Read Online Night of the Howling Dogs by Graham Salisbury - Free Book Online

between us. As hard as I tried, it just wasn’t possible to ignore him, or even pretend I could.
    “Whatchoo looking at, haole?” he said. The muscles in his jaw rippled. His eyes were empty of anything good.
    I turned away, shaking my head.
    “You like go round with me, punk?” he said.
    “No.”
    “Good choice.”

The water was warm, calm, and so clear you could see the bottom as easily as looking through glass. Which was good, because there were a zillion
wana
down there, spiky black sea urchins that would stab poison into your foot if you stepped on them.
    Inside I felt like a smoldering dump fire. Who needs sour looks and someone trying to push you around, ruining your life? I’d come here to get away from that.
    “Out of my way,” Louie said, shoving past us.
    He went in first and bobbed out awkwardly, then started churning up a lot of foam as he dog-paddled toward the island. Well, I’ll be, I thought. Mr. Bad Man can’t swim. That made me feel better.
    Louie splashed across the water to where he could touch bottom, and made it up onto the island without stepping on any wana.
    The rest of us glided around underwater like fish, me with my glasses clutched in my hand, the fishing-line cord curled around my wrist. I did my best to make the swim look effortless, as if I’d been born to the sea.
    The island was just a pile of rocks with a little dirt and a handful of weeds. We climbed onto it and sat in the sun. I blew the water off my glasses and put them back on.
    Wow…what a view!
    Across the way, our camp in the coconut grove looked tiny under the massive cliff. The wall was a thousand feet high, a face of boulders that dwarfed everything below it. I scanned the ridgeline, remembering the night before. “Last night I saw two dogs up there. They were looking down on us.”
    Casey shaded his eyes and gazed up at Pu’u Kapukapu. “Maybe they were those same ones we saw before.”
    “That was my thought, too.”
    After a pause, Louie said, “They following us.”
    I glanced at him.
    He turned away, looked at the ocean.
    Mike said, “Prob’ly hoping to snack on our food.”
    Minutes passed in silence. I studied the desolate landscape, the southernmost point of the entire United States. It was beautiful…in a barren kind of way.
    “Ho!” Mike said. “Look.”
    Just offshore, weaving its way in and out of the shallow waters between where we sat and our camp, was a sleek gray fin.
    Shark.
    I felt my hair rise, watching it move. There was a round hole in its fin, a wound that had puckered and healed discolored. The shark was nosing through the reef, feeding, minding its own business.
    But sharks are sharks. One scent of blood, sweat, or fear and they could go nuts. This one wasn’t that big, but it was big enough to make my gut twist into a knot.
    “That’s going to make swimming back interesting,” Casey said.
    “Wait it out,” Mike said. “It’ll go away.”
    I put up my hand. “Don’t move. If it knows we’re here, it might wait around for us to get in the water.”
    Louie laughed. “Right.”
    “Well, maybe it will. What do you know?”
    “Sharks don’t think.”
    “It smells us,” Mike said. “Lunch.”
    “Shuddup, Mike,” Casey said.
    Louie stood, looking at the shark, steady and cool. “You ready fo’ swim back?”
    Casey’s jaw dropped. “You
crazy
?”
    “You scared of it?”
    The shark was gliding right in front of us now. The hole in its fin looked like a battle scar.
    Casey shaded his eyes and looked up at Louie. “Not scared, Louie…smart.”
    I nodded, not looking at Louie.
    Mike, too, seemed to agree. He stood when Louie did, but made no move to go near the water. “You joking, right?”
    “I don’t believe this,” Louie said. “
All
of you are scared? The shark not even big as you, Mike…look.”
    The turning fin swirled the surface like a spoon stirring water, snaking around. “Small sharks still have sharp teeth,” I said. “Maybe you don’t mind