End of the Tiger Read Online Free PDF Page B

cutting the water. The line came fast then. It passed the boat within fifty feet and went on out in the opposite direction. I was afraid of what would happen when it hit the end of the temporary slack. Jimmy was smart enough to stop reeling and wait, rod level. The spool jumped from complete stillness into whining speed as the line went out. But this time the fish turned and tail-walked some three hundred yards from the boat.
    Once again the laborious process began. When I saw the blood on Jimmy’s wrist I knew what the blisters were doing to his hands. His face was set and death-pale, and there was more blood on his lower lip.
    Wolta sat in the other chair and said in a wheedling voice, “Kid, you’re bushed. You’re not tough enough for that baby. Next time you get a chance, slip the rod over here. Old Lew’ll bring him in for you.”
    The kid didn’t answer, but he didn’t seem to be working so hard on the fish. I know the feeling. I’ve been hooked into fish who have almost convinced me that it is impossible to bring them in.
    Yet he worked on, his arms trembling each time he pulled. I looked at my watch. An hour and fifteen minutes of heartbreaking, muscle-ripping, back-bending labor.
    “Come on, Jimmy. Hand it over,” Wolta said. I wanted to tell him to shut his face. But it was the kid’s problem, not mine.
    Jimmy began to rest for little intervals when he could have been regaining line. But the big marlin wasn’t as eager as he had been. He was fighting doggedly, but without that first, wild, reckless speed.
    Wolta said, “Tell you what. I’ll slip into your chair and you slip out. Take the rod butt out of the gimmick just long enough to slip your leg under.”
    Jimmy made no objection. I moved back. Wolta came over and began to fumble with the buckle on one of the straps. Jimmy sat without trying to regain line.
    The fish was about a hundred and seventy yards out. Suddenly his first fury seemed to come back to him and the fish shot out of the water at an angle, covering what seemed to be twenty yards in a straight line, leaning up out of the water at an angle, dancing on his tail, lashing the sea to foam with his enormous tail.
    I saw Jimmy’s hands tight on the rod, saw the dried blood on his wrist. “Lay off, Wolta,” he said thickly, hardly speaking above a whisper.
    Wolta laughed his great gusty laugh and continued to work on the buckle. Jimmy told him to lay off again. Wolta paid no attention, and only said, “I can bring that big baby in.”
    The fish was taking out line slowly. Jimmy took his right hand off the rod butt, swung it in a short hard arc. His fist hit Wolta in the mouth. Wolta took two stumbling steps back and sat down hard. Jimmy didn’t even look around. He began to fight back a few feet of line at a time. Wolta got up with a roar deep in his throat. For once that mechanical smile was gone from his bruised lips. He started toward Jimmy, big fists clenched.
    The sailor, a hundred-and-twenty-pound Mexican with dark soft eyes, suddenly appeared between Jimmy and Wolta. He looked mildly at Wolta, and his hand was on the haft of his belt knife. Wolta stopped as though he had run into a wall.
    He gave me a mechanical smile and said, “Okay, okay. Let the kid lose the fish.”
    Jimmy labored on. He looked as though he would keel over from exhaustion, sag unconscious in the harness. But somewhere he found the strength to match the wild courage of the fish.
    One hundred and fifty yards. One hundred and twenty. One hundred. And he had been on the fish for over two hours. When the fish was within seventy feet of the boat, it spun and went on out again, but not more than a hundred yards. I heard Jimmy’s harsh sob as he began once more to bring it in. The marlin sounded, going down two hundred feet, lying there like a stone. Jimmy brought it up, foot by foot. The blue came up the last thirty feet at enormous speed and shot high into the air, seeming to hang over the boat for an instant,