Still Water (12 page)

By evening the bull was again concentrating on finding food. He led the pod over the banks he knew and remembered from previous seasons, searching for fish. Occasionally they heard the sound of humpbacks feeding at depths of eighty or ninety fathoms, and once or twice they passed close to minke whales, which sped off quickly when they heard the orcas approaching.

Food supplies for the past few days had been sporadic, but each day the numbers of smaller bait fish the pod encountered seemed to be greater, and with them the larger species that preyed on them. But the bull was searching for something in particular. The numbers of tuna like the school the pod had herded into the cove almost a week before were increasing, and the bull was expecting that with them would come the giants. These fish, some up to twelve feet long and weighing up to fifteen hundred pounds, were too fast and wily for the orcas to catch in deep water, but over the shallower banks, where there was more likelihood of surprising them, the orcas stood a better chance.

Each year the bluefin, including the giants, migrated north from Mexico, following the warmer currents in over the banks to feed. Over the past few years the seasons had followed unnaturally warm cycles brought about by changing weather patterns. The warmer water had resulted in a decrease in marine life, and that, combined with the activity of so many fishing boats in the gulf over the years, had depleted fish stocks. Many species had spent more time in the slope waters far offshore, including the bluefin, and consequently the orcas too, as well as whales that fed on sand lances and herring. But this year cooler temperatures had once again prevailed in the gulf. The oxygen-rich water over the banks had seen an explosion of life, and once more the numbers and size of fish were increasing. Though nothing like earlier years, it was enough to tempt in voracious feeders like the giant bluefin, which followed bands of warmer water that flowed beneath the surface.

That evening the orcas approached a point several miles off St. George where the shelf rose so that the sea was no more than thirty fathoms deep across a broad plateau. The bull and the now eldest female in the pod, along with another adult male had separated from the main group and were swimming some distance ahead. It was the female who first heard the sound of powerful, fast-swimming fish pursuing smaller prey. She analysed the sounds she picked up, and compared them to her vast store of memory. A school of giants was hunting about a mile ahead of her and moving roughly parallel to her course. Immediately she and the other two orcas changed direction to rejoin the pod.

The bull had also noted the sound of a vessel approaching from the north, its engines at full throttle.

The Seawind was a fifty-two-foot, steel-hulled fishing boat, built during the early eighties in Portland. She was originally designed as a dragger, and still able to be rigged for nets, but Jake’s preferred fishing method was by long line, though he also fished for lobsters at the height of the season. The SeawincFs wheel-house superstructure was atop her forecastle where the cramped crew quarters and galley lay towards the bow. The long deck behind was cleared for working and at her stern was a gantry and davits and a drum midship from where the main line was laid out over the stern. Jake and Bryan had made some improvements to the boat after they’d bought her, installing new twin Mack diesel engines to give her a speed that could match many sports boats. They had also fitted a long bowsprit with a small platform at the end where a man could stand with a harpoon ready to spear the swordfish that in some seasons they pursued.

Jake stood in the wheel-house watching the crew. He’d done his time on deck, snapping on short lines called leaders that bore the baited hooks as the main line went over the stern. He’d hauled catches aboard in all weathers, freezing and half soaked from the spray as the bow plunged into great troughs between waves. On a boat where the deck was behind the forecastle it wasn’t so bad since the superstructure provided some shelter from the elements, but then there was the oily stink of diesel that the crew breathed hour after hour, and in rough weather, after a while, protection or not, it didn’t make a lot of difference. The fish were taken from the hooks as they came aboard and thrown to the deck, the hooks and lines coiled neatly in boxes ready to be re-set. The fish were then gutted and put into the hold.

Down on the deck, the crew had brought in the main line and were busy cleaning the catch. Many of the hooks had been returned empty, and the catch had been poor. Most of the fish were stripers, though there had been several small porbeagles as well as the odd bluefish. Jake brought the Seawind around and wondered in which direction to head to make another set. He glanced at the fish finder, and read the temperature read-out of the surrounding sea. There was no evidence of fish in the vicinity. He thought about heading out to deeper water to search for a temperature break where the warm gulf stream and the cooler waters over the banks collided. Jake, like most other fishermen who worked out of Sanctuary lived a financially precarious existence. The Seawind carried a large bank loan, and after paving the crew and covering expenses even when times were good there was never much money left over.

