Alaska Gold Rush Tales: DIRTY NECK MAXINE AND HER CREEK STREET UNCLE

DIRTY NECK MAXINE AND HER CREEK STREET UNCLE

The most visible landmark in Harrison’s Bight was Deer Mountain, a spruce and muskeg covered mountain carved from the granite bones of Borealis Island whose slopes fall steep from its nimbus cloak and cloudburst crown to the seaweed-clogged green waters of the Aurora Narrows. At the base of the mountain, where the slopes softened to gentle shoulders, was Creek Street, once the Barbary Coast of the territory, a quarter-mile extension of pier planking with warehouses and crudely built structures stretching along the southern bank of Shallow Creek.

Salmon spawned here in Shallow Creek in late fall — September and October — leaving their decaying carcasses to litter the sandy bottom of the tributary only after their eggs have been buried in the gravel elbows of the creek. Here the eggs lay secure for the winter and the following spring, once again, from time immemorial, the creek boiled with salmon fry in the same waters from whence their parents had recently departed. Until the passing of October, with every rise and fall of the tide in the Aurora Narrows, the deteriorating bodies of the adult salmon were shuffled under the pier supporting Creek Street like so many frayed playing cards in a wind and were left to litter the creek bed until they were swept out to sea as nourishment for the crabs and starfish which clustered expectantly in the deep water just beyond the mouth of the tributary.

If there had been tracks in Harrison’s Bight, Creek Street would have been on the proverbial other side. With its stark plank warehouses interspersed with bawdy brothels and loud gaming houses, Creek Street was in sharp contrast to the uptown mansion of the fish barons, those palaces of marble and sheet metal. Harrison’s Bight had been a fishing village when Juneau had been a twinkle in the eye of Old Man Pilz when he asked a team of sots with the names of Joe Juneau and Frank Harris to plunge into the heavy underbrush and search for the gold that was to make Juneau — or was it Harrisburg? — into the boom town it had become. Harrison’s Bight was a giant when the cheechakos had come north in a flood for the Chilkoot and the Klondike. They died in the mountains, rivers and mosquito-infested plains of the Canadian interior in numbers to rival the salmon in Shallow Creek; but no fry replaced them the next year to regenerate the cycle.

In the year of the big snow, Harrison’s Bight still dominated the Inside Passage as if it were the crystal city of lore, drawing men and women to its bosom like the magnetic pole draws compass needles. Though both sections of Harrison’s Bight, uptown and down, bordered the same creek, the only common denominator was the relentless tread of the carpet of green moss which gripped every structure with the tenacity of a barnacle to a boat hull. Common indeed it was for there was no structure, landslide or marine, regardless of cost or quality, that escaped the inexorable grasp of the green tufts of decay that appeared virtually overnight in the most minute cracks in the most ornate of buildings.

Creek Street was the Mecca of the fishing fleet. The bawdy houses, complete with the supposedly illegal liquor with which they plied their customers, were renowned for their quality product at a reasonable price and drew customers from as far north as the turbulent waters of Icy Strait. From the south, Creek Street drew the salmon fishermen of Prince Rupert like flies to honey. While the good citizens of Harrison’s Bight did not fault the revenue that was brought into the city and subsequently spent in the grocery stores, hardware emporiums and dress shops of the city, they did, however, set themselves apart from Creek Street to make certain that no one would speak of the two areas in the same breath.

It wasn’t that any disreputable elements inhabited the area — other than the Japanese fishermen, of course — but proper ladies were not seen on Creek Street. Proper gentlemen only went there after dark; and returned while it was still dark. The hardy men of the fishing fleet didn’t care. They just went and over the years it came to be humorously stated that Creek Street was the only place in Alaska where both fish and fishermen went upstream to spawn. But it was not often said loudly north of Creek Street.

In Harrison’s Bight, time seemed to freeze. All the elements indicating passage of time were anchored. The weather was always predictable. Winter or summer, spring or fall, the weather was the same. As the old saying went, if you couldn’t see the summit of Deer Mountain, it was raining. If you could, it was about to rain. Thus there was never any doubt in Harrison’s Bight as to the weather.

