Float Monkeys

By Jonathan Thomas Stratman

Southeast Alaska is a new world of islands, float planes and adventure for Will, Elias and Will’s dog, Blackie.

They’re the new float monkeys—dock boys—at Spruce Cove Air who do all the loading, unloading and grunt work. So they—all three—need to adapt to life on the water and in the air—in a hurry!

What’s up with their fellow float monkey, redheaded, scrappy Ricky? What is Ricky not telling? And pilot Wild Wyatt? Can they survive him?

Beneath the fun of a summer job at an island logging camp, with float planes and new friends, real danger lurks.

And located near Sitka, this is a new and different Alaska, one that none of them knows!

It's a summer in the sun, float planes and new jobs far from home. Is the friendship that saved Will and Elias in a terrible blizzard, strong enough to survive this?

Because when things go wrong—and they do—can the skills, courage, and friendship that saw them through a terrible blizzard, save them now?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jonathan Thomas Stratman
• Release date: Nov 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370286218

Jonathan Thomas Stratman

Jonathan Thomas Stratman (1948 - ) grew up Alaskan and has since lived in the Pacific Northwest. Whether for adult or youth, his novels richly recreate the core, old time Alaskan adventure and experience. Stratman's five novels, three for middle grades and two adult mysteries, range from coming of age adventure, to quirky, richly nuanced adult characters with enough plot turns and twists to keep you up after your bedtime.His 'Father Hardy Alaska Mystery Series' highlights the pre-statehood Alaska, rough, untamed—unpredictable! And his "Cheechako" series, ca early '90s, predates computers and digital devices, highlighting active, dynamic teens—boys and girls—who live by their character and their wits. And don't forget the plucky husky!"I wrote "Cheechako" for every boy and girl who ever wanted to drive a dogsled or go adventuring in the wilds of Alaska. It was a great place to grow up. I wanted to share that. This is the kind of book I craved as an early reader."

Book preview

FLOAT MONKEYS

Jonathan Thomas Stratman

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Acknowledgments

This story couldn’t have been written as effectively without significant help from experts.

Rod Henry Judy—Petersburg, Alaska floatplane pilot and an Alaska Living Legend of Aviation—for helping make the flight scenes in this book accurate and plausible. At this writing, Rod has more floatplane hours in Alaska than any other pilot. You can read more about his life at:

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/legends-alaska-aviation-rod-judy

Jim Howard—Jim the Pilot—a deHavilland Beaver pilot out of Seattle. Jim is a longtime pilot who specializes in the Beaver, and flies for Northwest Seaplanes (NWseaplanes.com). Check out Jim in action on one of his many YouTube videos. Here’s a sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvSkL-jhceY

Billie Judy and Claire Favro, who edited and proofed the Float Monkeys manuscript with such careful and professional attention to detail. Billie Judy—Rod’s sister, and my wife—shared stories of her time as a 14-year-old logging camp girl, who with other camp kids, played along the wild shoreline, water skied around a whale and were stung by giant jellyfish’s tendrils.

Cover art: ©2015 Jesse Joshua Watson

© 2013 Jonathan Thomas Stratman

All rights reserved

ISBN-13: 978-1489549808

ISBN-10: 1489549803

For

Jonathan

Shannon

Aaron

Peter

&

Graham

CHAPTER 1

The bright green floatplane winged a smooth curve around a sharp point of spruce-treed island. Side-slipping with wings waggling, it lined up for a water landing at Spruce Cove Logging Camp.

On a windless balmy day in mid-July, the Southeast Alaska sky glistened like a freshly washed blue bowl as saltwater danced and sparkled. If ever there was a day just made for flying—and landing on water—this was it.

The float plane should have glided cleanly through the narrow mouth of the cove, touching down easily in the smooth water beyond. But from where Will Rollins stood on the floating dock—with his sled dog, Blackie, and good friend Elias Charlie—something about the plane’s approach just looked wrong.

It was clear the pilot, approaching too high and too fast, meant to set her down anyway, no matter what.

Lower and lower swooped the airplane, sunlight glinting off the two windshield segments, until its pontoons skimmed the tops of the sea swells, carving glassy furrows and throwing up twin rooster tails of spray. Closer and closer and still coming far too fast.

Distantly, out of the corner of his eye, Will saw Uncle Jerry come bursting out of the Spruce Cove flight office on a dead run, as if that could make a difference now.

