Hunting the Dragon

by Peter Dixon

  As Billy took repeated slow breaths to calm himself, they watched the net coming aboard. He also noticed that Rocha was standing in the seine skiff that was bobbing alongside the ship. Then the Westsail scraped against the corkline, and Billy killed the engine. Inside the net the sea boiled as the entrapped dolphins and frantic tuna surged about. Billy peered into the net, hoping that Chatter would sense him and leap over the rim to freedom. He knew he was dreaming and grabbed the bolt cutters. It took all his strength to sever the corkline. At last the wire strands parted and he fought to draw the net apart, but the opening wouldn’t expand.

  Billy saw the problem. The nylon webbing would also have to be cut before the opening would be wide enough for the dolphins to escape. He glanced at the clipper. The net was being drawn slowly over the stern, and all was as before.

  He pulled on fins and mask, slid silently into the water, and began hacking apart the stands of nylon webbing. Then he swam down the curtain of net, slashing at the strong mesh. Slowly, the gap widened and the first of the dolphins found their way through the opening. Inwardly he screamed at them, That’s the way! Go for it, you guys!

  As the breach grew wider, more and more dolphins and tuna raced through the opening. Billy turned from the net and kicked for the surface. Suddenly, he was brought to an abrupt halt. He was caught in the slack web. In the darkness ten feet down, he tugged at a tangle of net that had snared the empty sheath of his diver’s knife. Go slow, he warned himself. Don’t make it any worse.

  He knew he had only seconds. Already his need for air was so great that Billy clamped his jaw shut to stop the overpowering desire to open his mouth. To swallow was death. He was a waterman and knew the sensation. Real watermen never drown. They hold their breath, fighting for life, until the oxygen level in their blood drops so low they pass out from anoxia. Lifeguards call it “dry drowning.”

  His fingers found the straps that held the knife sheath to his ankle and he began peeling back the Velcro fasteners. The upper strap came free. He reached for the lower one, but the mesh was tangled around the clasp. Billy slid the knife blade under the snarl and began sawing at the netting.

  In the sloop, Sarah was counting the seconds since Billy had plunged down the face of the net. “Seventy-five…seventy-six…seventy-seven…Oh, God! He’s in trouble!”

  Sarah grabbed her mask, the emergency deck knife, and a waterproof cockpit flashlight. She dropped over the side, thrust the lens under the surface, and snapped on the beam.

  Billy felt some of the strands part, and he shoved the blade under another tangle. His growing panic, his dread of death’s nearness, seemed to ease. His mind slipped back to memories of skin-diving for abalone off Southern California.

  His greatest fear was to become trapped in an abandoned, free-drifting “ghost net.” From that thought his mental focus shifted to the little starbursts of silver light that were beginning to absorb his total attention. What were they? Not constellations. Maybe little glowing jellyfish. He tried to count them. Like stars, he thought. His knife fell from his grasp and he reached out for a pinpoint of light. There was one brighter than all the rest. Before Billy passed out he thought, Yeah, that’s the one I want. I’ll give it to Sarah.

  The bright star was the beam of Sarah’s waterproof flashlight. In the dim glow she saw Billy relax and drift downward. She grabbed his hair and stopped his descent. In the faint light, Sarah saw where the net held him and hacked the last strands from his ankle. Driven by fear and love, she towed Billy toward the surface. They rejoined the night beside the boat. She squeezed him around the chest, tilted his head back, and blew into his mouth. After three cycles, Billy gasped, sucked in air, and opened his eyes. He started to cough, but her fingers on his lips stilled the reflex. He nodded that he was okay and weakly climbed the boarding ladder.

  On Lucky Dragon’s bridge, Captain Gandara peered at the net. He saw that the usually taut corkline had gone slack and parted somewhere beyond the lights. His catch was escaping. That had never happened before, even in the worst of weather. He picked up the bridge walkietalkie. “Bridge to skiff.”

  “Right here, captain,” came Rocha’s instant reply.

  “The corkline’s broken somewhere along the far end. Run the skiff out there and fix it. Pronto! Pronto!”

