The Hauntings of Hood Canal

An Awful Attack Leads to Girl Talk

October along the Canal weeps maple leaves. November storms lie a month in the future, but in October we feel occasional pops and puffs of promissory wind. The Canal remains its own dark self, and on a map may not resemble a fishhook after all. It may resemble a fractured arm, an injury, something unhealed and unhealing. Leaves float like loosened kites, or on wet days plane toward ground in a liquid slide. The leaves are yellow-y and orange-y.

October is respite for most men who go to sea. A few guys who didn’t make a stake during the season take one last dash to the fishing grounds. Others, the diligent and lucky ones, work on their boats and look forward to five months of horsing around. They patch roofs on their houses, or rebuild engines on old pickups. They have plenty of time to think.

And, they have plenty of time to attend memorial services for the drowned, even if the memorial is only a mask to conceal Petey’s hustle.

Maple leaves drifted in piles around Sugar Bear’s shop, and around his fairy-tale house. The fisherman parked beside Bertha’s Chrysler and Sugar Bear’s pickup. He foresaw problems. Bertha would talk, Sugar Bear would puzzle, Annie would ask questions, and the fisherman was either gonna tell the truth or lie like a member of congress.

Still, people were dying. He had to do something. Cops could hassle ’til hell froze, but this was not a cop-type mystery. The fisherman slammed the pickup door so as to announce himself, then walked.

In Sugar Bear’s kitchen stood two beautiful women, and one of them made the fisherman feel sick-y. Annie stood before the cookstove waiting for water to boil. Her long hair held no gleam or sparkle. Her smile did not conceal nervousness, or a small tremble on her lips. She did not slump, exactly, but that healthy, athletic look was gone. The fisherman felt shock, then sorrow, finally anger. Wrong stuff, like all evil and ugliness, crowded in on that small house. The fisherman couldn’t actually reach and touch the wrongness, but he felt it.

Bertha, on the other hand, looked fair, considering: but Jubal Jim looked poorly. Under sane conditions he would nap beneath the table. Now he sat close to Annie. No one is more mournful than a mournful hound.

This was a wake, all right, but not a wake for Petey. “Tell me,” the fisherman said to Bertha. He took a chair, watched Annie make coffee, waited for somebody to say something. Nobody did.

“I got weird news,” the fisherman said, “and I ain’t sweating Petey. He can take care of himself. Somebody talk.”

“Off the top,” Bertha told him, “I’ve hassled myself. I should have known Petey was running a number. I should have known Petey wouldn’t really back down from a cop.” Bertha sounded lonesome and ready to sniffle. At the same time her voice carried envy, also a touch of admiration. “…almost feel sorry for the cop. You got to guess it’s a major hustle.”

The fisherman told himself to be mighty, mighty careful. He wanted to remind Bertha the cop had been sorta welcome. Instead, he kept his flapper shut.

“Plus there’s this other mess,” Sugar Bear said. “There ain’t a guy on that road that’s not pulled over.” Sugar Bear watched Annie, looked at Bertha, seemed totally discouraged. “Except me. I stay off the road.”

“They’re shaking trees,” Annie said, “to see what falls out.” She reached to pat Jubal Jim. “Something might. People talk.”

Bertha motioned toward Annie and Sugar Bear. “These two should run a mortuary.” She looked at the fisherman. “You’re supposed to be thinking this through.”

“You’d be surprised.”

Jubal Jim shivered along his spine, then shook like a dog coming out of the rain. He gave a low growl. The growl changed to a snarl. Jubal Jim sniffed at air, turned real slow, catching a scent but trying to discover a direction. Then, like he picked up something from afar, he braced and sent a howl that should have broken crockery. The howl was not mournful, but challenge. Jubal Jim’s nose pointed in the direction of the Canal, and he looked for a fight.

“If I was smart as that dog…” Sugar Bear began.

