Jaws Part 29

Brody was shocked at the suggestion of selfishness. It had never occurred to him that he was being selfish, indulging a personal need for expiation. "I love you," he said.

"You know that... no matter what."

"Sure you do," she said bitterly. "Oh, sure you do." They ate dinner in silence. When they were finished, Ellen picked up the dishes, washed them, and went upstairs. Brody walked around the living room, turning out lights. Just as he reached for the switch to turn off the hall light, he heard a tap on the front door.

He opened it and saw Meadows.

"Hey, Harry," he said. "Come on in."

"No," said Meadows. "It's too late. I just wanted to drop this by." He handed Brody a manila envelope.

"What is it?"

"Open it and see. I'll talk to you tomorrow." Meadows turned and walked down the path to the curb, where his ear was parked, lights on and motor running. Brody shut the door and opened the envelope. Inside was a proof of the editorial page of the next day's Leader. The first two editorials had been circled in red grease pencil. Brody read: A NOTE OF SORROW . . .

In the past three weeks, Amity has suffered through one horrible tragedy after another. Its citizens, and its friends, have been struck down by a savage menace that no one can deter, no one can explain.

Yesterday another human life was cut short by the Great White Shark. Matt Hooper, the young oceanographer from Woods Hole, was killed as he tried to kill the beast singlehandedly.

People may debate the wisdom of Mr. Hooper's daring attempt. But call it brave or foolhardy, there can be no debate about the motive that sent him on his fatal mission. He was trying to help Amity, spending his own time and money in an effort to restore peace to this despairing community.

He was a friend, and he gave his life so that we, his friends, might live.

. . . AND A VOTE OF THANKS Ever since the marauding shark first came to Amity, one man has spent his every waking minute trying to protect his fellow citizens. That man is Police Chief Martin Brody.

After the first attack, Chief Brody wanted to inform the public of the danger and close the beaches. But a chorus of less prudent voices, including that of the editor of this newspaper, told him he was wrong. Play down the risk, we said, and it will disappear. It was we who were wrong. Some in Amity were slow to learn the lesson. When, after repeated attacks, Chief Brody insisted on keeping the beaches closed, he was vilified and threatened. A few of his most vocal critics were men motivated not by public-spiritedness but personal greed. Chief Brody persisted, and, once again, he was proven right.

Now Chief Brody is risking his life on the same expedition that took the life of Matt Hooper. We must all offer our prayers for his safe return... and our thanks for his extraordinary fort.i.tude and integrity. (124) Brody said aloud, "Thank you, Harry."

Around midnight, the wind began to blow hard from the northeast, whistling through the screens and soon bringing a driving rain that splashed on the bedroom floor. Brody got out of bed and shut the window. He tried to go back to sleep, but his mind refused to rest. He got up again, put on his bathrobe, went downstairs to the living room, and turned on the television. He switched channels until he found a movie --Weekend at the Waldorf, with Ginger Rogers. Then he sat down in a chair and promptly slipped into a fitful doze.

He awoke at five, to the whine of the television test pattern, turned off the set, and listened for the wind. It had moderated and seemed to be coming from a different quarter, but it still carried rain. He debated calling Quint, but thought, no, no use: we'll be going even if this blows up into a gale. He went upstairs and quietly dressed. Before he left the bedroom, he looked at Ellen, who had a frown on her sleeping face. "I do love you, you know," he whispered, and he kissed her brow. He started down the stairs and then, impulsively, went and looked in the boys' bedrooms. They were all asleep.

Chapter 14

When he drove up to the dock, Quint was waiting for him --a tall, impa.s.sive figure whose yellow oilskins shone under the dark sky. He was sharpening a harpoon dart on a Carborundum stone.

"I almost called you," Brody said as he pulled on his slicker. "What does this weather mean?"

"Nothing," said Quint. "It'll let up after a while. Or even if it doesn't, it don't matter. He'll be there."

Brody looked up at the scudding clouds. "Gloomy enough."

"Fitting," said Quint, and he hopped aboard the boat.

"Is it just us?"

"Just us. You expecting somebody else?"

"No. But I thought you liked an extra pair of hands."

"You know this fish as well as any man, and more hands won't make no difference now. Besides, it's n.o.body else's business." Brody stepped from the dock onto the transom, and was about to jump down to the deck when he noticed a canvas tarpaulin covering something in a corner. "What's that?" he said, pointing.

"Sheep." Quint turned the ignition key. The engine coughed once, caught, and began to chug evenly.

