Far From The Sea We Know Read Online Free PDF Page B

it was.”
    “You do see a slight pinkish color in
ordinary dolphins sometimes,” Bell said. “It’s really blood vessels
showing through white skin, especially on the underside. There was
an albino dolphin in a lake in Louisiana once—came in from an
estuary—that was remarkably pink for the same reason. Extremely
rare. I don’t know how it survived so long with poor eyesight, not
to mention having no protection from the sun.”
    “This was much darker than that. At first I
thought it was blood,” Matthew said. “A terrible accident of some
kind.”
    “Not at all subtle, then,” Bell said.
    “More like a sore thumb, forty tons’
worth.”
    “Are you sure it wasn’t blood?” Penny
asked.
    “No, I’m not sure, but she showed no signs
of distress and was covered head to flukes.”
    “A pigment mutation that extreme seems
unlikely,” Penny said, “but I’m wondering if it could have been a
partial albino with perhaps a fungus or algae adding the
color.”
    “The Romans extracted a purple dye from a
secretion of a certain mollusk,” Bell said. “Not that I see any way
to connect that here.”
    Penny smiled. “Dad thinks out loud
sometimes.”
    “True enough, and I’m known to meander far
afield, but that’s how my best work always seems to get done.”
    “Well,” she said, “this may not be so far
afield, but what about a nutritional disorder of some kind?
Flamingoes are only pink because of what they pick up from the
shells of the shrimp they eat, right?”
    “Yes,” Bell said, “the same as the pink
dolphin.”
    “The one in the lake?”
    “No, these are the pink river dolphins found
in Brazil. Where the Orinoco and the Amazon converge during the
rainy season, the rivers overrun their banks and form an inland
sea. It was eerie watching one swim through the flooded forests as
if, after millions of years, she had decided to pay a visit to her
former life on land.”
    Bell looked pensive. “They are pale pink,
however. The shade is at best delicate. This doesn’t fit Matthew’s
description of purple and magenta. Pen?”
    “There’s nothing in any files I could locate
about a gray whale this color. We have a multitude of records of
whale sightings over the last three hundred years. Many of the
captains in the old whaling days kept detailed logs and would note
anything unusual.”
    “Scammon noted an albino or two,” Bell
said.
    “White, yes. Purple, no,” she said. “There
are also the native American hunters who have had contact with
these mammals for centuries. I did a search of a few databases this
afternoon on all this. I should have included porpoises and
dolphins, I guess, but for whales ‘purple’ didn’t come up at
all.”
    “I figured that would be the case,” Matthew
said. “It’s so hard to remember. I find myself forgetting it again
quickly. Like a dream.”
    “You sound like you have doubts,” Penny
said.
    “Of course I have doubts, who wouldn’t? But
the captain of my fishing boat said it wasn’t a whale, period. He’s
been out there over fifty years. I’ve never heard him say anything
he didn’t mean.”
    “What did he mean, then?”
    “I don’t know. He never spoke of it again.
Almost like it didn’t happen.”
    He looked at the father and daughter, who
both sat as still as monks, and tried to cover a growing
frustration with having to defend something he could not even
adequately describe.
    “Listen,” he finally said. “Did you ever
feel the hair on the back of you neck stand up? Straight up? When
that whale looked at me, I was terrified. It felt like she looked
into me, saw me, saw everything about me. I’ve never had anything
remotely like that happen before. It affected everyone else on the
boat as well. I don’t know why they can’t remember, but forgetting
seems to be part of it. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I’m
sure it did happen.”
    Penny and her father looked at each other
for a long time.
    “We do believe you,