When Whales Watch

by Mara Purl

  “But it could happen.”

  He nodded, and she headed outside again, this time bracing herself against the rail and bringing her camera up to train its telephoto lens on the waves.

  “There!” she called involuntarily. Snapping the picture as she yelled, she caught sight of a fluke . . . its distinctive triangular shape unmistakable.

  “Oh, look!” Joanne McCutcheon had returned to the foredeck and was eagerly pointing out the spot where the tail had just submerged. “Was it a humpback? It seemed bigger than the grays.”

  “I don’t think so,” Miranda said as quietly as she could in the wind. “I think that was a sperm whale.”

  Miranda couldn’t remember when she’d last been this excited. They’d found the group of female and juvenile sperm whales a few minutes earlier, and Miranda had already zipped through another roll of film.

  It was clear to her that at least one female was pregnant. Very pregnant, I’d say. Close to delivering. I swear she looks happy about it, too.

  “Oh, my goodness! Oh, my goodness!” Joanne McCutcheon seemed stuck on that particular expression, but it only made Miranda smile. Husband Joe was busy with his own camera, between snaps, shaking his head as though bedazzled.

  Captain Wallace had slowed his craft to a crawl the moment he’d seen the pod, and now let the boat drift, having cut the engines to spare the sperm whales the irritating noise and to ensure the safety of their calves.

  They all watched as an adult and her offspring streamed away from the boat, the little one disappearing below its mother’s huge body, then popping up again beside her.

  “Oh, no!” cried Joanne. “I hope that mother doesn’t drown her baby!”

  “It’s nursing,” Miranda reassured her, “just doing what’s called peduncle diving so he or she can get the milk she squirts out for him.”

  “It’s just disgusting, if you ask me.” Lime Woman stood back from the rail as though trying to avoid contamination from being too close to the creatures in the water.

  “It’s absolutely thrilling, if you ask me.”

  Miranda, drawn by the unexpected quality in the man’s voice, glanced over in time to see Mrs. Lime regard her husband as if he’d just spoken in a foreign language. Miranda, suppressing a laugh, returned her attention to the water.

  About half a mile from the pod, her eye caught a flash of movement. Hope that’s more of the family group. I pray it’s not an orca coming after the calves . . . but we’ve seen no sign of the killer whales. She saw it again—this time the distinctive, angled spout of a sperm whale, but what she saw of the head was huge . . . too large to be a female. Which means . . . it could be her mate!

  Miranda slung the camera strap over her shoulder and bolted for the wheelhouse, where she blurted to Captain Wallace, “I think one of the mates is close by—probably the pregnant female’s partner. If he thinks . . . if he gets the idea we’re too close. . . .”

  “He’ll try to ram us. Got it.” He pushed the engine into reverse. “Time to back away.”

  Jacob crushed into a ball the deli paper that’d held his sandwich, careful not to spill the crumbs of his roast-beef-on-rye. Washing down the last bite with a gulp of Ed’s bitter ale, he smacked his lips in satisfaction.

  Yet even the excellent meal hadn’t taken the edge off his headache. Earlier, it’d been only a mild discomfort, but now it’d grown to a throbbing pressure that felt as if a metal band were being tightened around his skull. Gotta be that ale Ed brought. It has a nice bite in the mouth but it’s a lot stronger than what I’m used to. Good thing I only drank one.

  He looked at his companions, who were still finishing their sandwiches. “I’m going downstairs for a moment. Be right back.”

  “You mean you’re going below,” Ed reminded him from where he sat in the second chair.

  “Yeah. That.” He picked up the trash and empty bottles and descended to the lower chamber to discard the garbage, stow the recyclables and use the head. When he returned to the wheelhouse, he looked northward out its slanted windows. The clouds they’d noticed earlier had begun to solidify into a dark mass. The wind hadn’t diminished either, nor had the waves settled. Their plan to wait out the weather wasn’t working.

  “We probably oughtta get going,” he pronounced, then looked to his left.

  Ed’s mouth gaped open in a wide yawn before he said, “Either that, or we could take a little nap first. Nothing like salt air to bring on the urge to relax.” He gave a crooked smile and opened another ale.