Annie knelt beside Jubal Jim. She didn’t touch him, didn’t break his concentration. Instead she listened. Jubal Jim had something to say in ways only Annie understood.

The fisherman turned to check the wood stove because chill entered the room. It was like somebody left a door open; but this was January chill, not something a guy expects in October. The feeling of wrongness grew so strong it poured from the very walls of the house. Curtains decorated with rabbit pictures moved slightly as cold became glacial, corpse-cold.

“Not here.” Annie’s voice sounded thin, nearly frightened. Her voice almost quavered. Then her voice firmed up and became harsh, ready to fight. She still knelt beside Jubal Jim. “Not here. Not in this house. Not ever.” Who, or what, she spoke to, the fisherman could not say.

Jubal Jim growled as the feeling of wrongness grew even stronger. In brittle cold, a light stench infested the air. It was no more than the smell of spoiled flesh, not yet rotten, only a little high.

“All right,” Annie said, her voice becoming calm. “If that’s how it’s got to be…” She remained kneeling beside Jubal Jim. She was focused. Concentrating. Jubal Jim wagged his tail, then thumped.

Beyond the windows trees awakened as wind moved in their tops, and as golden leaves skidded through air. Showers of gold slapped against the windows, and the forest seemed to dance. A squirrel ran across the clearing and crows cawed in indignation. Without knowing how or why it happened, the fisherman felt a surge of small warmth, of security; the kind that comes from fireplaces, big suppers, and snoozing dogs.

A sound, almost a gasp, came from somewhere in the room. Then came movement of air like a rush of frightened wind. Heat returned to the room as stench and cold and wrongness fled. Jubal Jim gave a small bark, kind of happy, and licked Annie’s cheek.

“I thought,” Bertha said to Annie, “you planned to settle down.” She watched Annie, and the fisherman thought no one, not even Bertha, could say whether Bertha was happy. He could say Bertha was impressed, and that did not happen real often.

“I don’t know what it was, but it’s awful.” Annie now touched Jubal Jim, flopped his ears, rubbed him between the shoulders.

She caused wiggles from a happy hound. “Even the most horrible people usually have something going. This has nothing. It’s foul and filthy, but it’s hollow.”

“I guess,” the fisherman admitted, and he was reluctant, “I’ve got stuff to tell.”

The story didn’t come easy. He apologized as he went along, telling what the tow truck kid said, telling about watching Petey, and then telling about the rush through water of whatever it was that moved in the Canal. Then he told about the shape rising from water, struggling toward shore, and sinking.

“The tow truck kid said you couldn’t stand the smell,” he explained, “but I’ve got this educated nose. A guy could stand it…” He knew his story sounded lame, but considering what had just happened…

“If Petey dunked his car, Petey would’ve had to walk home, and that’s a good hike. That means a major hustle.” Bertha murmured, mostly to herself. “He couldn’t hitch a ride.” Then she brightened. “Petey had another car stashed somewhere.”

“It was like what we just smelled, only moreso,” the fisherman explained.

“It’s gotta be the dead guy.” Sugar Bear suddenly looked a little better.

“Because,” Bertha spoke to the room in general, “it has to be major. Any hustle with this much set up has to be bigtime.”

“It might be the dead guy,” Annie told Sugar Bear. “I don’t rule him out, exactly.” She turned to Bertha, and Annie was major-displeased. “We’re talking serious stuff here.”

And then, either because she was too young to know better, or because she was steamed, Annie took on Bertha; and in a direct way no one but lunatics would try. “What’s with the cop? And don’t tell me it’s a hustle.”

The fisherman almost wanted to shield his groin. He figured he had exactly three and seven-sixteenths seconds before the big explosion.

A pause. A blush from Bertha. A bigger blush. Jubal Jim snuggled up beneath the table, ears spread wide on the floor, immediately a-snooze. Bertha turned, but not on Annie. She looked at Sugar Bear, at the fisherman. “You guys take off for a spell. Catch a fish or fix a saw or something.” Her voice was quiet, not angry. Maybe her voice was only sad. “Girl talk,” she explained, and her blush maybe faded, maybe a little.

