Man Trip (9 page)

Just as he turned, the ocean erupted!

A bill and a huge head came out of the water—and a fierce eye.

The marlin rose … and rose and rose. The neon-blue bars on its side glistened, and when it fell back into the sea, the ocean around it thundered, turned white, and
whoomp
ed out in every direction.

“Jeese!” I gasped.

Seconds later, a reel screamed.

This marlin was bigger by far than the one we’d lost, and it was tearing away toward the horizon, taking Baja Bill’s Black Mariah with it!

L
edward fought the rod out of its chrome holder. The marlin was too big, too fast. He could barely stagger the rod over to the fighting chair.

I tried to get out of his way, fell, and hit my elbow on the bench seat.

Baja Bill slammed the throttle down,
slowing the boat. The stern rose in the oncoming wake. The reel kept screaming as the marlin ran away with more and more line. Sweat rolled down Ledward’s grimacing red face.

Baja Bill jumped off the ladder onto the deck. He grabbed my arm and helped me up. “You okay?”

I nodded.

He pointed off the back of the boat. “Watch. Keep your eyes right there. She’s going to come up.”

“How do you know?”

“I know.”

Ledward bent forward, gripping the rod, now alive with line still racing off the reel. More and more and more.

Far behind the boat the marlin leaped fully out of the water, its tail slashing the air. It was so big I could hardly believe my eyes.

“Big
Mama
!” Baja Bill shouted.

The wild run soon slowed, and Ledward managed to fall back into the chair and start the fight.

Baja Bill wrapped a harness around Ledward’s lower back and clipped it to hooks on the reel. “You’re going to need this with that one. She could break your back, you don’t watch out.”

Ledward grimaced. “In fifteen places.”

The harness was only clipped to the reel. If the fish was strong enough, could it pull Ledward into the ocean?

He hauled back on the rod, teeth clenched. Veins bulged in his neck. He reeled line in when he fell forward. Gaining an inch here, an inch there. Bit by bit. Pull and reel. Over and over, until he was so sweaty it looked as if he’d just climbed out of the ocean.

Baja Bill scooped a bucket of water out of the sea and sponged Ledward’s head to cool him off.

Ledward kept fighting.

Baja Bill grinned at me. “He’s going to feel like he’s been hit by a truck tomorrow morning.”

Ledward grunted.

For the next two hours, Ledward fought that fish closer and closer. Baja Bill went back and forth to the wheel, keeping the line directly off the back of the boat, never letting it run to one side or the other.

I climbed up to the bridge and stood near him, looking down on Ledward and the sea behind us. I could see the marlin underwater, keeping pace, a huge dark monster on the port side.

“Leader’s coming up!” Ledward shouted. “Get down here!”

Baja Bill put the boat on slow autopilot and I followed him down to the deck. With both
hands on my shoulders, he bent over and looked me in the eye. “We’re going to need your help, Calvin. This is a three-man job, minimum. I’m going to ask you to do something you’ve never done in your life. You haven’t even dreamed of it. I’m going to ask you to tag a nine-hundred-pound fish. By yourself.”

B
aja Bill handed me a razor-sharp boat knife. I turned it toward the sun. It had nicks in the blade. It had been used a lot. I hadn’t done one thing, and already my hands were shaking.

“And this,” he said, holding up a pole with a small flaglike thing on its tip, “is your tag
stick. I’ll tell you what to do with it when the time comes. Tell you what to do with the knife, too. You ready?”

I nodded, not ready at all. What was tagging? What was the knife for?

Baja Bill took off his watch and stuck it in his pocket. A band of white skin circled his tanned wrist. He dug around in a drawer and pulled out a pair of tough canvas gloves with long cuffs that went halfway up to his elbows.

He looked over at Ledward. “How’s she feel?”

“Hopefully, we have an understanding.”

Baja Bill pulled me close and pointed toward the marlin gliding just behind the boat in the clear water. Sunlight flashed on her flank. “See those stripes? That she still has them means she’s far from finished, and that’s just where we want her.”

The marlin looked longer than Mom’s car. Its tail alone wouldn’t fit in the fish hold, where we’d put the ono. “How you going to get it on the boat? It’s so big.”

“We’re not. We’re going to tag her and turn her loose. That’s where you come in.”

Man oh man oh man oh man.

“Okay, Led,” Baja Bill said. “Bring that leader up to where I can reach it, slowly now.”

Ledward pulled back on the rod, using his back and the harness, then turned the reel lightly. Nobody wanted to see that giant fish go crazy again.

Baja Bill braced his knees up against the gunnel and leaned over the water. He took the leader in one hand and pulled smoothly toward his chest.

The marlin moved closer to the boat.

Baja Bill reached out with his other hand, wrapped the leader around his fist, and slowly drew the marlin closer. “Okay, Calvin. Bring the knife and the stick and come stand next to me.”

I braced my knees against the gunnel like he did.

“Now, listen,” Baja Bill said. “We’ve got to do this right.”

I gripped the knife in one hand and the tag stick in the other. “Ready.”

“Good. Stand by till I tell you to move.”

Baja Bill pulled the fish closer, and closer. “Led, back off on the drag a little. Give me a foot or two of line. Okay now, Calvin. I’m going to walk this fish forward, and I want you to set the tag. What you’re going to do is firmly poke the point of that stick into the side of the fish, just at the shoulder, by her dorsal fin. Poke it in and pull the stick back. The tag will stay in the fish—and don’t worry. She won’t feel it. Don’t move till I tell you, okay?”

“Okay.”

Nothing else in the world existed but that fish. Blood pounded in my temples.

“Steady,” Baja Bill said quietly.

He pulled the marlin closer. Its bill, huge head, and back broke the surface, rising up just below me. I could have reached out and touched it.

“Now!” Baja Bill commanded.

I jabbed the stick into the fish and pulled it
back. The tag, like a small flag, lay wet against the flesh. I dropped the stick to the deck.

“Now,” Baja Bill said. “Grab the lure, slide it up the leader, then take that knife and cut the leader as close to the hook as you can.”

“Me?”

I stared at the eye of the fish, holding my breath.

“You can do it, just reach out and grab the lure. I’ve got her under control. Don’t think about it. Just do it.”

I looked at the marlin.

“You want to touch her first?”

“The fish?”

“Go ahead.”

I reached over and placed my hand on her side. “Ho,” I whispered. “She’s warm.”

“Blood gets hot in all that fighting.” Baja Bill smiled. “All right, cut her loose.”

I pulled the lure up and held it, then slipped the blade under the thick leader and cut the line. The hook stayed in the marlin’s bony jaw as the fish drifted away from the boat. The hook looked small, like an earring. The marlin probably didn’t even know it was there.

Ledward climbed out of the fighting chair and stood next to us holding the rod.

The three of us watched as the monster fish sank. It woke, realizing it was free, and surged down, diving into the deep blue sea.

Down, down, down.

Gone.

“That hook will fall out within a week,” Baja Bill said.

Ledward grunted. “And I’ll be asleep in five minutes.”

I looked at the knife in my hand. I did it. I actually
did
it.

Ledward and Baja Bill both grinned at me. “You one of us now,” Ledward said. “A fisherman. A real one.”