Fins

by Randy Wayne White

  EIGHTEEN

  A FREE MANATEE AND A MYSTERY SOLVED

  Water on both sides of the boat was shallow. Small waves were beginning to whitecap along a sandbar on the outside fringe of Dinkins Bay. Maribel remembered the detective mentioning the sandbar. He’d said that, aside from Fools Cut, there was no deep water. No boat larger than a canoe could anchor on this side of the mangroves.

  The manatee seemed to know exactly where it was going. It dragged their boat and anchor through a narrow, twisting channel toward a vast area of open gray water.

  Maribel, at the steering wheel with the engine running, followed at a slightly faster speed. As they drew closer to the manatee, Sabina coiled the anchor line. Luke stood nearby with a knife, ready in case she got tangled.

  “One of us will have to get in the water when we’re close enough,” he called to Maribel. “I’ve caught lots of calves and stuff that got loose from their pens. I’m willing to go over the side and untangle the anchor if you want. Just tell me when.”

  In Spanish, Sabina said to her sister, “Is there any animal the pig farmer hasn’t caught and eaten?”

  Maribel was focused on keeping the boat and her passengers safe. “Luke, get the spare anchor ready. Sabina, you’ll drop the anchor when I tell you. Luke and I will go over the side. And, everyone—tighten the straps on your life vests.”

  The boy did as he’d been told. The spare anchor was in a forward hatch. It wasn’t as heavy as the one the manatee was dragging. Hopefully, it would be enough to prevent the boat from drifting away when he and Maribel went over the side.

  “Do you want the anchor tied to the front of the boat or off the stern?” he yelled over the noise of the wind.

  Stern was another word for the rear area of a vessel.

  Maribel had been wondering the same thing. The anchor was more likely to dig into the bottom and hold if dropped off the front of the boat. But the channel was so narrow, she doubted there was room to turn the boat around if there was any emergency.

  “The stern, I guess,” she hollered.

  The boy brushed past her. He tied the coil of rope attached to the extra anchor on a cleat near the engine, then hurried forward to get ready to jump over the side.

  The manatee was only a few yards ahead of them now. Luke looked down and saw white half-moon scars on the animal’s back, which meant a boat’s propeller had hit the slow-moving creature before. Patches of barnacles dappled its grayish skin. The texture reminded him of elephants he’d seen at the Toledo Zoo.

  “Do sea cows bite?” he asked Sabina. The girl was beside him on her knees.

  “Probably—if you look like a vegetable,” she reasoned. “Let me know if it hurts.”

  “Thanks,” the boy responded. “I will.”

  Thunder rumbled in the gusting wind. Webs of lightning flared above a distant island.

  Behind them Maribel called, “Sabina, get ready to drop the anchor. Luke, when we’re close enough, wave or something and I’ll shift the engine into neutral. I don’t want to hit the poor thing.”

  The younger sister hurried to the back of the boat. Luke tightened his gloves and retied his Michael Jordan basketball shoes. His heart was banging against his ribs, yet he felt okay. He might not be good at starting a conversation between two angry sisters, but wrestling animals to the ground was something he was good at.

  Trouble was, this was the ocean, not a barnyard. And the animal he was about to wrestle weighed as much as a small cow.

  The manatee sensed the boat closing in from above. With a flick of its tail, it veered onto a sandbar so shallow that its whole body was soon exposed.

  Luke signaled by waving his hand.

  “Now,” Maribel ordered. “Sabina, drop the anchor.”

  The girl did. “Ready!” she called.

  Maribel shifted the engine into neutral and rushed to join Luke near the bow, or the front of the boat.

  “Let’s make this quick—” she started to say, but the boy was already over the side. She watched him stumble, fall, then stumble and nearly fall again before standing up in knee-deep water.

  “Come on,” he hollered. “Wait—” He turned with an outstretched hand. “Give me the knife.”

  She did. It was a fishing knife with a red plastic handle.

