White Shark (10 page)

Max bent close to the pot and peered
inside.
 
"It's empty," he said.

"We didn't put any bait in it,"
Chase explained.
 
"We're not trying
to catch
things,
we're trying to save ‘em.
 
He tugged gently at the mesh in the door, and
several strands broke.
 
"This cotton
blend may be the thing," he called up to Tall Man.
 
"It's breaking down real well."

When Tall Man didn't reply, Chase looked
up at the flying bridge and saw him bend down, his hand cupped over one ear,
listening.

Suddenly Tall Man straightened up.
 
"We got trouble, Simon," he
said.
 
"A couple of yahoos are
yammering over channel sixteen that they've just hooked Jaws."

"Damn!
"
Chase
said.
 
"Can you tell where they
are?"

"About three miles to the northeast,
sounds like, just this side of Block."

"Let's go," Chase said.
 
He shoved the lobster pot overboard and
tossed the rope and buoy after it.

Tall Man put the boat in gear, pushed the
throttle forward and, as the boat leaped ahead, turned it in a tight arc and
headed toward
Block Island
.

Max held on to the railing and bent his
knees as the bow of the boat thumped into the waves.
 
"Do you think it's our shark?" he
shouted to his father.

"I'd bet on it," Chase
said.
 
"She's the only one we've
seen."

The boat rose up onto a plane and skimmed
over the surface.
 
The hump of
Block Island
grew swiftly larger, and as they watched, a
small white dot took shape on the surface of the sea and soon became the hull
of a boat.

"What are you gonna do?
"
Max asked.
 
"What
can
you do?"

"I'm not sure, Max," Chase said,
staring grimly ahead.
 
"But
something."

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

"They're two kids," Tall Man
said, looking through a pair of binoculars.
 
"Sixteen, eighteen, maybe... fishin’ from a
twenty-foot outboard.
 
Stupid bastards.
 
They
better
hope
they don't land the
shark; it'll turn that boat into splinters."

Tall Man throttled back as he approached
the outboard, then took the boat out of gear and let it idle thirty or forty
yards off the outboard's port side.

One boy sat in a fighting chair in the
stern, the butt of his rod snugged into a socket between his legs.
 
The rod was bent nearly to the breaking
point, and the line led straight out behind the boat:
 
the shark was near the surface, but still
fifty yards or more away.
 
The other boy
stood forward, at the console, turning the wheel and using the gears to keep
the stern of the outboard facing the shark.

"Can he really catch a shark that
big?
"
Max asked.
 
"On a fishing rod?"

"If he knows what he's doing,"
Chase said.
 
"He's using a tuna rig,
probably sixty- or eighty-pound test line with a steel leader."

"But you said the shark weighed a
ton."

"He can still wear her out.
 
Great whites aren't great
fighters,
they're not true game fish.
 
They just
pull and pull and finally give up."

As they watched, the boy with the rod
tried to reel in some line, but the weight was too great, and the drum of the
reel skidded beneath the spool of line.
 
So the boy at the console put the outboard in reverse, backing down
toward the shark, giving the angler slack to reel in.

As Chase had feared, the
boys
 
knew
what they
were doing.

"Get closer," he said to Tall
Man.
 
"I want to have a talk with
them."

Tall Man maneuvered them so that the stern
of the boat was within ten yards of the side of the outboard.
 
Chase walked aft and stood at the transom.

"What've you got there?" he
asked.

"Jaws, man," the boy at the
console said.
 
"Biggest
damn white shark you ever seen."

"What're you gonna do with it?"

"Catch it... sell the jaws."

"How're you gonna get it aboard that
little boat?"

"Don't have to... gonna kill it, then
tow it in."

"Kill it how?
 
That's one big angry shark."

"With this."
 
The boy
reached under the console and brought out a shotgun.
 
"All we have to do is get close enough
to him for one clean shot."

Chase paused, considering,
then
said, "Did you know he's a she?"

"Huh?"

"That shark is a female, and she's
pregnant.
 
We've tagged her, we've been
studying her.
 
If you kill her, you're
not just killing
her,
you're killing her and her
children and her children's children."

"It's a fish," the boy
said.
 
"Why should I give a
shit?"

"Because white
sharks are very rare... endangered, even.
 
I'll make you a deal.
 
You cut that shark away—"

"Fuck you!" shouted the boy with
the rod.
 
"I been busting my
hump—"

"—and I'll get your names in the
paper for helping the Institute.
 
You'll
get a lot more mileage than if you just kill her."

"Not a chance."
 
The boy with the rod yelled over his
shoulder.
 
"Come back some more,
Jimmy.
 
He's takin' line again."

The boy at the console put the outboard in
reverse, and Chase saw the angle of the line increase as the boat neared the
shark.

"Dad," Max said, "we've
gotta
do
something."

"Yeah," Chase said, leaning on
the bulwark as he felt rage rise within him.
 
The problem was
,
there was nothing he
could
do, not legally anyway, for the
boys were breaking no law.
 
And yet he
knew that if he let this happen, he would never forgive himself.
 
