Hunting the Dragon

by Peter Dixon

  Sarah needed to know what was going on, to have things explained, and called up to Billy, “Chatter’s trying to tell us something, isn’t she?”

  “Yeah, but I can’t figure out what. If only we could really talk!”

  He slid down a stay and dropped into the cabin beside her. Sarah said, “She probably senses other dolphins, or—”

  “Or Lucky Dragon!”

  “Oh, come on, Billy. We’re a long way from Central America. She’s bewitched you.”

  “Well, maybe she’s picking up the stink of his garbage, or hearing something from a pod he’s setting a net on right this minute. Like distress calls or something.”

  “Billy, she’s a remarkable animal, but—”

  “Let me show you just how smart she really is…”

  He dashed into the cabin and came back holding his sketch pad. She watched him draw a symbolic outline of a tuna clipper. When he was satisfied with his sketch, he whistled Chatter back to the sloop and showed her the drawing. To Sarah’s amazement, the dolphin emitted a series of agitated clicks and whistles that she now recognized as alarm signals. Abruptly, Chatter raced off on the same heading she had been taking for the past hour.

  Billy faced Sarah and insisted, “She’s trying to tell me what course to follow to find Lucky Dragon, and we’re going that way.”

  “If you say so,” Sarah replied softly, not wanting to anger him. “I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”

  “Chatter says so,” he answered with conviction and pulled the tiller to put the sloop on the heading that Chatter had again taken. She saw the dolphin rise out of the sea and glance at them. Could she understand their conversation?

  When the sloop was clearly on the new course, Chatter swam back to the boat and took her usual position off the bow. Sarah felt her annoyance rising. She glanced at Billy, who gave her a self-satisfied grin.

  The wind freshened, and they sailed on. Billy raised the jib, and the Westsail’s speed increased another knot and a half. She observed that the closer they came to the Central American coastline, the more withdrawn Billy became.

  Three days later an orange-red sun climbed out of the eastern sky and the wind died altogether. Without a breeze, the heat beat down relentlessly, frying their brains and creating an oppressive, blinding aura around the boat. She wanted to ask Billy how long they would float here becalmed, but hesitated, thinking he would regard it as another of her unnecessary questions. She needed to talk with him, about him, about herself, about life and deep-down secrets that she had revealed to no one. Wasn’t this the time and place? Being out here, absolutely away from everything and everyone, without the slightest chance of interruption, should lead to us really getting a relationship going. I’ll ask him anyway.

  “How long do you think we’ll be becalmed?”

  “Days, weeks, ten minutes. How would I know? I’m not a captain like Benny. If I had a weather fax satellite receiver, we’d have the big picture. But, hey, your guess is as good as mine.”

  He said the last with such resignation that her heart went out to him. She wanted to brighten the mood and asked, “Would it be safe to jump in and swim by the boat? We could play with Chatter.”

  His grin came back. He said happily, “Grab your mask and snorkel. We’ll dive in, scrub the algae from the bottom, and cool off. Last one in cooks tonight!”

  Holding his mask, snorkel, and fins, Billy threw a scrub brush overboard and dropped into the water a moment before she emerged from the cabin.

  She stood on the deck watching his bare white bottom and called, “That’s not fair. I had to put on a bathing suit.”

  “You had to?”

  She dropped into the water and followed Billy as he swam along the hull scrubbing the fiberglass. Chatter immediately joined them and seemed curious at his interest in the hull. Billy kicked a few yards away from the boat and floated with Sarah until Chatter shoved between them. Sarah watched Billy grab the dolphin’s fin and descend with her. As they sank into the blue-gray depths, Sarah remembered snorkeling with Benny beside Salvador, and her first encounter with wild dolphins.

  She watched them diving deeper and deeper, twisting and turning together in an animal-human ballet amid dancing shafts of light and bubbles, until Billy was forced to let go.

  He kicked frantically for the surface and popped up beside her. Gasping in air he shouted happily, “In my second life, I’m going to be a dolphin.”

  Chatter buzzed by them, turned abruptly, and came to a sudden stop before Billy. At the same moment came the familiar drumming bursts of echolocating ticks, chirps, and whistles. Sarah recalled the familiar dolphin sounds and fondly welcomed their arrival.

