“You got him now, Rex!”
“Big! Six foot or more!”
“And the other one. There!”
“Keep fighting!”
“What the hell will we do with two sharks?”
“Have to cut ‘em loose.”
“Kill ‘em first,” Colin’s father said. “You never let a shark go back alive. Isn’t that right, Irv?”
“Right, Frank.”
Colin’s father said, “Irv, you better get the gun.”
Irv nodded and hurried away.
“What gun?” Colin asked uneasily. He was uncomfortable around firearms.
“They keep a.38 revolver aboard just for killing sharks,” his father said.
Irv returned with the gun. “It’s loaded.”
Frank took it and stood by the railing.
Colin wanted to put his fingers in his ears, but he didn’t dare. The men would laugh at him, and his father would be angry.
“Can’t see either of the critters yet,” Frank said.
The fishermen’s hard bodies glistened with sweat.
Each rod appeared to be bent far beyond its breaking point, as if it were held together by nothing more than the indomitable will of the man who controlled it.
Suddenly Frank said, “You’ve almost got yours, Rex! I can see him.”
“He’s an ugly son-of-a-bitch,” Pete said.
Someone else said, “He looks like Pete.”
“He’s right on the surface,” Frank said. “He doesn’t have enough line to run deep again. He looks beat.”
“So am I,” Rex said. “So will you for God’s sake shoot the bastard?”
“Bring him a bit closer.”
“What the hell do you want? You want me to make him stand up against a wall and wear a blindfold?”
Everyone laughed.
Colin saw the slick, gray, torpedolike creature only twenty or thirty feet from the stem. It was riding just under the waves, dark fin protruding into the air. For a moment it was very still; then it began to pitch and toss and twist wildly, trying to free itself from the hook.
“Jesus!” Rex said. “It’ll tear my arms right out of their sockets.”
As the fish was drawn nearer in spite of its violent struggle, it rolled from side to side, writhing on the hook, willing to tear its own mouth to shreds in hope of getting loose, but succeeding only in setting the barbed hook even deeper. Its flat, malevolent head rose from the sea as it rolled, and for an instant Colin was staring into a bright and very alien eye that shone with a fierce inner light and seemed to radiate pure fury.
Frank Jacobs fired the.38 revolver.
Colin saw the hole open a few inches behind the shark’s head. Blood and flesh sprayed across the water.
Everyone cheered.
Frank fired again. The second shot entered a couple of inches back of the first.
The shark should have been dead, but instead it seemed to take a new life from the bullets.
“Look at the bastard kick!”
“He doesn’t like that lead.”
“Shoot him again, Frank.”
“Get him square in the head.”
“Shoot him in the head.”
“You got to get a shark in the head.”
“Between the eyes, Frank!”
“Kill it, Frank!”
“Kill it!”
The foam that sloshed around the fish had once been white. Now it was pink.
Colin’s father squeezed the trigger twice. The big gun bucked in his hands. One shot missed, but the other took the prey squarely in the head.
The shark leaped convulsively, as if trying to heave itself aboard the boat, and everyone on the
A second later Mike brought his catch to the surface, within striking distance, and Frank fired at it. This time his aim was perfect, and he finished the shark with the first shot.
The sea foam was crimson.
Irv rushed forward with a tackle knife and severed both lines.
Rex and Mike collapsed in their chairs, relieved and surely aching from head to foot.
Colin watched the dead fish drifting belly-up on the waves.
Without warning the sea began to boil as if a great flame had been applied beneath it. Fins appeared everywhere, converging on a small area immediately aft of the
Frank emptied the revolver into the turmoil. He must have hit at least one of the monsters, for the commotion grew considerably worse than it had been.
Colin wished he could look away from the slaughter. But he couldn’t. Something held him.
“They’re cannibals,” one of the men said.
“Sharks will eat anything.”
“They’re worse than goats.”
“Fishermen have found some pretty strange things in sharks’ stomachs.”
“Yeah. I know a guy who found a wristwatch.”
“I heard of someone finding a wedding ring.”
“A cigar case full of water-logged stogies.”
“False teeth.”
“A rare coin worth a small fortune.”
“Anything indigestible that the victim was wearing or carrying, it stays right there in the shark’s gut.”
“Why don’t we haul in one of these mothers and see what it’s keeping in its belly?”
“Hey, that might be interesting.”
“Cut it open right here on the deck.”
“Might find a rare coin and get rich.”
“Probably just find a lot of freshly eaten shark meat.”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“At least it’s something to do.”
“You’re right. It’s been one hell of a day.”
“Irv, better rig one of those rods again.”
They started drinking whiskey and beer again.
Colin watched.
Jack took the chair, and two minutes later he had a bite. By the time he’d brought the shark alongside, the feeding frenzy had ended; the pack had moved away. But the frenzy aboard the
Colin’s father reloaded the.38. He leaned over the railing and pumped two bullets into the huge fish.
“Right in the head.”
“Scrambled his fuckin’ brains a little.”
“Shark’s got a brain like a pea.”
