John D. MacDonald

Make One False Move

When Pierson turned off the asphalt onto the side road, the homemade trailer bounced hard. He gave an apprehensive glance back to see if the boat was all right. He realized that through eagerness he had pushed the speed up too far.

Another five minutes and he’d be there. The sun was directly overhead in the cloudless sky. There wasn’t a breath of wind. This last day would have to be perfection.

He put the coupe into low gear for the sand ahead. The only thing that could spoil the day now would be the damn porpoises. His big brown fingers clamped hard on the wheel when he thought of them, when he remembered the last perfect day, and coming over the rise to look down into the bay only to see the fool things rolling and playing and snorting. Anger thickened his throat. If they spoiled this last day, too...

With that in mind, he’d put the carbine in the back end. The penalty was stiff, but this was a deserted enough stretch of beach so he could get away with it. There’d be a lot of satisfaction in getting even with the fool things, pumping lead into them. The day would be no good, of course, but neither would a few porpoises. He came over the last rise, tense and expectant. The ocean was almost flat calm. It had an oily, pre-storm look. The long, flat swells broke thickly against the long coral reef that protected the hidden bay.

Pierson let out his breath in a great sigh of relief. No porpoises. This was the day. And this was the place. Every factor was refined and focused on this day and on the bay he had found after a long search.

Now there was deep satisfaction and excitement in him. He made himself move with great care. He drove as close as he could to the water, untied the boat, slid it backward out of the bent-pipe framework and muscled it down across the sand. It made the sweat stand out on his face and his naked chest. He was a compactly muscled man with a look of power in his corded shoulders.

He carried the equipment from the car down to the small boat and counted it all twice before shoving off. Then he rowed straight out for a hundred yards and shipped the oars. He sat and measured the amount of drift, decided that the light anchor wouldn’t be necessary.

There was a ritual in every move. He knew that the bottom was twenty to twenty-five feet down. First he took the big metal cartridge of carbon dioxide and inserted it into the gun, locking it in place. Next he snapped a forty-foot line onto a stout ring set into the right side of the gun and made certain the other end of the line was secure inside the small boat. The barb, razor-sharp, glittering, was affixed to a short shaft which he inserted into the barrel of the gun. The second line, fastened behind the barb, was a hundred feet long. He coiled it loosely in the stern and made certain that it, too, was tied firmly to the boat and in a position where it would not foul the gun line. He laid the shining gun on the seat. It helped to have it bright so that it would glitter in the water.

Next, he prepared himself. He put on the swim fins, inserted the rubber ear plugs. He dipped the face mask over the side, then crumpled a damp cigarette and rubbed the glass, inside and out. He splashed water on his face, put the mask on and tested the fit by trying to blow out through his nose. It was snug all the way around.

With each step his excitement mounted.

Making certain that the broad-bladed knife was secure in the sheath that hung from his belt, he slipped over the side, taking great care to go into the water with a minimum of splash. He took the heavy gun in his right hand and, holding to the boat with his left, he emptied his lungs, filled them, emptied them again, all the time looking around at the bright surface of the water.

He took his last breath and let go of the boat. He went under, and the weighted gun pulled him almost head-down. He kicked powerfully, sliding down through the darkening green, down to the packed sand of the bottom. Through long practice he knew that he was good for two and a half minutes. He could reach bottom without the gun, or surface with it in his hands, but this system he had devised suited his plans.

As he reached the bottom he turned and his feet settled, almost without weight, on the sand. There was a large shattered conch shell a few feet away. It was odd how the fish never seemed to be alarmed by a man who came down into their world. Curiosity always brought them near. The little ones always flittered away into the green shadows when he moved, but the big ones would remain to watch him owlishly, looking almost bored.

Pierson knew that this was the right place, if ever a place could be right. The nearness of the coral helped. The bottom was good. And the entrance to the bay, beyond the reef, was forty feet deep.

