He tracked her eye movement and held up the paper, as if for her to see.
Shark Hunt on Table.
Minnow stepped closer. “Excuse me, would you mind if I have a quick look at your paper?” She practically snatched it out of his hands and scanned the front page. No mention of Angela Crawford, at least there was that.
State and county officials weigh in on the possibility of a shark hunt in the wake of deadly attacks on the Big Island’s Kohala Coast. It wouldn’t be the first time sharks have been targeted in the aftermath of an attack. From the late fifties to the mid-seventies, close to five thousand sharks were culled in attempts to make Hawaiian waters safer. Thetally includes 554 tiger sharks, the second most common shark responsible for attacks on humans, after the great white.
“We need to make sure our waters are safe,” Mitch Hamada, head of Tourism Authority, said. “And if there are sharks on the loose with a taste for humans, that won’t be good for business.”
She stopped reading, disgusted. “They have no fricking idea,” she said, handing back the paper. “Thanks.”
“The sharks or the Tourism Authority?”
There was no sarcasm in his tone, and she realized it was an honest question.
“Actually, both.”
“Have you been following the story?” he asked.
“Yeah, I read the papers. Why?”
For some reason she was still bothered by his off-the-cuff bestseller comment and wanted to get out of here and back to the boat.
“It just seems like a visitor staying in the middle of a bloody triangle might want to know what’s lurking out there,” he said.
“Last I checked, sharkslivein our oceans. Big sharks, little sharks, old sharks, new sharks. And they do notlurk, they swim. Because if they stop swimming, they die.”
He looked slightly amused. “Sounds like you have an opinion about it. I like that. Too many people these days are incapable of thinking for themselves.”
Now she was curious. “Do you have an opinion about these shark incidents?”
He held his mug with both hands, as though he needed to be warmed up. He stared into it for a while, then said, “Not really.”
His whole demeanor changed and she wondered why. Then George returned with a plastic bag full of goodies.
“You come back anytime, and tell Woody, if he ever shows up, that Uncle George saysalohaand to come on ovah.” Then he leaned closer and lowered his voice. “By the way, did he tell you what Hale Niuhi means in Hawaiian?”
“No, what does it mean?”
George stepped back, fiddling with his mustache. “I think better he tell you. There’s a story behind it.”
Of course now she was dying to know, but there was no time for stories and George seemed like a long-winded kind of guy. She thanked him and left, juggling the coffee and muffins and her towel, which kept slipping down past her hips. When she reached the edge of the sand, her head half turned back to the bar. The man was watching her. Her heart ramped up a few beats, and she turned away before she could do anything stupid, like smile.
Journal Entry
From the journal of Minnow Gray
Guadalupe Island, July 4, 1996
Lots of people say that white sharks have a soulless, dead stare. That has not been my experience. I was fifteen when I sawJaws. I didn’t want to go, but Sandy’s mom offered to take a bunch of us to a drive-in showing and I felt obligated to say yes. I remember so clearly that line in the movie where Quint says, “Ya know the thing about a shark, he’s got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be livin’...”
As with so much in life, it all depends on the light. Today a sixteen-foot adult female known as Cat made pass after pass an arm’s length away from me while I was in the cage. The morning sun illumined the blue ring of her iris outside of the black pupil. I could see her tracking me each time she swam by and there was nothing dead about those eyes. Sorry, Quint.
Chapter 6
The Search
Moananuiakea: the vast Pacific Ocean