"What for?" Brody stepped down onto the deck. "You going to sacrifice it?" Quint barked a brief, grim laugh. "Might at that," he said. "No, it's bait. Give him a little breakfast before we have at him. Undo my stern line." He walked forward and cast off the bow and spring lines.

As Brody reached for the stern line, he heard a car engine. A pair of headlights sped along the road, and there was a squeal of rubber as the car stopped at the end of the pier. A man jumped out of the car and ran toward the Orca. It was the Times reporter, Bill Whitman.

"I almost missed yon," he said, panting.

"What do you want?" said Brody.

"I want to come along. Or, rather, I've been ordered to come along."

"Tough s.h.i.t," said Quint. "I don't know who you are, but n.o.body's coming along. Brody, cast off the stern line."

(125)

"Why not?" said Whitman. "I won't get in the way. Maybe I can help. Look, man, this is news. If you're going to catch that fish, I want to be there."

"f.u.c.k yourself," said Quint.

"I'll charter a boat and follow you."

Quint laughed. "Go ahead. See if you can find someone foolish enough to take you out. Then try to find us. It's a big ocean. Throw the line, Brody!" Brody tossed the stern line onto the dock. Quint pushed the throttle forward, and the boat eased out of the slip. Brody looked back and saw Whitman walking down the pier toward his car.

The water off Montank was rough, for the wind --from the southeast now --was at odds with the tide. The boat lurched through the waves, its bow pounding down and casting a mantle of spray. The dead sheep bounced in the stern. When they reached the open sea, heading southwest, their motion was eased. The rain had slacked to a drizzle, and with each moment there were fewer whitecaps tumbling from the top of waves.

They had been around the point only fifteen minutes when Quint pulled back on the throttle and slowed the engine.

Brody looked toward sh.o.r.e. In the growing light he could see the water tower clearly --a black point rising from the gray strip of land. The lighthouse beacon still shone. "We're not out as far as we usually go," he said.

"No."

"We can't be more than a couple of miles offsh.o.r.e."

"Just about."

"So why are you stopping?"

"I got a feeling." Quint pointed to the left, to a cl.u.s.ter of lights farther down the sh.o.r.e. "That's Amity there."

"So?"

"I don't think he'll be so far out today. I think he'll be somewhere between here and Amity."

"Why?"

"Like I said, it's a feeling. There's not always a why to these things."

"Two days in a row we found him farther out."

"Or he found us."

"I don't get it, Quint. For a man who says there's no such thing as a smart fish, you're making this one out to be a genius."

"I wouldn't go that far."

Brody bristled at Quint's sly, enigmatic tone. "What kind of game are you playing?"

"No game. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong."

"And we try somewhere else tomorrow." Brody half hoped Quint would be wrong, that there would be a day's reprieve.

"Or later today. But I don't think we'll have to wait that long." Quint cut the engine, went to the stern, and lifted a bucket of chum onto the transom. "Start chummin',"

he said, handing Brody the ladle. He uncovered the sheep, tied a rope around its neck, and lay it on the gunwale. He slashed its stomach and flung the animal overboard, letting it drift twenty feet from the boat before securing the rope to an after cleat. Then he went forward, unlashed two barrels, and carried them, and their coils of ropes and harpoon darts, back to the stern. He set the barrels on each side of the transom, each next to its own rope, and slipped one dart onto the wooden throwing shaft. "Okay," he said. "Now let's see how long it takes."

The sky had lightened to full, gray daylight, and in ones and twos the fights on the sh.o.r.e flicked off.

The stench of the mess Brody was ladling overboard made his stomach turn, and he wished he had eaten something --anything --before he left home. Quint sat on the flying bridge, watching the rhythms of the sea. Brody's b.u.t.t was sore from sitting on the hard transom, and his arm was growing (126) weary from the dipping and emptying of the ladle. So he stood up, stretched, and facing off the stern, tried a new scooping motion with the ladle.

Suddenly he saw the monstrous head of the fish --not five feet away, so close he could reach over and touch it with the ladle --black eyes staring at him, silver-gray snout pointing at him, gaping jaw grinning at him. "Oh, G.o.d!" Brody said, wondering in his shock how long the fish had been there before he had stood up and turned around. "There he is!"

