“Yep, and they feed on Chinook, mainly. Smartest animals in the ocean, hands down. I’d reckon they’re smarter than a lot of humans I’ve met.”
“So how come the son of a ranger who obviously loves the ocean didn’t become a ranger himself?”
Minnow listened and could tell his lungs were big by how long and slow his breaths were. She also knew they had reached the end of this line of conversation and that a wall had gone back up.
“Long story, one I don’t feel like getting into right now.” He shifted uncomfortably. “What about you? How much longer do you plan on staying in Hawai?i?”
Once again, his evasiveness put her off. “As long as I need to.” Which reminded her, there was one more question she needed to ask. “It didn’t slip by me that you were the only one we never heard from in the meeting. Are you for having a shark hunt or against it?” A cool breeze skimmed across her skin as she waited for an answer.
“It’s complicated,” he said.
Journal Entry
From the journal of Minnow Gray
June 11, 1992
She has such a good point here:
From a young age, I wasn’t afraid of sharks—I was afraid ofnotseeing them. Sharks don’t just swim through the ocean; they tell its whole story.
—Jennifer Homcy, marine biologist and captain
Chapter 20
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 hedied, 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.”
