by Russ Elliott
Drew slowly turned the reel until the line tightened. “Oh yeah? So tell me how real men fish?”
Al stood up. “Durban! The early ’60s on a little place called The Bluff,” he bellowed.
Drew rolled his eyes and murmured, “Oh no. I guess I asked for it.”
“There used to be a whaling company out there, and right beside it, a long breakwater called South Pier. The whaling company used to tow the dead whales right into the harbor. The place didn’t smell like a bed of roses, but boy, did we pull some monsters out of there—some of ’em over a thousand pounds. Now, when I say ‘pier,’ this ain’t no wooden structure with thick rails on the side to keep you from flying over. No sir, it was just a flat, two-thousand-foot-long, concrete breakwater.”
Al paused for emphasis, then said, “Now we were real fishermen!” He walked closer to Drew’s chair. “We used to fish right from the pier, where the shark had as much of a chance to pull you into the water as you had to pull the shark out.” He slapped the back of the chair. “None of this pansy stuff with secured chairs or straps to hold you down. With the Durban Shark Anglers, it was just man against shark. The only things we used were a leather “Palm” to brake control the line as it left the reel, and a leather socket we used to call a “Bucket” strapped around our waist to hold the butt of the rod. Other than that, it was just a bamboo rod and a plain old wooden reel. That’s all a real fisherman needs!
“We’d just ease down into a sitting position with the butt of the rod anchored into the bucket.” Al crouched down, mimicking the stance. “Sometimes we’d play the shark for hours. It was backbreaking work, but when you landed half a ton of shark that way, you’d accomplished something. Your back and every muscle in your body would remind you of it for days. But after reeling the shark in, the battle wasn’t over. You still had the problem of getting it up the rocks and onto the pier.”
“How’d you ever manage that?” asked Drew.
Al stood up from his crouch and rested his hand on the back of Drew’s chair. “Well, we’d usually bring the shark in close enough to get a rope around its neck, then everyone would slide it up onto the pier.”
“Anyone ever get pulled in?”
“Yeah, a few times. I remember Jerry Madison one time had an eight-hundred-pounder on the line when it pulled him right off the pier. He landed in the water right beside one angry great white. He got out of the water so fast, I don’t think he even got wet!”
Drew slowly turned the reel and grinned. “If you guys were really so tough, why didn’t you just tie a couple of steaks to your legs and jump in there with a dive knife? Now that would be giving the shark a sporting chance: man against shark!”
“Yeah, yeah,” replied Al. “You just sit there and tighten your straps.”
~~~
Kate squirmed beneath her helicopter, straining to reach an open toolbox beside the skid. It was miserable and hot. She was in grease up to her elbows; the rest of her was covered in sweat. After a plane taxied by, she thought she heard a muffled ring from her cell phone in the cockpit. She listened for a moment, didn’t hear it again, so she went back to work.
~~~
Shaking his head, John returned the lieutenant’s satellite phone. “She’s still not answering,” he muttered, stepping from the naval Hummer and into the Dyer Channel parking lot. They made their way around a red Porsche and headed for the docks.
“Would have gotten here sooner in a chopper,” Vic admitted, “but we’re only a reserve base. The few units we have are still searching for survivors at the Motanza.”
The lieutenant turned his attention to the docks. “Good. There’s Rich Addison’s boat. He’s one I didn’t reach.” He squinted, approaching the dock. “Wait a minute.”
They reached a small, shack-like office at the edge of the dock. “This is Drew’s place,” said the lieutenant. Passing the rickety building, John peered into a window. His eyes drifted across a huge set of shark jaws and various old photos of proud anglers standing next to enormous great whites strung up on the docks.
John’s attention shifted to the window of the front door. Although the old wooden sign was barely visible behind the dusty glass, he could tell it read, “Closed.” Checking the front door to make sure it was locked, they walked out farther on the dock. They passed the back corner of the office, and the lieutenant’s eyes squeezed shut. “Drew, you old skate!” In Drew’s boat slip, there was only shimmering water. “And I called him first,” Vic muttered. “I knew I told him too much.”