A small school of sheepshead, with their ridiculous faces that look like caricatures, angled down by him and went on off to some mysterious and obviously important destination.

Some sand perch, glittering like jewels, approached and fled in mock panic. Suddenly all the small fish were gone. A vast shadow came near him. He turned slowly, every muscle taut, and saw that it was just a huge jew fish, probably close to six hundred pounds, as stately and unconcerned as a dowager in an art gallery. Saucer eyes looked blankly at him and it moved off beyond his restricted range of vision. Once upon a time he might have tried for it, but he had learned that the spirit of this huge fish was torpid. It fought wallowingly for a time, then surrendered meekly.

A slow current moved him a few effortless feet. He began to feel the need of air. He put the gun gently on the bottom and shot up, careful to avoid the dark shadow of the boat overhead. He came out into the air and moved slowly to the boat as his labored breathing calmed down.

He lived for these days. And this was the last one. Early tomorrow he would have to start back north. This year the overcast weather had defeated him. When vision was bad on the bottom, he did shallow fishing on the reefs, but the big stuff was never there. And there was always the chance of a bad nip from the myriad needle-teeth of a moray eel.

He went down strongly, following the double line down to the shining gun. He grabbed it and let its weight pull him gently down onto his feet. A stingaree, evil, flat, as big around as a bushel basket, skimmed by with its peculiar flapping motion like a grotesque bird. They were harmless unless trod upon on the bottom. Then the barbed tail would whip over to stab the ankle or the top of the foot.

He carefully stalked an odd shadow until he could see it plainly. Just a little sand shark about a yard long. It ignored him. It turned slowly over onto its back and then wiggled along, scratching its back on the bottom, like a puppy wiggling on a living-room rug. Pierson grinned.

Suddenly he tightened. A huge black grouper, all of sixty pounds, appeared from the left. It hung in the water, looking at him. One-third of it was head. He knew it wasn’t a record grouper, but it was big enough to be thoroughly impressive.

He waggled the barb back and forth slowly and the grouper drifted toward it. Its big mouth worked. The glitter of the barb had caught its eye.

Pierson stood motionless as the big lips came close, touched the barb. Then the black, satisfied that the glitter was inedible, turned slowly away. Pierson put the barb within an inch of the sleek side and pulled the trigger. The water in front of the muzzle boiled into a million white bubbles as the barb was thrust deep into the fish. The grouper pinwheeled violently off into the green blackness.

Pierson kicked up with all his strength, carrying the gun up with him. The swim fins, with his practiced leg-thrust, drove him up so that he surfaced beside the boat. He put the gun inside, heaved himself up over the stern. The coiled line was going out rapidly. He grabbed it, shoving his mask up onto his forehead. He let it slip through his tough hands, increasing the pressure. The boat was pulled along as the fish wore itself out.

Grinning, he reeled the line in, pulling hard. The grouper made short, deep runs from side to side, coming ever closer. It tired quickly. A grouper’s fight was soon gone. Pierson could see it now. It rolled just below the surface. He held the line with his left hand, got the short gaff from behind him, gaffed the grouper securely, and heaved it up over the stern. He yanked his knife out, reversed it in his hand and clubbed the big fish with the weighted handle. At the second blow it shuddered and lay still.

Pierson sat, breathing hard, admiring it for long seconds. The blacks were far prettier than the reds and had more fight. The flesh was firmer.

The barb was driven better than halfway through the fish. He hammered it through the rest of the way, untied the knot behind the barb and pulled it out. As it had not been dulled, he washed the blood from it and from the line after he pulled it back through the fish, re-tied it and inserted it back in the barrel of the gun. He shoved the dead grouper up into the bow, recoiled the line, cleaned his mask again, and slipped over the side once more. The grouper had pulled the boat into slightly deeper water. Visibility on the bottom was reduced to what he guessed to be not more than twelve horizontal feet.

