Somebody poked at the driftwood fire and it flared up enough to show the anxiety on the faces of the listeners. They looked like wooden statues.
Before, it had been bad enough. The eater had come always at night, and by simply sailing during the daylight hours they could be sure of safety. Now all that had changed. The hunger of the thing had forced it to select a meal in broad daylight.
Under questioning, Peter-from-the-market gave his answers as honestly as he could, being deliberate about every word. They were on the way home, the day fair, the sea calm. There was no activity at all to indicate that the eater was there below. Yes, the birds were squealing and dipping overhead but that was because the Soucan had a good catch of fish and the boy was emptying the dead bait in the wake of the boat.
There had been little warning at all, no ruffling of the sea’s surface, no sound like the others had heard during the night attacks, a strange, foul smell, then that one powerful grab at the bottom, making the Soucan heel violently, and the eater was gone. One quick look below told him he had been badly holed; he dragged a mattress on deck, tied a line to the rail and the other end to the mattress, and got it under the stern and pulled it into position to cover the gaping rent in the bottom. At first it stymied the water’s onslaught, but the bedding was too old and began fraying, spitting its entrails into the hull. Peter tied the other end of the line to the opposite rail, then stood in the stern with his son. All he could do was radio for help and hope somebody would hear. Luckily, the Clamdip was not too far off.
Hooker squashed the empty can in his hand and tossed it into the fire, then got up off his haunches and nodded for Billy to follow him. He was getting that edgy feeling again, the kind he had known for too many years in the past when something was happening and all you knew about it was the bits and pieces. No doubt about it, there were six local boats down in the area, all sunk in the last few months. There was no insurance scam involved because nobody could afford it anyway, and there wasn’t one islander about to scuttle his only means of livelihood.
“What is it you wish to ask me, sar?”
“I think you know, Billy.”
He felt, rather than saw, Billy shrug.
“Why didn’t you tell me what everybody else seems to know about those sinkings?”
“They were ‘et,’ sar. There is an eater in the sea...”
“Come off it, Billy.”
“On the mainland, the white men call it the Bermuda Triangle,” Billy finally said. “They say there are many, many more ships than our poor six.”
They had reached the glow of the kerosene lamps hanging from the porch roof of their cottage and Hooker stopped and looked at his friend. “Let me tell you something, buddy. That ocean out there is a very busy place with traffic going by day and night and in good weather or bad, so you’re going to get a lot more accidents than you would in some inland lake. You understand that?”
Billy looked skeptical, but he nodded.
“A few unexplained things have happened, all right, then some story-hungry reporter came up with that Bermuda Triangle deal and it was good enough to start all kinds of yarns going. You think we believe it?”
“Your papers and the radio...”
“Baloney. You see all that ship traffic out there? You see the planes go overhead? You think Esso and Shell and all the banana boats and thousands of sports fishermen are going to risk their hulls if that story was real?”
This time Billy frowned uncertainly. His boss did make sense, for sure, for real sure. Even now he could see the lights of five ships on the horizon, not one of them worried at all about the eater. But his mind went back to his first question. “You were going to ask me something, sar.”
“Yeah. Why didn’t you tell me about the sound your friends heard when their boats were hit?”
“You would not have been to believe.”
“Why?”
“Because it was the breathing they hear. It breathed on them and the smell was foul with rottenness like the dead fish on the shore from the red tide.”
“Everybody heard this?”
Billy shook his head slowly. “There were four who did.” He paused and his face went tight. “My friends Poca and Lule both... saw it.”
“What did ‘it’ look like?”
Again, he shook his head. “It was... just a darkness. A very big darkness. Much darker than the night. It made the stars wink out.”
Sure, Hooker thought, there’s always got to be some romancing of the unexplainable and nothing could beat foul breathing and big darkness. But six hulls were gone, two people were missing and he had seen that toothlike rent in the bottom of the Soucan.
Damn it, there had to be a why. He said, “Come on inside, Billy. Let’s get out the maps.”
Two hours later Hooker had studied every detail of Peolle and Ara, the island to their north, his attention riveted on everything Billy told him. There was not one cove or inlet, not even a hill or rock outcropping Billy wasn’t intimately familiar with, and now he rolled up the charts and stuffed them back into their plastic tubes.
“What was it we were looking for, Mr. Hooker, sar.”
“You know what sabotage is, Billy?”
“I know.”
“If any of those boat captains could have known something... even something they weren’t aware of... and someone wanted them eliminated...”
“Sar,” Billy broke in, “we have thought of that. No pirate ships have ever made this their landing. There is no buried treasure. Even now, every summer the students from Miami come with their funny machines to search for metal. They find beer cans, an old wrench, maybe, but no treasure.”
“You know, friend, you’re one hell of a lot smarter than I gave you credit for.”
“I still will not sail at night.”
“How about daytimes?”
“That I must do, sar. Starving is not my pleasure.” A faint smile touched his weathered face. “And there was no sabotage, sar.”
Hooker grinned back and nodded. “Saboteurs don’t put on an act with breathing and big black shapes, do they?”
“Never.”
“You really believe that stuff, Billy?”
Seriously, he said, “My friends said it, therefore I do believe it, sar.”
“Uh-huh.” Hooker looked at his watch. It was almost midnight. “How about doing me a favor, Billy.”
With a big grin making his teeth flash in the lamplight, Billy said happily, “Yes, sar. Anything you ask, sar.”
“Quit calling me sar, will you?”
For a moment, Billy studied his boss. White mainlanders’ ways were very perplexing, he thought. “Mr. Hooker, sa... Mr. Hooker, I...”
“And forget the Mr., too. We’re friends.”
“That would not be polite. And I do not know your front name.”
Hooker felt the laugh rumble out of him. “Believe it or not, my front name is Mako.”
“But... that is the name for Mr. Shark, the wild one the boats from Miami come to catch...”
“Billy, it was my mother’s last name before she got married and she liked it so much she gave it to me up front, like you say. Here it can belong to Mr. Shark, but in the old country it was a plain old Irish name. So take your pick... Hooker or Mako, just don’t...”
Billy held up his hand. “I know, call you late to eat.”
“Sharp, kiddo.”
“Sure. Now I sleep.”
Hooker nodded and went to the radio. All of the clocks on the island were hand-wound, and if you didn’t set yours with a time hack from Miami every night, you’d never know what the hour was. Not that it mattered much. He flipped the switch, waited a moment, then dialed to his frequency. When he got the time he set his watch ahead eight minutes, then went through his ritual of turning the channel selector just to see what was happening on the night traffic.