  Billy looked wildly about and she saw his eyes grow wide with astonishment. Sarah called to him, “Dolphins.”

  Then they heard Chatter’s rapid pinging. In a state of agitated excitement the dolphin leaped out of the water, spun, and fell back in beside them. An instant later, flashes of gray came racing for them. Suddenly, the dolphins were all around and Billy and Sarah were bombarded by an intense barrage of clicks, ticks, and whistles, intermingled with the beating of a hundred and more flukes. They whirled and dove, leaped and thrashed, until the sea became a seething explosion of foam. Some brushed against Billy and Sarah, one butted him roughly, another knocked her mask aside. Just as quickly, the pod vanished. Billy spun to search the sea. Once, twice, he twisted in a circle looking through the water. With a cry of anguish he called to Sarah. “Chatter went with them!”

  “Billy, be glad that they found her. She’s with her own kind now.”

  A soft breeze began, and they sailed slowly eastward. The searing heat and relentless sun beat down oppressively, adding to Billy’s dejected mood. He had been silent for the past three hours, holding binoculars and looking for Chatter. Sarah knew his loss was real, but didn’t try to comfort him. She felt rejected, and moved as far from Billy as she could. But she also felt compassion and remembered that the dolphin had been compassionate when Billy was seasick. Sarah stood and stepped into the cabin. Ten minutes later she set a tray in front of Billy: pineapple chunks, slices of tinned ham, crackers—his favorite lunch. She watched him reach for a slice of ham and wrap it around the pineapple. He was healing quickly, and she smiled inwardly. Gently, she placed her hands on his sunburned shoulders and said, “I’m truly sorry she went away, but it might be for the best.”

  “I guess you’re right. I hope she has a good life and stays out of the nets.” He looked up at her and added, “She’s so smart, I bet she’ll teach the others to jump over the corkline.”

  “I’m sure she will.”

  In the late afternoon, the sudden darkening of the sky to the west announced the arrival of a storm front. Huge clouds rolled swiftly toward the Sarah, billowing upward thousands of feet, as if seeking to mate with the heavens. The thunderheads, black and boiling at their crowns, hid the sun. Billy stared apprehensively at the line of cumulonimbus sweeping toward them and called to Sarah, “I’ve never seen anything like those clouds. Better close all the hatches and secure everything that might wash away or get thrown to the deck.”

  She gave him a worried look and hurried into the cabin.

  The wind picked up late in the night and blew near gale force. He took down the mainsail and rigged a small storm jib. Except for the faint compass light, they were surrounded by blackness and the roar of wind and spray. He had never experienced such a powerful open-ocean storm and was awed by its ferocity. Billy gripped the tiller and glanced over his shoulder at the giant dim swells. He knew the danger of being swamped was very real. If a wave broke over their stern, the engulfing torrent could doom the small sloop. Steering by instinct and momentary bursts of brightness when the wind created whitecaps, he fought the heavy swells through the long night as they rolled and pitched their way eastward. The continuous shriek of the storm, and the never-ending pounding of the hull, enveloped them so totally they became one with their wet, violent world. Then cam
e the mother of all swells and it raced for their stern, climbing higher and higher. He saw a lip of whiteness race across its crest. The swell was breaking, and Billy screamed at Sarah to hang on.

  He gripped the tiller with all his strength and hoped to God they could escape the mountain of falling water. The great wave suddenly spilled and fell. The hideous, snarling crest shattered itself on the sloop’s stern, smashing them and flooding the cockpit. Battering water flowed around them like a flood tide. Water shot up the cabin bulkhead and shorted out the compass light. Water by the ton stopped them dead, and the boat settled into the trough, paralyzed by the overpowering weight of the sea. They had to keep moving or die. Billy reached for the engine switch. As he held his breath, the Atomic Four turned over and over. At last it started and throbbed with life. As the Westsail powered up the backside of a swell, water began draining out the scuppers, and she floated higher.

  Sarah screamed at him, “That was close, wasn’t it?”

