The Willows of Sky Pass

By Mary Brockway

Willows of Sky Pass begins in the great depression, and then World War II. The story is told from the viewpoints of two very different families. Many younger Americans have learned little about thousands of West Coast Japanese /Americans who were ordered from their homes and businesses with only what they could carry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781613091333

Book preview

Part One

One

ITALY, MAY 1944

Emmet forced open heavy eyelids. Khaki tent... Germans? Scratchy blanket... He squinted at the insignia, relieved to read ‘U.S. Army.’ The fuzzy outline of a face wavered above him.

Your hide got notched a little, Captain Tyler. A medic tapped the plasma bottle dripping into a vein in Emmet’s right arm. Kraut grenades pumped a gob of shrapnel into your left shoulder and thigh. Head’ll ache like hell awhile from the bullet that widened your bald spot, but Captain Lowe got everything out clean. Good dose of sulfa’ll keep infection down. You’ll soon be back in the war.

The voice pulsed waves of pain though Emmet’s head. Grimacing, he gulped to swallow over his rubbery tongue. Where are we? Did Shelby make it?

Corporal Shelby? No, Captain. I’m sorry. The medic pulled the needle from Emmet’s arm and pushed the empty bottle into a bulging canvas bag. "Doc’s needed to do some digging and stitching and evacuated you to Anzio.

Emmet squinted to read the medic’s name. Did we take Rome, Corporal Ames?

The medic grinned. Allies drove into Rome this morning. You had one busy day yesterday, Captain Tyler. Your guys said it was too bad a Dodger scout wasn’t up there to see you lobbing grenades. Got nine goose steppers all by yourself. Arty pop guns and Air Force guys finished off Cassino Monastery.

Emmet struggled to shake the effects of the anesthetic. No odor must be something new. Dizzy. Need a cigarette... He fumbled under his pillow.

The medic pulled a pack of Camels from his pocket and leaned to light one for him. Gotta get crackin’, sir. Bunch of those Jap kids from the four forty-second just came in to get patched up.

Do you remember any of their names?

Hell no. Takes one of them to figure out those otas and akis. All of ’em look alike to me.

Find out if there’s a Corporal Kenzo Tegano in the group. Kid who lived next door is over here. Saw him a month ago right after we landed.

I’ll check around. Corporal Ames squinted at the blood pressure gauge and stuffed the stethoscope into his pocket.

Having his left arm strapped tightly to his chest reminded Emmet of mummies he’d seen in a museum. He struggled to sit up, and then sank back onto the pillow. How long do I stay tied down?

Doc says you can go to the can tomorrow. Ames turned to leave. Relax and get some sleep.

Concern for Kenzo Tegano etched at Emmet’s drowsiness from the morphine. Kenny... Twenty years old, wounded maybe, his family interned somewhere in Idaho. A sudden cold dread sent a shiver rippling the length of his body. Beth. Dear sweet Beth, how he’d failed her when he hadn’t guessed she needed protection from that bastard, Irvin Burns. Anguish pricked his conscience and a sigh caught in his throat with the thought of vulnerable Beth alone in Sky Pass coping with everything he’d always protected her from. And the girls, growing into women he wouldn’t know. And Dennis, already without a dad for three of his six years. Three years of death and hell, a lifetime away from everything worthwhile. He closed his eyes, remembering with longing, those difficult, innocent years before war changed everyone, and the world.

SKY PASS, WASHINGTON State, 1937

Emmet Tyler eased the battered 1930 Buick, pulling a tarpaulin-covered trailer into a weedy space between patchwork outbuildings and a listing back porch. He opened the door and climbed stiffly out, dodging when the car announced its exhaustion by popping the radiator cap. Steam spewing from hood vents brought squeals from the three children in the back seat. They opened the doors and hurried out.

Ol’ Applesauce is bubbling over again, girls. Altitude, I reckon. He patted the rusting black hood with affection. Pushing his cap to the back of his head, he surveyed the house, its weather-curled siding showing faint traces of whitewash. Brand new shake roof. Won’t leak like the last place. He turned the knob to the back door. Rusted tight. We’ll have to go ‘round front.

