard anyone bring that up since Grandpa was on his last binge. Red Finns this and Red Finns that.”
“So where’s Duff?”
“Buying lottery tickets,” says the woman. “It’s a twenty-five-million-dollar jackpot, darling. You know what we could do with that kind of scratch?”
“He should be fishing.”
“He should be,” says the woman, “but he’s been naughty.”
“Very naughty,” says the girl.
“With both of you?” Brunella says. “Cindy and . . . who are you?”
“I’m Cindy’s mother, Nolanne.”
Like most forest rangers, Leon Treadtoofar is a biologist by training, five years ending with a master’s degree. As he went through his investigation of what happened to the smoke jumpers in the Johnny Blackjack fire, he approached the inquiry like lab work: use scientific method and narrow the possibilities until only one answer remains. He listened to widows, siblings, and parents choke through tears. He asked Tozzie Cresthawk to draw diagrams on aerial photos, so he knew precisely where everybody had been at the time Niccolo ordered the backburn and retreat. He went to the physics lab at the University of Washington and ran different wind speeds and atmospheric conditions through a simulated fire. He tested the soil and the charred stumps to get some sense of what a fire that burned at nearly 2,000 degrees would do to wood fiber and forest compost. He studied hydrology maps and patterns of disease in the trees.
He sits now in Brunella’s living room, his back rigid, holding a three-inch-thick file stamped JOHNNY BLACKJACK.
“The Forest Service is not the army—we don’t insist that every decision be followed from the top down, nor do we court-martial people for refusing to obey orders,” he says.
“I understand that, Leon.” She walks around him, sizing up his mood, already sensing a different man.
“So you also understand when I say what I am about to say, that your brother had the right to refuse a command.”
“Why are you talking to me like you can’t see me? You’re so formal. What happened to the gentle face of the Forest Service, the sunflowers and Stevenson poetry?”
“You don’t know me.”
“Here.” She helps Leon to his feet and guides him into the kitchen. “Tea?”
He tries to say something—twice—before getting it out. “I have a temper.”
“I saw it, firsthand.”
“It’s a problem for me. I have to learn to control it. Some days, I’m afraid I might hurt somebody. I apologize for what happened at my office. It was not professional of me to drag you down to the evidence room. It’s a problem.”
“We have more in common than you know.”
He stares out the window, across the bay to the old-growth forest of the park. “You have a nice view, Brunella.”
“The original view. This is what the first whites saw when they canoed along the shore of Lake Washington.”
“Were they lost?”
“They were always lost, you know that. This house is from the first Denny plat of the neighborhood. Used to be a farm—an orchard—that sloped to the lake.”
“What’s this?” He points to a cucumber-shaped mass of aged metal on a display shelf. “It’s not what I think it is.”
“Yes. From Elba, off the Tuscan coast. The Etruscans were quite the metalsmiths. I found it near an abandoned quarry a thousand feet above the sea on the island. They must have had a furnace of some sort, because all this metal was—”
“It’s a penis?”
“Bronze. About twenty-five hundred years old. Question is: Was this the average man or his dream?”
He returns to the living room and opens the file to his summary. Brunella sits next to him, sipping her tea, staring at the perfect shape of his ears, realizing how much she misses the way a man can fill up her living room. He still seems different today, aloof and fresh-pressed.
“I’m speaking now for the United States, Ms. Cartolano, with respect for the dead—”
“Oh, please don’t speak for the United States.”
“Let me continue. There were three points at which Niccolo made judgment calls: one, the decision to advance on the fire and start a backburn; two, the fallback to the water pumps; and three, the ultimate retreat to emergency shelters. At each one of those points, the lives of every smoke jumper was in your brother’s hands.”
Brunella can hear the words, but she becomes more detached as she listens; she senses the outcome and, as she does, Leon shrinks before her.
“You’re going to blame my brother, aren’t you? Just tell me now! I don’t need the throat-clearing, Leon.”
“When he advanced on the fire, the Johnny Blackjack had begun to threaten homes and private property. Niccolo was advised to take that advance by the IC, but he could have used his judgment at the scene to refuse.”
“You can’t blame Niccolo for following orders.”
“Number two: In calling for the water pumps, Niccolo acted in concurrence with the IC—a shared decision—again, similar to the first one. We hold him blameless in both those decisions.”
“Well, that seems obvious. But thank you nonetheless, and not a minute too soon. These leeches east of the mountains are planning to sue, to take everything—”
“Number three: the retreat, ordered just after eleven o’clock. I’m sorry to interrupt, but it’s important that you listen to me, please. Unlike the first two decisions, the retreat was entirely up to Niccolo. He was the Jumper in Charge. He felt his crew to be in imminent danger and acted accordingly. Now we come to the crucial matter. They fell back to a spring where the pumps were in place. But then what happened?’’
He pauses, coaxing her with a stare. She holds up her hands.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Niccolo failed to execute.”