  Gandara stepped into the bridge and brought out a powerful handheld searchlight, which he plugged into an exterior electric socket. The intense, narrow beam cut through the night and the captain slowly scanned the outer rim of the net.

  In the skiff, Rocha turned to grab the throttle. The engine roared, then stalled. It did that sometimes, Rocha knew, when it was hot. He tried again. It caught, sputtered, and died. On the third attempt, the engine started and Rocha idled off following the corkline.

  The sound of the skiff’s engine booming across the water sent a stab of dread into Billy’s guts. He guessed it was Rocha on his way to inspect the corkline. Billy shook off his numbness and decided it was time to escape while they could. He started the engine and eased away from the net. Then came the sudden, intense beam of a searchlight probing along the net. Billy muttered, “They’ll see us any second!”

  The searchlight flowed over the gray skiff. Billy recognized Rocha standing behind the wheel and peering into the night. He knew they could never outrun the powerful boat. As the sound of the skiff’s throbbing engine grew fearfully louder, Sarah dashed into the cabin. Seconds later she stood by Billy, shoving cartridges into the magazine of the Winchester. He lifted a hand to stop her and said, “They’ll hear—”

  She worked the lever, aimed at the bridge of the clipper and said, “It won’t matter if I can—”

  The rifle exploded with a roar that carried across the still water. She levered and fired twice more in as many seconds. An instant later the searchlight’s beam went out. Though Sarah didn’t know it, the .30 caliber bullets missed the light, passed by Gandara’s head, and clanged one-two-three into the steel side of the bridge. The captain had been shot at many times. When Gandara heard the impact of the bullets he dropped the searchlight and threw himself on deck. The light’s high-intensity bulb shattered. He lay on the deck cursing, wondering who was out there in the darkness, and how had they found him. After a few seconds he cautiously eased to his feet, groped for the searchlight, and found it was smashed.

  Beyond the far end of the net, the sloop vanished into the night.

  It was fifteen minutes before Billy dared speak. He made a final check of the radar screen, and saw that Lucky Dragon had yet to get under way.

  “Wow! I didn’t know you could shoot a rifle!”

  “There are a lot of things we don’t know about each other, Billy.”

  Billy put the boat on autopilot, and they sat close, looking up at the stars. As their tension eased they talked long into the night, about themselves and their dreams and fears, until he fell asleep in her arms. She held him, feeling his heart beat against hers, and thought about how Billy had revealed his basic loneliness and his need to be always on the move to escape responsibility. Sarah had opened up to him and unburdened herself. The realization that she was ambitious and wanted to dominate came as a surprise. He had guessed that her dependence on her father, and being subordinate to him, drove Sarah to excel and want to take control. As they fought to stay awake Billy murmured, “You just need someone you can depend on to love. And it wouldn’t be honest if I said I’m that long-term guy. So let’s accept that we’re here together, and for now let it go at that.”

  “But what about tomorrow?”

  “We radio Benny and pray he finds us before Gandara does.”

  At dawn Billy gulped a cup of coffee, hung binoculars over his neck, and climbed the mast. Lucky Dragon had faded from their radar screen two hours before, but he still felt uneasy. Sarah suspected he was really searching for the dolphin.

  She watched Billy staring into the distance and wondered what was going on inside him. Was his attachment to Chatter because the dolphin was some sort o
f embodiment of all Billy regarded as good and pure, or could it be that he had truly bonded with the animal? She knew that dolphins, and especially Chatter, were beings with such remarkably benevolent behavior that humans would do well to adopt them as role models. She realized she was thinking academically and reflected, Why not be like Billy…out there, feelings exposed, going with his gut reaction?

  He stood on the crosstree so alert, so animal-like, that Sarah wanted to cry for her love for him. Then she saw him tense and raise the binoculars to the sky. After half a minute he gestured to the east. Sarah heard the distant whomp-whomping of a helicopter. There was only one place it could have come from.

  “It’s Arnold. He’s coming right for us.” His warning sent her dashing into the cabin. She grabbed the rifle and rushed out on deck to search the sky.

  He dropped down the mast yelling, “Put that damn gun away. And stay in the cabin. It’s better if he thinks I’m alone.”

