“I’ve got to put gas in her,” I told Johnson.
“All right.”
“I’ll need some money for that.”
“How much?”
“It’s twenty-eight cents a gallon. I ought to put in forty gallons anyway. That’s eleven-twenty.”
He got out fifteen dollars.
“Do you want to put the rest on the beer and the ice?” I asked him.
“That’s fine,” he said. “Just put it down against what I owe you.”
I was thinking three weeks was a long time to let him go, but if he was good for it what difference was there? He should have paid every week anyway. But I’ve let them run a month and got the money. It was my fault but I was glad to see it run at first. It was only the last few days he made me nervous but I didn’t want to say anything for fear of getting him plugged at me. If he was good for it, the longer he went the better.
“Have a bottle of beer?” he asked me, opening the box.
“No, thanks.”
Just then this nigger we had getting bait comes down the dock and I told Eddy to get ready to cast her off.
The nigger came on board with the bait and we cast off and started out of the harbor, the nigger fixing on a couple of mackerel; passing the hook through their mouth, out the gills, slitting the side and then putting the hook through the other side and out, tying the mouth shut on the wire leader and tying the hook good so it couldn’t slip and so the bait would troll smooth without spinning.
He’s a real black nigger, smart and gloomy, with blue voodoo beads around his neck under his shirt, and an old straw hat. What he liked to do on board was sleep and read the papers. But he put on a nice bait and he was fast.
“Can’t you put on a bait like that, captain?” Johnson asked me.
“Yes, sir.”
“Why do you carry a nigger to do it?”
“When the big fish run you’ll see,” I told him.
“What’s the idea?”
“The nigger can do it faster than I can.”
“Can’t Eddy do it?”
“No, sir.”
“It seems an unnecessary expense to me.” He’d been giving the nigger a dollar a day and the nigger had been on a rumba every night. I could see him getting sleepy already.
“He’s necessary,” I said.
By then we had passed the smacks with their fish cars anchored in front of Cabañas and the skiffs anchored fishing for mutton fish on the rock bottom by the Morro, and I headed her out where the gulf made a dark line. Eddy put the two big teasers out and the nigger had baits on three rods.
The stream was in almost to soundings and as we came toward the edge you could see her running nearly purple with regular whirlpools. There was a light east breeze coming up and we put up plenty of flying fish, those big ones with the black wings that look like the picture of Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic when they sail off.
Those big flying fish are the best sign there is. As far as you could see, there was that faded yellow gulfweed in small patches that means the main stream is well in and there were birds ahead working over a school of little tuna. You could see them jumping; just little ones weighing a couple of pounds apiece.
“Put out any time you want,” I told Johnson.
He put on his belt and his harness and put out the big rod with the Hardy reel with six hundred yards of thirty-six thread. I looked back and his bait was trolling nice, just bouncing along on the swell, and the two teasers were diving and jumping. We were going just about the right speed and I headed her into the stream.
“Keep the rod butt in the socket on the chair,” I told him. “Then the rod won’t be as heavy. Keep the drag off so you can slack to him when he hits. If one ever hits with the drag on he’ll jerk you overboard.”
Every day I’d have to tell him the same thing but I didn’t mind that. One out of fifty parties you get know how to fish. Then when they do know, half the time they’re goofy and want to use line that isn’t strong enough to hold anything big.
“How does the day look?” he asked me.
“It couldn’t be better,” I told him. It was a pretty day all right.
I gave the nigger the wheel and told him to work along the edge of the stream to the eastward and went back to where Johnson was sitting watching his bait bouncing along.
“Want me to put out another rod?” I asked him.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I want to hook, fight, and land my fish myself.”
“Good,” I said. “Do you want Eddy to put it out and hand it to you if one strikes so you can hook him?”
“No,” he said. “I prefer to have only one rod out.”
“All right.”
The nigger was still taking her out and I looked and saw he had seen a patch of flying fish burst out ahead and up the stream a little. Looking back, I could see Havana looking fine in the sun and a ship just coming out of the harbor past the Morro.
“I think you’re going to have a chance to fight one today, Mr. Johnson,” I told him.
“It’s about time,” he said. “How long have we been out?”
“Three weeks today.”
“That’s a long time to fish.”
“They’re a funny fish,” I told him. “They aren’t here until they come. But when they come there’s plenty of them. And they’ve always come. If they don’t come now they’re never coming. The moon is right. There’s a good stream and we’re going to have a good breeze.”
“There were some small ones when we first came.”
“Yes,” I said. “Like I told you. The small ones thin out and stop before the big ones come.”
“You party-boat captains always have the same line. Either it’s too early or too late or the wind isn’t right or the moon is wrong. But you take the money just the same.”
“Well,” I told him, “the hell of it is that it usually is too early or too late and plenty of time the wind is wrong. Then when you get a day that’s perfect you’re ashore without a party.”
“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 laid 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 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.
“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 the 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
