Peter Benchley - Jaws

At first, Brody thought Quint was referring to him, but then he saw Hooper jump off the transom and heard him whistle and say, “Wow! He sure is!”

Brody felt his pulse speed up. He stepped quickly onto the deck and said, “Where?”

“Right there,” said Quint. “Dead off the stern.”

It took Brody’s eyes a moment to adjust, but then he saw the fin — a ragged, brownish-gray triangle that sliced through the water, followed by the scythed tail sweeping left and right with short, spasmodic thrusts. The fish was at least thirty yards behind the boat, Brody guessed. Maybe forty. “Are you sure it’s him?” he said.

“It’s him,” said Quint.

“What are you going to do?”

“Nothing. Not till we see what he does. Hooper, you keep ladling that shit. Let’s bring him in here.”

Hooper lifted the bucket up onto the transom and scooped the chum into the water. Quint walked forward and fastened a harpoon head to the wooden shaft. He picked up a barrel and put it under one arm. He held the coiled rope over his other arm and clutched the harpoon in his hand. He carried it all aft and set it on the deck.

The fish cruised back and forth in the slick, seeming to search for the source of the bloody miasma.

“Reel in those lines,” Quint said to Brody. “They won’t do any good now we’ve got him up.”

Brody brought in the lines one by one and let the squid bait fall to the deck. The fish moved slightly closer to the boat, still cruising slowly.

Quint set the barrel on the transom to the left of Hooper’s bucket and arranged the rope beside it. Then he climbed up on the transom and stood, his right arm cocked, holding the harpoon. “Come on,” he said. “Come on in here.”

But the fish would come no closer than fifty feet from the boat.

“I don’t get it,” said Quint. “He should come in and take a look at us. Brody, take the cutters out of my back pocket and clip off those squid bait and throw ’em overboard. Maybe some food’ll bring him in. And splash the hell out of the water when you throw ’em. Let him know something’s there.”

Brody did as he was told, slapping and roiling the water with a gaff, always keeping the fin in sight, for he imagined the fish suddenly appearing from the deep and seizing him by the arm.

“Throw some other ones while you’re at it,” said Quint. “They’re in the chest there. And throw those beers over, too.”

“The beers? What for?”

“The more we can get in the water, the better. Don’t make no difference what it is, so long as it gets him interested enough to want to find out.”

Hooper said, “What about the porpoise?”

“Why, Mr. Hooper,” said Quint. “I thought you didn’t approve.”

“Never mind that,” Hooper said excitedly. “I want to see that fish!”

“We’ll see,” said Quint. “If I have to use it, I will.”

The squid had drifted back toward the shark, and one of the beers bobbed on the surface as it slowly faded aft of the boat. But still the fish stayed away.

They waited — Hooper ladling, Quint poised on the transom, Brody standing by one of the rods.

“Shit,” said Quint. “I guess I got no choice.” He set the harpoon down and jumped off the transom. He flipped the top off the garbage can next to Brody, and Brody saw the lifeless eyes of the tiny porpoise as it swayed in the briny water. The sight repelled him, and he turned away.

“Well, little fella,” said Quint. “The time has come.” From the lazaret he took a length of dog-leash chain and snapped one end of it into the hook eye protruding from beneath the porpoise’s jaw. To the other end of the chain he tied a length of three-quarter-inch hemp. He uncoiled several yards of the rope, cut it, and made it fast to a cleat on the starboard gunwale.

“I thought you said the shark could pull out a cleat,” said Brody.

“It might just,” said Quint. “But I’m betting I can get an iron in him and cut the rope before he pulls it taut enough to yank the cleat.” Quint took hold of the dog chain and lifted the starboard gunwale and set it down. He climbed onto the transom and pulled the porpoise after him. He took the knife from the sheath at his belt. With his left hand he held the porpoise out in front of him. Then, with his right, he cut a series of shallow slashes in the porpoise’s belly. A rank, dark liquid oozed from the animal and fell in droplets on the water. Quint tossed the porpoise into the water, let out six feet of line, then put the rope under his foot on the transom and stepped down hard. The porpoise floated just beneath the surface of the water, less than six feet from the boat.

“That’s pretty close,” said Brody.

“Has to be,” said Quint. “I can’t get a shot at him if he’s thirty feet away.”

“Why are you standing on the rope?”

“To keep the little fella where he is. I don’t want to cleat it down that close to the boat. If he took it and didn’t have any running room, he could thrash around and beat us to pieces.” Quint hefted the harpoon and looked at the shark’s fin.

The fish moved closer, still cruising back and forth but closing the gap between itself and the boat by a few feet with every passage. Then it stopped, twenty or twenty-five feet away, and for a second seemed to lie motionless in the water, aimed directly at the boat. The tail dropped beneath the surface; the dorsal fin slid backward and vanished; and the great head reared up, mouth open in a slack, savage grin, eyes black and abysmal.

Brody stared in mute horror, sensing that this was what it must be like to try to stare down the devil.

“Hey, fish!” Quint called. He stood on the transom, legs spread, his hand curled around the shaft of the harpoon that rested on his shoulder. “Come see what we’ve got for you!”

For another moment the fish hung in the water, watching. Then, soundlessly, the head slid back and disappeared.

“Where’d he go?” said Brody.

“He’ll be coming now,” said Quint. “Come, fish,” he purred. “Come, fish. Come get your supper.” He pointed the harpoon at the floating porpoise.

Suddenly the boat lurched violently to the side. Quint’s legs skidded out from under him, and he fell on his back on the transom. The harpoon dart separated from the shaft and clattered to the deck. Brody tumbled sideways, grabbed the back of the chair, and twirled around as the chair swiveled. Hooper spun backward and slammed into the port gunwale.

The rope attached to the porpoise tautened and shivered. The knot by which it was secured to the cleat tightened so hard that the rope flattened and its fibers popped. The wood under the cleat began to crack. Then the rope snapped backward, went slack, and curled in the water beside the boat.

“I’ll be fucked!” said Quint.

“It was like he knew what you were trying to do,” said Brody, “like he knew there was a trap set for him.”

“Goddammit! I never have seen a fish do that before.”

“He knew if he knocked you down he could get to the porpoise.”

“Shit, he was just aiming for the porpoise, and he missed.”

Hooper said, “Aiming from the opposite side of the boat?”

“Well, it don’t make no nevermind,” said Quint. “Whatever he did, it worked.”

“How do you think he got off the hook?” said Brody. “He didn’t pull the cleat out.”

Quint walked over to the starboard gunwale and began to pull in the rope. “He either bit right through the chain, or else… uh-huh, that’s what I figured.” He leaned over the gunwale and grabbed the chain. He pulled it aboard. It was intact, the clip still attached to the eye of the hook. But the hook itself had been destroyed. The steel shaft no longer curled. It was nearly straight, marked by two small bumps where once it had been tempered into a curve.