  The helicopter dove for the sea and skimmed across the surface, headed directly for the sloop. A moment later Arnold was hovering off the bow looking down at Billy. His face betrayed the shock of recognition. He raised a handheld marine radio for Billy to see. Billy reached into the cabin, grabbed the boat’s walkie-talkie, and turned it on. “Glad you made it, Billy.”

  He pressed the transmit button, “So am I, Arnold.”

  “Was it you who cut the net?”

  “What do you think?”

  “You cost Gandara a megabuck haul last night. Don’t do it again or I’ll find you next time.”

  “Thanks, Arnold. I owe you a big one.”

  The pilot gave him a wave and began climbing. At a hundred feet he banked the chopper and flew off to the east.

  When the rotor’s beat subsided, Sarah came out of the cabin and saw Billy turn the sloop on the same heading as the departing helicopter. She asked, “Don’t you think we should turn back?”

  “Not until I know Chatter’s safe.”

  Billy climbed the mast and began scanning the horizon.

  Two hours later thirst and hunger drove Billy from the mast. He drank a pint of water, wolfed down crackers and canned peaches. At the offer of coffee, he relaxed and sat down to ease his cramped muscles. Sarah faced him, saw the fatigue that etched his face, and said, “It’s a big ocean, Billy.”

  “I know it’s virtually impossible that I’ll find Chatter. But think of it this way…maybe she’ll find me.”

  He set his mug on the engine cover and reached out to put his arms around Sarah. “Besides, shooting out that searchlight, you saved my life last night. And I haven’t thanked you. So I thank you now. Nobody could have done better.”

  “Last night we were very lucky. We can’t keep blundering after him. We have to work with Benny.”

  “Okay. I agree. We’ll head straight for Costa Rica, put in at Puntarenas, and join up with Salvador. But if you don’t mind, I’ll keep an eye out for Chatter.”

  He put the boat on a heading for the coast. Sarah took the helm and he went up the mast again.

  Near day’s end the wind stopped and Billy joined her in the cockpit. It was still hot and she asked, “How about a swim to cool off?”

  He studied the horizon, looking for wind upon the water. The sea was still and he decided it was safe to leave the boat. He threw over a buoy attached to a lifeline and said, “We’re so close now, it wouldn’t do to have the boat sail away without us.”

  He plunged over the side and dived deep, kicking downward into the blue-gray zone where colors fade and light rays bend as they pass through a thermocline.

  Here was peace. He continued downward until his ears pained and the pressure compressed the air in his lungs. Billy thought, If only I could open my mouth and breathe the sea. Hey, I could be the first water breather. Instant reverse evolution. Could I do it?

  He looked up to the surface and saw Sarah watching him far above. He began to stroke toward the sunlight. Near the surface he heard a sudden burst of high-pitched clicks and pings. He spun and looked wildly about. There she was, racing for him. He burst into the air and screamed joyfully, “Chatter!”

  The dolphin leaped out of the water, spun, and landed next to Billy. He reached out for her and she nuzzled her beak against his cheek. There were more echolocating sounds. Suddenly a small pod of dolphins arrived to surround him. Sarah kicked for the boarding ladder and hung on watching Billy as several large males, all clicking and pinging, circled him.

  Billy stilled his fear and reached out to touch them. Their sounds grew softer and the dolphins began to brush against him. The energy of their nearness and quivering life force flowed into Billy. At that moment he felt a deep oneness with them, as if he were part of the pod.

  “What do they want?” she asked softly.

  “I have this strange feeling that they want me to help people understand them.”

  Her eyes narrowed with disbelief. Billy could only shrug and say defensively, “That’s what I think they’re telling me.”

  Then his eyes caught movement behind Sarah. A sudden wind had filled the sail and the boat was moving and he yelled to her. “Get aboard!”

  As the sloop sailed away, Billy sprinted for the boarding ladder. He saw Sarah scramble on deck and race to start the engine. The wind grew stronger, and Billy feared he might not make it aboard. Then he saw the ring buoy moving past and grabbed it. Hand over hand, he pulled himself back to the ladder and vaulted over the railing. Sarah had the engine started and had the tiller hard over to come about and pick him up. He gave her a quick grin of thanks and said, “That was close. From now on, no more swimming unless one of us is aboard. And you did great!”

