PROLOGUE
Port Angeles, Washington,
6:35 a.m. PDT
When day broke gray and chilly over the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Chugash brothers were already fishing two miles off Ediz Hook, the long, narrow spit of land that guarded Port Angeles Bay. Their fifteen-foot open boat drifted with the current, rising and falling on the widely spaced swells. To the south, the mill town of Port Angeles was backdropped by the dark, heavily forested flanks of the Olympic Mountains. The snow-capped peaks were hidden in a ceiling of low clouds.
Stan Chugash sat on a seam-split life preserver cushion next to the forty-horsepower Evinrude’s tiller; brother Bob sat amidships, facing him. They were “mooching” for spring chinook salmon. As the dead boat rode the incoming floodtide, they carefully reeled up and then lowered spinning, plug-cut herring. A salmon’s take on the fall of the bait was often almost imperceptible and required concentration and practice to recognize. The Chugash brothers had been mooching these waters for more than fifty years.
Stan flipped the dregs of cold, bitter black coffee from his insulated cup and transferred the sticky white crust of glazed doughnut from his fingertips to a knee of his green vinyl pants. Under the windproof rainsuit, he wore three layers of clothes. “Would you look at that yuppie asshole,” he remarked. “Miles of water to drive through, no other boats in sight, and he’s got to crowd us.”
The twenty-six-foot Alumaweld approached steadily from the west at four knots, dragging double downriggers behind. To Stan, it looked brand-new. A Furuno radar beacon swiveled endlessly on the enclosed cabin’s roof. In the hull’s forest-green side paint the name Fisher King was emblazoned in two-foot-high, silver-flecked, cursive letters. Mounted on the stern were twin, four-stroke Yamaha engines: more combined horsepower than Bob’s full-sized V-8 pickup truck. There was only one person in the boat.
“Think he’s drinking a gran-day lah-tay in there?” Bob asked as he glanced over his shoulder.
“Yeah, while he’s surfin’ the Web.”
Both in their late sixties, the Chugash brothers had retired from the Port Angeles paper mill. They had been salmon-fishing junkies since they were old enough to pull-start an outboard.
The bow of the Alumaweld turned slightly, aiming right for them. It wasn’t slowing down.
“You want to reel up and move, Stan? Fish the other end of the bank?”
“We got a dead boat. We got the right of way. Besides, if we move to another spot, that twerp will just follow us.”
The Alumaweld bore down on the Chugash brothers.
“Shit, we’re gonna have to pull up, Stan. He’s gonna snag our lines on a downrigger ball.”
“If he don’t ram us first.” With an effort, Stan stood up in the narrow boat. “Get out the way!” he hollered, waving an arm over his head.
The man piloting the Alumaweld cruiser stared at him through the tinted windshield and kept on coming, same course and speed.
“He can’t hear ya, Stan. Let’s just move.”
“He can see me, though, the son of a bitch,” Stan growled. He locked his rod in the gunwale holder and held out his hand. “Give me a goddamn sinker, Bob.”
Under the visor of his brother’s parka hood, Bob saw a puffy, weather-seamed face flushed with fury. “Stan, that’s not a good idea,” he said, then quickly added, “Remember your blood pressure….”
Stan reached down snatched an eight-ounce slip sinker from the thwart. The star varsity pitcher of the Port Angeles High School Rough Riders circa 1955 cocked back his arm and took aim at the approaching windshield. “I’m gonna knock out every one of those bleached fucking teeth.”
“Stan, for pete’s sake…”
Then both of the Alumaweld’s downrigger rods bucked hard in their holders. The reels screamed like banshees.
“Well, I’ll be gone to hell!” Stan snarled. “The bastard snagged a pair of fish right out from under us!”
As
