As the sky lightened, we saw what we had done. Fish of every size slid this way and that on the roiling sea, but not as many as I expected. I had thought the fish were there, just hiding in the reef; now it seemed they were not there at all. Bits of coral rose and sank. We scooped up the fish in dip nets taking no time to sort out the ones that were too small to eat. Some slid through the holes in the net.
The fish we took from the sea lay still in the bottom of the boat. There was no flapping, no fight for breath. There were few of any decent size. Then bigger ones started to float up and through my shame I felt relief. As I worked, I held Jasmine in my mind.
The sun rose and we rested. The bottom of the boat held fish and other things—eels and rays and pieces of sea fans. We going to take all these back? I said.
Why not? Small ones can make fish tea.
People going know about the dynamite if we take them all back.
Nobody care anymore, said Luke.
I wondered if this was so. I looked at the dead fish, a silvery mass with flashes of every single fading color, all killed in a few seconds, most of them what we would have called trash fish only a few years ago. They were whole and catching them had been much easier than fishing with pot or net or line. We would eat tonight and there would be money in our pockets. The laws of men had been broken, and that was bad, but we had also broken the laws of the sea, and that was worse.
Luke started the engine and just as we turned Silver in the direction of Great Bay, just as the pink of sunrise faded from the sky, we saw what seemed to be a large log float to the surface. Wait, I said. What over there?
Where? Luke said, looking in the direction I pointed. Shark, maybe.
He slowed and turned toward the thing the waves covered and revealed. I saw blood in the water. I saw an eye without brightness and a dead smile and I saw the sleek body of a young dolphin lying lifeless on the surface of the sea. Perhaps it was the calf we had once seen with its mother; that day, it was the dolphin Luke and I killed together.
30
One more place, Lloyd told himself. The sky burned in the west; night and bad weather were on their way. He borrowed Miss Violet’s phone again and called Jules’s number. She answered on the first ring. “You ever been to Portland Rock?” he said.
“What? Who is this?”
“Miss Julie. Is me, Lloydie.”
“Oh Lloydie. Jules, remember? How you doing? No news, huh? You find Black Crab yet?”
“You ever been to Portland Rock?” Lloyd said again, avoiding the question.
“I have. Good place for dolphins. That’s where I do a lot of my surveys.”
“Me think Gramps is there.”
“Portland Rock? Why?”
“So me hear,” he lied.
“Fishers go there. If he was there, somebody would have found him.”
“Fisher not there all the time, though?”
“No, that’s true. They can’t stay for long. It’s bare rock. No water. Nothing except birds.”
“And crabs,” he said, thinking about how an injured fisher would catch and eat a live crab.
“Yes, crabs too. But how long now since your granddaddy missing?”
“Soon be two weeks.”
“That’s a long time, Lloydie.”
He wanted to shout at her, yes, I know is a long time! Stop tellin me that! Everybody, stop tellin me that. Is a long time but is not eternity. Is not impossible. He cast around for something to tell her that she would like, that she would believe.
“Miss. Make us go. Please. I want to see how you count dolphins. I want to be a scientist like you. And it will be the last place to look. I swear. After that I know Gramps dead. Please. Then I find Black Crab for you.”
There was a silence. Lloyd hoped the credit on the cell phone would not run out. He was about to ask Jules to call him back, when she said, “Where are you?”
“Gray Pond beach.”
“I had a trip planned for tomorrow morning. From Treasure Beach. Leaving Kingston in an hour. Can I talk to your mother? I don’t want to take the responsibility for taking you with me without her permission.”
Lloyd thought quickly. He needed a woman who would pretend to be his mother. “Awright, Miss. She sellin. Me will call you back and you can talk to her.”
He went inside to Miss Violet. “Me know where him is Miss Vie! Me know. That woman, the one who study the dolphins, she go take me. But she want talk to my mother, you know how uptown people stay. You talk to her. Tell her you is my mother and is okay for me to go. Please. I am beggin you.”
Miss Violet looked at him without expression. She wiped her face. She opened her mouth to speak and Lloyd interrupted her, “I know is a long time him gone. Don’t tell me is a long time!”
“Aah, Lloydie. Not that me going say. Me going ask you if you sure you want find out what really happen.”
“Of course me is sure! What kinda question that? Miss Vie, you know Gramps. Him is a tough old man. Him not
