Eye of the Whale by Douglas Carlton Abrams Read Free Book Online Page A

had just done, but there was no time to answer.
    Sliver continued rotating her giant body away from the whaleboat. The line was soon pulled taut, and the boat started to take on water.
    “Loose the line, man, loose the line,” Teo shouted, trying to save his boat and his crew. The men let the rope run out around the loggerhead.
    “Cut it!” Elizabeth shouted, but the leading oarsman did not reach for the hatchet. Not unless Captain Teo gave the order.
    Sliver continued rolling and quickly took up the slack. She and her baby were now tangled in eighty feet of rope. Elizabeth could see the baby pressed against Sliver’s belly, the rough ropes starting to cut into its delicate skin.
    “Get me closer,” Elizabeth shouted, hoping to put herself and the boat between the whales and the whalers.
    Milton gunned the engine, his eyes wide. He knew they were in danger, and he was nervous. The swell brought them within a few feet of the whale, and when he reversed the motor, it was too late.
    Sliver thrust herself out of the water in a partial breach. The fifteen-ton head came crashing down toward Milton’s boat.
    “Jump, Milton,” Elizabeth shouted moments before the jaw splintered the bow of his boat. Elizabeth and Milton were thrown out of the boat as the planks shattered.
    Elizabeth surfaced and gasped for breath. She was floating in the water, surrounded by countless wooden pieces. Only five feet away, a thirty-five-ton animal was still entangled and trying with every ounce of its strength to get free.
    “Milton,” she shouted, “are you all right?” She knew that Milton, like many fishermen, could not swim.
    “Me here at the whaleboat. Where you, Liza?” he yelled. He couldn’t see her on the opposite side of the whale.
    Elizabeth did not answer. She was no longer thinking of fleeing,as she saw Sliver’s flipper floating just under the water next to her, still straining against the line that encircled mother and calf. Elizabeth reached her hand down to touch the knobby leading edge of the fin, which seemed to stop resisting for a moment.
    “Liza, get away from the whale,” Teo called out with the first traces of fear she had ever heard in his voice.
    The water was unnaturally warm and smelled sickeningly sweet. It was dyed red with blood. Man-of-war birds, like vultures, were circling above.
    A rifle shot startled Elizabeth. “Liza, get to the boat.” It was Teo again.
    Elizabeth saw her yellow Pelican case floating nearby. She took a few overarm strokes to grab it and then swam around Sliver’s massive head. She looked for the whale’s eye, hoping to be able to judge how far gone Sliver was, but it was underwater. When Elizabeth came alongside the boat, she handed up her case. For the second time in as many days, she felt hands grab for her arms and pull her into the boat.
    “Cut her loose,” Elizabeth demanded, panting and barely able to control her temper.
    “She struck deep. If I cut her loose, she still die.”
    Elizabeth looked around at the faces of the whalers. She didn’t know what she was looking for. She certainly wouldn’t find support. This was their moment of glory.
    Uree, the midship oarsman and the youngest man in the crew, looked up at her from where he was bent over listening to the centerboard box. “The whale making noise,” he said.
    Elizabeth unclipped her case. She dropped the hydrophone into the water and put on the headphones, as if the sound could help her save Sliver and her calf. Elizabeth closed her eyes and tried to decode it. Eeee-eeee-eeee. It was a distress call, plaintive and haunting.
    The moan of maternal anguish cracked open any pretense ofobjectivity shielding Elizabeth’s heart, and she had to choke back tears. Just the day before, she had witnessed the miracle of this mother giving birth and helped the baby to live. And now it was all for nothing—the calf and its mother were being murdered together. Elizabeth breathed deeply and squeezed her eyes shut, trying