He smiled when his wife, Beth, stepped from the car. She sighed, obviously relieved to be standing on level ground after two hours of gulping terror at every switchback over the high mountain pass leading to this isolated valley. He’d seen her clamp her lips so tightly she couldn’t reply to the girls’ excited shrieks over cascading waterfalls, or the deer watching from beneath the trees. Fear of the car tumbling down stark cliffs beyond the scanty highway barriers had closed her eyes to blot away the beauty.

Shading her eyes, and taking several more deep breaths, Beth scanned the line of jagged peaks standing like bayonets guarding the high valley, their long afternoon shadows dusting the tops of tall firs. Somethin’s made my ears feel like they’re stuffed with cotton.

It’s because we’ve climbed up nearly a mile, hon. Emmet settled his long arm over her shoulder. Sky Pass looks right pretty, don’t it?

Uh-huh, she mumbled.

A low whistle turned them toward a dark-haired young man leaning on the fence. He arched a black brow and grinned. Beth’s fair skin reddened as she glanced nervously at Emmet, who tipped his cap and shook the man’s outstretched hand.

Hello, neighbors. I’m Irvin Burns, and I live here with my mother. He nodded toward a thin woman peering through lace curtains. Welcome to lower Sky Pass, also called Milltown or Japtown.

I’m Emmet Tyler, and this is my wife, Beth. He lifted a bulky carton from the trailer. Best get us moved in before visitin’. Emmet pushed aside his irritation. Smart aleck ought to be careful flirtin’ with other men’s wives. Yet, today’s change in his fortune made working up anger over a pass at his pretty wife not worth the trouble. Made him just a little proud of her.

Sounds from the Bowman-McKensie Mill’s big gang saws screamed across the chip-strewn pond behind the houses. Tomorrow, thanks to his cousin Walter, he’d join the men working there. He surveyed the six houses arranged in a semicircle facing a patch of grass with a flag pole in the center. A hodgepodge of fences from angled side and back yards marked the individual taste of the occupants. Three of the houses were painted in fading whitewash, two in various hues of leftover green and gray mill paint. One sported new cedar siding. Bowman-McKensie’s part of Sky Pass must’ve been built by folks who decided mill towns needn’t be laid out in square blocks.

Emmet thumped the cardboard carton down on the wood plank stoop and opened the door. He reached to catch Beth’s arm when her heel caught in a wide crack.I’ll have to fix that broken board. A sound made him turn his head. He chuckled, nudging her around to meet a row of dark eyes peering from beneath a half-closed green blind in a window across the board walk that took all the space between the two houses.

The two entry porches were barely six feet apart, so he hoped the family would be friendly. A hand reached to tug the curious children from the window. Smiling, Emmet remembered Walter’s apology about settling them in Jap Town because this was the only vacant house in the mountain village big enough for the Tyler family. Y’all mustn’t stare, girls.

They’re the Japanese kids Cousin Walter told us about. Roseanne said.

Wanda’s mouth oohed in surprise. "Like those pictures in Grandpa Tyler’s National Geographic. She hurried inside the house and pulled cobwebs from a window to see if the strange kids were still watching. Move over, Wanda. Adela, her eyes barely reaching the high window sill, stretched on her toes. Can’t see."

There’ll be plenty of time to meet the children after we get settled. Help your daddy bring in the rest of the boxes. Shivering, Beth lifted a rusty stove lid. Can you scour up some wood, Em? There’s a chill in here. Whatever is that funny smell?

A mouse scurried across the floor and into a hole in the dark wainscoting.

That’s what you smell, hon. Mice had a whole house to themselves. And it’s bound to get a lot colder come winter. Walt says it sometimes snows six feet in Sky Pass. Emmet pulled hard on the back door and it squeaked open. Best find the oil can, looks like. Walt said the place has been empty two years. The family went back to Japan.

Wanda moved away from the window, her nose wrinkling. I’ll bet it smells funny ’cause Japs lived here.

You oughtn’t talk about folks like that, Wanda. Calling them Japs, I mean. They are Japanese. Emmet dropped a pile of wood on the floor by the huge old cook stove. Someone’s a good neighbor. Shed’s full of dry wood, fresh split.

Walter probably saw to it, Beth said. Ought to be thankful, she supposed, yet it rankled her that charity or pity might be the reason Walter hired Emmet as millwright at Bowman-McKensie. Shouldn’t have ever let Emmet persuade her to leave Arkansas. Soon as things picked up again, she’d make him move back home where folks smiled at strangers and she’d see Mama and Daddy every Sunday. Beth rubbed a hand over her stomach and swallowed a surge of nausea. Morning sickness lasted all day with this pregnancy.

