“You’re feeling it now, fish,” he said. “And so, God knows, am I.”
He looked around for the bird now because he would have liked him for company. The bird was gone.
You did not stay long, the man thought. But it is rougher where you are going until you make the shore. How did I let the fish cut me with that one quick pull he made? I must be getting very stupid. Or perhaps I was looking at the small bird and thinking of him. Now I will pay attention to my work and then I must eat the tuna so that I will not have a failure of strength.
“I wish the boy were here and that I had some salt,” he said aloud.
Shifting the weight of the line to his left shoulder and kneeling carefully he washed his hand in the ocean and held it there, submerged, for more than a minute watching the blood trail away and the steady movement of the water against his hand as the boat moved.
“He has slowed much,” he said.