Much later, after tons of such ’n such, it developed that Bertha turned to Annie for advice. The switch made sense. After all, Annie had once set her cap for Sugar Bear. For better or worse she fulfilled a dream. Bertha, equally gorgeous, could get plenty of men but not the man she wanted.

It was clearly one of those girl problems… although, as the fisherman mused much later, it was the sort of thing he and Sugar Bear had sorta discussed one time or another. But, all of this came out much, much later.

At the time, the two men stepped from the fairy-tale house into a clearing that lay beneath a cliff where in springtime swallows would dance. On the cliff, forest stood dark beneath a sky of mixed cloud and sun. The forest reached far back into the mountains where roamed bear and cougar and mountain goats, plus varmints without number.

In the other direction lay the death-dealing road, and the Canal filled with mystery-stuff. The fisherman was unsurprised to hear Sugar Bear muttering.

“How do you kill a dead guy?” Sugar Bear stomped toward his shop, but paused beside piles of firewood. “Bring an armful. Hard to tell how long we’re kicked out.”

The fisherman figured they had a guy-thing going, and it would go sour because Sugar Bear owned that bad temper. Sugar Bear snapped some scrap 2 x 2s for kindling, so he still had plenty strength left. He tossed in shavings, got the fire licking away, but even getting “something done” didn’t stave off his temper. When he turned to the fisherman, Sugar Bear looked a whole lot healthier than he had for quite awhile. Temper sometimes brings out good stuff.

“I had enough,” Sugar Bear said. “I got a bellyful.” He managed to hold onto control. He looked through the shop window toward the fairy-tale house. “I figured I had it coming,” he said by way of explanation. “I kill the guy, the guy comes back at me. I get sick-y. Okay. But, now he’s going after her. The sonovabitch was in our house.”

There was, the fisherman figured, not a whole lot to discuss. Still, Sugar Bear was his friend, and a guy don’t want to help a friend self-destruct. “You don’t know it’s the dead guy. It could be something worse.”

“What could be worse?”

“Plus, Annie handled it.”

“Annie talks to bugs.”

“I don’t know what that means. You’ve said that before.” The fisherman watched fire lick at kindling. Pretty soon the fire would get into chunks of fir and the stove door would get closed. The fire would flicker down. It would go hot but sullen. Right now, though, it was bright as anger. “I talk to fish. Sometimes. You cuss at engine parts. What does it mean, Annie talks to bugs?”

The question slowed Sugar Bear. It actually cooled him off; well, just a little. Sugar Bear stared into the fire like he tried to puzzle through a lesson. He seemed bigger, like in other days. His shoulders no longer slumped. His face-fur moved around. Sugar Bear was coming alive after a month of sleepwalking, or whatever had been happening.

“She’s a kid. She’s smart. She’s magical, kinda. But she’s wide open to get slammed.” Sugar Bear tossed a balk of fir into the stove, then shut the door. The crackle of fire diminished to a couple dull pops.

“I repent I killed that guy,” Sugar Bear said. “I understand somebody was gonna do it. I agree it needed doing. It was also wrong. There’s times when doing wrong is the only choice a guy’s got. This is how I figure…”

The fisherman listened and told himself he would be doubly­dipped in seafood sauce. Sugar Bear might be inexperienced at thinking, but he tried.

“She’s a kid. Kids don’t know how bad real badness can get. They get sucker-punched. Evil stuff, really evil like that guy, goes after kids because badness is yellow. It sneaks.”

The fisherman, who had been a kid once himself and lived through it, was about to point out that everybody has to grow up; sometimes the hard way. Instead, he hushed himself.

“I guess,” Sugar Bear admitted, “I’m actually kind of glad the guy comes after us. Because I won’t put up with this no more. It was different when it was just me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with protecting yourself. Protecting Annie. Nothing wrong.”