Emmet pushed rusty stove pipe sections together, sending accumulated soot and dirt rattling into the stove. Pretty bad, likely need some new stove pipe before lightin’ a big fire. He turned toward the door. You feelin’ all right, hon?

I’ll be fine when I find the crackers. Beth patted his arm and turned to search through a brown paper bag. Pulling out a limp saltine, she nibbled it while squinting through the dirty window to watch the girls inspect the side yard.

Beth rolled a yellowed piece of newspaper covered with oriental printing, poking it and a hand full of kindling into the blackened firebox. After opening the rusty damper, she struck a wooden match to light the fire. Holding her sooty hands away from her dress, she twisted the single faucet over a galvanized metal sink in the corner. It grumbled a thin stream of brownish water that spattered into a rotting bamboo container under the sink. Drain’s full of holes, and there’s a dirty old basket under there. She opened the back stove lid and peered through cobwebs at the hot water reservoir. I hope this old tank don’t leak.

Emmet nodded, added a stick of wood to the crackling fire, and went out to finish unloading the trailer.

There had been worse houses, and dirtier, since the crash of 1929, yet Beth struggled against a cloud of disappointment. Smoke swirled from holes in the stovepipe and she opened the back door a crack. The clear mountain air reminded her of the Ozarks, and the fresh sawdust pile across the pond was larger but much like the one behind Emmet’s mill back home. Sucking in a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders and shut the door.

She sniffed the odd odor in the house, a sickly sweet indefinable thing. Never smelled anything quite like it before. Opium? Mama said Orientals smoked it. Or maybe it was those little sticks Aunt Flo used to burn to hide her cigarette smoke from Uncle Otto. Definitely not just mice. Where on earth had she packed the traps?

Emmet set a box of cooking utensils on the warped wooden counter by the sink. He bounced on the floor, frowning at a squeak. Those leaky pipes are rotting the floor. Have to crawl under and see what needs fixing when we get everything in. He motioned the girls to follow and hurried out to the trailer for the remainder of their meager belongings.

I’ll heat soup for supper when I find the can opener. Beth called after them. More than fourteen years of marriage hadn’t stopped her heart from thudding over Emmet Tyler. He’d been the best looking National Guardsman at the Fourth of July parade when she served him a glass of lemonade from the church stand and accepted his nickel. At six feet, three inches tall, he stood more than a foot over her, straight as his rifle, a stiff infantry second lieutenant’s hat brim shading blue eyes and hiding most of his thatch of sandy hair. That day he’d smiled down at her, and kept right on smiling though the following years of hardships. Emmet looked to the light side of things, somehow always keeping her spirits from scraping despair. He’d farmed until the drought in 1932 scorched the cotton crop. Then a twister demolished the house and barn in the summer of ‘34. They’d sold the land to his folks for installments of two hundred dollars a year. So far, his father’s crop failures had made payments impossible.

Money from the sale of farm animals, machinery, household goods, and the sawmill Emmet ran to supplement crop income, got them to a job in Idaho. It had been a struggle to feed the family because the Idaho mill operated sporadically. They’d watched their possessions dwindle and clothing become threadbare.

After losing a baby two years ago, Beth’s strength had been slow to return. When the mill in the barren Idaho town closed permanently this year, she’d seen Emmet’s mouth flatten with resolve. He had buried his pride and written to his cousin Walter, son of a pioneering aunt who’d moved to British Columbia and married a Canadian Scotsman who owned a mill there, and two others in Washington State. Walter’s letter came with a money order advancing a month’s wages, and they’d loaded the small trailer and driven two hundred fifty miles farther west to another friendless place. Beth swept a hand across her stinging eyes. Did Emmet see how much she wanted to go home?

So far, the weather had been sunny, not constantly raining like Idaho folks warned. She searched for anything positive to soothe her nagging pain from the amused stares at Sky Pass General Store where they’d stopped to buy a few groceries and ask directions to Walter’s house. She swallowed another cracker. Ought to be used to snickers when their southern drawls asked questions. Didn’t those folks know flat Western answers were as funny to Southerners? We ought to start ‘doing unto others’ and laugh right in their smug faces. Nowhere in the Northwest had she and Emmet found the warmth and friendliness of their native South. Western folks seemed too busy, or too cold or selfish to be neighborly.

