Ryan Lockwood - Below

Sturman and Val had been at sea almost continually for four straight days. Although they could wash off sweat and grime with a dip in the ocean or quick shower, their skin constantly had a skiff of fine, itchy salt on the surface, which nagged quietly at them. The freshwater on the boat was not for bathing, since the tanks were not large enough to allow for very long trips and the shower was crammed with gear anyway. They had brought some extra water, but extra fuel containers also took up a share of the boat’s space and weight limits.

Val was amused by Bud’s toilet habits. Sturman had long ago taught the dog to relieve himself in a makeshift wooden litter box stowed inside the cabin. He would sometimes set the box in the stern to let the dog do his deed, then he would fling the goods overboard. One day, Val asked him if he had ever been caught in rough seas and bad weather, unable to even move the box and its contents to the stern. He had grunted and nodded in the shade of his hat.

Despite their days of effort, they had not located the shoal. With their one tagged squid in a different shoal still located somewhere far to the south, nearer to San Diego, the only way to find the shoal of interest was once again to utilize a needle-in-a-haystack approach. Starting just south of where the swimmer had been killed by the shoal, Sturman and Val had motored northward in the San Pedro Channel for countless hours each day, using a sweeping, zigzag search pattern. They utilized broad-beam sonar with an alert set to go off if a large school or object was detected between five hundred and fifteen hundred feet, where Val suspected the shoal would spend the daytime.

Each evening they followed the same routine. They shut the sonar down just before dark and sped to the nearest mooring, at Gull Harbor on Catalina Island, to tie off for the night. They slept separately, he on the cushioned bench in the galley, she in the private berth in the bow, and then departed immediately at dawn to resume where they had left off the day before.

Val was becoming frustrated. Although she had expected this to be difficult, she hadn’t realized just what a tall order it was to try and locate a specific shoal in an area almost totally devoid of Humboldt squid. In Baja, it had always been easy to locate the animals. There, she was interested in any shoal they could attract, and there were so many millions of squid that locating an unspecific group on any given night was almost a guarantee. She now realized that quickly locating the first shoal with Sturman must have been beginner’s luck.

Despite the lack of hygiene and her frustration at the tedious task, Val found she was enjoying herself. While Maria plied the blue water, all they had to do was stay on course and snack on sweet or salty junk food. Though Sturman was frustratingly uncommunicative, she found herself increasingly curious about him. She pried into his past with little luck. He could clam up with the best of them. And just when she was beginning to feel affection for him, he would revert to the jerk she had first met.

She had just ended a cell phone call in the quieter cabin of the boat as she made her way up the steps to the stiff breeze and sunshine on the stern deck. The door swung against her shoulder, and she slammed it irritably behind her. “Goddammit!”

“What’d Montoya say?” Sturman stood in the flying bridge, wearing his sweat-stained cowboy hat and an unbuttoned short-sleeved shirt that flapped in the wind. Val climbed the wooden ladder and fell into the padded bench seat next to him. She scratched Bud’s stubby ears. The short-haired mutt was resting in his usual spot, under Sturman’s feet. She was impressed at how far the man went to accommodate his dog, not only having thought up the litter box but also seeming always happy to lift the big dog up to join them in the flying bridge when they were motoring for long hours.

“The idiots want to try and catch the shoal.”

“You don’t say.” Sturman smiled and pulled off his hat to run a calloused hand over his head. “The whole shoal?”

“The whole shoal.” She and Sturman both laughed. “I guess the conference call went on for hours. Quite a few people joined in—probably because of the novelty of this situation. Some of the big-time law enforcement officials and a few local politicians wanted to take a more reactive approach than just releasing some warning information, because of the high number of deaths. They’re now putting the suspected death toll at between eleven and thirty, depending on how many immigrants died a month ago.”

“That many?”

“Yeah. It sounds like a lot, doesn’t it?”

Sturman nodded.

“Anyway, Joe said he tried to convey my opinion that it was a waste of time to try and catch the shoal, and that as long as people didn’t put themselves in unique situations that might lead to an encounter, there was no cause for alarm. But I’m not so sure he tried that hard.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know Joe is your friend, but after our talk the other night I suspect he didn’t feel compelled to plead my case.”

Sturman set his jaw and turned away. She had learned that the man had a temper, and a strong loyalty to the few people in his life whom he was close to. His eyes narrowed and he began to open his mouth, but she cut him off.

“I don’t mean that. Sorry. I’m sure Joe did his best. But with this story all over the news now, these big shots obviously feel they need to put on some sort of show for the taxpayers.”

There were a few minutes of silence. Val thought about what would happen next as she scanned the sparkling water and listened to the drone of the twin engines.

Sturman turned and looked at her, his eyes crinkling. “So how the hell they gonna capture these things if we can’t even find them?”

She smiled. “Good question. I don’t plan to help them, so I have no idea. Joe said something about hiring commercial fishermen, and trying to net them like they’re just a bunch of tiny market squid. It will never work.”

“Then why you getting your panties in a bunch?”

She smiled again. He was right. The shoal would probably move on, and might even die before anyone could find them. Its members seemed to be fully mature and now sick with parasites, and fast-growing Humboldt squid only had a lifespan of a few years.

“I don’t know. I guess I was hoping that somehow I’d get more of a chance to study them.”

“They’re like squid in the sea.”

“What?”

“You know, the expression—like fish in the sea? There will be other shoals. You said it yourself—there are more than enough in Baja.”

“Yeah, but not like this one. This is an incredibly unique situation, and could allow me to help predict if this might happen again, and how it happens. And—”

“Doc, there you go analyzing everything again. I hear what you’re saying. If you want, we can keep trying to find these things on our own. But it doesn’t look like we’ll get cooperation from anyone else.”

Val sighed and shook her head. She tugged at her ponytail and looked off toward the mainland. “I just thought these meetings would actually generate some help for us. Make my job easier, not harder.”

Sturman grinned at her and shook his head. “I’ve got another favorite expression for you.”

“Better than ‘fish in the sea’?”

“Yeah, smart aleck. One of my favorites. ‘You can’t change the wind. But you can adjust your sails.’ ”

That night, Val decided to take Sturman’s advice to adjust her sails. It was a calm, beautiful evening as they headed south toward Catalina Island. A perfect time to open three sheets to the wind.