The moment he touched bottom and acquired precarious balance, he saw a form that made his heart hammer. The grouper upstairs was nothing. This creature drifted five feet above him and six feet straight ahead of him, the incarnation of viciousness, and yet so slim and beautiful and perfectly designed for its devilish purposes that it was as though a hard hand had closed on his heart.

It was a slim and deadly wolf of the sea, a barracuda, with tiny glowing eyes, undershot jaw, whip-lean efficiency of motion. And it was so huge that he imagined it to be nearer to him than it was. This was indeed the king of barracudas, a seven-foot monster, a record fish. The taint of grouper blood in the water had brought it there at a fifty-mile speed.

It watched Pierson speculatively. His flesh crawled, even though he knew he was safe. A barracuda will sometimes flash up and snap as much as two pounds of flesh from a surface swimmer far out from shore. But its wariness and intelligence is such that it will not attack an unknown object on the sea floor, unless the underwater fisherman is so stupid as to fasten a wounded fish to his belt and taint the water around him with fresh blood.

Pierson knew that a barracuda will fight with a high, wild and perfect fury that has in it something of the astonishing power of a wounded jungle cat. It never gives up its writhing, heart-exploding efforts until it is dead, and even in the moment of dying the jaws can clamp like a bear trap.

Pierson knew it would be wise to try to frighten it away. And yet he wanted it. The odds were a hundred to one against boating it. He would have frightened away a smaller one. But this monster...

It disappeared so quickly that he did not see it go. He felt a bitter disappointment. He turned slowly and saw that it had reappeared behind him, closer than before. It gave him the feeling of being stalked. He felt better when he had the deadly little harpoon pointed at it, though he suspected that it could probably flash in and take off half his thigh or the front of his belly before he could pull on the trigger.

This was part of it — the fear as well as the lust of the hunt. Water builds up an enormous resistance. He would not dare release the barb unless it was within six inches of the ’cuda. If he merely stung the fish, it might strike back in rage.

The slow seconds passed. And suddenly he realized that the last thing he wanted to do was slant up to the surface for air. Even as a black bass in an inland lake will strike viciously at times at almost. any small object dropped onto the surface of the water, the barracuda will dart and snap at anything which moves too quickly.

It was so close he could see a deep, puckered scar on its brown-gray flank.

The barracuda let itself sink until it was a bare three feet off the bottom, its lean head still pointed toward him. With enormous caution he moved slowly toward it. To his amazement, it duplicated his motion, moving ever so slowly toward him. It seemed to Pierson that it was much like two fighters coming warily out at the bell for the first round.

He stood absolutely still, his finger cramped on the trigger. The barracuda slanted up as it moved closer, and he followed it with the barb. Two feet, a foot and a half, a foot. It paused. He moved the barb up toward it, an inch at a time, his back aching from the tautness of his arms and shoulders.

Now! He thrust and fired at the same instant. The familiar thud of the explosion hammered against his ear plugs. He clung to the gun and fell slowly into a sitting position. He moved like a slow-motion film, but the ’cuda had disappeared like dark flame. He decided to take the gun up with him. It was rugged enough to stand a certain amount of dragging along the bottom, but this monstrous fish might not be quelled for an hour, even with the barb deep in its guts.

He crouched — and in that instant the barracuda reappeared like magic a bare yard in front of his face. He brought his gun arm up in panic. He saw the metal shaft protruding from its side, pointed downward, saw the line that stretched off in a gradual upward curve. Blood stained the water around the wound.

With his right arm across his face, he reached over and pulled the knife free with his left hand. It was a feeble weapon. The gun, still in his right hand, kept him anchored to the bottom.

The barracuda watched him as though, with evil intelligence, it wanted him to savor to the full the anticipation of its chomping razor teeth. Pierson had never heard of any fish, ’cuda or otherwise, which would ignore the pain-born panic of the barb to return calmly to the hunter. He could not help but believe that this fish had reasoned out what had hurt it and had come to exact payment.

