Watching me…and whimpering.
I knew it was there. I had heard it, after all. But seeing the little guy inside the cage, watching me, was a different story altogether.
With Sanchez holding the shark hunter back, I slowly approached the cage. Once there, I knelt down, took one corner of the tarp…steeled myself…and lifted.
There wasn’t much light in this godforsaken place, but there was enough for me to see the scruffy dog inside. It was a mutt through and through. Curly, entangled hair. Eye goop caked from the corner of its eyes all the way down its muzzle.
Its muzzle. Oh, sweet Jesus.
I leaned down closer toward the dog, and as I did so, the man behind me made a move, but Sanchez slammed him hard back against the cabin wall.
The dog. Something was gleaming from his muzzle. Something metallic and curved and reddish. Then again, my eyes have always played tricks on me, at least when it came to color.
But the smell that wafted up to me was unmistakable.
The rotten fish was a given. Hell, the whole damn marina smelled like rotten fish. No, what I was smelling now was blood. Fresh blood. Coppery, sharp, pungent.
I pulled the tarp all the way off. The mangy mutt shrank back. Or tried to. Something was wrong with his little paws. Something clank and even seemed to catch on the cage. Not its nails. No. Again, something metal. I was sure of it.
The shark hunter continued to struggle with Sanchez, who promptly slammed him once more against the cabin’s exterior. This time, the entire boat shuddered with the impact. Water slapped the hull. I heard the woman crying from below deck.
The mangy dog, which probably weighed about thirty pounds, shrank down into a small, tangled ball of fur. It shook violently. Its shaking vibrated down through the wooden deck. The metal cage shook, as well.
I moved in closer. “It’s okay, boy.”
Now I could smell the urine and see the piles of crap littering the cage. Much of the crap looked like diarrhea.
Where the dog had once been standing were fresh paw prints. Bloody paw prints, and now I could clearly see why. Massive, rusted hooks protruded from its front paws. It made walking or standing for the creature not only torturous but nearly impossible. It huddled low, shaking uncontrollably, alternately whining and growling.
There was, of course, another hook. And this was the one that threw me into a blind rage. Another hook, as big or bigger than the ones in its front paws, protruded through its upper lip, hanging down like a metallic mustache. The world’s sickest joke.
Except this wasn’t a joke.
This was real. This dog was bait. Plain and simple. Its suffering meant nothing to the shark hunter. I was tempted to reach in for the dog but I was certain of a few things. First, it was going to attack me, as the creature was nearly out of its mind with fear. And second, it needed to be sedated to remove the hooks.
I stood slowly and turned, shaking nearly uncontrollably myself. I pointed to the shark hunter. “Let him go,” I said to Sanchez.
But my friend shook his head. “You’ll kill him, man.”
“ Let him go.”
But Sanchez shook his head. “I can’t do that, Jim. If I let him go, then you’ll never leave this country again.”
“ Fuck him.”
“ I agree,” said Sanchez, who had placed his body between the man and myself. “But he’s not worth it, man. He’s just a shit bag. Shit bags aren’t worth going to jail for the rest of your life.”
My frustration was nearly overwhelming. Frustration and anger. I stepped up to the guy currently pinned against the wall by Sanchez’s forearm. There was no fear in him; in fact, he was grinning at me. Although I doubted he recognized me, I was now certain he was the same piece of shit who had removed the hammerhead’s fins, the same piece of shit who had dumped the still-living and helpless shark back into the ocean. The same piece of shit who had grinned at me in much the same way.
“ Translate this for me,” I said to Sanchez. He nodded and I went on, speaking slowly enough that Sanchez wouldn’t miss a word. “If I ever see you within a hundred feet of a dog, cat, or fucking hamster, I will come for you. If I ever see you hunting sharks or even sardines, I will come for you. Do you understand, motherfucker?”
He blinked, waiting for Sanchez to finish translating. Then he grinned again, wider, and hocked a nasty lugie straight into my face.
“ Okay, one punch,” said Sanchez, “and make it a good one.”
He released the guy, who charged me instantly. One punch for every dog to have ever been thrown overboard to the sharks. One punch for every shark who’d been butchered alive.
One punch didn’t settle the score.
But it sure as hell felt good.
I hit him just under his right eye, so hard that I heard his cheekbone shatter. His legs turned to rubber and he promptly sank to the deck where he lay unmoving.
Breathing, but unmoving.
Sanchez nodded, impressed. “Helluva punch.”