Chapter 20 The Buoy
The Buoy
Moe?uhane: dream; to dream
Minnow woke in the dark to the rumble of Woody’s truck engine. She wished they’d had a chance to debrief after last night,
but at least he’d be back, hopefully sooner than later. She looked at her watch. Five twenty. Knowing she wouldn’t be able
to fall back asleep, she got up, grabbed a few pillows, wrapped the blanket around herself like a mummy and made her way out
to the seawall. She set the pillows down and lay on them, looking skyward and listening for the distant singing of the stars.
Sometimes it took her a while to quiet her mind and hear beneath the noise, but this early in the morning she needed no time
at all. Lizard feet scratched down the closest coconut tree and somewhere just offshore a fin sliced through the water. She
knew the sound, sat up, but it was too dark to see anything. A big shark swimming close by, not hunting, just being. It was
obvious by her languid motion and slow heartbeat.
“Hello,” Minnow whispered. “Please, go.”
It made her think of Luna and her father and how those years when he was still with her lived so brightly in her mind.
After he died, her whole world had gone gray.
Even now, nothing carried the same crisp glow as it had in her youth, in The Before, as she often thought of it.
Here on the Big Island, though, every now and then that same brightness had flickered on, the way an old television suddenly picked up a picture.
She’d noticed it in the water. Or looking back at those pyramid-shaped volcanoes.
Sitting next to Luke on the wet sand, his hand an inch or two away from her own.
When she’d asked that final question, her heart had been beating a mile a minute, and it scared her how much his answer meant
to her.
It’s complicated.
“How is it complicated?” she’d asked, fighting flames of anger.
“I am not for a big shark hunt where the whole island comes out to slaughter a bunch of sharks, but I do see how a targeted
hunt could ease people’s minds. It could even ensure things are done right. And I know you think this shark is long gone,
but what if it’s not?”
There was something tight in the way he spoke the words, something that made her wonder if he even believed what he was saying.
“What aren’t you telling me, Luke?”
“You asked and I told you.”
“Not about the sharks, about you. You can trust me, you know.”
He rubbed his eye with a fist, then stood up. “It’s been a long day, and I just don’t have it in me to have this conversation.”
She dug her feet into the sand. “I ask because I care. Does that make any difference?”
He backed away slowly. “I care too, probably too much. Good night, Minnow.”
His voice cracked, and so did her hope.
Now, on the wall, she wept for the shark that just swam past and all the other sharks out there in these waters. For all future
sharks, those unborn and those young and growing. With everything there was a tipping point, and she could feel that doing
this thing, this hunt, would do so much more harm than good. And its echoes would be heard for years to come.
Tears wet her temples, and she drifted off for a time, then jolted awake to pink streaks in the sky. Only a few stars remained. Still fresh in her mind was a dream, though it didn’t dissolve the way dreams normally did.
She is on Catalina in the cove where her father died. Morning light breaks through the fog here and there on the water. She
is busy looking for shells in the shallows when the tide begins to come up, washing her farther and farther up the beach.
It doesn’t bother her at all. In fact, she loves going limp and letting the shore break roll her across the grainy sand. The
water is frigid, but the cold never bothers her much.
Her mother has gone out for a walk and her father is sleeping in, and the morning feels like hers alone. The yellow kayak
sits high on the sand, and she eyes it with longing. Maybe just a quick spin around the bay? No one would have to know. But
her mother’s insistent words are stamped in her mind. “You are never to take the kayak out alone, do you hear me? Between
the fog and currents and sharks, you could easily just disappear.”
A loud, crashing explosion brought her back to the seawall. Falling coconuts. Desperate to climb back into her memory, she
curled into a fetal position and covered her ears. But the door had been shut.
What had happened in between this memory and the one from the hospital? She knew it would be the hardest thing ever to relive,
her father dying right there in front of her, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that things had happened differently than
her mom had believed. Only by stepping back into her childhood mind would she ever know the truth.
Just now, she had been so close she could smell the blood in the air.
They sped over metallic-blue water, heading out to sea. Woody had suggested they check out the offshore buoys because large
sharks often gravitated to them. Weather and wave FAD buoys—fish aggregation devices—were known to house entire ecosystems
of saltwater critters. Microbial reef was the scientific term for them. Microbes collected on the buoy, fish ate the microbes, larger fish ate the smaller fish
and apex pelagic predators often swam through for lunch.