There was never any doubt about the fish and the timber, either. While the rest of Alaska was always teetering on the brink of a boom-to-bust economy, Harrison’s Bight was stable. Salmon was king and Harrison’s Bight was a most royal throne. The sawmills just outside of town provided the timber for the mines in Juneau as well as the crab and halibut fleet that plied the waters from Petersburg to Victoria, BC. Tourists riding the ferries north to see the last American frontier came with Jack London’s books under their arms looking for igloos, walrus and wolves baying at the full moon on a flat, wind-swept, snow- covered plain at 50 below with caribou herds in the distance scattering in fear. These cheechakos came north looking for adventure and when they returned, their pokes were lighter and the merchants of Harrison’s Bight were fatter. The tourists, like the salmon of Shallow Creek, came year after year after year.

With every economy there is usually a boom and a bust; the boom being the sudden rise in economic vitality and the bust coming when the initial reason for the boom dissipates. With every boom there is a bust and in Harrison’s Bight, so to speak, the latter belonged to none other than Dirty Neck Maxine. With her “uncle,” a gray-haired, cadaverous fellow by the name of Skookum Jim, she established herself in the world’s oldest profession at the far end of the plank walkway on Creek Street where the two had converted an ancient warehouse into a modest house — and home.

A more unlikely pair Harrison’s Bight had not seen in decades. Dirty Neck Maxine, so named for her tendency to blister brutally in the summer sun — which, it should be added, was such an infrequent visitor to Harrison’s Bight that it was generally assumed this was the primary reason for Maxine’s sojourn north — — was quick to realize the pecuniary possibilities of Creek Street and opened a rather lucrative business catering to local respectable fishermen — or at least those who believed themselves to be such — by installing a door in the floorboards of her Creek Street establishment, the Satin Petticoat, Number 26 at the far end of the boardwalk. Thus, as the high tide lifted all boats, the discreet of Shallow Harbor could enter her establishment through the secrecy of the floorboards. There was, however, the necessity to be timely in departure for, as the saying went, time and tide waited for no man.

Once inside her establishment, the clientele was greeted by the gentle crackle of the gramophone and the seductive voice of a female singer unknown. Heavy velvet drapes hung along the walls and a velvet-carpeted staircase led the way upstairs. There were six small rooms above, each equipped with a brass bed, where intimate “business conversations” could be held in private.

In an age when the flaunting of established traditions was in vogue, Maxine ran a “class joint” which was, to say the least, a flaunting of the most time-honored traditions of the Territory of Alaska. Swearing was not permitted, boots were not allowed in the beds, clients were forbidden to toss empty whiskey bottles out the back window into Shallow Creek and cigar butts were collected with annoying frequency. Alcoholic beverages, clearly marked “For Medicinal Purposes Only,” were never delivered to Maxine’s establishment by the front door. Rather, as the tide came up, the pharmaceuticals were deposited in a special hightide lock box that could be reached from the interior of the Satin Petticoat. The “business discussions” were carefully coordinated with the tides for the discriminating clientele while those involved in discussions of a deeper nature were scrupulously timed. The Satin Petticoat was closed on Sundays and other religious holidays — both Christian and Jewish — and was the only such establishment to donate frequently and heavily to charitable causes in Harrison’s Bight such as the orphan’s home, volunteer fire department and the establishment of a civic opera.

Skookum Jim, the “uncle,” kept the drunks at bay and paid off those who had to be paid off, spent half his time in the Satin Petticoat bouncing rowdy customers and the other half as a fish pirate. With the staggering numbers of fish in the vicinity and the larcenous attitude of most of the fish guards, there had developed, over a very short period of time, a brisk trade in illegal fish. [The primary reason for the continued existence of the fish pirating business was that once a fish changed hands, it was impossible to tell its original owner. Fish rustling thus become big business in the small town.] The fish pirates, singularly and collectively, would surreptitiously bargain with the trap guards for fish that had been captured in the traps of the larger companies. The bidding for the fish was often heated but in the end all parties made money. All parties except the larger companies, that is, who were forced to hire more guards to watch the declining fish stocks. This, however, had absolutely no effect on diminishing the loss to fish pirates, for the new guards were quick to learn how the system operated.

