“But you think today’s a good day?”
“Well,” I told him, “I’ve had action enough for me already today. But I’d like to bet you’re going to have plenty.”
“I hope so,” he said.
We settled down to troll. Eddy went forward and lay down. I was standing up watching for a tail to show. Every once in a while the nigger would doze off and I was watching him, too. I bet he had some nights.
“Would you mind getting me a bottle of beer, Captain?” Johnson asked me.
“No, sir,” I said, and I dug down in the ice to get him a cold one.
“Won’t you have one?” he asked.
“No, sir,” I said. “I’ll wait till tonight.”
I opened the bottle and was reaching it toward him when I saw this big brown bugger with a spear on him longer than your arm burst head and shoulders out of the water and smash at that mackerel. He looked as big around as a saw log.
“Slack it to him!” I yelled.
“He hasn’t got it,” Johnson said.
“Hold it, then.”
He’d come up from deep down and missed it. I knew he’d turn and come for it again.
“Get ready to turn it loose to him the minute he grabs it.”
Then I saw him coming from behind under water. You could see his fins out wide like purple wings and the purple stripes across the brown. He came on like a submarine and his top fin came out and you could see it slice the water. Then he came right behind the bait and his spear came out too, sort of wagging clean out of water.
“Let it go into his mouth,” I said. Johnson took his hand off the reel spool and it started to whiz and the old marlin turned and went down and I could see the whole length of him shine bright silver as he turned broadside and headed off fast toward shore.
“Put on a little drag,” I said. “Not much.”
He screwed down on the drag.
“Not too much,” I said. I could see the line slant up. “Shut her down hard and sock him,” I said. “You’ve got to sock him. He’s going to jump anyway.”
Johnson screwed the drag down and came back on the rod.
“Sock him,” I told him. “Stick it into him. Hit him half a dozen times.”
He hit him pretty hard a couple of times more, and then the rod bent double and the reel commenced to screech and out he came, boom, in a long straight jump, shining silver in the sun and making a splash like throwing a horse off a cliff.
“Ease up on the drag,” I told him.
“He’s gone,” said Johnson.
“The hell he is,” I told him. “Ease up on the drag quick.”
I could see the curve in the line and the next time he jumped he was astern and headed out to sea. Then he came out again and smashed the water white and I could see he was hooked in the side of his mouth. The stripes showed clear on him. He was a fine fish, bright silver now, barred with purple and as big around as a log.
“He’s gone,” Johnson said. The line was slack.
“Reel on him,” I said. “He’s hooked good. Put her ahead with all the machine!” I yelled to the nigger.
Then once, twice, he came out stiff as a post, the whole length of him jumping straight toward us, throwing the water high each time he landed. The line came taut and I saw he was headed inshore again and I could see he was turning.
“Now he’ll make his run,” I said. “If he hooks up I’ll chase him. Keep your drag light. There’s plenty of line.”
The old marlin headed out to the nor’west like all the big ones go, and brother, did he hook up. He started jumping in those long lopes and every splash would be like a speed boat in a sea. We went after him, keeping him on the quarter once I’d made the turn. I had the wheel and I kept yelling to Johnson to keep his drag light and reel fast. All of a sudden I see his rod jerk and the line go slack. It wouldn’t look slack unless you knew about it because of the pull of the belly of the line in the water. But I knew.
“He’s gone,” I told him. The fish was still jumping and he went on jumping until he was out of sight. He was a fine fish all right.
“I can still feel him pull,” Johnson said.
“That’s the weight of the line.”
“I can hardly reel it. Maybe he’s dead.”
“Look at him,” I said. “He’s still jumping.” You could see him out a half a mile, still throwing spouts of water.
I felt his drag. He had it screwed down tight. You couldn’t pull out any line. It had to break.
“Didn’t I tell you to keep your drag light?”
“But he kept taking out line.”
“So what?”
“So I tightened it.”
“Listen,” I told him. “If you don’t give them line when they hook up like that they break it. There isn’t any line will hold them. When they want it you’ve got to give it to them. You have to keep a light drag. The market fishermen can’t hold them tight when they do that even with a harpoon line. What we have to do is use the boat to chase them so they don’t take it all when they make their run. After they make their run they’ll sound and you can tighten up the drag and get it back.”
“Then if it hadn’t broken I would have caught him?”
“You’d have had a chance.”
“He couldn’t have kept that up, could he?”
“He can do plenty of other things. It isn’t until after he’s made his run that the fight starts.”
“Well, let’s catch one,” he said.
“You have to reel that line in first,” I told him.
We’d hooked that fish and lost him without waking Eddy up. Now old Eddy came back astern.
“What’s the matter?” he said.
Eddy was a good man on a boat once, before he got to be a rummy, but he isn’t any good now. I looked at him standing there tall and hollowcheeked with his mouth loose and that white stuff in the corners of his eyes and his hair all faded in the sun. I knew he woke up dead for a drink.
“You’d better drink a bottle of beer,” I told him. He took one out of the box and drank it.
“Well, Mr. Johnson,” he said, “I guess I better finish my nap. Much obliged for the beer, sir.” Some Eddy. The fish didn’t make any difference to him.
Well, we hooked another one around noon and he jumped off. You could see the hook go thirty feet in the air when he threw it.
“What did I do wrong then?” Johnson asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “He just threw it.”
“Mr. Johnson,” said Eddy, who’d waked up to have another bottle of beer— “Mr. Johnson, you’re just unlucky. Now maybe you’re lucky with women. Mr. Johnson, what do you say we go out tonight?” Then he went back and lay down again.
About four o’clock when we’re coming back close in to shore against the stream, it going like a mill race, us with the sun at our backs, the biggest black marlin I ever saw in my life hit Johnson’s bait. We’d put out a feather squid and caught four of those little tuna and the nigger put one on his hook for bait. It trolled pretty heavy but it made a big splash in the wake.
Johnson took the harness off the reel so he could put the rod across his knees because his arms got tired holding it in position all the time. Because his hands got tired holding the spool of the reel against the drag of the big bait, he screwed the drag down when I wasn’t looking. I never knew he had it down. I didn’t like to see him hold the rod that way but I hated to be crabbing at him all the time. Besides, with the drag off, line would go out so there wasn’t any danger. But it was a sloppy way to fish.
I was at the wheel and was working the edge of the stream opposite that old cement factory where it makes