  Geez . . . how many is that? Gotta be . . . five? Six? What the hell’s the point of coming out on the boat if you hardly know where you are?

  He glanced over at Will, whose face seemed even paler than when the boat had been pounding the surf. “What do you think, Will? Ready to head back?”

  “Yeah, I think we should.” He rubbed his forehead. “That fog bank seems to be coming this way.”

  Jacob peered out the windows again. “You’re right. That is fog. I was thinking it was clouds. Can you hoist the anchor?”

  “Yeah, I’ll do it.” Will got to his feet and pulled open the cabin door.

  When Will had stepped over the high threshold and slammed the door behind him, Jacob turned his attention to his other friend. Be nice if Ed could get off his ass and do something to help. Looks like he’s in a stupor.

  Jacob stood at the helm, watching through the window to make sure Will completed his task. Anchor stowed, Will gave a thumbs-up sign and began moving toward the stern while Jacob checked the LORAN-C and consulted his charts, struggling against an unexpected fatigue.

  He fired up the engines, their powerful throbbing reverberating while the boat began to rise out of the water. As it gathered speed, Jacob felt the grin returning to his face. This’ll be the cure for my irritation.

  Far in the distance, he saw a boat bobbing on the waves. They’re not moving . . . might be watching for whales. They would have to be in my way! Guess I’ll have to steer clear so I don’t bother them.

  He glanced astern to check on Will, sad to see their shipmate was now bent over the rail, apparently losing the lunch he’d just eaten. “Geez, too bad the kid hasn’t been feeling well today,” he commented to Ed. Now I suppose he’s gonna want to stop the boat again. But I’m not gonna stop this time. He could feel annoyance swirl through his mind and tried to distance himself from it. “He’s bound to feel better now. And the wind in his face will sure help, right?”

  Jacob heard no reply. When he looked to his left, he saw that Ed had fallen asleep in his chair, one hand still clutching the bottle of ale that rested on the dashboard. Don’t know whether he’s really asleep—or passed out after all that alcohol. Idiot. Well, he might as well sleep it off. I’m feeling pretty tired myself, so I can only imagine how hard that ale hit him.

  The boat was at speed now, doing eighteen knots, skimming along the tops of the waves, the hull slamming down hard, then bouncing up.

  This is what I’ve looked forward to all day. The speed, the freedom, the exhilaration. Yet somehow I’m not feeling it the way I usually do . . . this weird lethargy . . . I’m swearing off that ale from now on.

  Almost as an afterthought, Jacob glanced to stern. The bank of fog was now a solid wall of gray advancing across the water even faster than his speeding boat, threatening to overtake them.

  If that stuff surrounds us, I won’t be able to see the coastline I’ve got us aiming for. Maybe I can coax a little more speed out of the boat. But even as he pushed upward on the throttle, his pounding headache was on the verge of debilitating him. He lifted one hand to press a thumb into his throbbing temple, but it didn’t help.

  He began to notice his vision blurring, and decided to set the boat on auto-pilot. He dropped his head into one hand for a moment, and tried to quell the dreadful somnolence that pulled at him, weakening his legs, clouding his mind. Something . . . wrong. Better . . . slow . . . down. . . .

  As he reached to switch off the auto-pilot and g
rasp the throttle again—this time to pull it back—his peripheral vision closed in, leaving him onto a tunnel of light through a closing blackness.

  As Jacob fell over the wheel in a dead sleep, the Manta Dance continued speeding toward the whale-watching boat in the distance.

  Miranda stood in the wheelhouse next to Captain Wallace, feeling the Seatacean move slowly backwards under his deft hand—away from the happily lolling group of females and calves, whose company they’d been so greatly enjoying.

  Not a moment too soon. We don’t want to trigger the male’s protective instincts.

  “It’s time to start back to the harbor anyway,” the Captain said, as if hearing her thoughts. “Sunset’s at 5:05 today, and it’s already darker than usual with that fog heading this way.”

  “Right.”