Calder Penman, who was acting as first mate in place of Bryan,

joined Jake in the wheel-house. The door was open to let the fresh breeze inside. Overhead the sky was pale blue, smeared with high cirrus cloud. The sea was coloured shades of green and blue and deep aqua, and the Seawind rode easily on a slight swell, making a steady eight or nine knots.

As Jake stared at the moving mass of the ocean his thoughts turned to Bryan, and his hands tightened on the wheel. He was convinced that Bryan lay in the channel somewhere where Carl Johnson said he’d seen Ella that night. But Ella was still walking around as free as a goddamned bird, thanks to that fancy lawyer of hers.

He felt the bandage on his head. He wished there hadn’t been people around to stop him from getting his hands on her after she’d hit him. Maybe that was the only way he was going to get any justice for Bryan, since it looked like Baxter wasn’t any match for a city lawyer like Matt Jones.

Tucking bitch, “Jake muttered aloud.

“Who?” Penman said, looking puzzled

Jake looked at him. “Ella, that’s who. How come Baxter hasn’t arrested her yet?”

“I guess they have to have evidence Jake.”

“What more fucking evidence do they need? Carl saw everything that happened.”

Wisely, Penman said nothing.

Just then one of the crew shouted and pointed towards something off the starboard side where a flock of gannets wheeled above the sea. Now and then one of them would fold back its wings and dive to the surface like an arrow. Jake picked up his glasses and focused for a closer look.

“What do you see?” Penman asked.

Jake didn’t answer right away. The gannets were feeding on fish at the surface, but what kind offish and what size he couldn’t tell. Often bait fish were herded to the surface by dolphins or some other predator, and occasionally this could mean an opportunity for fishermen. Just then a silver blue flash leapt from the water, struck by the rays of the sinking sun in an explosion of light.

“Jesus!” Jake dropped the glasses and started spinning the wheel to bring the Seawind around and at the same time he pushed forward on the throttle. The Macks roared into life, then the boat seemed to pause in the water for a moment before her twin screws bit deep, churning the sea into foam at her stern and thrusting her forward.

“Bluefin. Goddamned giants.”

Penman ran outside to the rail to get a better look. Even after thirty years as a fisherman in the gulf, this was a sight he’d rarely seen. Excitement coursed in his veins. “Damn,” he said. “Ain’t that something’?” The bluefin were at least ten feet in length, which meant they had to weigh at least a thousand pounds. They were moving at around seven or eight knots as they hunted some school of much smaller fish, now and then leaping from the waves in pursuit.

“How many do you count?” Jake said.

Penman watched for a while as they drew nearer. “Maybe thirty. Forty even.”

“Rig the harpoons.”

Quickly Penman ran to the ladder, shouting instructions to the crew. Jake kept his eye fixed on the giants as he closed the gap on them. In all his years at sea he had never before seen a school of fish this size. Once they had been a more common sight, but in those days only sports fishermen were interested in catching them. The processing plant might have bought the carcass for ten cents a pound back then, but these days it was a different story. Giants were highly prized for the sushi market. Just one fish in good condition and dressed out could fetch anything from twenty to as much as forty dollars a pound at the market. For a thousand pound fish that added up to a lot of money. The flesh had to be perfect, the fat content just right, but such fish were air-freighted to Japan overnight where they were a prized delicacy. A chance to catch one might only come once in a lifetime.

On deck the crew made frantic preparations, all of them infected with the same excitement. Each of them was paid a share of the catch as the main part of their wages and one giant could mean hundreds, even thousands of dollars extra for each man on board. As the Seawind drew nearer they gathered at the rail to watch. Suddenly one of them shouted a warning.

Jake followed where he was pointing. A pod of orcas were approaching from the southwest at an angle that would intercept the tuna. They were coming fast, their great black and white bodies appearing in the troughs between the swell.