Wincing, she recalled the tilt in Moira’s perfectly powdered nose. Walter’s wife looked at her like she was barefoot. She shuffled her shabby brown oxfords over the cracked linoleum. Moira was close to the truth.

Opening the door wide to air the house, she searched for places to stack dishes and store the cast iron and chipped enamel cooking pots. Bittersweet thoughts returned as she watched the girls showing indifferent attitudes to the kids next door, probably to hide how scary it was to be the new folks in the neighborhood.

Her youngest daughter’s cotton bloomers peeked from her dress when she stooped to look through the listing picket fence in the side yard. A little puppy. They have a dog, Wanda. Come see. Isn’t he the sweetest thing?

Toby! Come. A small girl with short black hair, shiny as patent leather, hurried from the house. Her call came too late. The brown puppy wiggled through the fence and licked Adela’s face.

Hello, Toby. I love dogs an we had’ta leave Duke in Idaho. I’m Adela Tyler and I jest had my seventh birthday last week. She grinned, her mouth as full of gaps as the picket fence.

My name’s Noriko Tegano, and I’m seven too.

Adela giggled when the puppy squatted and dampened the grass, and then moved back through the fence to lick Noriko. We’re moving in. Mama sent me out to play ‘til she gets our stuff unpacked. Can you come over?

Noriko squeezed through the opening. Why do you talk so funny? Are you for-ine? She stumbled over the word like she had recently learned it. From a country far away?

Adela pointed a toe and angled her chin defiantly. Arkansas is far away, but I think it’s part of the United States and ah don’t talk any funnier than you.

A tinkling sound came from somewhere. Coming! My mother’s wants me. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow. Noriko grabbed the wiggling puppy and ran down a board walkway between vegetable plots and through a green-painted back door.

Beth cleared a path for Emmet, who carried a gate leg table into the kitchen.

Must be hungry. Even that canned soup smells good. Emmet opened the table showing patches bare of enamel, and pushed chairs around it. Hmm. Never did get these painted. Better wait until you are over the danger of miscarriage from paint smells. I’ll call the kids.A light knock on the front door interrupted. Emmet opened it to a slender girl wearing thick black-rimmed glasses. She held out a blue china bowl. My mother sent this, for... I guess, dessert. The girl stared at her shoes, to hide her embarrassment. "It’s called mochi gashi."

Thank you. That’s mighty good of her. We are Emmet and Beth Tyler. Emmet nodded toward Beth.

Samiko, Tegano. I met Roseanne outside. We’re both thirteen. She pushed a tendril of wavy hair from her temple, adjusted her glasses, and hurried out.

Her hair isn’t straight. I thought Orientals always had thick black hair, stiff as a board, Beth said, touching her own short brown curls. Probably has one of those permanents.

The girls skipped into the house, scraped the rickety chairs to the table, and bowed their heads for Emmet’s blessing.

Lord, bless this food for the nourishment of our bodies and forgive our sins. He raised his head and spoons clinked in the soup bowls.

After finishing her soup, Adela took a tentative bite from one of the glossy white mounds

in the china bowl. Phew. What’s this stuff? Wrinkling her nose, she poked the soft mass

with her fork. Tastes somethin’ like rice th’out much sugar on it.

Samiko called it moochy gashy or something like that, Emmet mumbled between bites.

Well I think its de-licious, Wanda said, trying one of the long words she liked to practice. What’s this inside, Mama?

Beth forked a small portion and moved the morsel around her mouth. I thought plums or prunes, but it’s more like mashed and sweetened red beans. These might be real good if we had some fresh thick cream to pour over them. Think I’ll have another one. How about you, Em?

Emmet passed his plate. The Japanese family seem like good neighbors. We’ve met Samiko. What are the rest of the next door kids like, Rosey?

Roseanne twisted her long skinny legs to one side of the chair, showing her usual impatience to finish the dishes and get on to something more pleasant, like reading. I didn’t see their parents, just the three kids. Kenny is fourteen and the oldest, just a year and two months older than Samiko and me. He acts pretty smart-alecky. He’ll probably be a pain in the neck.