John heard footsteps approaching from behind. Someone spoke in a Swedish accent, “Are you looking for the man from the Shark Tours?”
He turned to face a tall man with long, sandy-blond hair. Beside him was an attractive, fair-skinned, blond woman.
“Yeah. Have you seen him?” asked the lieutenant.
“Yes, we came here earlier to take a tour, but he wouldn’t take us out,” replied the Swedish male. “He said the Navy closed him down for some type of research. But then after we left and walked around the docks for a while, we noticed his boat going out.”
“Was there anyone else on board?” asked John.
“Just one other man. Big man!” replied the woman in her best English.
Vic squinted. “Are you sure that was it? Just the two of them?”
“Yes, just the two of them, we’re certain,” replied the Swede. “We took a good look. Thought he may have changed his mind about giving a tour today.”
“Okay, thanks a lot,” Vic said, walking away, John at his heels.
The Swede grabbed Vic by the arm, “Do you know how long the research is going to continue? Will we be able to take a tour tomorrow? That’s our last day here, and we were really looking forward to—”
Vic yanked his arm back. “I don’t know. You’ll have to call tomorrow.”
They headed farther out on the dock while the Swede looked on. John could hear him muttering to his wife as they walked away: “I knew we should have gone to Australia.”
After walking out to the middle of the dock, the lieutenant stopped. John noticed him carefully surveying all the boats. On the dock across from them was a twenty-eight-foot fishing boat with part of its engine lying disassembled on the dock. Just in front of the fishing boat was a metallic-blue speedboat about eighteen feet long.
John’s attention shifted to a loud clanking on another dock, where he saw a man banging a hammer on a homemade shark cage. Five yards past the cage, his eye stopped on a blond-haired boy in his early teens mopping the deck of an old fishing boat.
“Not much of a selection . . . guess that’ll have to do,” Vic muttered.
John didn’t like the sound of this.
All of the sudden, Vic started jogging back through the parking lot and toward the other dock. John followed. “Hey, where are you going?”
As Vic approached the boy, he shouted, “Son, I’m gonna need to commandeer your boat.”
The boy looked up, wiped his hair from his eyes. “Comma what?”
“I need to borrow your boat for a couple of hours.”
John looked at Vic in disbelief. “What? Go out there? In this piece of—” he glanced at the boy. “No offense, kid.”
The boy dropped the mop. “It is a piece of crap . . . my dad’s. You can take it. Keep it, if you want. I’m tired of cleaning it anyway!”
The lieutenant boarded with a glance back at John. “How else do you plan to stop Drew? He’s ignored my orders. Don’t think he’ll listen to me over the radio.” He headed toward the helm. “Besides, it’s not likely your creature ventured this far west already, assuming it’s heading this way at all.”
For a long moment John paused, his eyes fixed on the channel. I sure hope he’s right. Either way he knew he didn’t have a choice. If the creature was headed this way, they were the only ones who could reach Drew and his passenger in time.
Eventually, he stepped across to the gunwale. He glanced over at Vic. “Would you mind not calling i
t my creature?”
On board, John was confronted by a sense of unease. It was a strange, swelling fear. It was the kind of feeling that might stop someone before boarding a plane out of a sense of impending doom. He looked along the old wooden deck from bow to stern. The vessel appeared even smaller now that he was aboard.
Vic looked up at the boy. “How much fuel is in it?”
“Just filled it up, and there’s an extra can by the stern,” he replied, uncleating the bowline to help them shove off from the dock.
John noticed the bright surfboard logo on the boy’s tee shirt. “Do you surf?”
“You know it, bro! Every chance I get!”
John glanced at all the shark cages in the nearby boats. “Not anywhere around here, I hope.”
“No way, bro. I’m not that doff!”
John paused and gave another nervous glance across the water. “Just the same, do me a favor and keep it in for a couple of days, huh?”
“No problem. I’m grounded for the next week. Why else would I be out here mopping this old boat on a good surfing day like this?”