In the wheel-house Jake’s expression turned grim as he counted at least eight of the predators.

“Black bastards,” he said to himself.

Close by, a tuna leapt from the water, a huge twelve foot monster. It was fat and round, like a torpedo, its head bullet shaped. On top it was dark blue but underneath its belly flashed silver. Beneath the waves Jake glimpsed the streaking shapes of several others. He swung around several degrees, having fovind his target, one eye still on the approaching pod.

The bull had recognized the pitch and tone of the Seawind’s engines. The pod had encountered this boat at other times, and he knew it was dangerous.

The orcas approached in silence so as not to alert the bluefin to their presence until they were almost upon them. The sound of powerful bodies hissing through the water grew louder. The bull heard the pounding of massive hearts and the beat of muscular tails. All at once a bluefin streaked in a flash towards the surface in pursuit of a ten pound striped bass. The bull heard it coming, and swiftly turned through a hundred and eighty degrees, and leapt from the sea to intercept it. Orca and surprised bluefin met in mid-air. The bull bit off the giant’s tail as they both crashed back to the waves and blood spread quickly in a widening stain. Even as the stricken giant began to sink, alive but helpless, the bull moved on. They were among the fish now, and as the bluefin realized what was happening they panicked. The orcas attacked ruthlessly, severing the tails or caudal fins of the tuna as they attempted to flee. They worked in pairs, one going deep to prevent the bluefin diving, the other attacking near the surface. In just the space of a minute half a dozen of the giants had been dispatched and allowed to sink for the orcas to retrieve and eat later. Their priority was to kill or disable as many as possible before the school fled. Already some of the bluefin had escaped, gathering immense speed with just a few quick thrusts of their massive tails. Into this melee the Seawind surged, with Penman on the bowsprit, his harpoon poised to strike.

A female orca dived to intercept a fleeing fish. She cut it off and it veered away, rocketing back towards the surface, erupting just a few yards from the hull of the Seawind. The female followed, too late registering the warning the bull sounded.

Penman’s first throw missed the fish he was aiming for as it veered at the last moment to evade a pursuing orca, but even as it did so it was hit by another from below. From the wheel-house Jake witnessed twenty thousand dollars’ worth of bluefin all but bitten in half. He glanced around at the gun locker behind him, but he couldn’t reach it without letting go of the wheel, and Penman was signalling that he had another target.

“Dammit!”

He altered course. An orca rose from the sea fifty yards off their port side, its snowy white belly flashing, a bluefin struggling in its jaws. Fish and orca crashed back to the surface in a vast spray of water faintly smeared with pink. All around, the sea had erupted in a fierce explosion of carnage. As Jake watched the slaughter his teeth were gritted in rage. The giants had broken off their feeding now, intent only on escape, and in a few more seconds they would be gone.

Down below Penman took aim. A fish leapt and he threw, but the bluefin swivelled in mid-air and the harpoon narrowly missed and pierced the fin of a pursuing orca. Penman reached for his knife to sever the line.

“Leave it, “Jake shouted.

The line tightened as the orca found itself caught and began to be dragged by the momentum of the boat. It struggled to keep up to prevent itself from drowning, but Jake knew it would soon tire. Even an orca wouldn’t be able to match the Seawintfs speed for long, and then the animal would drown, or be towed helplessly at the surface until the bluefin had dispersed and Jake could deal with it. He would simply put a bullet in its brain, then cut it loose. Blood from the wound was flowing freely. Soon sharks would be attracted to the area, and maybe as the orca would be unable to defend itself, they would save Jake a bullet.

Out on deck a shout went up as one of the crew threw a harpoon and speared an eight-foot bluefin as it flashed past the hull a few feet below the surface.

The bull heard the female’s distress call and as he swam after her he tasted her blood in the water. He stayed clear of the boat as a bluefin was slowly hauled towards the stern. The stricken orca wallowed in the sea thirty yards off the side. On board the boat the crew were busy as they worked to bring their fish in close. The bluefin was struggling, swimming on a forty foot line, trying to go deep, but being dragged inexorably closer to the boat. The remainder of the tuna had escaped, scattering in all directions.