Suddenly a great, swift, twelve-foot shadow slammed down out of the darkness, and the water was badly roiled by sand swept up from the bottom. It was as though a dim candle had been blown out in a dingy room. Pierson remained fixed in pure panic, and as the sand settled he saw the torpedo shape of what he recognized as a huge shark looming toward him, turning on its side, the killer teeth bared in the half-moon mouth.

Even as he realized that this deep-sea beast had no right to come into this sheltered bay, it was upon him, moving with the ungraceful, swift waddle of the shark. He thrust at it with the knife, dropping the gun. He felt the knife turn against the tough hide and felt the pain as the hide took the flesh from his knuckles.

The shark has a blind and unreasoning hunger. It had swum into the scent of blood and the tiny brain sent but one message to the vast, highly specialized body. Eat! Eat! A shark like this, once that message leaves its brain, will continue to tear and feed even when it has been torn open and other sea creatures are feeding on its own tail and belly.

He had stayed to the very limit of his endurance. His vision darkened and his lungs were making convulsive heaves. Only his will, keeping his throat closed, prevented the rebellious lungs from expelling what was left of the stale air and sucking in the water. He could not turn, and even if he could, he could not have seen the shark. Red spots shot across his blackening vision. He knew that, with his wounded hand, it was a matter of seconds until the shark found him and tore him to edible bits.

He jumped upward with all the fading strength of his legs. His fins he had lost long ago in the first furious attack. He made feeble, climbing motions with his arms. He anticipated the slashing, ripping bite in every part of his body. The blood from the barracuda had brought the shark. Now his blood would send the shark streaking up after him, rolling to bring into play that incredible mouth.

He surfaced in the blinding sunshine, coughing the water from his throat, sobbing as he gulped the air into his lungs, splashing feebly in the hope that he could scare away the shark. But all the while he knew that no amount of splashing would drive away a shark with the blood scent sending that clear message to its brain.

He screamed as he felt a rasping touch on the side of his foot. The fin appeared beside him and circled back, turning almost on itself. Pierson screamed again, the cords in his throat standing out, his staring eyes looking up at the cloudless sky. The boat was an impossible hundred feet away.

There was a vast boiling beside him, a smashing thud, and a solid sheet of water slapped against his face and open, screaming mouth. Dark, shining backs surfaced around him and he heard the harsh, whistling exhalations. He swam for the boat as he had never swum before, trying, with each stroke, to claw himself up and out of the water. He scratched and grunted his way up over the flat stern and tumbled into the bottom of the boat...

When he sat up to watch, it was almost all over. They hit the shark from all sides, coming up from underneath so that the heavy blows from the muscled snouts knocked the big shark completely out of the water. The shark writhed feebly as the mammal teeth chomped and tore at the tough hide, biting out great chunks.

And then there was nothing left. Nothing but the great, deep stain on the blue-green water of the bay.

The porpoises lost their brute speed and began to roll happily. They were the implacable and unforgiving enemy of the shark, hunting him down, slamming into him with pile-driver force, dazing him, eating him alive.

Pierson knelt in the bottom of the small boat, and the blood dripped from his torn knuckles. One porpoise surfaced so close to the boat that it nudged it gently. It exhaled heavily through the blow-hole atop its head, and its eyes had the wise mammal look of a good horse or a good dog. It arched back down into the depths. When it reappeared with the rest, Pierson saw there were about fifteen of them, heading back out of the bay.

Pierson was not an emotional man. But he knelt there for a long time, and cursed in a soft husky voice, and the corners of his eyes stung. He pulled the gun up from the bottom. The barb line came up without tension. The harpoon was gone, the line slashed as though a knife had cut it.

He rowed to shore, reloaded the boat, packed the grouper in damp burlap in the back end and drove slowly out to the main road.

He knew that he would be back next year, back in the green and frightening depths. Because, to him, all other forms of hunting and fishing had become as tasteless as games for polite children.

Content

John D. MacDonald
Make One False Move