The engine fired, and Vic slowly pulled away from the dock. He shouted, “Tell your dad we’ll be back in a couple hours!” The boy waved while the old fishing boat slowly headed toward the Dyer Island Channel.
~~~
Kate worked the stick as the helicopter finally lifted off. The thumping rotors were a welcome sound. She gazed across the instrument cluster and paused nervously on the oil pressure gauge. “Atta girl,” she murmured to the chopper. “We’re okay now, just needed to lick our wounds a bit.”
The chopper veered off from the airport and headed for the coast.
Al gazed out over the freshly chummed waters, while the sun dropped deeper into the horizon line. An eerie silence had settled over the channel. “Dusk . . . ideal feeding time. If it’s out here, now’s the time we’ll see it!” said Al, watching for the slightest trace of whitewater.
Drew looked back from his chair while slowly reeling in the line. “Hey, you hear about the shark attack earlier today?”
“No! Where?” Al reached down to take another beer from the cooler beside Drew’s chair.
“Somewhere around Keurboom, near Plettenberg Bay. Two surfers were hit by a blue pointer. Think one of ’em was killed.”
“That’s the first I’ve heard of it. But I can guess it was off one of those un-netted beaches.”
“Believe it was.”
Al looked out over the water. “If those buggers had seen half the things I’ve pulled from South Pier and these waters, they’d all move to the mountains and take up snowboarding.”
Drew grinned from his chair. “Now that you mention it, I don’t recall too many surfers taking shark tours.”
Al shook his head. “Now, I guess in tomorrow’s paper we’ll be reading about some expert saying how this was just another case of mistaken identity. How the shark probably thought the surfer was a seal.”
“Yeah, I heard that spiel before,” said Drew. “How sharks supposedly don’t have an appetite for humans. They say we have too much muscle and bone, and that sharks prefer the high-calorie fat of seals. That’s why they claim most attack victims are let go.”
“I still don’t find too much comfort in the mistaken-identity theory,” said Al, twisting the cap off his beer. “So the shark takes a bite out of you, then comes back, and offers to give you your leg back, saying, ‘Sorry, mate, I thought you were a seal.’ Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t feel any safer knowing that if I get bitten, it was by accident! And what about the instances where the shark did come back for a second bite? What does that do for the mistaken-identity theory?
“The number of attacks are also on the rise. Seems like every week you hear about another one on the news somewhere.” Al took a sip from his beer. “But it ain’t no surprise. I’ve been telling people this was gonna happen for years. World over, you’ve got all those long-liners out there with miles of nets raping the ocean for all she’s worth. The sharks gotta come closer to shore to find food. All those scientists might be right; we might not be top choice on their menu. But if there ain’t nothing else around, we’ll do!”
“Ya got that right,” said Drew. He turned the reel, drawing the bait in a little closer to the boat. “But on the other hand, I don’t think the sharks should all be wiped out. After all, it is their ocean.
“Ya know sharks are important to the ocean’s ecosystem. Like say, sharks eat seals and seals eat salmon. So killing all the sharks would mean the seal population would explode. Then all the extra seals would wipe out the salmon population.” Drew slowly turned the reel. “Guess it’s all some kind of delicate balance that we should be careful of.”
Al laughed. “That’s an interesting perspective coming from someone strapped into a chair, holding a line with a seven-pound chunk of tuna on it, in freshly chummed waters.”
Suddenly, Drew’s line stretched taunt. He pulled back on the rod. Al quickly turned around and looked at the water.
~~~
John and Vic continued to chug through the narrow channel as fast as the old fishing boat would take them. Off starboard was Dyer Island—a long, flat patch of sand with grassy interspaces and rocky outcrops. Its guano-coated rocks offered evidence of the thousands of jackass penguins, cormorants, and other seabirds that called the island home.
John gazed off port to Geyser Rock. Thousands of Cape fur seals lumbered along the rocky banks. Their gurgling calls filled the air as they all looked in the same direction. He did a double take on the seals’ eerie behavior. Are they randomly barking at the water or distressed by something they’ve seen? Heading deeper into the channel, he noticed a small boat in the distance. With a glance down beside his feet, he saw a strap protruding from beneath the passenger’s seat. He reached down and slid it out.