The float plane slammed down hard, blasting a cloud of spray out to either side and instead of slowing, seemed to dart forward even faster—like someone had greased the water—on a direct collision course with the float where the three stood.

Will saw the tail rudder shift as the airplane began to turn out. But it looked like too little too late. He found himself trying to will the plane’s pontoons to turn, like when you almost make the shot and your body wants to twist to make it go. But no amount of body twisting would stop this airplane from bearing down on them or somehow avoiding what seemed certain to be a nasty, smashing collision with the float’s unyielding timbers and creosote pilings.

I should be running, Will thought, the roar of the massive radial engine now a growling thunder in his ears. But somehow his feet just stuck there with Blackie sitting, leaning against his right leg, and Elias standing alongside. In those last seconds, he had time to wonder if their first day on the new job might be their last.

CHAPTER 2

Forty-eight hours earlier and more than five hundred miles to the north, Will had been wolfing down breakfast pancakes when his step-father, Jim, selected one envelope out of a stack of newly-delivered mail. The letter looked ordinary but for Will it changed everything.

It’s from Jerry. Jim carefully ripped one end off the envelope, slipping the letter out, My kid brother Jerry.

On that Alaskan Saturday morning in mid-July, the mail boat had just delivered the family’s monthly mailbag, its contents now all spilled out on the kitchen table: a few letters and subscription magazines, lots of junk stuff, a good supply of back newspapers, plus a few ordered parts and supplies.

Jerry runs a bush pilot service out of a logging camp on an island near Sitka, Jim went on, alternately reading the letter and commenting. A place called Spruce Cove. Looks like he’s in some kind of bind.

Jim stood in the center of the kitchen dressed in his typical khaki pants and worn-plaid shirt over red long johns with the sleeves pulled up. He stood there reading, arms held up and out to either side, still holding the ripped envelope in one hand while squinting through his scratched bifocals at the handwritten letter in the other. His lips moved slightly as he read.

Will cut into a fresh stack of his mom’s specialty sourdough hotcakes, spearing a neat section of three with his fork.

What kind of a bind? he asked, sliding the cakes back and forth through the bright red, sweet-and-tangy high bush cranberry syrup and into his mouth. It was syrup his mom had made last summer from berries that Will and Elias had picked, sometimes just a step ahead of the black bears.

Do we get to know? asked Mom, with baby Amanda on her hip while managing to dry her hands on a dishtowel. Even Blackie came out from her place beneath Will’s chair to stare at Jim intently, as if waiting to hear.

It was their second summer on the family’s Alaska homestead along the Tanana (Tan-uh-nah) River about a hundred miles, as the crow flies, south of Fairbanks. From the very top of a nearby hill on a cloudless day, Will could make out the peak called Denali—better known outside of Alaska as Mt. McKinley—at 21,000-some-feet, the tallest mountain in all of North America.

Here at a long bend in the Tanana, Will, with his mom and Jim, had built a cozy, three-room log cabin, a log barn for their small Farmall tractor, tools and fuel, and a log cache, a small shed set up high on poles to keep bears out of their food supplies. In winter with the temperature averaging well below minus-thirty degrees, the family could even use the cache to store ice cream!

The Tanana, Alaska’s second largest river after the Yukon, flowed about a half-mile wide here, swift and muddy with whirlpools, snags, and sometimes even quicksand along the banks. Not a river for swimming and playing, as Will’s mom warned him almost daily.

Early in Will’s third Alaska summer, he didn’t look or act much like the boy who moved out from Boston. Taller, leaner and a good deal more muscular, he now ran an arm-wrestling close second to his Athabascan friend Elias. And with the return of summer, the two of them would climb ‘most anything, long jump any of the nearby glacier-fed trout riffles, and race each other up and down dogsled trails for miles.

Getting started here hadn’t been easy and in truth, Will was forced to toughen up or die. Injuries, a terrible storm, Will’s extra-dangerous dogsled rescue run to Nenana—including being buried in an avalanche—and the homestead birth of his baby sister had made the previous winter a long, tough one. In fact, they nearly hadn’t made it.

But things were better now. They had several acres of garden planted and cultivated. Jim—a wildlife biologist—had been getting a bit of work for the State, and everybody was healthy. Just at that moment, homesteading in Alaska felt easy and comfortable.

