Visitor from the East

From Yreka to Eureka was just over 200 miles: three hours on an uncrowded freeway, assuming there was any such animal. Setting out just after six, Bill pulled into Eureka just before eleven. The overturned logging truck sure didn’t help. The ship he was supposed to meet was due in at eleven-thirty. That cut it closer than he liked.

His back crunched when he unfolded himself from the Eldorado. A car that big wasn’t meant for those roads, but he didn’t fit into anything smaller. “Hey, Gov!” somebody called. Bill waved a broad-palmed hand. Sasquatch or little person, no pol could ignore constituents.

A few reporters and a couple of camera crews waited at the base of the pier where the Heiwa Maru would dock. Its arrival would be news here and in Yreka and Redding and Ashland and Port Orford and the rest of Jefferson. Maybe one of these birds was an AP stringer, in which case the story might go farther. But the gentlemen of the Fourth Estate just stood idly, some smoking cigarettes. “What’s happening?” Bill called.

“Not a damn thing,” a Eureka newspaperman answered. “Harbormaster says the ship’s running an hour late.” He sounded disgusted.

Bill was delighted. “In that case, we’ve got time for lunch. C’mon, Barbara. Let’s hit Freaky Willie’s.”

The diner was only a block from the harbor. BIGGEST SHAKES IN TOWN, a sign painted on the window bragged, next to a picture of a sasquatch doing a swan dive into a strawberry milkshake. Bill didn’t think he’d want to try that. He’d never get the goo out of his pelt afterwards. But the food was good and abundant and cheap, all of which mattered even if he was on state business and putting it on the taxpayer’s tab.

He inhaled three Ginormous Burgers and half a farm’s worth of fries, along with two of those big shakes (chocolate). Barbara ate, well, rather less.

Another citizen greeted him as he came out. Bill’s hand didn’t quite engulf the other man’s when they shook. Haystack Thornton was a little man, but a big little man, close to seven feet tall and wide in proportion. He might have been part sasquatch himself. His bushy russet beard rose high on his cheeks, while his hairline came down almost to his eyebrows. He wore bib overalls and a Pendleton underneath; Eureka had to be twenty-five degrees cooler than Yreka.

“Just wanted to tell you thanks for all you’ve done and for all you haven’t done, Governor,” he said. “Me and my friends appreciate it, believe me.”

“No worries, man,” Bill said. Haystack Thornton and his friends were the leading growers of some highly unofficial crops around Eureka. Jefferson looked the other way, and wouldn’t help the Feds when they didn’t. Do your own thing had been a way of life here long before the hippies found it. Besides, Bill thought smoking marijuana was more fun than drinking beer, though nothing was wrong with beer, either.

Thornton ambled into Freaky Willie’s. Bill and Barbara went back to the harbor. Sure enough, the Heiwa Maru — Japanese for Peace Ship — had come into Humboldt Bay. A pavilion of saffron cloth stood on the deck before the bridge. Good thing it’s August, Bill thought. I wouldn’t want to cross the Pacific under canvas in January.

Snorting tugs nudged the Heiwa Maru into place. Lines snaked out from the ship. Longshoremen secured them to bollards. Down came the gangplank. Bill, Barbara, and the reporters and cameramen strode down the pier to meet the ship and its important passenger.

“Permission to come aboard?” the governor called to the Japanese skipper at the far end of the gangplank.

“Permission granted,” the man said in good English. He added, “Have no fear, sir. It will bear your weight.”

“I expected it would.” Onto the Heiwa Maru Bill went. The skipper bowed. Bill bowed back. As he straightened, a Japanese sailor snapped a photo of him.

Bill walked toward the pavilion. The saffron cloth on one side folded back and the Yeti Lama came out to greet him. “Hello, Governor Williamson,” the holy man said, his English more hesitant than the skipper’s. He wore a loincloth and cape of scarlet silk to show his rank. Two other yetis, both in saffron loincloths and capes, followed him. So did two saffron-robed human monks. The big folk never could have used ordinary cabins.

The Yeti Lama was someone Bill could look up to — literally. He overtopped the Governor by six inches. Anyone seeing them side by side could tell they were of the same kind but different races. In little-people terms, they might have been Mongol and Swede. The yeti’s pelt was browner than the sasquatch’s; he had broader cheekbones and lower brow ridges.

“Welcome, your Holiness,” Bill said. “Welcome to America. Welcome to Jefferson.”