“What’s wrong,” Sugar Bear said, “is I’ll kill that sonovabitch a thousand times if that’s what it takes. This scrap isn’t between good and bad, it’s between bad and worse. Don’t think I like it.”

“There’s problems,” Bertha was telling Annie, “and you’re not to say a word.” Bertha sat at the kitchen table across from Annie, coffee-klatching, looked through windows framed with green-y curtains.

“My problem is the cop.” Annie still sounded ready for a scrap. “As long as he’s around Sugar Bear will stay spooked. Sugar Bear can’t get over it.”

“The main problem is, I’ve hustled myself into deep water.” Bertha’s blush increased. Her voice sounded someplace between timid and ashamed. “I admit to liking it that the cop seemed interested.”

“And now you’re afraid he isn’t. He’s interested in something.” Annie was no longer ready to fight, at least not with Bertha. “This is serious.”

“I’ve run a few numbers in my time,” Bertha whispered, “and I think I’m pretty smart. But, I led with my jaw on this one.” She blushed bigtime, and kind of choked.

“I’m not sure about those curtains,” Annie said. “Winter gets so gray around here you need a lot of color. But, maybe the color’s wrong.”

“Never figured you for bunnies.” Bertha studied the curtains. “The bunnies are mighty little. When you get too many of anything it makes the place look busy.”

“There’s no evidence,” Annie said. “Maybe there’s bones lying around down there. There’s nothing except the car, but there’s lots of wet cars. But, Sugar Bear’s not good at lying, and that’s nice but scary.”

“The cop’s still interested, I think. But I ain’t.” Bertha’s embarrassment turned to reddest red. Her blond hair framed a blue­-eyed face only a little bit brighter than neon.

“Then where’s the hustle? What’s the hustle?”

Bertha’s voice, her eyes, the set of her mouth were fixed in admiration. At the same time she couldn’t speak above a whisper. “Petey hustled me. Petey hustled a hustler… I’m first to give him credit.”

“I’m in over my head,” Annie told her. “What in the world is going on?”

“All that sad-face stuff, all that distance.” Bertha still whispered, like she couldn’t rise above some kind of Norwegian economic shame. “All that running the road, and losing at pool… because Petey don’t lose unless he wants to… and then he dunks a car and sends in Jubal Jim…” At their feet Jubal Jim stirred, stretched, gave a couple little snurfs and resumed napping.

“Jubal Jim I understand,” Annie said. “Jubal Jim is straightforward. Spit it out.”

“Petey knew from the minute that cop showed up that cops and bars don’t mix. He knew it from the get-go. He knew the cop would wreck business. He did that sad-face act to show about cops. I’ve bin acting silly.” Bertha sounded like she confessed to a capital crime. “He’s trying to convince me, and I’m convinced. And now he’s disappeared and I can’t send a message.”

“And that’s it? That’s the all-time big deal?” Annie sat and figured angles. “Remember when I tried to get Sugar Bear interested, and he already was. Petey told me. It solved the problem. When Petey shows back up I’ll talk to him. Simple.”

“It might work.” Bertha allowed herself to sound hopeful. She talked a little above a whisper.

“Meanwhile,” Annie told her, “a whole cop-shop is shaking trees.” She stood, walked to another window. “The guys have got a fire going. I figure they’re sitting in the shop thinking up moves… which is okay as long as they don’t get secret.”

“Something dumb.” Bertha had not lost her spirit at any rate. “Neither of those guys could hustle a chicken off a nest.”

“The cop,” Annie insisted. “Get him on your side or send him home. Get rid of him somehow. Shut it down.”

“I can do that,” Bertha said. “In fact, I gotta do that. Plus it’s the right thing. There comes a time you quit defending. Sooner or later you got to commit to the game.” She did not then mention that a pool tournament was only six days off.