Chapter 4
FOUR
“D ammit,” Xanthe snapped under her breath, easing back from the edge of the boat to adjust her helmet and push her wet bangs away from her face. Her half-frozen fingers were clumsy in the rubber-coated gloves, but they helped her keep a grip on the long pole she held.
She shifted her feet and leaned against the boat’s starboard rubber tube to steady herself as the deck pitched with the waves, pushing them away from the entangled humpback.
A westerly wind had kicked up within the past hour, making things even more difficult.
All the other boats that had been out here taking turns to assist in the rescue had returned to shore. Now there was just her and Lachlan’s.
“Help me help you,” she muttered to the whale, exhausted and frustrated. But the young humpback was in a far worse predicament than she was.
The distressed male released a blow and lay motionless in the water a hundred feet or so off the starboard bow, part of its long back just visible above the choppy surface of the waves. The western edge of Skeleton Island lay behind it, its green and rocky shores silhouetted in the distance.
Over the past few hours, she and Lachlan had taken turns trying to cut the rope free when they’d managed to get close.
After multiple attempts, she’d finally been able to slice through one part of the rope with the thin serrated blade attached to the end of the pole, but it hadn’t freed the whale, and the waves had made it impossible to finish.
“Come around again,” Xanthe said over her shoulder where Lachlan manned the controls in the pilothouse. “I was so close last time.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. Let’s go.” They’d been out here trying to free the distressed male for almost fourteen hours. With each hour the whale grew weaker, struggling to stay near the surface to breathe. These kinds of entanglements could cause whales to drown, and some had even severed fins and tails.
This one was a thick, nylon fishing rope, wound tight enough around the male’s peduncle that it had already cut through the skin and the leading edge of its right fluke. Leaving it in place would mean subjecting the animal to a slow, excruciating death.
Xanthe wasn’t letting that happen. If she had to stay out here all night and all day again tomorrow, so be it.
“It’s okay to take a break, Xanth. You’re exhausted. Come in here and rest a bit while we wait for the Coast Guard to come back. They’ll be on scene in another hour or so,” Lachlan said.
He was a bit older than she, in his late thirties, and had served in the Coast Guard for years before starting his own whale watching company out of Whalebone Cove. He knew what he was doing when it came to these waters and the animals living in them.
There was nobody better than him out here. He respected and valued the ocean and its creatures, and that was why she worked as a guide for him.
“No, we can’t wait that long. He’s getting tired. Just get me close, and I can do it.”
“Listen to me. You’re done in, you’re cold, and these swells aren’t calming anytime soon. We’ll follow him for now, keep a close eye on him until?—”
“No. I can do it,” she insisted, impatient to get close again.
The whale was so tired he was staying on the surface now, unmoving.
But if he found the strength to sound again, they would have to wait at least ten and maybe up to thirty minutes for him to come back up for another breath.
If he dove, it would also mean him using his wounded fluke and peduncle, potentially tightening the rope and increasing the severity of his injuries.
Lachlan released a hard sigh that reminded her a bit of a quiet whale blow. “All right, one last shot, and then we follow him and wait for the Coast Guard. Deal?”
“Fine. Deal.”
“Roger that. Stand by.” He started the Zodiac Hurricane’s twin outboard engines and angled the bow to starboard, edging them forward.
Xanthe took up her position near the bow, shifting her grip on the pole knife as they slowly approached the stricken whale.
This was dangerous work. Lachlan had managed to get a GPS tracker on the male early on, but in these waves, she needed him at the controls to handle the boat if the animal lashed out with his fluke or pectoral fins.
The animal was scared and in pain. There was no telling how he would react when they approached.
Lachlan carefully edged up to the humpback’s right flank, let the engines idle while the waves pushed them toward the injured fluke.
She trusted him. Knew he had an eagle eye on her and the whale, and pushed that part of her worry out of her mind.
At the first sign of danger, he would take immediate evasive maneuvers to get her and the boat out of harm’s way.
Gearing up for a new attempt, she knelt and leaned her upper body on the tube, easing the long aluminum pole toward the whale’s submerged fluke.
She could see the ends of the rope trailing away from it near the surface.
There was at least one stubborn loop right at the base of the peduncle she needed to cut. Hopefully no more.
She wasn’t sure if the whale sensed they were trying to help or if it was just too exhausted to move at this point, but thankfully, it stayed motionless in the water even though he had to be scared and on edge with the boat so close.
Her heart thudded harder as they moved in close enough for her to see the loop of rope just beneath the rough surface. This time. Has to work this time. She couldn’t stand to see him so distressed and suffering. It tore at her heart.
“Okay, please let this work.” She whispered the prayer, reaching her arms out one final time. Her muscles ached as she held the pole in position and dipped the blade into the water. Cold wind whipped across her face, kicking up waves that bobbed them up and down.
The bow dipped suddenly. She mentally cursed as she almost stabbed the whale’s peduncle. Adjusted her grip and angled the blade.
At this point she was desperate enough to consider jumping in and getting up close to cut the rope.
Maneuvering the blade with the pole was awkward even in calm conditions, and she didn’t want to risk slicing down through it right against the animal’s flesh.
Even though any resulting wound would be nothing compared to what the whale had already sustained.
She kept her focus locked on that hateful loop of rope, pure determination fueling her. You’re going down , you evil bastard.
“Can you see it?” Lachlan called out.
“Yes. Try and hold me steady right here.”
“Copy.”
The spot she needed to cut through was right at the end of her range. She gritted her teeth and strained forward, leaning over the rounded rubber tube as far as she dared. The tip of the blade made contact with the rope, then bounced away from it when another wave lifted the boat.
She swore and gripped the pole tighter, conscious of the minutes ticking past, and that this was going to be her last shot. The sun would set soon. The chances of the Coast Guard freeing the whale overnight was practically zero. By morning the whale might be too weak to surface.
Her jaw tightened, pure resolve flooding her.
Fuck it.