The Young Man and the Sea: Chapters 9–15

I leave five dollars in the jar for a bucket of bait and try to skedaddle before anybody thinks to ask what I’m up to.

Devlin Murphy is a fiend for gossip. Always wants to know everything that’s happening on the creek and round the harbor.

He laughs and squeezes the muscle on my arm, and that gets me riled.

He scratches at his thick red beard, wrinkles his fat nose, and studies me. “Uh, yuh. That makes sense. Let me think on this. Two hundred traps from a ten-foot skiff. Mmm. That’s a whole lot of traps to be hand pulling, young Skiffy. Your dad worked that many with a full-size boat and a hydraulic puller.”

What they’ll do is tie a hitch in the line to your buoy, as a signal to back off.

Finally I figure a way to pull the rope up and keep it cinched around a cleat so it don’t slip back, and that’s how the first trap comes up, a few feet at a time.

I ain’t close enough to hear, but his father says something sharp, something that wipes the sneer clean off Tyler’s face, and then Jack Croft himself looks at me.

The only thing I can think of is, open up the throttle and head over to the town wharf, looking for Fin Chaser.

I’m so miserable mad, it hurts, but there ain’t nobody to hit or cuss, so all I can do is go home and mope around, thinking of things I’d like to do to Tyler Croft.

There’s no moon in the sky, but the stars make enough light to see by, just barely. Enough so I can find my way, weaving through the boats moored in the harbor.

Shadows of boats is more like it. Looming things that move with the current, swinging all together like a flock of ducks set down on a pond, beaks to the wind.

When I’m done, Captain Keelson sighs and goes, “He’s correct, you know, Amos. There’s very little we can do. It’s an awkward situation. Big Skiff and Jack Croft have a history. Best not to meddle.”

Real casual, he allows as how if I was to drag a grapple along the bottom, I might hook up on my traps.

Real casual, he allows as how if I was to drag a grapple along the bottom, I might hook up on my traps.

What you do is tie the grapple—it’s like a big fishhook with four barbs—to a length of rope.

All kinds of junk on the bottom. Once I find this old telephone all clotted with mud.

“Looks like you’re trolling for more stupid junk to put in your stupid junky shack. Drag long enough you’ll probably find an old toilet seat for your outhouse.”

See these dorsal fins? How they fold back into a groove? That decreases drag, increases efficiency.

See these dorsal fins? How they fold back into a groove? That decreases drag, increases efficiency.

See these dorsal fins? How they fold back into a groove? That decreases drag, increases efficiency.

“Pure luck,” he admits. “I was bottom fishing for cod out near Jeffrey’s Ledge when a whole school of tuna swam by, feeding on mackerel. Lucky I happened to have the big reel on board. Threw out a chunk of bait and wham! Hit it like a locomotive. All I did was hold on until it got tired. Fish did all the work.”

He’s this short, stocky Japanese guy with shiny black hair and a big smile.

Work my butt off all summer hauling traps? Make money a dollar at a time? Why bother, when all I got to do is catch one measly tuna!

I get my last bucket of salt herring from the cooler in the shack and put it under the middle seat in the skiff. Might come in handy if I need to put out a chum slick—bits of cut-up bait that put the smell of food in the water.

It’s full dark by the time I go back in the kitchen and make a stack of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and fill a jug of water. Provisions for the trip.