  The manatee was on its side, struggling to return to deeper water. Luke sensed the animal’s terror. He approached slowly. He made soft clucking sounds as if calming a nervous horse.

  The whole time, he stared and tried to communicate with the manatee as he often did with Pete, the retriever, and other dogs he’d trained. You’re safe … you’re safe, he told the animal silently. I won’t hurt you.

  When he was close enough, he dropped to his knees in the water. Then slowly he reached and stroked the manatee’s back. The skin was rough and rubbery.

  The animal snorted and seemed to sigh. Its breath smelled of mud and cut weeds.

  Maribel sloshed up from behind. “Keep rubbing its back,” she whispered. “It seems to like that. Give me the knife and I’ll cut the rope.”

  What the manatee liked better, Luke discovered, was to have its back scratched hard. The harder the better. So he scratched and scratched and thought calming thoughts until Sabina hollered from the boat, “Hey! The anchor’s not holding.”

  Maribel had cut the last tangle from the animal’s tail. When she turned, she saw their boat—and her sister—drifting away. Without thinking, she tossed the rope aside, and ran.

  That was a mistake the young captain would soon regret.

  * * *

  Luke and Maribel charged after the boat until the boy realized they’d left the manatee stuck on the sandbar. “Keep going,” he hollered, then turned and slogged back. He made the familiar clucking sounds and stood over the creature. I’m going to help you, he said without speaking.

  The manatee belched air in response. Five hundred pounds of muscle and blubber was struggling to squirm into deeper water. Tiny arms that resembled fins clawed at the sand. The animal’s huge fluke tail banged away but didn’t make much progress.

  Don’t bite me, Luke thought.

  He knelt, got his arms around the animal’s neck, and used his legs to lift. It took every ounce of strength to pivot the thing a few feet closer to the channel.

  Twice more he did it. When he sensed the manatee was about to panic, he used a trick he’d learned to calm frightened horses. After removing his inflatable vest straps, he took off his shirt and tied it around the animal’s big, blunt head like a blindfold.

  Again he knelt … lifted … took a few tiny steps, then lowered the massive head to the sand. Over and over he did this. The process was exhausting.

  Maribel’s voice reached the boy over the sound of wind and the thudding of his own heart. “Luke, come on. I need your help!”

  She was in water up to her waist. Storm clouds floated toward the trio from the east. Wind pushed their drifting boat faster than Maribel could run or swim. Sabina, at the steering wheel, couldn’t get the engine started.

  The boy gave a last mighty effort. The manatee snorted and wallowed itself closer to the channel, where there was enough water to use its tail.

  “Hang on a second,” he yelled—not to Maribel, but to the manatee. He managed to snatch his shirt away just before the animal swam off.

  Sabina got lucky, too. A plume of exhaust told him the engine was running. The younger sister clunked the throttle forward and steered toward Maribel. Soon both girls were in the boat, sopping wet but safe. Next Luke hefted himself over the side. He was bare chested and carried his shirt balled up in a gloved hand.

  “You’re incredible,” Maribel told her sister, and gave her a hug. She couldn’t help laughing with relief. “Did you pull up the spare anchor?”

  Sabina replied, “Yes, but I don’t know why. I hate that anchor. All it does is drag the bottom. Let’s get out of here. It’ll be dark soon, and that storm’s coming. We’ve got to hurry.”

  The girl was
right. A wall of rain drifted toward them. It was a sodden gray like smoke. The storm was still a few miles away, but bolts of wild electricity sometimes reached ahead of the clouds and zapped the water.

  Maribel attempted to reward her sister by asking, “Do you want to drive us back to the marina? You’ve done a good job so far.”

  No, Sabina was happy to step away from the controls. While her sister steered them expertly into the narrow channel, the girl plopped down in the front seat next to Luke. “I can’t believe you moved that manatee all by yourself,” she said—then her gaze landed on the boy’s bare shoulder. Her eyes widened when she saw the strange design that was burned into his skin.

  “What…? Where did you get that?” she stammered.