Quint was down the ladder and at the stern in an instant. As he jumped onto the transom, the fish's head slipped back into the water and, a second later, slammed into the transom. The jaws closed on the wood, and the head shook violently from side to side. Brody grabbed a cleat and held on, unable to look away from the eyes. The boat shuddered and jerked each time the fish moved its head. Quint slipped and fell to his knees on the transom. The fish let go and dropped beneath the surface, and the boat lay still again.

"He was waiting for us!" yelled Brody.

"I know," said Quint.

"How did he --"

"It don't matter," said Quint. "We've got him now."

"We've got him? Did you see what he did to the boat?"

"Give it a mighty good shake, didn't he?" The rope holding the sheep tightened, shook for a moment, then went slack. Quint stood and picked up the harpoon. "He's took the sheep. It'll be a minute before he comes back."

"How come he didn't take the sheep first?"

"He got no manners," Quint cackled. "Come on, you motherf.u.c.ker. Come and get your due."

Brody saw fever in Quint's face --a heat that lit up his dark eyes, an intensity that drew his lips back from his teeth in a crooked smile, an antic.i.p.ation that strummed the sinews in his neck and whitened his knuckles.

The boat shuddered again, and there was a dull, hollow thump.

"What's he doing?" said Brody.

Quint leaned over the side and shouted, "Come out from under there, you c.o.c.ksucker! Where are your guts? You'll not sink me before I get to you!"

"What do you mean, sink us?" said Brody. "What's he doing?"

"He's trying to chew a hole in the bottom of the f.u.c.king boat, that's what! Look in the bilge. Come out, you G.o.dforsaken sonofab.i.t.c.h!" Quint raised high his harpoon. Brody knelt and raised the hatch cover over the engine room. He peered into the dark, oily hole. There was water in the bilges, but there always was, and he saw no new hole through which water could pour. "Looks okay to me," he said. "Thank G.o.d." The dorsal fin and tail surfaced ten yards to the right of the stern and began to move again toward the boat. "There you come," said Quint, cooing. "There you come." He stood, legs spread, left hand on his hip, right hand extended to the sky, grasping the harpoon. When the fish was a few feet from the boat and heading straight on, Quint cast his iron.

The harpoon struck the fish in front of the dorsal fin. And then the fish hit the boat, knocking the stern sideways and sending Quint tumbling backward. His head struck the footrest of the fighting chair, and a trickle of blood ran down his neck. He jumped to his feet and cried, "I got you! I got you, you miserable p.r.i.c.k!" The rope attached to the iron dart snaked overboard as the fish sounded, and when it reached the end, the barrel popped off the transom, fell into the water, and vanished.

"He took it down with him!" said Brody.

"Not for long," said Quint. "He'll be back, and we'll throw another into him, and another, and another, until he quits. And then he's ours!" Quint leaned on the transom, watching the water.

Quint's confidence was contagious, and Brody now felt ebullient, gleeful, relieved. It was a kind of freedom, a freedom from the mist of death. He yelled, "Hot (127) s.h.i.t!" Then he noticed the blood running down Quint's neck, and he said, "Your head's bleeding."

"Get another barrel," said Quint. "Bring it back here. And don't f.u.c.k up the coil. I want it to go over smooth as cream."

Brody ran forward, unlashed a barrel, slipped the coiled rope over his arm, and carried the gear to Quint.

"There he comes," said Quint, pointing to the left. The barrel came to the surface and bobbed in the water. Quint pulled the string attached to the wooden shaft and brought it aboard. He fixed the shaft to the new dart and raised the harpoon above his head.

"He's coming up!"

The fish broke water a few yards from the boat. Like a rocket lifting off, snout, jaw, and pectoral fins rose straight from the water. Then the smoke-white belly, pelvic fin, and huge, salamilike claspers.

"I see your c.o.c.k, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" cried Quint, and he threw a second iron, leaning his shoulder and back into the throw. The iron hit the fish in the belly, just as the great body began to fall forward. The belly smacked the water with a thunderous boom, sending a blinding fall of spray over the boat. "He's done!" said Quint as the second rope uncoiled and tumbled overboard.

The boat lurched once, and again, and there was the distant sound of crunching.

"Attack me, will you?" said Quint. "You'll take no man with you, uppity f.u.c.k!" Quint ran forward and started the engine. He pushed the throttle forward, and the boat moved away from the bobbing barrels.

"Has he done any damage?" said Brody.

"Some. We're riding a little heavy aft. He probably poked a hole in us. It's nothing to worry about. We'll pump her out."

"That's it, then," Brody said happily.

"What's what?"

"The fish is as good as dead."