  “You know, it’s the winds blowing across the cool California Current that produces the sea fog,” he continued, his calm way of speaking perhaps an attempt to reassure her. “Thing is, fog reduces our visibility quite a bit. In fact, if there’s a vessel behind that bank, we wouldn’t know it.”

  “Oh . . . that’s sort of a worrisome thought.”

  “Well, I was speaking theoretically.”

  The other passengers had gone inside the passenger lounge, out of the wind and rising chill. From below, their voices still sounded excited about their unusually successful whale-watching trip. Well, most of their voices sound excited.

  Miranda might’ve chuckled at the ever-disgruntled Lime Woman, were it not for her own apprehension about the proximity of the enormous male, whose massive head she’d glimpsed. The whales are plenty smart. By now, if he’s still hovering, he’ll know we’re departing the area. “I’ve read that the big toothed whales produce these rapid bursts of high-frequency clicks and whistles.” She imagined the Captain knew all this, but she couldn’t stop herself from thinking out loud. “The theory is the single clicks are used for echo-location, and the clustered clicks and whistles are used for communication.”

  The Captain nodded. “Yeah. I saw a show about that. Some scientists believe the clicking sequences communicate the identity of a single whale to other whales in its group. But it’s gotta be more than that. I figure they’re working out their chess moves.”

  Miranda laughed. “Chess moves?”

  “You know, I make my move, then you make yours.”

  A rapid series of clicks and clangs seemed to strike the boat. “Hear that?” Miranda cried excitedly. “That could be him!”

  Captain Wallace seemed puzzled. “But it could just as easily be the females we’re pulling away from.”

  “I don’t think so,” Miranda said. “Because they’re not facing us. Whether this is communication or echo-location, the whale has to face what he’s investigating.”

  Nodding, the Captain said, “I see your point.”

  “Look! There!” Miranda pointed out the window. “There he is!”

  “Merciful days, look at the size of that creature!”

  A hollow, thunderous pounding echoed through the air, silencing the voices below them, striking fear into Miranda’s heart. “He . . . he’s thumping, whacking his tail on the water.”

  “The one that sank the Essex in 1819 did the same thing, and that was a sperm whale too.”

  “I think that means he’s going to charge!”

  The behemoth stopped thumping his tail and turned northwest.

  “Oh, my God, there he goes!” Miranda cried. “And look! He’s heading away from us!”

  “Well, he must be aiming at something we can’t see. Maybe there is a boat hidden in that fog.”

  The Sperm whale lifted his massive fluke, then slammed it down on the surface, beginning the unmistakable message that would warn the enemy.

  Move now . . . change direction . . . away from Them.

  He’d monitored the group of females day by day, knowing his mate would be close to her time of delivery. She had danced her circle for him, showing him their boy, the child-whale who’d be his companion and become his legacy.

  Probe . . . confirm . . . delight . . . transmit. . . .

  That perfect picture of health and promise gave joy and reassurance. And until his mate was safely delivered, he would hold himself near the fragile group.

  There were two human-vessels, both of them too close to his family. One vessel had read his sign and moved away. But the other flew blind and willful, aimed directly at those he would die to protect.

  His pinging clicks had shown him the boat in detail: size and weight, speed and trajectory, equipment and people. He calculated their course, comprehended the danger.

  His tail thumped again, and yet again.

  Hear! Awake! Sense! Change!

  But the second human-vessel shot like an arrow, and he knew what to do.

  Size-weight same. Push toward land.

  Revved and ready, targeting the starboard side of the fast-boat, he began his charge.

  He would try not to punch through the boat so it sank to the bottom. He would try not to damage himself.

  But he would do what must be done. He’d ram the human-vessel hard enough to keep it from hitting his beloved family.

  Will Marks, bending over the stern, had nearly puked his guts out. Now, he clutched furiously at the railing, making his way to portside as the boat bucked the choppy waves.

  If I survive this, I’ll have a word with Jacob. What the hell’s wrong with him today? He’s a speed demon.

  The next instant, something rammed the starboard side of the boat. The impact nearly threw Will overboard, but he managed to grab the gunwale to keep from sailing into the water.