“Yes! Exactly what I need.” After pulling the binoculars from the case, John carefully focused them on the boat ahead of them. He didn’t see a shark’s cage and could only count two or maybe three people on board.
“What have you got?” asked Vic. “Does it look like they’re chumming?”
“No. It must just be a fishing boat coming back to the docks.”
“Better stop them anyway; see if they’ve seen Drew’s boat or anyone else who may have ignored my orders.”
Vic pulled his boat alongside the fishing boat. A stout, dark-haired man shouted in a New York accent, “We ain’t throwing any blood overboard or nothing like that. We’re just out cruising around, seein’ the sights. And where are all those people that are supposed to be out here doing research? I ain’t seen no one except those two schmucks back there chummin’ up the water! Looked to me like they was getting ready to do a little shaaaaak fishin’ too!”
“How far back?” asked Vic.
“About a half mile or so,” replied the heavyset man. “How come they get to come out here and drum up sharks? Ain’t they supposed to be docked?”
“Yeah, how come they get to go out?” added a young boy, likely the man’s son.
“They’re not supposed to be out here and neither are you,” replied Vic. He pointed to the captain. “And Willie, I know I called you earlier and told you to keep it docked. Now take it back in and leave it!”
“Okay, okay . . . we were on our way back anyway,” replied Willy.
Vic pressed down the throttle and pulled away. Behind them, the man from New York yelled, “Go bust ’em!”
The boy joined in, shaking his fist in the air. “Yeah, go bust ’em!”
Vic maintained their course for about another quarter mile until they passed Geyser Rock and Dyer Island.
Looking over the side of the boat, John saw the water darken as they left the shallow channel. It felt as if his stomach dropped with the falling seafloor. The eerie feeling he got when he’d first stepped into the boat had steadily grown and was now almost unbearable. Come on. Keep it together a little longer. We’re just gonna get them and go back in, John p
romised himself. He looked up and glanced across the surface. He noticed the silhouette of a small boat in the distance.
He picked up the binoculars to take a closer look. No shark’s cage, but he saw a man seated in a chair while another scooped something from a barrel. Then he spotted the red trail leading from the boat’s stern. Well, at least it’s just two of them on board, no tourists.
John passed the binoculars to Vic. “That them?”
One hand on the wheel, Vic raised the binoculars. “Yep. That’s Drew’s boat.” He slowly handed the binoculars back to John. “I’m kinda curious. Almost tempted to hang back and observe them from a distance; see if they come up with anything.”
The lieutenant’s lack of urgency did little for John’s nerves. John grabbed him by the wrist and guided his hand back to the throttle. “Trust me. You saw the tooth. That’s all you want to see.”
The look in John’s eyes had a sobering effect on Vic. “Okay, okay!”
They slowly headed for the distant vessel, proceeding just above idle speed.
~~~
“Looks like that little bull shark cleaned the hook pretty good. Pesky nibblers!” Al pressed the hook through another huge chunk of tuna. Swirling the bait overhead, he released it to the water. The bait splashed into the water about sixty feet away. “Okay, you minnows. Stay away from the bait this time!”
Tightening his grip on the rod, Drew looked up from his chair. “Hey, Hercules. That all you got? My toss was farther than that.”
Al rubbed his shoulder. “Hell, that beat you by a good twenty yards. Besides, I ain’t warmed up just yet.”
Drew gazed off in the direction of Geyser Rock. “You figure that’s why Vic thinks the shark’s heading this way? That Cape fur seal population?”
“Oh yeah.” Al walked back to the chum barrel. “How could it resist? Geyser Rock is like a neighborhood convenience store for sharks. Close to home, stocked with plenty of tasty items they love to eat, and open twenty-four hours a day. This area ain’t called the great white capital of the world for nothing!” Then, as Al picked up the soup ladle, he paused. “Uh oh . . . looks like we’ve got company!”