  Luke rushed to put his wet shirt on while the girl continued to stare. “Maribel,” she hollered. “You’ve got to see this.”

  “Not now,” the older sister said. She was struggling to keep the boat in the channel.

  “You’ve got to. Look at Luke’s shoulder. It’s the most beautiful tattoo I’ve ever seen. Farm boy”—she tugged at Luke’s shirt sleeve—“take that off and show her. How much did it cost? I want a tattoo just like that when I can afford it.”

  Luke yanked away with his arms folded.

  If Maribel had not been distracted, she would have seen the Styrofoam buoy ahead. It floated in the middle of the channel, still attached to the rope and anchor she’d recently tossed aside.

  The boat lurched when it hit the buoy. It lurched again when the propeller snagged the rope. The engine struggled briefly, then quit with a harsh metallic thunk.

  “Drop the spare anchor,” Maribel ordered. She hurried to the back of the boat and tilted the motor from the water, as they’d been taught.

  Knotted around the propeller was a ball of twisted rope, the anchor and Styrofoam ball still attached.

  “What a mess,” she said. “We’re going to have to cut this off.”

  The wind began to whistle through the mangroves. A veil of black rain pushed closer, beneath clouds where lightning sizzled.

  Luke took one look at the propeller and knew the trio was in trouble. He dropped the spare anchor, allowed all the rope to play out, and tied it to a cleat. Soon he realized they were in bigger trouble than he’d thought. Sabina had been right about the spare anchor. It only slowed the boat as it dragged across the bottom. That’s all. It wasn’t heavy enough to hold them against a storm that roared across the water like a freight train.

  “We’ll have to use the oars,” Maribel yelled.

  The oars were heavy, each eight feet long and made of wood. Luke helped her fit them into the oarlocks. They sat side by side, just as they had practiced. “Stroke … stroke … stroke,” the older sister called in rhythm.

  It had been a calm day when they’d learned how to row in unison. What was easy then seemed impossible now because of the wild waves. Finally, they gave up and stored the oars. It was better to call the marina for help, Maribel decided. They would have to drift and hope for the best until the storm passed.

  She found the handheld radio, put it to her lips, and pressed the Transmit key. Over and over she said, “Calling Dinkins Bay Marina, please come in.” But the wind was so loud, the only response was static. If someone from the marina had replied, none of them heard it.

  By then the storm was on them. What light and warmth remained in the setting sun was swallowed up by an icy, slow-moving darkness. Maribel sat close to Sabina. “Stay down and hold on,” she whispered.

  There was nothing else they could do.

  The first raindrops hammered the boat with pellets that stung like ice. Clouds covered the sun, and the cascade began. It was like being trapped under a waterfall. Maribel felt her sister’s small hand on her arm. Soon they were so cold that they used spare life jackets as pillows on the deck of the boat, out of the wind. The sisters huddled together for warmth.

  “Luke,” Maribel hollered. “Where are you?”

  A silent blast of lightning showed her. The boy sat alone near the engine, his head up, eyes open. He seemed to be watching something.

  “Do you see that?” he replied. “Over there. It’s some kind of boat.”

  Thunder vibrated through the deck and found their bones. It made a response impossible.

  Luke continued to focus on the boat skimming toward them along the shallow mangroves.

  How could that be? he wondered. There were sandbars there that only a canoe could cross, according to the detective. But this was like no boat he’d ever seen. Its hull was as flat as a Frisbee. It was powered by a giant fan on the back.

  The roar of the boat’s engine blended with rumbling thunder.

  The boat angled toward what looked like a much larger boat visible in the distance. A triad of lightning bolts revealed that the smaller boat was heading for a commercial-sized fishing trawler a mile or two away. Perhaps they were meeting for some reason.

  But what was a fishing trawler—or any other boat—doing out in this storm?

  Luke’s mind went to work. He was trying to piece the puzzle together when the smaller, Frisbee-like vessel abruptly slowed. When it stopped and turned in their direction, the boy suspected the driver had seen them.