Thus, as the fishing companies increased their number of guards to cut down on fish poaching, the rate of predation actually increased. Furthermore, by that immutable law of economics, the more guards there were, the more competition there was and, in turn, the lower the price per fish would have to be which meant that there would have to be more fish poached for a pirate to make a decent living. For the fish companies it was never ending downward spiral of theft and low-level corruption. For the fish pirates and the fish guards, it was a living.

Although it could not be said that Maxine and her uncle were living high on the hog — or in this case, the salmon — it could not be said that they suffered unduly from deprivation either. While the fishing fleets were in port, the Satin Petticoat did well. When the cold winds of winter swept down the Narrows, business slacked off considerably. Though many of her regular girls took the winter months off, Maxine was able to sustain her regular clients, tide after tide, until the warming winds of spring — and halibut season — urged the fishing fleet of Prince Rupert, Haines, Sitka, Petersburg, Ketchikan and Vancouver back out to sea; at which time, of course, Skookum was able to supplement their combined income with the proceeds of his nightly raids on the fish traps.

While in the United States, Dirty Neck Maxine and her uncle might have been treated poorly, in Harrison’s Bight they were simply regarded as Creek Street oddities. Not particularly respected, many of the townsfolk understood that ‘their kind’ was a necessary, though not necessarily welcome, idiosyncrasy of a booming economy. The fishermen were going to sow their wild oats somewhere and many of the townspeople were more than pleased that the sowing and reaping were confined, courtesy of Marshal Culhane, to the lower end of town.

The warm winds of spring in the year of the big snow, however, brought an unexpected change to Harrison’s Bight. Marshal Culhane, the common sense voice of the law, was called to Portland for a period of time to give testimony on a salmon rustling scheme out of Prince Rupert and the elderly man was replaced with Marshal Hastings, a youthful, energetic by-the-book enthusiast from down the Passage, who was more interested in the advancement of his own career as a territorial lawman than in the time-honored realities of an established community. He was the epitome of a young whippersnapper trying to walk bowlegged down the plank sidewalks of a frontier town in his father’s trousers while he was still tied to his mother’s apron strings.

On his first night in town, Marshal Hastings decided to let the iron heel of the law be felt in that community from which he expected the most trouble. Being from Shallow Harbor, a minuscule fishing village on the Wrangell Narrows in which only fishermen lived — which was understandable considering it was a fishing town — Hastings was most unfamiliar with the delicate, unspoken truce which existed between the two sections of Harrison’s Bight. Just as the absent Marshal tacitly agreed to allow the Creek Street residences to remain free of the snarling entanglement of legal writs, the brothel owners and their uncles avoided the downtown area like the plague, though not the bubonic, insisted their clientele be of a respectable age and temperament, and, finally and most importantly, that the transient fishermen from the halibut fleets and crab armadas — most particularly the Japanese — did not meander, waddle, stumble, lurch, stagger, hulk, walk, run, waltz, fox-trot or canter north of the Chief Johnson Totem Pole which stood at the entrance to the north end of Creek Street as both guardian and landmark.

Marshal Hastings, the upstanding moral man that he was, would have none of this. A brothel was a brothel was a brothel. Such were against the word of God — though he didn’t know exactly where in the Bible it was written, he was sure it was written somewhere — and he took it upon himself to ‘clean up’ Creek Street before Marshal Culhane returned from Portland.

Had the young Marshal bothered to confide his machinations with anyone in Harrison’s Bight, there would have been sufficient time to have dissuaded him from his self-appointed rounds. But as he never discussed his plans with any of the good townspeople, there was no one to tell him of the error of his ways. And no one knew of his antics until the evening he burst into Silver Toothed Gertie’s, Number l Creek Street, and began demanding that the establishment close its doors and the residents thereof be out of town by sundown.

