When cetacean linguist Eric McAllister suddenly finds himself marooned on an island wilderness in Southeastern Alaska’s Alexander Archipelago, it’s a race for survival. The only clue to his predicament is an impossibly massive shark’s tooth imbedded in the wreckage that should not exist. It belongs to a massive shark whose appearance in the sheltered waters of Southeastern Alaska ignites a feud thought settled 11,000 years ago when killer whales killed the last of the giant sharks that had made war on them. Now, their ancient enemy has appeared again and they are defenseless to stop its onslaught against them. Man and killer whale both seek the giant fish for different reasons and their paths crisscross one another in the vast Alaskan wilderness intertwining at a final showdown where survival of the fittest will be determined between man, killer whale, and shark.
–Tooth –
The
Back Story
Tooth was the first story I wrote. I already had Neptune’s Trident outlined and
I knew it was a much bigger audience and appeal book so I wanted to start on
something a little more intimate and smaller to learn how to put a story
together. They say the best thing to do
when you start writing is to write what you know. Having been a commercial fisherman in Alaska
for several years long-lining for black cod and halibut, and salmon
purse-seining in Southeastern Alaska and then later in the Bering Sea for crab,
it was easy for me to see all the elements in the story. I’d had contact with just about everything in
book that swims in the sea – except for the giant shark, of course– to one
degree or another. Many of the
characters were drawn from people I know and a good number of friends and
family make their appearance in this book.
It was my way of making it fun for me and adding a bit of whimsy,
although the reader would never know it because it reads straight up. For example, Dutch the old fisherman that
rescues Eric from the bear is actually my grandfather who was a fur trapper in
the Alaskan interior. He’s dead now but
I wrote him as he lingers in my mind’s eye.
Johnny J modeled after a friend of my brother and me who actually was a
tender driver and used that marketing approach. Bits and pieces of my friends amalgamate to
make many other characters including my college business school friend Jerry
who is an Alaskan native and has served on his tribe’s corporation board of
directors, who was able to give me an insider’s view of tribal politics and
bigotry. And no, he’s not a shaman. Charles, the lab assistant who ran the shark
lab at the U of W – that story was lifted directly from a friend of mine and so
on…
Several of my real life experiences also
made it into the book. Sometimes the
truth is stranger than fiction. The
scenes with the sea otter are drawn from an experience I had with one while
long-lining in Southeastern Alaska. The
Kansas, a round bottom, 48’ old workhorse purse-seiner that was launched in
1908 and converted to a long-liner as an experiment that I was working on had
anchored up in a beautiful, pristine bay overnight. The bathroom facilities on the old boat were
rather primitive. While it had a toilet in a cramped little room that barely
had room for your knees when you closed the door, it had no running water. In order to “flush” the toilet while the boat
was under, we had a two gallon bucket with a rope tied to it. You had to toss the bucket ahead let it sink
and fill with water. As it was
sinking/filling, you’d furiously be pulling in the rope and if you timed it
right the you’d pull the last couple of feet of rope up while directly over the
bucket, pulling it straight up. If you
timed it wrong the bucket would drag and you’d fight to keep from being pulled
over board for only a half bucket. After
which you’d go back to the loo and pour the water into the toilet to
“flush.” Another quick instance to
demonstrate how dicey it was to perform even the slightest bodily function on a
boat built for work with consideration for little else occurred one day while
traversing a back channel that was smooth as glass. Upon “flushing” I heard a horrendous shriek
emanate from below decks followed
moments later as the captain the boat came bellowing up from the engine room
looking for the person who had just flushed the toilet. The pipes from the john passed over a work
bench in the engine room where the captain had been working at the precise
moment the pipes broke. My “deposit” had
miraculously landed and balance on his forearm startling him. So I was order to retrieve my waste the he
had shook off and attempt to rid the boat of its tenuous presence again. Because of this plumbing arrangement, most
fluid bodily functions were unceremoniously done over the gunwale. On the morning of the otter incident I arose
to answer the call of the bladder and stepped on to the back deck and shortest
path to the gunwale. Back in the days
before Lasik vision correction, I wore glasses which I had not bothered to put
on. As I made my way across the deck, I
came across a brown furry mass busily cleaning the deck gratings of all the
bait fish tid-bits that had fallen between the slats from the day before. I was quite blind at the time and followed
the little forty-pound bundle of cuteness around quite closely for several
minutes until something irritated my little buddy- he whorled around at me in
the blink of eye and hissed at me followed by snarl. Then just as quickly he whorled around again
and continued on his delicacy hunt. In
any language, the translation was easy- “Back the hell off, junior.” So yes, I believe it quite possible for
otters to speak in an understandable way.
The scene with the wolf cubs and mother is
an actual experience of mine told without embellishment of any kind. Right down to the “look…she’s smiling – she
likes you” line. As a big game hunter in
North America, I’ve had run-ins with just about everything with claws, hooves,
antlers, horns and teeth –and while chilling and adrenaline producing as those
encounters were, nothing comes close to having a timber wolf snarling inches
from your throat and there’s nothing you can do to protect yourself. Although, there was this one time when a
Fortune Five- Hundred V.P. dressed me down that came pretty close…
These and hundreds of other stories of my
eventful and quite diverse history help me add depth to my characters. But sometimes, good ideas come from my
support team. The Corky-the-dog sub plot