And they have a girl my age, Daddy. She’s nice and has the cutest puppy named Toby, Adela said.

Emmet laughed. I suppose this nice girl has a name—or did you just hear the dog’s, Dela?

Noriko. Why do they all have ‘O’s’ on their names?

Can’t imagine. Why don’t you ask them?

Kenny’s name isn’t just Kenny either, Wanda said. Samiko says it’s Kenzo. The whole family has funny sounding names.

’Cause they’re Japanese, dummy. Roseanne stacked the dishes and carried them to the sink. Ick! This old cabinet’s awful. Hurry up, Wanda. You’ll have to dry as I wash. Can’t set anything down on the counter.

I just put clean newspapers on the shelves. Stack them there, Wanda. Beth poured canned milk into her tea, grimacing as she sipped. She’d never learn to like the substitute for fresh cream. She straightened her shoulders, resolving once more to make the best of things for Emmet’s sake. She’d have to write to Mama, have to think how to tell her they’d moved next door to Orientals. Mama always worried about everything the whole family did. Mama’d had a fit when she heard they lived right next to the Nez Perce Indian reservation in Idaho. Half of every letter was about being scared the red savages might scalp them in their sleep or at least steal everything. Couldn’t let Mama know how little they had left to steal...

If only... There came the familiar wishing words again. Arkansas was two thousand miles away. Might as well be the moon.

Two

Anzio, Italy, 1944

Emmet watched green shadows move above the hospital tent. The loose camo netting puffing in the breeze reminded him of the Teganos’ green blinds and the two lacy weeping willows in their side yards. Being neighbors for four years had yielded a few glimpses behind those Japanese doors. Family like us with worries, different ones maybe. Always thought America’s strength came from the blending of differences. War changes people and history. Eyelids so damn heavy. Keep closing but can’t sleep. Too much to remember...

SKY PASS, 1937

Noriko ran as two much larger girls on roller skates sped toward her.

The first girl screamed, Run faster, slant eyes! Monkeys belong in the zoo!

Clamping her hands tightly against her ears, Noriko dodged.

The second skater, with her red braids flapping, veered to tumble the small child onto the walk. Jeers and laughter rang as the two skated away.

Noriko leapt to her feet and yelled the most insulting words she knew, Snot noses! She scurried through the cedar gate to the Tegano porch, jerked open the front door, and slammed it so hard loose flecks of green paint settled to the floor. Mama! she gasped, clutching her side.

A plump hand caressed Noriko’s disheveled hair. You have scraped your leg.

Mai Tegano dampened the corner of a white cloth in a pot of water simmering on a three-burner kerosene stove. She stooped to blot the blood from her daughter’s knee. Be calm, child. I must get my tweezers and pull out that bit of wood.

Noriko clenched her eyes. It’ll hurt, Mama.

Perhaps a little. Where is your bravery? If you wish to become a nurse, you must learn to bear your own pain and that of others. Mai settled to her knees, frowning at a large cedar splinter. She slipped the sharp pointed tweezers over the tip, flicked it out quickly, and ignoring Noriko’s gasp, dabbed the wound with iodine.

Noriko’s lower lip quivered and tears seeped from her eyes. They were saying it again. I hate them! All of them ’cept Adela!

Words from thoughtless children should not provoke you to run so clumsily you fall and tear your skin.

"Brenda Halvorsen and that snooty Ruthlyn Weiger always call me slant eyes and they tell awful stories about us. Ruthlyn thinks she’s smart ’cause her dad runs the ’lectric plant."

Be patient, Noriko. Many people do not understand those born of a different culture. The unknown often spawns fear and distrust.

English, Mama. Speak English. I could guess only half of what you said. They sure don’t act scared, just mean.

Mai lifted her daughter’s chin with a finger and spoke Japanese slowly and firmly to emphasize her meaning. You must not shout at your mother, Noriko. Will you have our new neighbors hear such disrespect?

I wish all the kids were as nice as the Tyler girls.

Yes. We are fortunate for them, Mai Tegano said. Slipping a pillow under her knees, she motioned Noriko down beside her.

Noriko slid to the straw mats covering the sloping, uneven floor of the kitchen and snuggled to the welcoming lap, yawning sleepily as Mai stroked her hair.