He turned away and went below.

When he returned, he was carrying a mask
and a pair of flippers, and a pair of wire cutters was stuck in the belt of his
shorts.

"Jesus, Simon...
"
Tall Man said from the flying bridge.

"Where is she,
Tall
?"

Tall Man pointed.
 
"About twenty yards thataway, but you
don't—"

"She's so worn out and confused, she
won't pay any attention to me.
 
Last thing
she wants to do is eat anybody."

"You know that, do you?"

"Sure," Chase said, forcing a
smile and pulling on his flippers.
 
"At least, I
hope
that."

"Dad!
"
Max
said, as Chase's intent suddenly dawned on him.
 
"You can't—"

"Trust me, Max."
 
Chase pulled the mask over his face and
rolled backward off the bulwark.

The driver of the outboard saw the splash
as Chase fell into the water, and he shouted, "Hey!
 
What the hell's he up to?"

"What you shoulda done way back
when," Tall Man said.

The boy picked up his shotgun and cocked
it.
 
"You get him back, or—"

"Put that away, you little
prick," said Tall Man, in a voice as flat and hard as slate, "or I'll
come over there and make you eat it."

The boy looked up at the huge dark man
towering over him on the fly bridge of the much larger boat, and he lowered the
shotgun.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Chase located the line feeding down from
the outboard and followed it with his eyes until he saw the shark.
 
He took three or four deep breaths on the
surface, held the final one and thrust himself downward with his flippers.

The shark had stopped fighting, for in its
initial thrashing it had rolled up into the steel leader and then into the line
itself, and now it was circled with monofilament strands that pressed into its
flesh.
 
It lolled on its side, perhaps
resting for a final, futile attempt to escape, perhaps already resigned to
death.

Chase swam to it, staying away from the
snarls of line until he was within arm's reach of the tail of the shark.

He had never before swum in the open with
a great white shark.
 
He had seen them
from the safety of a cage, had touched their tails as they swept by the bars in
pursuit of hanging baits, had marveled at their power, but he had never been
alone in the sea with this ultimate predator.

He permitted himself a moment to run his
hand down the steel-smooth skin of the back, then backward against the grain of
the dermal denticles, which felt like rubbing sandpaper.
 
He found his tagging dart and its tiny
transmitter, still securely set in the skin behind the dorsal fin.
 
Then he leaned over the shark; its eye gazed
at him with neither fear nor hostility, but with
a blank
and fathomless neutrality.

There were six loops around the shark —
one of steel, five of monofilament — starting just forward of the tail, ending
just forward of the pectoral fins.
 
Chase
hovered above the shark, nearly lying upon its back, took the wire cutters from
his belt and cut the loops one by one.
 
As each muscle group in the torpedo-like body sensed freedom, it began
to shudder and ripple.
 
When the last
loop was gone, the shark swung downward, suspended only by the wire in it mouth
that led to the hook deep within its belly.
 
Chase reached his hand into the mouth of the shark and snipped the wire.

The shark was free.
 
It began to fall, upside down, and for a
moment Chase feared that it had died, that the lack of forward motion had
deprived it of oxygen and it had asphyxiated.
 
But then the tail swept once from side to side, the shark rolled over
and its mouth opened as water rushed over its gills.
 
It turned in a
circle,
its eye fixed on Chase, and rose toward him.

It came slowly, relentlessly, unexcited,
unafraid, its mouth half open, its tail thrusting it forward.

Chase did not turn or flee or
backpedal.
 
He faced the shark and
watched its eyes, knowing that the only warning he would have of an imminent
attack would be the rotating of its eyeballs, an instinctive protection against
the teeth or claws of its victim.

He heard his temples pounding and felt
arrows of adrenaline shooting through his limbs.

The shark came on, face-to-face, until it
was four feet from Chase, then suddenly rolled on its side, presenting its
snow-white belly distended with young, and angled downward, like a banking fighter
plane, disappearing into the blue-green depths.

Chase watched until the shark was
gone.
 
Then he surfaced, snatched a few
gasping breaths and made his way back to the boat.
 
He pulled himself out of the water, and as he
sat on the swimstep to remove his flippers, he noticed that the pulpit of the
Institute boat was hovering over the hull of the outboard.
 
He
hard Tall Man
say, "So, we got a deal, right?
 
The
story is, you hooked the shark, saw that it was tagged and reported it to
us.
 
We tell the papers what fine
citizens you are."

The sullen boys stood in the stern of the
outboard, and one of them said, "Yeah, okay..."

Tall Man looked down, saw that Chase was
aboard, then put the boat in reverse.
 
"Thanks," he called to the boys.

Chase passed Max his flippers and climbed
up through the door in the transom.

Max looked angry.
 
"That was really dumb, Dad," he
said.
 
"You could've—"

"It was a calculated risk, Max,"
Chase said.
 
"That's what dealing
with wild animals is.
 
I was pretty sure
she wouldn't bite me; I made a judgment that the risk was worth taking, to save
the life of that mama shark."