“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 came 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.”
“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!”
F
ifty 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?”
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 of 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.