From Lands Over
by
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65
TIGER
I was diving on a string of crawfish, had just speared one and broken off the tail, discarded the head, and was kneeling on the bottom putting the tail in my suit, when I felt a strange current roil the back of my neck, sending my hair upwards. I quickly looked around. Where I expected to see the clear green of the water, I saw only a light grey. The side of a shark, and not a little lemon. The side of the shark filled my vision from side to side, up and down, it was so large. It had just swerved away from me and I, at first, was focused just on its side. As it completed its swerve away from me, I was able to see more of it. I noticed immediately its broad head, and the faint grey broad stripes on its dorsal side. It was a tiger shark. A huge tiger shark in the ten to twelve-foot class. Not the usually harmless reef sharks we were accustomed to, but a dangerous shark, especially in the circumstances we were in. In a depression full of agitated, feeding fish. The tiger had made a pass at me, changing its mind only at the last second, and swerving away. It then began to circle me, making passes towards me. I surfaced.
"Shark. A big tiger." I yelled over to where Fred and Lola had surfaced. "Be careful." I dove again so I could see what the shark was doing, and so I wouldn’t feel like my dangling legs were vulnerable.
It was still circling me. As it did, I kept my front to it, so it would always know that I was aware of what it was doing. I cocked the sling, although it would be almost useless should the shark press home the attack, unless I was very, very lucky. Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see Fred and Lola swimming on the surface towards me and the tube. Their actions attracted the shark, and it turned from me and rushed them, attacking. Before I could surface it struck Lola high up on the inside of her left thigh, holding on, and thrashing its head from side to side, sawing with its slanted teeth trying to rip flesh from her, as it slowly sunk, dragging her under. I started for them as Fred dove to her, dropping his sling to grab Lola under the arms to try and pull her from the shark’s mouth. They were halfway to the bottom by the time I got to them, the tiger still thrashing its head, trying to sever Lola’s leg from the rest of her.
I was at the end of my air, my lungs were burning, almost beyond bearing, when I got to them, and made a desperation shot with the sling. It was a lucky shot. The spear went directly into the shark’s left eye, a third of the way in. The shark ripped loose from Lola then, taking a part of her in the process, turned and began to thrash anew, trying to dislodge the spear, Lola forgotten in its pain. Fred was taking Lola to the surface, the reddish brown stain of her blood marking her passage upward. I surfaced with them.
"We’ve got to get her to shore!" Fed yelled. "Fast as we can. The shark’s done a lot of damage to her leg. She’s bleeding bad."
Lola was in a state of shock. Not believing the unbelievable. She had been almost taken by a shark. Had been hurt bad by the slanted teeth and jaws of a huge tiger shark. She didn’t act like it was physical pain, but a type, a form of mental terror.
We took her to the tube. I cut the burlap bag from the tube, letting it and the contents sink to the bottom.
"Put her in the tube, Fred." I said. He did. And we could see then the blood spurting out of a huge wound high on the inside of her thigh. The shark had ripped out almost all of the flesh from halfway up the inside of her thigh to her pelvic area. In places bone was showing through.
"It got an artery," I said. "You’re gonna have to keep pressure on the artery ‘till we can get her to the beach." I told Fred. "Try to stop it with pressure or she won’t make it. Try to find the artery and pinch it off. I’ll swim us to the beach."
I cut the stone off the anchor line, wrapped the line over and under around my chest, and started for the beach with all the energy I could transfer to my swim fins, and in a full crawl stroke. Fred helped by kicking, but his hands were full trying to keep Lola in the tube and trying to stop the bleeding. On my breathing stroke I could see behind us. At first thirty yards away, then further, I saw the shark trashing around on the surface, still unable to dislodge my spear from its eye. When I looked up from my stroke to get my bearing for the beach, I could see people pointing at us and running off the beach. When I was about a third of the way in, Fred yelled:
"Frank! I can’t keep the bleeding stopped, the artery has been yanked up in her groin. It slipped out of my hands."
I swam back to them. And the blood was spurting out like it was at first, covering her, and us too, staining the water around us. Lola said then:
"I’m not going to make it. I’m weak. The shark has killed me."
"Shut up!" I yelled. "You’re not going to die. We’re gonna get you in."
"No." She said. "I’ll be dead before you get me in."
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About the Book
From the great hurricane of 1909 on Assateague Island (a Land Over), to the death of United States Supreme Court Justice Frank Oden almost a century later on the island of Bimini in the Bahamas, the Oden family copes with survival and death in the sea, and rape, murder and death ashore, as the barrier island family struggles over the years to overcome the poverty of their beginnings. A saga spanning three generations of a family from the beginning of the Twentieth Century to its ending.
A story of the coasters, the people of the mid-Atlantic barrier islands- as they evolve from the days of outlaw gunners and commercial fishermen, to the development of the sport-fishing industry. A story of rich and poor- the guides and captains who had the skills that made it possible and the rich who had the money to pay for it- bound together by the legendary Kelly of the island of Bimini.
The last generation of the Odens persevere as they fight and love, kill and die, from the High Atlas mountains of North Africa and the brothels of Casablanca, to the islands of the mid-Atlantic and the southeast coast of the United States, and finally to the halls of Congress and The Supreme Court.
About the Author
The author grew up in the vicinity of the barrier island town of Ocean City, Maryland, and as a young boy, and then a man, was told by the old timers, the stories of the early evolution of that town, and the evolution of the fishing industry from its very beginnings. As a young man he worked on the beaches of Ocean City as a beach boy, in its bars as a bartender, and worked as a guide on big game fishing boats off Ocean City, Cape Hatteras, Florida and the Bahamas.
He spent two and a half years in Morocco, where he developed a love for the country as it existed in the mid-1950s. Upon his return to this country, he eventually became a lawyer and practiced in his home town. Later he spent nine and a half years as a trial court judge, and most recently has spent over thirteen years as an appellate court judge.
He has used all of his experience to stimulate his imagination to create a work of fiction - a novel that might have happened, sometime, somewhere.
He is married to the love of his life, has three grown children, and two grandchildren.