Well, said Jim, slowly turning to lean his back on the sink counter and cross his brown, work-muscled arms. Looks like Jerry’s dock boy fell and broke his arm in two places. He’s not really a boy, he added. Maybe in his twenties. Anyway, he’s out for the rest of the season.

Gosh, said Mom, exhaling audibly, relieved it wasn’t worse. Why is that such a bind? Jerry could just hire another man. He’s based at a logging camp with guys flying in and out all the time, probably wanting to work. It seems like it would be easy to find someone.

Jim looked up from the letter. You would think, but Jerry says he can’t find anybody. The logging camp is going full steam, taking on all comers, paying top wages, even running an extra, early morning hoot-owl shift, to get as many logs rafted as possible before the season ends. Jerry says he’s even advertised in Sitka. Neither he nor his pilots can safely keep working eighteen-and-twenty-hour days. Jerry’s dock boys make good money, especially compared to around here.

Mom looked perplexed, and baby Amanda said something that sounded like a word but wasn’t, then looked surprised at herself and smiled. That made them all smile, and Will took advantage of the break in the conversation to polish off the last of his syrup-soaked hotcakes.

I guess I don’t understand why he’s writing to you about it, Mom said. Does he think you can leave the homestead to run itself while you fly down to help him out of a bind?

Not exactly, said Jim, a slightly mysterious smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

I know that smile, Mom said. Come on, out with it. Do you have a man in mind to help Jerry?

Well, said Jim, not a man, exactly.

Will was starting to get the idea. Me? he asked, making a thunky gulp out of his last swallow of pancakes. You’re thinking that I might help Uncle Jerry?

You’re thinking of Will? echoed Mom. Going down there to replace a full-grown man? All by himself?

Not by himself, said Jim. I was thinking he might take along a helper. You know, it would be a great experience … and we could really use the extra cash.

Well, yes … she agreed doubtfully, but …

Elias! Will piped in. Me and Elias?

Wait to get excited, Jim cautioned. We need to run this by him … and his folks.

And it needs more ‘running by’ Will’s Mom, said Will’s mom, still looking doubtful. Only baby Amanda seemed to think it was a done deal. She took her hands out of her mouth, squealed, and clapped them in delight.

Amanda likes the idea, said Will, tweaking her bare toe. Looks like I’m on my way to Spruce Cove!

CHAPTER 3

It’s a floating village, exclaimed Elias, sounding like he couldn’t quite believe it. And climbing out of Uncle Jerry’s float plane, getting his first look at Spruce Cove Camp, Will couldn’t help but agree.

For Will the past forty-eight hours were a blur. First, quickly packing his gear and then taking a motorboat trip upriver to Nenana. Next, revealing the idea to Elias and seeing the initial doubt on his face turn to excitement, followed by both nervously waiting while Jim explained it all to Elias’s parents.

At first Mr. and Mrs. Charlie didn’t seem too keen on the idea that the two boys would fly off by themselves to Southeast Alaska. Sitka was more than five hundred miles distant, farther than even Elias’s parents had ever been from home. It would seem like he was traveling to another country. On top of that, it meant Elias would spend the rest of July and all of August down at Spruce Cove, working for Uncle Jerry’s flying service, and not in the fish camp where he usually worked. The boys wouldn’t be returning to Nenana until after Labor Day.

Elias has never been that far away from home, said his mom. And that’s such a long time to be gone!

But I’m ready, said Elias. I’d sure like to give it a try.

Well, it’s not too soon for Elias to learn about holding down a real job, said Elias’s dad thoughtfully.

I don’t know … Mrs. Charlie said.

The fact is, Mr. Charlie said, he’d make real good money. And it’s not like he’d be going alone. He’d be with Will. ’Course, we’d miss you both, he assured them. Plenty to do right here. But, he turned to his wife, it’s not an experience he can get around here.

It was true. A small town like Nenana didn’t have many jobs people could do for a paycheck, so most folks lived on what they could hunt, fish for, or grow, and kids were expected to chip in. Last summer Elias, with occasional help from Will, had spent most of his summer downriver at fish camp, fortunately located just a few miles from the Rollins’ homestead.

Elias’s dad, Aaron Charlie, and his uncle Charles Charlie, were on a short list of the State’s top dog mushers. The whole extended family, now even including Will, pitched in to feed, exercise, care for and train sled dogs. It had been Will’s first job in Alaska, partly for pay and partly for river salmon and moose meat to haul home for dinner.

