“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 buggar 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.