Minnow watched the high bank of clouds stacking up in the south with some interest.
“Is that coming our way?” she asked Nalu.
“This island has its own weather patterns, but my guess would be yes. See those puffy clouds overhead?” He craned his neck
up. “Usually that means a storm is coming. But it could stay to the south of us.”
A storm was the last thing they needed right now, and she prayed for the calm seas to remain. With Nalu driving, Minnow had
the binoculars around her neck, ready to scope out other boats and any marine life or debris they came across. It was six
miles out to the buoy, and already the sun burned hot on her shoulders. She was leisurely making sweeps of the horizon when
suddenly a whale breached just ahead, its entire body launched clear of the water. So close you could see the barnacles on
its fins. A thunderous slap when it landed.
“Whale!” they both yelled in unison.
Nalu let off the throttle and they floated, waiting for more. A moment later, a much smaller whale managed to get halfway
out of the water, its splash a small fluff compared to the last.
“Baby,” Minnow said, fullness welling up in her chest.
A pungent and fishy smell lifted off the water around them as a third whale—another adult—flung itself skyward. Eighty thousand
pounds of grace and ancient intelligence. Minnow was no stranger to whales, and yet every time she came close to one, she
had to gulp back sobs. Those eyes of theirs, they saw into her soul.
“Cut the motor,” she said.
He did as instructed. Behind them, another slap. This time a tail twice as wide as the boat was long.
“Holy shit, we’re surrounded,” Nalu said.
If there were any large sharks around, none of them were getting close to this baby. Besides the mama, there were at least two other adults in the area.
“Escorts, right?”
“Gotta be.”
Spreading out in the water below and reverberating through the hull of the boat was an eerie, high-pitched keening.
“Whale song, can you hear it?” she said, her whole being humming from the vibrations.
Nalu cocked his head. “Nope. Wanna jump in?”
She gave him a look. “That would be illegal, wouldn’t it? Let’s just let them pass and we’ll be on our way.”
A hundred yards. That was the law.
“You see anyone from DLWA around?” he said.
“No, but the laws are there for a reason. You know that.”
From the north, Minnow noticed a yellow zodiac speeding toward them. And then another shooting out from the shore.
“What the hell?”
“Lots of people doing illegal stuff around here, chasing down dolphins and whales and mantas. Easy money, not a lot of enforcing
of laws.”
Angela and Zach for one, and look how that turned out.
She reached for the radio. “What’s the frequency for DLWA?”
“Beats me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’ve never called them on the radio, not on this island.”
The yellow boat came at them full speed, and Minnow waved her arms, but of course it did nothing to deter them. There was
a whole line of what looked to be tourists hanging on to the rail, pointing and squealing. Maybe ten of them.
“Go over there,” she said to Nalu.
He started the engine and moved toward the boat, which had positioned itself just downstream of the whales. When they were
close enough, she called out again. “You need to get out of here.”
“Yeah? Who are you?” the guy said.
Nalu held up a plastic sheath, like he was showing some kind of badge. “Brah, you heard her. We’re with NOAA, and these whales
are protected under the Marine Mammals Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act. You are breaking the law and we’ll shut
down your whole operation if you don’t leave now,” he said, in a surprisingly authoritative voice. It probably helped that
he wore a trucker hat with a star on it, almost like a sheriff.
The boat captain, a skinny haole guy in a big hat, waved. “Roger that. We meant no harm, just passing by.”
And with that, the boat turned and zoomed off toward Kona.
Minnow looked at Nalu. “What was that?”
“My school ID.”
She laughed. “You are kidding me.”
“Hey, whatever works,” he said in that same deep voice he’d used to scare off the boat captain.
“Maybe Joe was right about you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
She relented. “Just that you’re a lot smarter than you seem. And not to let your good looks fool me.”
A smile crept across his face. “You know that.”
“But let me ask you this. I know you’re smart, I know you love the ocean fiercely. But a few times now you’ve been almost
frozen with fear. What’s that all about?”
His smile faded, and he clutched the steering wheel. “Nah, just a little bit of nerves, nothing major.”