  The breeze grew stronger, chilling them as the water evaporated from their bodies. They pulled on sweatshirts and watched Chatter take up her customary position off the bow. The pod accompanied them for a few minutes and then veered away. To Billy’s relief, Chatter remained.

  Later, when the strangeness of the encounter subsided, he told Sarah of the feelings he’d had underwater.

  “The sun’s getting to you, Billy, or you’re losing it. In all the research on dolphins, and in all the recorded human-dolphin contact, no one has truly been able to communicate with them. You’re a great guy, but…”

  “I don’t give a damn about all those studies and research, I just know what happened between them and me.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Three days later their voyage from Fiji to Central America ended with Sarah’s excited cry, “Billy! There’s land!”

  She stood on the cabin top and gestured eastward. He joined her. In the distance they saw a hazy, far-off landmass rising out of the horizon capped with billowing altocumulus clouds. He put an arm around her and with evident relief said, “We did it, babe. We crossed most of the Pacific Ocean in a pea pod of a thirty-two-foot sloop.”

  “And saved a lot of dolphins along the way,”

  “Puntarenas, here we come, and about time. We’re almost out of water.”

  He kissed her lightly and added, “Wouldn’t it be nice to take a long hot bath, and sleep in a bed more than two feet wide that doesn’t rock?”

  “And eat oranges and a green salad. Then how about an ice-cream cone?”

  Sarah glanced down at Chatter and said, “What about her?”

  “She’ll do what she has to. Let’s play humans for a few days in port.”

  “And then…?” she asked anxiously.

  “We find Benny and go after Gandara!”

  Instead of sailing into Puntarenas harbor like a proper yachtsman, Billy dropped the main, started the engine, and powered down the channel. He glanced at Chatter. She had fallen behind and refused to follow them. Billy remarked, “The harbor’s probably polluted. She knows where it isn’t healthy.”

  “Aren’t you worried about her?”

  “She’ll be fine. And besides, she wouldn’t fit in a bathtub.”

  She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his ear.

  Inside the cha
nnel, the harbor widened, and Billy saw that Puntarenas was a major port capable of accepting oceangoing vessels. He told Sarah, “That means there has to be a couple of good restaurants and a hotel. Am I ever hungry for a steak, and a green salad with tomatoes and avocado.”

  “And how about a cold glass of fresh milk?”

  Their food fantasy ended abruptly. Two hundred yards down the harbor channel they saw a black-hulled tuna clipper moored beside some sort of rusted corrugated-steel factory building. Billy grabbed binoculars and focused on Lucky Dragon. Through the lenses he saw a tall bearded figure on the bridge leaning over the rail watching tuna being offloaded onto cannery trucks. Billy’s gaze shifted to the top of the wheelhouse. The helicopter was missing and he worried. I hope Arnold didn’t crash.

  He grabbed Sarah’s arm, pointed to the clipper, and whispered, “How about that. Six thousand miles across the ocean and we end up in the same place. After this, I have to believe in fate.”

  He passed her the field glasses and she focused on the truck that was waiting for its load of yellowfin. She read a faded sign on its door aloud, “Pescadores Universal. It wasn’t fate that brought Lucky Dragon here, Billy. That’s a Universal Brands cannery.”

  Billy began singing the jingle, “Sea Fresh Tuna hits the spot, a lot of nutrition in a can we got….”

  She jabbed an elbow into his side and hissed, “That’s not funny, Billy. Now what?”

  In answer, he sent the sloop across the channel to the far side of the harbor. When they had docked among a fleet of small commercial fishing boats, Billy said, “After we report to the harbormaster and customs, we’re going to find the best hotel in Puntarenas.”

  “I like your style, Billy goat.”

  They stepped off the Sarah carrying day packs and the video camera case. The sensation of standing on land again brought momentary dizziness, and they held the dock railing waiting for their equilibrium to return. As their legs grew accustomed to solid ground, they walked into town.