2008 Wrap Up

For my final blog of 2008, I offer a heartfelt thanks. Thank you for fishing, for keeping only what you need, for releasing most, and for passing it on. Without you there would be no incredible fishing stories. Keep fishing and keep in touch.

I’d also like to offer an excerpt from my first fishing mystery novel. The novel is titled, WAHOO RHAPSODY, and with a little luck may soon find its way to a publisher. Please feel free to critique the excerpt. All responses are welcome, good and bad.

That’s it for 2008. And as always, may you have a lifetime of fisherman’s luck!!



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WAHOO RHAPSODY
by Shaun Morey

MAGDELENA BAY, BAJA CALIFORNIA
Gus Carter couldn’t believe his eyes. And that meant something. Five years of self-imposed exile south-of-the-border had been anything but humdrum. But a beachful of dead stingrays. That was out of the ordinary.
Gus sat straighter on the back of his saddleless mule, his hardened middle-aged frame towering above the stout animal. The morning sun reflected sharply off the outgoing tide, and the summertime heat stilted the air. He rolled up the sleeves of his Cuban-style shirt, the buttons opened to his narrow waist. He strained his eyes, lifted the wide brim of his fishskin hat, and felt a rope of sweat coil down his powerful neck.
Another lifeless stingray was washing ashore. That made twenty in just the last ten minutes. All of them speared pointblank. If this kept up, he’d never make Cabo in time. Never catch the Wahoo Rhapsody before its departure north. Never make the birthday surprise for the captain who’d found him floating in the ocean all those years ago.
And that riled Gus nearly as much as this senseless killing spree.
He gently heeled a bare foot into the mule’s flank, and picked up the trot. Ahead, a lone black pick-up truck rested on half-buried tires just above the waterline. Beside the truck was a badly constructed tent, and beside the tent an avalanche of empty beer cans. A depression of sand with remnants of charred wood marked the previous night’s fire. Across from the fire pit a cooler held an I-Pod and a foot. The I-Pod blared profanity masquerading as music. The foot waggled masquerading as rhythm.
Gus rode into camp and stopped. A college-aged kid sat in an expensive beach chair, his eyes closed, the big toe of his gyrating foot red and slightly swollen.
“Buenos dias!” Gus hollered over the loud music.
The kid snapped open his eyes. “What the fuck, man!” He pushed himself upright in the chair. “You scared the holy shit out of me.”
Gus ran a calloused hand along the edge of his sun-bleached goatee, and let his fingers fall to the metal crimp cinching the ponytail of hair beneath his chin. He motioned toward the I-Pod. “You mind?”
The kid scowled, and turned down the music.
Gus smiled, his sea green eyes glistening. “You should soak that toe in hot water. Takes away the pain. Pulls out any infection.”
“Doc recommends beer.” The kid reached into the sand for his can of Tecate. He raised it to his lips. “What can I do for you, old timer?”
“Those your friends out there?” Gus nodded toward the two snorkelers splashing along the shoreline.
“My clean-up crew? Wouldn’t go anywhere without them.” He chugged half the beer.
Gus watched the one of the snorkelers kick downward, then surface with a loud whoop. “They sure do enjoy the spear fishing.”
“Spear killing’s more like it.” He finished his beer. “Doc’s the one making all the noise. He’s pre-med. Knows all about snakes and venom and shit.” He fished another beer from the cooler. “Fucking rays are a menace, man.”
Gus dismounted in a single, swift motion, landing softly on the sand just inches from the man’s chair. “You weren’t bitten,” he hissed. “You were stung.”
Beer sprayed from the man’s mouth. “What the—!” He took a quick breath, and glanced around. “Weren’t you just on that horse?”
“Mule.”
The young man narrowed his eyes at Gus. “Whatever, dude.” He squinted, and tried to look intimidating. “Did I invite you into our camp?”
“That’s a lot of dead rays.”
“Cool, huh? The locals can thank us later…” his voice trailed off as he watched Gus step to the back of the truck and reach into the bed. “Hey, you can’t do that!”
Gus hefted a thick tangle of rope with ease, and dropped to one knee. From the corner of his eye he saw the kid stumble from the chair and grab a half-burnt log from the ashes.
“I’m serious, man. That’s my truck. My rope. Don’t make me hurt you.”
Gus twisted the rope a few times, stood, and casually flung a lasso, cinching the loop tightly around the young man’s chest and arms. The captive’s eyes bulged in surprise. He dropped the log and screamed.
Gus stepped casually to the mule, hopped aboard with ease, and looped the tag end around the animal’s neck. Then he turned up the beach toward a small inlet of water left by the ebbing tide. An estuary less than a quarter mile away, brimming with the recent spawn of baby stingrays, safe from predators until the next new moon and the spring tide that would flush them out the sea.
“Whoa, man!” the kid yelled as the rope tugged him forward. “You can’t do this. I’m American! I got rights!”