“But what about the pumps? They broke down, something—”
“Our postfire tests proved the pumps were in good working order. You saw them in the evidence room. There was nothing wrong with them. Niccolo failed to execute. Had he been able to keep his crew in place, to start the pumps and hold the line, those jumpers would be alive today.”
“So what happened?”
“He panicked.”
“Panicked . . . panicked! Is that what you wrote in the last page of this file? Is that what we’re supposed to tell everyone to ease the pain in their hearts? Oh, Jesus, I’m floored by this, Leon.”
She picks up the report, walks outside, and drops it on the porch.
“Goodbye.”
“I have gone over what happened in that forest every day since it happened, Ms. Cartolano. Imagine being inside one of those shake-and-bakes when a firestorm is closing in on you. I have. A thousand and one times. I’ve lived the last moments of those jumpers. Now I must bring order to the chaos of that day. Yes, Niccolo made a mistake. And you did not let me finish. Why did he make a mistake? Why?”
He remains planted on the living room couch while she holds the front door open. When he does not budge, she walks close to him, her face next to his, a challenge. “You tell me.”
“Actually, you told me.”
“How’s that?”
“Niccolo’s record as a smoke jumper is superb. In every other fire, his instincts were quick, his decisions first-rate. But this time—this time he was sluggish. He was dulled. What I think happened is this: His dehydration was made worse by the alcohol that was still in his blood from earlier. Do you know what acute dehydration does to judgment?”
“He had a few glasses of wine, days before the fire.”
“A few glasses of wine and perhaps something more that he packed in. You say that like it’s nothing. I’ve seen people on the reservation— smart, responsible, good people—become monsters with that much drink.”
“He’s Italian. Indians don’t—can’t drink.”
“And do we bleed?”
“You know what I mean, Leon.”
“Acute dehydration has the same effect on the mind that altitude sickness has on a mountain climber. It turns your brain to crankcase oil, Ms. Cartolano.”
“You asked me to trust you.”
“I did.”
“But look what you’ve done! You’ve taken my words, the information I gave you, and you’ve stabbed my family. You conned me and used me and I feel like I hate what you’ve become just now. I want you out of here.”
He rises, the long legs slow to extend, and walks away from her, outside to the deck, the wind tossing leaves through the air, geese tracking south over Lake Washington, honking. Brunella follows him, her eyes teary.
“In another time,” he says, staring at the lake, “maybe a hundred and fifty years ago, they would hang your brother, if he weren’t already dead.”
She spins him around, slaps him hard on the face, pounds at his chest with her fists. He flinches, but continues.
“Niccolo is your brother. You will always love him. But he made a mistake. As I told you before, there are no pure accidents. This was human error. We will learn from that mistake for as long as there are smoke jumpers—”
“Drop the Forest Service caca, Leon.”
“I will make this report public next week. There will be congressional hearings as well. You will be called. Those hearings are meaningless, except to the congressmen. What’s important to know is that already we are making changes.”
“I don’t believe this. I just . . . don’t believe this. You’re going to blame the soldier for the war.”
“No, I’m going to uphold the honor of those dead smoke jumpers.”
“Those jumpers did not die because of Niccolo. There’s something screwy about that forest. The land was dead.”
“We know the forest was stressed by drought.”
“No, there’s something more than drought, Leon. What if—what if there was some awful human intervention? If somebody caused that forest to die? If somebody, in effect, killed it, and killed all the life that depends on it, all the little springs, and it was tinder, and blew up in the face of those jumpers. You would then have a larger cause—right?— perhaps the real cause. You talked to those people who live up on the bench, the two-oh-sixers?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see the water?”
“What water?”
“The water! God, how does everybody miss it? I should have told you about this earlier. Didn’t Alden Kosbleau bring it up?”
“He said nothing about it.”
“A small pipeline of cold water comes out of the ground right up there at the edge of the burned-out forest. I’d never seen it before. But I saw it during the harvest.”
“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about. One of the canals into the coulee?”
“I’ll take you there. Do me this favor: Walk that land one time with me before you make this report public.”
“What good would that do?”
“You owe me, Leon. You owe the dead. Let’s go there together. You must keep looking. You have to keep this report open until . . . until you know what’s really going on. You’re just touching the surface. I feel it. I have this sense; there’s something more. My father is—”
“Your father is not a Forest Service matter.”
“He went comatose after Niccolo’s death. It almost killed him. He’s just now coming out of it. If you make this report public, blaming Niccolo, you start a process, and you know where that ends up? They take our home. They take the vineyard. They run us out of the coulee. My father is one of the last people left in that part of the Columbia basin still working the land. He will never leave. I’m afraid for my father.”