With thirty-some sled dogs, Will had learned skills like mending harnesses and lines, and making and installing new parts and fresh moose hide lacing on dogsleds and snowshoes.

And that didn’t even count all the work the Charlie family called making wood. They spent days cutting down and bucking up trees to stove length, then loading it into the pickup truck, unloading, and finally splitting and stacking it all in woodsheds under eaves or in tarp-covered stacks at the back of their log cabin. A lot of people in Nenana, especially the Charlie family, spent most of the summer getting ready for winter.

Of course Will got a double dose, since he also helped make wood for his own family. No wonder he had muscles!

While Will and Elias waited impatiently, Mrs. Charlie made a pot of coffee as they talked about it all with Will’s folks. By the end of the second pot, Jim was on the phone to Uncle Jerry and air tickets to Sitka had been arranged.

Blackie’s going too, right? asked Will.

I don’t know how we’d … Jim began.

I got a kennel, said Elias’s dad. We ship dogs all over the state. Won’t need it before fall. They can keep it down there, use it to fly Blackie back in September.

* * *

We expect letters, said Will’s and Elias’s moms at the Fairbanks airport, looking a little teary.

Okay, Mom, said Elias.

I’ll write every week, promised Will, and after a good bout of going-away hugging, the boys set off down the jet way.

Boarding the plane and feeling a bit giddy, Will grinned and said, Here goes nothin’.

Nah, said Elias, buckling his seat belt extra tight. "Here goes somethin’."

Spruce Cove Logging Camp wasn’t really a village as they came to find out, but it really was floating. It had been anchored out of the main channel in a small, sheltered, mostly tree-lined cove with wide, flat stony beaches. On this bright day, the water shone deeply green, brilliant with sparkling facets of reflected sunlight.

Holy cow, said Elias, craning his neck. I never seen trees this big.

Unlike the stunted birch and alder trees around Fairbanks and Nenana, these evergreen trees—spruce, hemlock, fir and cedar—stood more than one hundred feet tall and five or six feet through at the base.

Giants, breathed Elias.

Dwarfed beneath them, the floating camp consisted of ten or twelve buildings, including the logging camp’s office, cookhouse, bunk house, a few metal-clad mobile homes, and of course, Uncle Jerry’s Spruce Cove Air flying service office. Some of the buildings were quite large and others tiny. The rafts they had been built on were made from really big floating logs.

Why floating? asked Elias—something both boys were wondering. It looked like there was plenty of room on shore for building a camp.

It’s a logging camp, said Uncle Jerry. When they finish cutting trees here, they’ll bring in tugboats and haul it off to another place they can log. Every few years they just pull up anchors and float it all away.

Our main flight office is in Sitka, he went on, but since most of our business has something to do with these logging operations, it makes sense to headquarter here, too.

It’s kinda cool, said Will, looking around. The float plane they’d arrived on was a de Havilland Beaver, and Uncle Jerry was just now making a line fast from the Beaver to a timbered finger of floating dock, which extended out from the camp into Spruce Cove. Several small boats and two more of the bright green pontoon airplanes lined the dock.

Together Will and Elias lifted down Blackie’s plywood kennel, unsnapped the clip and slid the door up. She emerged blinking, stretching and shaking her fur back into place, gladly accepting the offer of a long cool drink of fresh water.

A narrow, passenger-sized gangway, connected the floating camp to a bulldozed landing area and an array of fuel tanks and various kinds of heavy logging machinery lined up along the shore, in various stages of disrepair and maintenance. Narrow logging roads, little more than one lane wide, headed off into the jumble of scrub brush, stumps, and unmarketable trees that had been left uncut.

Doesn’t look too good when they finish, said Elias.

That’s because this was cut just last year, said Uncle Jerry. It’s already been replanted, and in five years, this will all be green and a mostly-spruce forest again … though nothing like it was. His voice trailed away.

We won’t live long enough to see trees as big as the ones they cut, said Will.

For several miles up and over a range of rising hills, and starting up the base of a good-sized mountain, stood only a forest of stumps that had once been an uninterrupted sweep of majestic forest giants.

Doesn’t seem right, murmured Elias softly.

Yeah, said Uncle Jerry, but they keep cuttin’ ’em because people keep wanting to live in wooden houses. And loggers need to work to feed their families. Maybe best to think of this as a crop, like corn or wheat. Or…oh! He beckoned to an approaching kid. Here’s someone I want you to meet.

The