“We must get a good killing lance and always have it on board.You can make the blade from a spring leaf from an old Ford.We can grind it in Guanabacoa.It should be sharp and not tempered so it will break.My knife broke.”
“One on the first day. One the second and two the third.”
He unstepped the mast and furled the sail and tied it. Then he shouldered the mast and started to climb.It was then he knew the depth of his tiredness.He stopped for a moment and looked back and saw in the reflection from the street light the great tail of the fish standing up well behind the skiff's stern.He saw the white naked line of his backbone and the dark mass of the head with the projecting bill and all the nakedness between.
“Now we fish together again.”
That afternoon there was a party of tourists at the Terrace and looking down in the water among the empty beer cans and dead barracudas a woman saw a great long white spine with a huge tail at the end that lifted and swung with the tide while the east wind blew a heavy steady sea outside the entrance to the harbor.
“I didn't either,”her male companion said.
Up the road, in his shack, the old man was sleeping again.He was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him.The old man was dreaming about the lions.
“What a fish it was,”the proprietor said.“There has never been such a fish.Those were two fine fish you took yesterday too.”