Silver Toothed Gertie thought the Marshal was crazy and told him so. The Marshal immediately placed her under arrest for disturbing the peace, littering, loitering, resisting arrest, verbal assault and running a bawdy house within city limits. Gertie’s uncle issued a loud, verbal protest until the Marshal brained him with a night stick before slapping irons on the wrists of the staggering bouncer. Quickly thereafter there was much yelling and shouting until Judge Quisenberry, dressed in nothing more than a bed sheet and judicial rage, came down from the second floor and demanded to see the Marshal’s search warrant, arrest warrant and writ of habeas corpus — none of which the Marshal had and one of which he could not pronounce. To the hoots and catcalls of Silver Toothed Gertie’s clientele, the Marshal was shoved out onto Creek Street like a dog with his tail between its legs without so much as a single citation for his efforts.

Humiliated at having failed so quickly, the Marshal stalked down to the other end of Creek Street where he decided to save his honor by making at least one arrest before he returned uptown. Bursting into the last structure on Creek Street, the Satin Petticoat, he immediately accosted Dirty Neck Maxine and threatened her with a writ of arrest as well as one of habeas corpus — the latter of which he did not understand but since it sounded legal and he could pronounce it now decided it would work in a bluff like this.

Maxine, a veteran of more than one raid in her lifetime, looked behind the Marshal for the law’s usual contingent of burly backup and, seeing no one, immediately guessed that the Marshal was: a) drunk, b) looking for a cut of the action, or c) a religious fanatic intent on destroying her establishment by indulging in her services and then railing against her from the pulpit in church services the following Sunday. But there was no telltale hint of Bourbon breath. The Marshal did not act as a man looking to curry sexual favor — and a man with a star was rarely a preacher. This led her to the only logical conclusion left: the Marshal was on his own mission of vengeance and was thus a very dangerous man with which to deal.

Skookum Jim usually dealt with matters of this nature but, at the moment, was somewhat occupied elsewhere. Since the Satin Petticoat had a ‘door’ in the floorboards, often the stench of rotting salmon at low tide wafted up into the establishment. As a result, if the door were opened too often, the smell of ‘ripe’ salmon found its way into the highest rafters of the building. In late fall at low tide, such as it was at this moment, Skookum had the unenviable task of collecting the deteriorating salmon carcasses that lay among the piling of the Satin Petticoat and transporting them out beyond the tideline where they could sink unceremoniously into the depths of the sea and never return. It was a stinky job as the carcasses were in an advanced state of putrefaction; but someone had to do it. Maxine’s contribution to the effort was to toss a burlap sheet over the door in the floorboards to confine the stench outside the Satin Petticoat.

Thus, when Marshal Hastings broke into Dirty Neck Maxine’s and began rousting her girls and customers, Skookum was six feet below with a skiff of rotting fish on a rising tide cursing the inequities which allowed his partner to remain upstairs in the elegance of an opulent brothel while he mucked around in the mud of Shallow Creek collecting stinking salmon carcasses. Simmering in righteous indignation, a state in which he entered often this time of year, he was mid-curse when suddenly, from somewhere above him, came a blood-curdling scream. Looking directly above him where the burlap sheet covered the floor entrance to the Satin Petticoat, his eyes locked on the opening just as Marshal Hastings, eyes bulging out of his head and his arms flailing wildly, tumbled head over heels and landed with a thwack in the center of a three-foot pile of rotting salmon Skookum had been scrupulously collecting for the past three hours.

It didn’t take long for the story to get around Harrison’s Bight, though no one believed it at first. But one trip by the Marshal’s office where a pair of canvas trousers and a woolen shirt with a suspiciously strong smell of soap were hung out to dry was enough to convince even the most hard-boiled disbeliever. Marshal Culhane had a good laugh too. Two days after he returned he sent Maxine a case of Bourbon courtesy of the City of Harrison’s Bight — though it was never labeled that way.

“Justice just works in some strange ways, I guess,” Marshal Culhane told Maxine as he set the case against the door frame of the Satin Petticoat. “And just as there’ll always be ‘nother whippersnapper comin’ ‘long with blood in ‘is eye, there’ll always be ‘nother skiff uh ripe salmon a’ waitin’ for ‘im to drop in.”

This is a story from Steven Levi’s Alaska Gold Rush Tales: DERELICTS, SCOUNDRELS, BUMMERS AND DOVES