Gus didn’t answer. Instead he eyed another flat round corpse drifting onto the wet sand.
The kid leaned heavily against the rope. “Hey, I’m injured back here!”
Gus turned, and gazed back at his captive. “You’ll live. That’s more than I can say for the rays.”
“My buddies’ll be coming out any minute, man!”
“Hope so.”
“Let me go, goddammit!”
“You can count on it,” Gus nodded, and with his free hand slapped the mule hard on the flank.
Thirty minutes later, after leaving the arrogant young man at the estuary, hogtied and sitting, his stingray-stung toe soaking in the warm saltwater, Gus urged his mule back down the beach. As he approached the scene of the stingray crime, he thought about the money. So many millions and so little worth buying. Creative banking was the logical choice.
But hiding the world’s richest settlement had been a challenge. The seaplane with its fat belly and hollow walls took care of the first few million. Purchasing the Baja island used up a few more. Building the sand dune castle helped, especially its hollow octagon walls encasing at least another ten million in cash insulation.
But then, he was just getting started.
Gus had rented storage units, and stuffed them with boxes of hundreds. He’d flown to Canada and bought acres of coastline. Went to Paraguay for a mountaintop rainforest. The Caribbean for a marina. He bought a second seaplane, stored it at the marina, and filled it with currency. He purchased an ecolodge in Guatemala, a fly-in fish camp in Honduras, and parked a private plane in a hanger near Mexico City—in case the zealots honed in on his hideaway.
And then he started to relax. He grew his hair, burned his courtroom clothes, even buried his shoes. Then he settled into his sand dune island, rode his mule, flew his plane, and fished. What else could the world’s most famous class-action attorney need?
A bar, it seemed.
The fact that he hadn’t had a drink since falling off the Wahoo Rhapsody ten years earlier in the middle of the night did nothing to dissuade him. Magdelena Bay needed a bar. A watering hole where the locals felt comfortable, and the vagabonds felt welcome. A place where the proprietor wouldn’t quaff the profits.
And so, a year after successfully suing the Almighty for wrongful death, after pocketing more money than God, after fleeing the fanatics and the incessant tabloids, Gus opened Cantina Del Cielo.
Heaven’s Bar.
He hired the local matriarch to manage it. Trucked in a grader to keep the old road passable. Bought supplies from the locals, and served handmade mescal and freshly caught seafood. Fish tacos and sand dab tostadas became the specialty. Frostbitten beer, chilled by state-of-the-art solar-powered coolers, became the attraction.
And an unexpected success.
Revenue from the bar transformed the old grade school, repaired the decrepit sewer line, built the new soccer field. And, as word spread of the coldest beer in Baja and melt-in-your-mouth fish tacos, more and more sailboats veered off course to anchor in the bay. More and more carloads of norte Americanos caravanned down in a cloud of Baja dust.
Most were harmless adventurers. Tourists eager to spend pesos. Surfers in search of uncrowded waves. Drunks and drifters, dropouts and wanderers.
But these campers were different.
Deadly different.
Gus stopped his mule in the shallow water, and watched the two snorkelers exit the surf. They wore flippers and masks, and each held a Hawaiian sling. Both six-foot-long fiberglass shafts glinted in the sun. One boy jabbed the pronged end of his sling into the sand, leaning over it like a savior on a staff. The other boy proudly hefted his Hawaiian sling into the air. A juvenile stingray flapped awkwardly at the end, its wings contorted by the piercing prongs.
“Death to the devil fish!” the boy called out, and flung the wounded ray through the air. It Frisbeed to the sand, and lay still.
Gus, who had rummaged two more ropes from the back of the nearby truck, nudged the mule up the shoreline. He watched the spearfishermen high-five each other, then tug the masks from their faces. They blinked away the saltwater. One glanced toward him and elbowed his friend. They both turned.
“Howdy boys,” Gus called out. The mule moved in close and stopped. “Good fishing?”
“Hell yeah!” the one with the sling in the air, declared. “But watch out for your horse, man. Stingrays everywhere.”
“Were everywhere,” the other boy corrected, and the two high-fived again.
Gus tipped back his wide-brimmed hat. “Mule.”
“Cool,” said the boy who’d flung the stingray. He took a flippered step forward. “Fishing makes me thirsty.” He squinted toward camp. “Hey, where’s Luke?”
“About this spearfishing,” Gus commented, ignoring the question about Luke. “Plan on eating all those rays?”
The two spearfishermen frowned. “No fucking way,” one said. The other asked in a foul tone, “People eat that shit?”
Gus raised a rope in each hand, and began to twirl the lassoes.
“Hey, are those our ropes?” they asked in tandem, gawking at the spinning loops.
Gus pitched the left-handed lasso, and caught the first boy. The second boy tried to move quickly, but his flippered feet caught the sand. He fell to his knees, and Gus sent the second lasso over the boy’s shoulders and pulled tightly.