  In his head, a familiar caution light flashed with sparks of red. But thoughts of danger were displaced by something Hannah had told him: Fishing trawlers used nets to drag the bottom—massive nets that sometimes required the help of a smaller vessel.

  Nets … of course! Suddenly some of the pieces seemed to fit.

  Detective Miller and other law enforcement people had been frustrated by their inability to capture—or even spot—the shark poachers at work. That mystery had caused the man to ask, “What time of day or night can poachers net sharks without being seen?”

  The detective had said this as if there were no answer.

  But there was an answer. And Luke had just figured it out.

  “Someone’s coming,” he hollered to the girls.

  The strange boat was speeding their way.

  Despite the rain, Luke stared and focused, and saw what the girls did not. The driver of the boat was a big-shouldered man with a black beard. Sitting obediently at his side was the pit bull.

  Now the boy was sure he had solved the mystery. The poachers fished only during lightning storms!

  But why weren’t they afraid of being struck dead?

  That was a mystery he had yet to solve.

  * * *

  Storm clouds parted for an instant. A wall of rain magnified the size of a massive orange sun. The sun became a glowing cavern, low on the horizon. It glazed the water with smoky light. The glare blurred Sabina’s vision. Raindrops pelted her face. It was impossible to see without shielding her eyes.

  Yes! A boat was coming. She hoped it was driven by Captain Hannah. That made sense. The woman had come looking for them. Of course she would, because they weren’t allowed to leave the bay, and fishing in a rainstorm was against the rules.

  Also, Maribel had called for help on the handheld radio. Maybe someone at the marina had heard despite all the static. Convinced, the girl lay back and pulled the towel over head.

  Maribel was still shielding her eyes, straining to see. She knew that Hannah would be angry—until the woman understood the series of disasters that had caused the trio to break the rules.

  As Hannah had warned them many times, “Bad things happen fast on the water.”

  It was a phrase the trio would remember the rest of their lives.

  Maribel didn’t suspect trouble until Luke came toward her, demanding, “Try the radio again! Call Mayday—maybe the Coast Guard will hear you. We’ve got to get away from that boat!”

  That’s when she noticed the boat’s strange design. It was large and fast, and as flat as a saucer. It skimmed over shoals too shallow for a motor.

  It was an airboat, she realized.

  Airboats weren’t common in the area. But she had seen several in the Everglades on their tr
ips to Miami. Airboats were used to cross prairies of grass where there was little or no water. They were powered by an airplane propeller. The noise they made was deafening—yet not as loud as the thunderous squall that blazed around them.

  You would need a canoe to anchor on that side of the mangroves, the detective had told them.

  The detective was mistaken. Maybe he had never seen an airboat. This one was double the size of their rental boat and coming fast across a shoal where even a canoe couldn’t go. Sitting next to the driver was a stocky-looking dog—a pit bull.

  In that instant Maribel realized that her sister had been telling the truth about the shark fins she’d seen and the bearded man.

  Sabina was still curled beneath a towel to keep off the stinging rain. The elder sister lifted the towel and said, “I’m sorry. I never should have doubted you.”

  “What did you do wrong this time?” Sabina snapped.

  “You need to get up,” Maribel responded. “A boat’s coming.”

  The younger girl threw off the towel and struggled to keep her balance in the wild waves. Then she fell back when, nearby, a blinding light ignited a thunderous boom that rocked the water.

  “That almost hit us!” the girl wailed. She pressed herself to the deck and reached for the towel. “Lightning’s going to kill us all!”

  Maribel feared it was true.

  What she feared more, suddenly, was the approaching boat. The airboat had slowed. It was close enough that, even through a haze of rain, she could see the man at the controls. He sat atop a high tower. Water dripped from his long dark hair. Rain funneled off the point of his black beard.

  Beside him a dog with a muscular head stood at attention. The way the animal danced, whining, suggested it was eager to leap onto their boat.

  “Stay down!” Maribel commanded Sabina in Spanish. “If he sees you, he’ll recognize you from the newspaper, and we’re all in trouble.”