“I know. We’re using the same bait, and fishing from the same boat.” John Quick said.
“It’s not fair. We are the Floridians here; we should be catching.”
“Will one of you quit whining and get the net?”
John picked up the net and sidled beside her, watching as she worked the powerful ling until it was tired, then reeling it alongside the boat. He slid the net under it and brought the big fish on board. “That’s a twenty-five pounder,” he said.
Randall said, “I can’t believe she’s catching ling right here at the mouth of the New River. Have you ever caught ling here? Neither have I. She’s using spells or something.”
Hunter laughed, “Maybe if we eat this one, you’ll feel better?”
“That might work.”
John unhooked the ling and tossed in into the ice filled igloo cooler. When he straightened he saw an old, rusty freighter coming their direction from the open sea, fast. “Hey?”
Randall and Hunter looked as John pointed, “That one’s not slowing down.”
Randall said, “Pull the anchor, I’ll start us up.” He started the engine as John lifted the anchor. “Might want to hurry, John.”
The freighter listed at fifteen degrees, and the engine belched black smoke, but it came on, with the prow pushing wakes of white foam along its sides. There were far too many people crowding and milling about on the ship. “I think its Haitians,” Randall said. “How are you coming with that anchor? I need to move us, like right now.”
John cleared the anchor from the water and said, “Go!” Randall roared the engines and the rear of the boat humped down in the water for a moment as its bow rose like a rearing horse, then they shot diagonally across the river mouth toward the south shore just as the freighter lumbered and groaned by them. Wide-eyed, desperate looking black people stared down at them as the boat passed.
John said, “Another five seconds and we would have been underneath that thing.” He pulled his phone and dialed, “We just had a freighter full of possible Haitian refugees steam into the mouth of the New River. Yes, in Fort Lauderdale. Would you mind contacting the Coast Guard and the Border Patrol about this? What’s it look like? Believe me, they’ll recognize it when they see it.” He hung up and said, “Let’s see where it goes.”
As Randall pulled onto the freighter’s wake, Hunter saw a large, dark shape pass under them in the water. “That’s a shark.”
“Big one.” John said, “Nine, ten feet. A bull shark.”
“In the river?”
“Uh-huh. They like areas where fresh water meets the ocean, but usually they wait offshore, not come upstream.”
Randall said, “They’ve been caught miles upstream in rivers, too. The incident in Matawan Creek was over thirty miles upstream from the ocean. That’s where several people were killed by a shark that was probably a bull shark, although it was first reported to be a great white.”
“That’s part of the story that Jaws was based on.”
“Uh-huh,” Randall said, “This one’s zeroing in on something; see how fast, and in a straight line? It’s after food. So don’t fall overboard.”
Hunter asked, “Are they in here all the time?”
“More than people think,” John said, “Those, and tiger sharks sometimes. But sharks aren’t really that dangerous.”
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t pet it.”
“I only meant that they aren’t always looking for humans to eat. People get bit, but if you knew how many people were in the ocean and sharks like that were within twenty, thirty yards of them, and the people didn’t get bitten, that’s what I meant.”
Hunter said, “My logical mind understands that, but my desert living, self-preservation mind says you’re crazy, and that if I’m in the water and a shark is in the water, it’s going to eat me.”
John said, “That freighter’s deliberately grounding.”
They watched as the rusty ship lurched to a stop in the shallower water, with the bow two feet from dry land. People poured off the ship on all sides into the water, with a few jumping from the bow onto dry land. Those on land ran in haphazard directions, while many of the ones in the water struggled as if exhausted as they waded ashore to the small strip of sand. One person, who was in deeper water, floundered and splashed in an effort not to drown. Randall nosed the boat toward him as John and Hunter leaned over the gunwales to grab him.
He suddenly disappeared below the surface.
Hunter heard sirens coming from several directions, and behind them she could see Coast Guard ships coming fast up the New River. She started to say something when the man erupted from the water, screaming at the top of his lungs.
The shark’s head, as wide as a small oil drum, clamped on the man’s side and shook him so violently his screams cut off with each jerk. The water turned red, and other people in the river screamed as second fin appeared. Hunter leaned far over the side, reaching for the man’s flailing arm.