CHAPTER TEN
AFTER THE FIRST blush of pink has dissolved above Cascades, the last of the Salmon Bay gill-netters leaves his berth in the city. Duff Almvik guides the SoundGardener past the high-tech campuses along the shore, through the locks, to the open sound, past the homes with great green lawns and roof windows reaching for light, past the restaurants, north at ebb tide. He prods his vessel into a brisk jog, following a hunch that a swarm of late-season kings are massing off Whidbey Island. He cranks the volume on a disk of juggernaut rock as he plows through the inky seas, rolling with the gentle chop. Belowdeck in the fo’c’sle, the hatches are sealed, the windows tight and fresh-caulked, the bunks wrapped in clean linen and topped with down comforters, with flowers in a holder and multicolored condoms in a candy dish.
He has food for five days, propane for cooking, a fat novel, two cartons of music discs, and a one-liter bottle of Jack Daniel’s. His radar, his radio, his depth sounder, his fish finder, and his cell phone are all in good working order. Amidship, the hold is laden with ice. Master of thirty-two feet of floating fiberglass and wood, Duff puts on his fish face, ready for battle. The wheel gives him little resistance. Just off Point No Point, he throttles the engine back to idle—though it chokes a bit, uncertain. He lowers the trolling poles and baits stainless-steel hooks with fresh herring. Trolling will not make him rich, but it is an ancient way to catch the most desirable fish, the clean kings prized by restaurants because their flesh has never been mashed in a pile at the bottom of a net. And if he is skunked, later tonight when he sets his gill nets he will at least have something to show, something to cover the cost of fuel, beer, and bait. With the trolling poles down, SoundGardener looks like a big seabird that has just come in for landing. Within fifteen minutes one bell rings, signaling a fish on, and then another and another.
“Shit shanks, I’m feeling it now!” he calls out, as he activates the hydraulic gurdies. Chanka-chanka-chanka comes the sound of the in-reeling troll lines. Then the splash, the break of the spiky sea, the emergence from the watery world, the plop on deck, and those beautiful eyes, staring wildly up at Duff. They are gorgeous fish, snouts yet to metamorphose, muscular sides, powerful tails. He holds one at chest level, feeling the last adrenal surge of its life—“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you”— before he throws it into the hold. Three fish, about thirty pounds apiece, each a hundred-dollar bill. But more than that, Duff has found the vein in the Puget Sound depths. He is locked on.
In the afternoon, winds funnel through canyons in the Olympics and whisk across the water. The SoundGardener has trouble holding her position, and when Duff guides her back, she makes a broad turn, unresponsive. It troubles him; she’s never acted this way before. He fishes until dusk, taking in another eight kings and two cohos, which are smaller. In a few hours, the real action will begin. He takes a cold bratwurst, slaps it into a bun, and slathers it with mustard. The winds pick up again, blowing at twenty knots, topping off the swells. Duff winches in his trolling poles and steers north out of Useless Bay, around Whidbey’s western shore. He is headed for Deception Pass, a deep narrow canyon separating the northern part of Whidbey from Fidalgo Island. During ebb tide, when it seems all of Puget Sound is trying to squeeze through the pass, the water rips through the slot between the islands, creating a roar that bounces off the high rock walls. At peak intensity, when the tidal pull goes the other way and converges with westerly winds, the pass is all froth and turbulence. Duff plans to anchor the SoundGardener just outside the entrance to Deception Pass, unroll fifteen hundred feet of nylon netting, and take salmon feeding on the nutrient-rich currents. It will be a tricky series of maneuvers, trying to keep the boat from being smashed against the rocks, holding the net just outside the main current, dodging the flotsam of kelp and driftwood that can tangle a line while making sure his set is just right so that fish swim into the small openings of the net, snagging their gills.
A brief tempestuous sunset frames the Olympics—clouds fevered before they go gray and anonymous. Winds are now blowing at near gale force in the darkness, running in from the west through the Strait of Juan de Fuca. A halo of mist around a squash-colored moon reiterates what the Coast Guard marine forecast has been saying: A seasonal storm is on the way, nothing Duff has not seen before. He cranks the volume. Pearl Jam plays over the diesel strain and a chorus of hissing wind as the seas rise and pour over the stern.
The moon, oh, look at the moon! From the top floor of a tower in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood, the diffused moonlight over Puget Sound is an object of aesthetic wonderment. A party is just getting under way at the home of a man who made more than three hundred million dollars on an Internet graphic tool designed for people with macular degeneration, now used primarily by pornography sites. Brunella has enlisted him to host this fund-raiser for the campaign to save the Salmon Bay fishing community. In skirt, matching top, and heels, Brunella feels overdressed; she stands out among the smooth-faced rich of the Northwest, who are clad in earth-toned, custom-rumpled Seattle mufti, their most expensive piece of clothing a raincoat of exquisite breathing ability. She eyes a couple of pretty boys among the earnestly affluent, and it comes over her again, that sensation of wanting to rub, snuggle, and romp. But she, too, has to put on her fish face.