  Billy forced a grin and yelled in return, “Hey, she’s a tough lady! Named her after you, right?”

  By dawn the sea calmed somewhat, though the huge rolling waves continued rising ominously behind them. With light to judge their size and direction, Billy raised the mainsail. Their increased speed enabled him to surf the Westsail down the steep faces of the tumultuous swells. Sarah shoved the tiller at exactly the right moment, sending the sloop racing along the rolling watery mountains faster than a thirty-two-foot sailboat had any right to go. He yelled at her excitedly, “We gotta be doing fifteen knots! A few days of this, and we’ll beat Salvador to Costa Rica!”

  “We’re not racing Benny.”

  “Hey, I’m a surfer. Just watch!”

  He gently pulled the tiller and picked his angle. The bow dipped, and the sloop began charging down and across the face of a swell.

  “Can you keep this up till it calms?” Sarah shouted over the rush of water and pummeling wind.

  “Hell, yes! Best surfing I’ve ever had!”

  By midafternoon, Billy’s arms gave out. He surrendered the helm to Sarah and began coaching her how to surf the boat. She had been watching him for hours and quickly picked up the technique of angling the boat across the steep face of an unbroken swell, racing for the trough, and then cutting back to catch the next swell for another wet and wild ride. Her confidence grew with each successful slide, and Billy’s praise sounded sweet in her ears.

  At dusk the swells abated and Billy napped beside Sarah as they raced on into the night. When darkness came, Sarah heated canned soup and they shared warm cups of beef-barley broth salted by the spray blowing over the stern. She had never experienced such closeness with anyone and thought, Is it because of the danger we’re facing, and putting myself in the hands of someone I totally trust? Could I be falling in love with Billy?

  At dawn the seas calmed and the easterly wind held strong and steady throughout the day. Billy took a GPS reading and announced happily, “We’ve run almost three hundred miles in the last twenty-four hours! Under sail, that’s hauling. We’ll be off Costa Rica in three days!”

  Impulsively, she kissed his ear. Billy laughed and said, “You take it for a while. I’m going to monitor the radio. We may be close enough to the coast to pick up some local fishermen or a commercial station. Hey, maybe we’ll get a Sea Fresh Tuna commercial in Spanish!”

  He turned the helm over to Sarah and began to sing: “Sea Fresh Tuna hits the spot. A lotta food value in a can you got….”

  In the cabin, Billy switched on the radio and cycled through the bands, not expecting to receive much except fishing boats and Spanish-language broadcasts. As he turned the frequency selector, a very faint voice, badly garbled and broken with static, came out of the speaker. He had heard the man’s Midwestern American accent before. With a shock of recognition, Billy cranked up the volume, grabbed a pencil, and realized it was Arnold transmitting to Lucky Dragon. “Dragon…Dragon…Dragon…birds and dolphins…two-two miles east of your bow…Call it eight-four, thirty-five west…eight degrees…eleven minutes south…Get hauling, Santos!”

  As Billy scribbled the helicopter’s position on the border of a chart, his mind flashed a cascade of mental pictures of flying with Arnold, sighting Salvador and Sarah standing with Benny, and swooping over a school of terrified dolphins.

  Static ended the pilot’s transmission. Billy muttered, “Damn! But I got his position.”

  He peered at the chart and thought of Chatter. Had she joined the pod Arnold sighted? He felt a sense of foreboding and thought, It’s gonna happen again!

  He stuck his head outside the cabin and yelled, “Sarah, I found ’em!”

  She joined him by the radio. As Billy plotted Lucky Dragon’s location on a large scale chart of the eastern tropical Pacific he said, “That was Arnold’s voice. I told you about him. Remember? The helicopter pilot.”

  A minute later he had the tuna clipper’s position marked on the chart and turned to Sarah. “The GPS says we’re about here. So Gandara should be somewhere over the horizon, maybe thirty-five miles southeast of us. Wow, did we luck out!”

  Billy switched the frequency selector, pressed the microphone’s transmit switch, and began calling Salvador. “Big Ben…Big Ben…Sarah…Sarah…Sarah…Big Ben…Big Ben…We’ve made a radio intercept. Acknowledged…”

  He broadcast their coded call signs again and again.