Obscenities drowned out the sound of the waves. Gus worked quickly, looping the ropes over the mule’s head, turning the animal toward the inlet half a mile away. The mule took a few steps, and yanked the two spearfishermen forward. Both bellyflopped to the sand. They stopped yelling.
“Ready?” Gus asked.
The first lassoee kicked off his flippers. He scrambled up trying to wiggle free. “Ready for what?”
Gus stroked the mule’s neck, keeping the lines tight. “Ever been on a desert sleigh ride?”
“Huh?”
“Closing your eyes is highly recommended.” He slapped the mule’s flank.
Minutes later he pulled to a stop at the estuary where the first camper hunched forward, hands trussed behind his back, his swollen toe still soaking in the shallow water. Raw, sandy, sores tattooed his back and shoulders.
Gus freed the ropes from the mule’s neck, and hopped to the ground. He strolled back to the two sandy lumps, and leaned down. “Best to soak those sand burns as soon as possible.” He glanced at the placid saltwater. “Gonna sting, though.”
“He’s crazy, man!” hollered Luke, jerking his swollen toe from the water as a pair of oval shadows swam past. “Totally fucking whacked.”
The two new arrivals spit sand from their mouths. Their swim trunks were twisted low on their hips, the skin around their waists and upper backs covered in sticky red swaths. Each looked wild-eyed and anxious.
One of them said, “Whatever it is, man, take it. You want the truck, it’s yours.”
Luke spun on his knees, and said, “It’s not your truck, Jessie. It’s mine, so shut the fuck up!”
“He’s gonna kill us, bro,” Jessie pleaded. “Don’t be stupid. It’s just a truck. Your old man will buy you another one.”
Gus bent down, and with the butt end of each rope, fastened his newest victims’ wrists in front of their bodies. “Nobody’s getting killed. And I don’t want your truck.” He yanked the boys to their feet. “Start walking.”
“Huh?” they said together.
“Into the water.”
“That’s it?”
Gus smiled. “That’s it.”
Luke released a throaty laugh. “It’s full of stingrays, you idiots. I’ve been watching them while Indiana Jones there rode off on his donkey. Thousands of ‘em swimming around like little pancakes, only with fangs and shit. One just tried to bite my foot.”
“Lesson number one,” Gus said, prodding the two boys toward the watery minefield. “Rays don’t attack. They’re shy. They hate being stepped on. The trick is to shuffle. That way they feel you coming, and swim away.” He motioned for the third boy to stand. “You, too, Skywalker.”
“Fuck you,” Luke said. He hugged his knees defiantly.
Gus took two lunging steps, grasped Luke by the waist, and flung him easily into the shallow water. Luke bellyflopped. He splashed to his feet in cartoon speed, howling at the sudden pain. His arms, still knotted behind his back, flapped up and down in tandem. Stinger welts rose on his thighs and chest. He stared down into the clear water, and froze. The estuary floor was carpeted with rays.
Gus casually brushed saltwater from his dungarees. He turned to the other two. “Next?”
Both boys quickly muddled into the water, their feet dragging across the bottom like leaden shoes.
“All the way across,” Gus ordered, and whistled for his mule standing in the shade of a mesquite tree nibbling leaves. Gus pulled himself astride. “These rays are only a few weeks old,” he explained. “Stings won’t last long.” He eyed Luke who stood calf-deep and stiff as rebar. “Lesson number two: Skywalker mentioned having rights. Down here, you want rights you earn them.”
The one named Jessie released a sudden wail.
Gus shrugged. “Focus on the first lesson right now.”
Jessie nodded. “I’m really sorry about all those stingrays, sir. I swear it’ll never happen again.” He shuffled deeper, the water rising to his thighs, then his waist. He screeched as it lapped against a raw petal of skin. Jessie backpeddled into Luke, and stepped on a second ray. He wailed again.
“What, are you retarded, Jesse?” Luke asked, snapping out of his stupor, and chest-bumping Jesse. “The freak said to shuffle, dumbass.”
“Fuck off,” Jessie said, and shoved Luke with manacled hands. Both stepped off balance and screamed. Each started shuffling toward shore.
“Wrong direction,” Gus said, nosing his mule to the water’s edge.
Jessie and Luke switched directions, shuffling fast toward the middle of the salty lake. The third boy, who had resorted to swimming a modified breaststroke, suddenly cried out. He splashed to his feet, surprised to be in ankle-deep water. He raised his locked wrists, and touched a tiny trickle of blood slaloming down his neck.
“Sandbars,” Gus called out. “Best to shuffle over them.”
The boy nodded theatrically.
“Halfway across,” Gus ordered, “and I’ll be on my way. I’ll be back after lunch, and there better not be any sign of your camp. Not even a tread mark.”
“Yes sir,” all three said with conviction.
“Kill another stingray, and I’ll find you.”
“Okay.” They nodded meekly, continuing to shuffle.
Gus patted the mule on the neck, and cantered through the mesquite grove up the beach toward his bar.
He glanced up at the sun. Almost noon.
Still time to catch the Wahoo Rhapsody.
Just as soon as he cleaned up all those corpses.