Beast

Beast

By Peter Benchley

By the time Darling rounded the point into Mangrove Bay, the blue of the sky was fast turning violet, and the departed sun had tinted the western clouds the color of salmon.

A single light bulb burned on the dock, and beneath it, moored to a piling, was a white twenty-five-foot outboard motorboat with the word Police stenciled on the side in foot-high blue letters.

“Christ,” Mike said, “he's reported us already.”

“I doubt it,” said Dorothy, “he's a fool, but he's not crazy.”

Two young policemen stood on the dock, one white, one black, both wearing uniform shirts, shorts and knee socks. They watched as Darling eased the boat against the dock, and they passed Mike the bow and stern lines.

Darling knew the policemen, had no problem with them – no more than he had with the marine police in general, whom he regarded as ill-trained, underequipped and overburdened. These two he had taken to sea with him on their days off, had helped them learn to read the reefs, had shown them shortcuts to the few deep-water channels in and out of Bermuda.

Still, he chose to remain on the flying bridge, sensing instinctively that altitude reinforced his authority.

He leaned on the railing and raised a finger and said, “Colin... Barnett...”

“Hey, Whip...” Colin, the white cop, said.

Barnett said, “Come aboard?”

“Come ahead,” said Darling. “What brings you fellas out of the night?”

“Hear you found a raft,” Barnett said.

“True enough.”

Bernett stepped aboard and pointed to the raft lying athwart the cockpit, “That it?”

“That's the one.”

Barnett shone a flashlight on the raft and leaned down to it. “Lord, it stinks!”

Colin stayed where he was and said hesitantly, “Whip... we gotta take it.”

Darling paused: “Why's that?” Somebody claim to have lost it?”

“No... not exactly.”

“Them it's mine, isn't it?... First law of salvage: finders keepers.:

“Well...” Colin seemed uneasy. He looked at his feet. “Not this time.”

“Dr. St. John,” Colin said. “He wants it.”

“Dr. St.John.” Now Darling knew he was bound to lose, and his temper was bound to win. “I see.”

Liam St.John was one of the few men in Bermuda whom Darling took the trouble to loathe. A second-generation Irish immigrant, he had gone away to school in Montana and graduated from some diploma mill that awarded him a doctorate. Exactly what the doctorate was in, nobody knew and he never said. All anybody knew for certain was that little Liam had left Bermuda pronouncing his name “Saint-John” and had returned pronouncing it (and insisting everyone else do, too) “SINjin.”

Armed with an alphabet appended to his name, St.John had rallied a few powerful friend of his parents and besieged the government, arguing that certain disciplines, such as maritime history and wildlife management, were being grossly mishandled by amateurs and should be turned over to certified, qualified experts – which meant him, since he was the only status-Bermudian with a doctorate in anything other than medicine. Never mind that his degree was in an unknown field, probably some thing utterly useless like Druid combs.

An island. Pic by Elena.