  There was no returning voice from the ship. “He’s too far off. After dark, when reception’s better, we’ll make contact.”

  “Now what?”

  “Chatter’s out there…maybe with that pod Arnold spotted. We’re going after them, and without Benny if we have to.”

  Shortly before sunset the wind eased. With the diminishing breeze, the sea calmed and they cruised serenely eastward for the coast. The mast had stopped whipping back and forth and Billy chanced climbing to the crosstree. Sarah watched him holding binoculars and searching the far horizon for Lucky Dragon.

  She was troubled. Since they had intercepted Arnold’s transmission Billy’s energy level had exploded. He turned hyper and talked incessantly. All afternoon he had divided his attention between the radar, the radio, and scanning the sea. And with each hour they narrowed the distance between the sloop and tuna clipper. The radio now picked up increasingly frequent transmissions between the ship and helicopter. He had Sarah search the 136–174 MHz band and adjust the squelch control to clear the static. She found that the ship was using the 161.36 marine band and kept the radio tuned to that frequency. Over the exterior speaker came the pilot’s voice, and Sarah cranked up the volume so Billy could hear up on the mast. “Dragon…Dragon…Dragon…Another pod. Tuna below ’em for sure…. Eleven miles west of your bow….”

  “Stay on them until we get there,” came a voice that Sarah now recognized as Lucky Dragon’s captain.

  Billy yelled down from the mast. “They’ll be turning toward us! Check the radar!”

  She glanced at the screen. “There’s a faint blip on the fifteen-mile ring.”

  “Gotta be them!”

  He came down from the mast looking worried. “Now, before you start asking questions, here’s what I think. Not know. Just think.”

  He scrunched up his face and explained, “Because it’s going to take Lucky Dragon at least two hours to reach and corral that pod, they’re going to have to make a night set. Since we’re heading toward each other, we should be close by the time the net goes out.”

  She couldn’t help herself and asked, “Won’t they see us on their radar?”

  “Maybe, but we’re not a very big return. The radar watch probably thinks we’re some small-fry sailboat poking along, which we are. So he isn’t gonna be much concerned.”

  “Then what?

  “If it’s dark enough we sail in and cut the net.”

  She started to speak, but he stopped her. “Don’t you understand? Chatter could be in there.”

  “If they catch us…that man…he’d kill us both.”r />
  “It’s her life too.”

  “Billy, maybe we can cut the net and get them out, but if they see us, there goes the whole operation. For once, look at the big picture. She’s only one dolphin….”

  “She saved my life.”

  Not wanting logic, he turned away from her. With a sudden awareness of what was really troubling her, Sarah said cautiously, “You’re in love with that dolphin, aren’t you?”

  For a long moment Billy tried to find the words to answer her. Then he laughed uproariously and said happily, “Hell yes, I love Chatter, but I’m in love with you! There is a big difference, don’t you know?”

  He reached out for her, and she came into his arms.

  Then that voice came from the radio and she felt him tense. “Atún!…Atún!…Atún!”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Fifty minutes later they saw a glow of light off their bow. By now, Billy’s apprehension was so great he unconsciously whispered, “They’re making a set!”

  The little Atomic Four’s starter motor whined, the engine caught, throbbed softly, and they motored slowly for the clipper. Sarah asked, “Won’t they hear us?”

  “No chance. It’s a madhouse on deck, and the crew’s totally concentrating on hauling the net. I hope we get there in time.”

  Fifteen minutes later they saw the outline of the clipper illuminated by her glaring work lights. Billy dropped sail, explaining that the white cloth would reflect the ship’s lights. As they idled on he whispered, “The far side of the net’s in darkness. We can ease right up to the corkline and cut it where they won’t see us. We’ll have to work fast ’cause they’ll be hauling in soon.”

  He grabbed swim fins and a mask, and placed a heavy-duty bolt cutter on the engine cover. She watched him strap a diver’s knife to his ankle and asked, “When you cut the net, won’t they notice it?”

  “How should I know?” he snapped impatiently. “I mean, I don’t do this kind of stuff for a living. Ease up, will you?”