Mai’s eyes clouded with sadness that her children knew so little of their parents’ native tongue, a language she despaired of ever replacing with English. The children understood her halting mixture of both languages, but she spoke Japanese to Taki in spite of his frowns. Sixteen years ago he had insisted they must learn the words and the ways of America and change their alien status quickly. To become truly American, they must forget Japan. They must discard all remnants of that world, including birth names.

Noriko sat upright, disturbing Mai’s thoughts.

Can I go over to play at Adela’s?

If you promise to do your lessons after supper.

Mai watched her youngest daughter, who looked deceptively fragile, skip across the walk to the Tyler door. She bends as a young willow branch. She must, Mai mumbled, glancing toward the clock on a shelf. She had an hour before the older children arrived home from school and two before Taki expected his rice and sake.

She heated a blue china pot with boiling water and reached into the cupboard for tea. Sipping it enhanced the course of her reflections...

Leaving her identity in Kobe to assume another had been so wrenching, her memory renewed the pain. Under her pale olive skin, the Mai of birth threatened to burst its restrictive bond. She needed to struggle daily to keep her Japanese heart trussed like a fishing float, the tough cords sending a bittersweet ache through her chest, and mist to her eyes.

Running steps outside... Mai blotted her eyes as the door burst open.

Mama! I got A in the arithmetic test today. Samiko thumped her books onto the table, catching an apple tumbling from the bowl in the center. She munched it, ignoring her mother’s frowns.

Girls must not eat noisily, Samiko. Take dainty bites. She patted her older daughter’s arm. "A is the best score, is it not?

Yes, but say it in English, Mama. ‘aay-eee’. I’m going over to Roseanne’s. Samiko pushed past her breathless brother.

Kenzo always rushed about, yet stayed chubby, no doubt because his favorite food was peanut butter smeared in quantity on soft white bread. Mai could not understand her son’s passion for the sticky substance, but kept a jar in her cupboard because it pleased Taki that his children had truly American tastes.

Kenzo spread a slice of bread generously with peanut butter, leaving the knife handle sticking from the open jar.

Put it away, Kenzo! Mai’s command came too late. The door banged shut and she heard his skates clatter down the board walk.

After filling the rice steamer, Mai placed it on the kerosene stove. She opened the door to the bath house and stooped to kindle the fire in the cast iron box under the wooden tub. Taki would be tired, dirty, and expecting the bathing water to be exactly the proper temperature.

TAKI SIPPED THE LAST of his drink and leaned forward from his floor cushion to place the fragile china sake cup on a low table. He adjusted the pillow Mai had placed against the wall for his back and opened a Japanese newspaper. Frowning at an item, he thumped his cup and Mai hurried to refill it.

This is of interest to you, perhaps?

The vehemence in his voice gave Mai a hint of the column’s content. She read quickly, then returned the paper, wiping her hands on her apron to remove the sudden dampness on her palms. She realized three cups of sake had enhanced Taki’s anger over anti-American statements credited to her brother. It seemed Shinji had gained a high post in Japan’s government

As always, Mai found no words to defend Shinji and swallowed the pain from this reminder of her past. The wealth and prominence of her family sent Taki into dark moods when the monthly papers came from Japan. In most of them, an item about one of her brothers appeared, printed words to remind Taki of what he considered his shortcoming. Why did he bother reading them? She bent to take his cup.

He grasped her wrist. Leave it! And pour another. Where is Kenzo? It grows dark and his books are unopened.

Mai poured the cup half full, hoping Taki would not notice. I hear him.

The door burst open and Kenzo careened into the kitchen on noisy sidewalk roller skates.

Oh boy. Sorry, Pop. Forgot I had ’em on. He quickly slipped the clamped-on skates from his shoes.

As you also forget your lessons, Taki grumbled. Rising, he wobbled slightly when he leaned to take the offending skates. You will not use your skates for one month, and spend the time you waste with wheels upon your books.

Mai stifled a smile. None of her threats brought such docile obedience. The girls were of no concern, but Kenzo had a sprout of stubborn will, an inheritance well earned. She sighed when the stocky fourteen-year-old settled restlessly at the table to do his algebra problems under his father’s stern scowl.

When you are finished, the bath will be ready. Mai’s sandals clipped through the