【明報專訊】It was easy to see the bay from just about anywhere on Huckleberry Hill, and if you could see the blue of the water over the mottled roofs of Pacific Grove and Monterey then you could easily see the slow-moving tugs as they struggled through the waves towing barges of rough-cut lumber from the mills up north. The loads were destined for the lumberyards of Santa Barbara, Ventura, or maybe Los Angeles, but the only time that mattered to anyone on the Hill was when one of the tugs floundered in a storm and the restraining cables holding the lumber snapped, dumping the rich cargo into the choppy seas. There was no system to alert anyone of that, just the understanding that high winds invariably led to fresh carrion being spread upon the waters of the bay and, like hungry gulls, when the storm was over they descended in their numbers onto the beaches to claim it. In their crank-up Fords and Chevys, and in their Model A and Studebaker pickups, and in groups or alone, they came, a new kind of California coastal hunter and gatherer, scouring the beaches and hauling from the shore the mammon which the waves and the tides would deliver at their feet. Much of it was clear redwood timber cut from the massive trees that grew in profusion in the coastal forests above San Francisco; clear, sweet-smelling redwood boards that would be perfect to build a house, a painter's studio, or to add another room to a house already lived in.