length, shimmering like polished chrome and the bluest blue, a scream erupting on the boat, from her mother, from the entire Braswell clan, a chilling collective roar, as the marlin launched itself high into the air and hung in all its colossal radiance, a terrible angel against the clouds and sun and sky, like some divine appearance, the embodiment of all fish, of all life in the sea, a giant long-billed, scythe-tailed deity, a monster, dreadful and magnificent. Broken loose from gravity, hanging there for longer than was possible.
Finally it dropped, splashing on its side, sending a cone of water as high as the flybridge.
Morgan reeled and reeled, cranking as fast as her muscles allowed.
It was the largest fish she’d ever seen. Larger than the blue marlin on the wall of her father’s study. His was eight hundred pounds, caught in the Virgin Islands when he was twenty-eight. The fish that had started his obsession. But this one was half again as large. A giant. Bigger than anything in the magazines, anything on the endless videos A.J.’s friends brought back from the Great Barrier Reef or Kona. This was the mothership.
Her father was silent. Everyone was silent. Johnny turned to look at his older brother, and whatever he saw on Andy’s face made Johnny’s mouth go slack. This was not just a big fish. This was the fish that lurked in their dreams.
‘Jesus,’ Andy said quietly. ‘Jesus.’
He came behind her and once again he massaged her shoulders while she cranked the last few yards of line and saw the wire leader emerge from the sea.
‘It’s given up,’ her dad said. ‘You beat it. It’s given up, Morgan.’
But she didn’t think so. Until just before the leap, the marlin’s power seemed undiminished. The fish was still green. Still strong and alive. Unfazed by the fight. But the leader was only a few feet away, the fish lying slack a few feet below the surface. So maybe she was wrong. Maybe it had caved in after just one spectacular jump.
Andy let go of her shoulders, turned, and flung open a drawer in the supply case and grabbed a stainless steel cylinder a little larger than a cigar. It was one of Andy’s inventions. A float on one end, a stubby aerial on the other. It was designed to be hooked beneath the marlin’s second dorsal fin with a small surgical steel anchor, and was programmed to come alive for one week each year. On the appointed date, the electronic sending unit would begin to transmit all the information its microprocessor had collected that year, a day-by-day report on GPS locations, depth, water temperature, speed, distance traveled. By activating it only during that one-week window, Morgan estimated the unit would last for eight to ten years. Sometime during the crucial week when the transmitter came live, they had to get lucky and the marlin had to break the surface, either to sun itself or to attack schools of baitfish. Just a few seconds was all. When the antennae broke through, data would stream up to a satellite and a few seconds later the blue ping would pulse on the Braswells’ receiving unit. The ping would mark the fish’s present location and would continue to ping until the fish was submerged again or the week was over and the unit shut off.
Much better than conventional tagging methods. If it worked, it could revolutionize everything. You could track a fish’s migration, begin to understand its life cycle, its mating habits. Steal a look into the secret life of that mysterious fish. But she and Andy weren’t thinking of its commercial value when they designed and assembled it from salvaged computer parts. The pod was a gift to their dad, their attempt to take part in his consuming obsession.
Andy used a tiny ice pick to activate the unit, then clamped it just behind the sharp point of a customized harpoon.
Morgan hauled the fish closer and could see its blue shadow rising through the water. Listless, on its side. Either defeated or playing possum. It was impossible to tell.
Andy leaned over the transom, cocked the harpoon back, picking his spot.
Her mother called down to Andy. In her tense voice, telling him to be careful. Very careful.
Andy leaned another inch or two, then stood back up.
‘It’s too far, Dad! I’m going to have to wire it, bring it up closer.’
‘Morgan,’ A.J. called. ‘Keep the line tight. Keep it close so Andy can work.’
Andy grabbed his glove from the back pocket of his shorts and pulled it on. Another of his creations. An ordinary blue denim work glove with a thick cowhide pad stitched across the palm and sides. Even a medium-sized fish could badly bruise a hand, or sometimes crush bones.
Johnny seized the biggest gaff from the holder.
‘We’re not gaffing it, Johnny,’ A.J. called. ‘We’re just attaching the pod.’
‘But this is a world record, Dad. This is the all-time big mother.’
All of them laughed, and from that moment Big Mother was her name.
‘Tag and release, Johnny, that’s what we’re doing.’
Stubbornly, Johnny held on to the gaff, planting himself at the starboard side of the transom while Andy stood to port, the harpoon in his right hand. He was touching the metal leader wire with his left, stroking it lightly as if wanting to establish some connection with the giant.
Morgan had handled the wire on small sails and yellowfin tuna. It was dangerous, but thrilling. The saying went, ‘One wrap, you lose the fish, three wraps you lose a finger.’ Two wraps was right. You took two wraps of the leader wire around the gloved hand, no more, no less.
Andy took three.
Morgan wasn’t sure if she’d seen right. Her mind so foggy. Her tongue so swollen, she could barely speak. Maybe he took one more wrap for extra measure, because the fish was huge, maybe he made a mistake, or she was simply wrong about what she thought she’d seen.
A.J. backed the boat slowly.
‘Okay, Andy. Pick your spot, jab it in hard and true.’
Johnny edged closer to his brother, gaff at the ready.
Slowly the bill appeared as Andy hauled it up.
‘Jeez, it’s way over a thousand pounds. Maybe fifteen hundred.’
Andy had the fish at the transom. Its bill was longer than any she’d ever seen in photographs, on walls, anywhere.
Johnny leaned over the edge to touch the fish.
‘No, Johnny. Let Andy do his work.’
The fish must have seen their shadows because it shied away. Andy braced his knees against the transom, leaned back, using all his weight to drag the fish back into place. Morgan could see the muscles straining in his back, in his arms and shoulders. A wiry boy, narrow-waisted, wide shoulders and rawhide-tough. But the fish was strong, very strong.
Andy cocked his arm, held it for a second, then plunged the point of the harpoon into the second dorsal.
‘It’s set, Dad! I felt it lock on.’
He shouldn’t have done it. Shouldn’t have turned his back on the fish to beam up at their father. With a fish that big, it was reckless. But he was so proud, so hungry for a morsel of their dad’s approval. In that half second his back was turned, the fish swung back and made a slow pirouette,
