But that wasn’t what I was thinking about. “You’re pushing things,” I said slowly, “till your pa isn’t going to take it. I don’t know what you think’ll happen—”
“You don’t know what I think at all,” he interrupted me, in a way that made it clear he didn’t want me to pursue the matter. His mouth was tight, and I knew he could explode. Dogs get that look from time to time: nudge me once more, the look says, and I’ll bite your foot off. A fish took my hook, so I could drop the matter easily enough, and I did. But obviously I was on to something. Maybe he thought John would kick him out of the valley, so he’d be free of it all…
It was a big rock bass, and it took me a lot of time and effort to get it in the boat. “See, this fish is no longer than my arm, and I could barely get it in. Those whales are twice as long as this boat.”
“They catch them up in San Clemente,” Steve said. “They make a lot of silver off them at the meets, too. Why, one whale is how many jars of oil, did Tom say?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do too! What’s this I don’t know. I tell you. This whole valley is going to the dogs.”
“No lie,” I said grimly. Nicolin snorted, and we went back to fishing. After we got several more aboard he started again.
“Maybe we could poison the harpoons. Or, you know, harpoon a whale twice, from two boats.”
“We’d get all tangled. The boats would be pulled together and crushed.”
“What about poison, then.”
“It would be better to put three boats’ worth of line on the end of one harpoon, so we could let the whale run as far down as it liked.”
“Now see, there you’re talking.” He was pleased. “Or how about this, we could have the harpoon at the end of a line that extended right back to the beach—held up by little floats or something. And then when the harpoon struck, the playing of the thing would be from the beach. Eventually we could just haul it right into the rivermouth.”
“The harpoon would have to be pretty well fixed.”
“Well of course. That would be true no matter what you did.”
“I guess. But it’s also a hell of a lot of line you’re talking about. Usually those things are a mile or so offshore, aren’t they?”
“Yeah…” After some pondering, he said, “I wonder how those folks in San Clemente do catch them monsters.”
“You got me. They sure aren’t telling.”
“I wouldn’t either, if I was them.”
“What’s this? I thought you were telling me all the towns have to stick together, we’re all one country and all that.”
He nodded. “That’s true. You’ve said so yourself. But until everyone agrees to it, you got to protect your advantages.”
That seemed to have some application to me, but I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was. Anyway, I had made the mistake of bringing the subject back to the political situation, and as we rowed our full boat back to the rivermouth, Steve pressed me on more time.
“Remember, now, we’ve promised Jennings. And you know you want to go up there and fight those Japs. Remember what they did to you and Tom and the rest of you out there in that storm?”
“Yeah,” I said. Well, Kathryn, I thought, I tried. But I knew better than that. Nicolin was right. I wanted those Japanese out of our ocean.
We negotiated the mouth break, and coasted in on the gentle waves that the high tide was shoving up the throat of the river. “So, get up there and see what you can do with Melissa. She’s got a feeling for you, she’ll do what you want.”
“Umph.”
“Maybe she’ll ask Add for you.”
“I doubt it.”
“Still, you’ve got to start somewhere. And I’ll see if I can’t think of something myself. Maybe we could eavesdrop on them like you did last time.”
I laughed. “It might come to that,” I agreed. “I’ve thought of that myself.”
“Okay, but do what else you can first, all right?”
“All right. I’ll give her a try.”
I spent a couple of days thinking about it, trying to figure something out—living with the knot over my stomach, so that it was hard to sleep. One morning before dawn I gave up trying and walked over the dew-soaked bridge to the Costas’. Doc was up, sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea and staring at the wall. I tapped at the window and he let me in. “He’s asleep now,” he said with relief. I nodded and sat down with him. “He’s getting weaker,” he said, looking into his tea. “I don’t know… Too bad you guys had such miserable weather coming back from San Diego. You’re young and can take it, but Tom… Tom acts like he’s young when he shouldn’t. Maybe this will teach him to be more careful, to take better care of himself. If he lives.”
“You should remember the same thing yourself,” I said. “You look awful tired.”
He nodded.
“If the train tracks had been left alone we would have come back easy as you please,” I went on. “Those bastards…”
Looking up at me Doc said, “He may die, you know.”
“I know.”
He drank some tea. The kitchen began to get lighter with the dawn. “Maybe I’ll go to bed now.”
“Do it. I’ll stick around till Mando gets up, and keep an eye on things.”
“Thanks, Henry.” He shoved the chair back. Lifted himself up. Stood and collected himself. Stepped into his room.
So I hiked onto Basilone Ridge that afternoon, to see if I could find Melissa at their house. Through woods and over the cracked greeny concrete of the old foundations. When I walked into the clearing around their tower I saw Addison, at leisure on his roof, smoking a pipe and kicking his heels against the side of the house, thump-thump, thump-thump. When he saw me he stopped kicking, and didn’t smile or nod. Uncomfortable under his stare, I approached. “Is Melissa home?” I called.
“No. She’s in the valley.”
“No I’m not,” Melissa called, emerging into the clearing from the north side—the side away from the valley. “I’m home!”
Add took the pipe from his mouth. “So you are.”
“What’s up, Henry?” Melissa said to me with a smile. She was wearing baggy burlap pants, and a sleeveless blue shirt. “Want to go for a hike up the ridge?”
“That’s just what I was going to ask you.”
“Daddy, I’m going with Henry, I’ll be back before dark.”
“If I’m not here,” Add said, “I’ll be home for supper.”
“Oh yeah.” They exchanged a look. “I’ll keep it hot for you.”
Melissa took my hand. “Come on, Henry.” With a tug we were off into the forest above their house.
As she led the way uphill, dancing and dodging between the trees, she threw questions back my way. “What have you been doing, Henry? I haven’t seen you very much. Have you been back to San Diego? Don’t you want to go see all that again?”
Remembering what she had said to the scavengers that night, I could hardly keep from smiling. Not that I was amused. But it was so transparent what she was doing, pumping me for information once more. I lied with every answer I gave. “Yes, I’ve been down to San Diego again, on my own. It’s a secret. I met a whole…” I was going to say a whole army of Americans, but I didn’t want to show I knew what she was up to. “… a whole bunch of people.”
“Is that right?” she exclaimed. “Why, when was that?” She was quite the spy. But at the same time, she was so lithe and springy slinking through the trees, and shafts of sunlight caught and broke blue in her black hair, and I wouldn’t have minded having my hands all tangled up in that hair, spy or not.