  Too terrified even to scream, he felt the boat return to its forward momentum. Holy crap! He mind racing, he tried to process what had happened. Hit a rock . . . from the side? More like a rock hit us . . . makes no sense. At least it hit the other side, away from the guys. But is there a hole? Are we gonna sink?

  Staggering—whether from the impact, the motion of the deck, or from his bout with seasickness he didn’t know—Will arrived at the cabin. He managed to yank open the door and a residue of gassy air hit him as it escaped the cabin.

  Coughing, he tried to take in the damage caused by whatever had smashed into the boat. To his right, the starboard controls—steering wheel, throttles, radio, LORAN-C . . . everything—destroyed, shattered glass from the window glittering across every surface.

  What the hell hit us? He squinted to look through the hole where the window had been moments earlier, and thought he saw something dark just submerging as they sped away from it. But he couldn’t be sure what it was.

  He brought his attention back inside, horrified to see his companions crumpled against the far bulkhead. “Jacob! Ed!” he yelled. No response, no movement . . . they must’ve been knocked out.

  The Manta continued to hurtle forward. With all the controls wrecked, there was nothing Will could do—neither to stop the boat, nor to change its course, which now carved a wide arc toward . . . looks like beach ahead. If we come up on the sand . . . we might be okay!

  Still coughing against the residual gas in the cabin, Will grabbed Jacob under both arms, then hauled him backwards, outside onto the rear deck. What do I do? Throw the guys overboard so they avoid the collision? No . . . still unconscious . . . they could drown.

  He dragged Jacob to the port side of the aft deck, where seat cushions would protect him to some degree. Now he rushed back inside to maneuver Ed—a heavier man—out of the cabin, lugging him farther along the deck, till he rested on an adjacent cushion.

  Chewing his lip, Will tried to think. If the men get thrown in the water. . . . Life jackets! Where are they?

  He remembered seeing them in a compartment underneath removable seat cushions on the starboard side. When he found them, he thrust his arms into one, then grabbed two more to pull onto the barely-breathing bodies of his friends, wrestling not only their dead-weight, but the rocking deck.

  He managed to regain
his feet while clinging to the rail. He glanced toward shore at the rapidly approaching shoreline he was helpless to avoid. Then he looked back out at the ocean. What he saw snatched from his mouth what little breath he still had.

  “A whale!” he muttered. Now he could see the massive creature skimming the surface, apparently heading for another boat. “We got rammed by a whale!”

  Miranda had grown apprehensive as Captain Wallace slowly backed the Seatacean eastward, away from the now-restless sperm whale family.

  After the terrible tail-thumping, the other passengers downstairs had gone quiet and the methodical order of the crew’s routine seemed to be restoring to them some equilibrium.

  Miranda listened to the relative stillness that had settled over the water, but it belied her growing anxieties and felt more like a precursor to . . . what? Something dreadful . . . horrifying. I wish I knew what it was!

  Just then, she glanced out the wheelhouse windows again. Like a missile punching through layers of gauze, a speeding cabin cruiser shot from the distant fog bank, rocketing from the northwest across the water toward the Seatacean.

  Miranda opened her mouth to shout to the Captain standing beside her, but no sound would emerge from her throat. This must be what I was dreading . . . a boat concealed in the fog, unaware we’re here! Doesn’t it see us? It has to change course!

  The sudden apparition that rose from the water seemed to be the embodiment of that very thought. At least fifty feet in length, the male sperm whale hurtled himself toward the speeding craft and rammed its starboard side. The explosive crash of the collision ripped the air, and the craft careened onto a new course that would take it wide of Captain Wallace’s vessel.

  Now the whale turned toward the Seatacean, and the only sound Miranda could hear was the piercing shrieks of Lime Woman coming from somewhere below.

  Surely the male won’t try to hit us too. We’ve shown only submissive behavior. Her feeling was validated as she watched the whale glide by the Seatacean toward his family group, one huge eye fixed on the humans as he passed. Such sadness in that gaze . . . and determination.