They had been around the point only fifteen minutes when Quint pulled back on the throttle and slowed the engine.

Brody looked toward shore. In the growing light he could see the water tower clearly—a black point rising from the gray strip of land. The lighthouse beacon still shone. “We’re not out as far as we usually go,” he said.

“No.”

“We can’t be more than a couple of miles offshore.”

“Just about.”

“So why are you stopping?”

“I got a feeling.” Quint pointed to the left, to a cluster of lights farther down the shore. “That’s Amity there.”

“So?”

“I don’t think he’ll be so far out today. I think he’ll be somewhere between here and Amity.”

“Why?”

“Like I said, it’s a feeling. There’s not always a why to these things.”

“Two days in a row we found him farther out.”

“Or he found us.”

“I don’t get it, Quint. For a man who says there’s no such thing as a smart fish, you’re making this one out to be a genius.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

Brody bristled at Quint’s sly, enigmatic tone. “What kind of game are you playing?”

“No game. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong.”

“And we try somewhere else tomorrow.” Brody half hoped Quint would be wrong, that there would be a day’s reprieve.

“Or later today. But I don’t think we’ll have to wait that long.” Quint cut the engine, went to the stern, and lifted a bucket of chum onto the transom. “Start chummin’,” he said, handing Brody the ladle. He uncovered the sheep, tied a rope around its neck, and lay it on the gunwale. He slashed its stomach and flung the animal overboard, letting it drift twenty feet from the boat before securing the rope to an after cleat. Then he went forward, unlashed two barrels, and carried them, and their coils of ropes and harpoon darts, back to the stern. He set the barrels on each side of the transom, each next to its own rope, and slipped one dart onto the wooden throwing shaft. “Okay,” he said. “Now let’s see how long it takes.”

The sky had lightened to full, gray daylight, and in ones and twos the lights on the shore flicked off.

The stench of the mess Brody was ladling overboard made his stomach turn, and he wished he had eaten something—anything—before he left home.

Quint sat on the flying bridge, watching the rhythms of the sea.

Brody’s butt was sore from sitting on the hard transom, and his arm was growing weary from the dipping and emptying of the ladle. So he stood up, stretched, and, facing off the stern, tried a new scooping motion with the ladle.

Suddenly he saw the monstrous head of the fish—not five feet away, so close he could reach over and touch it with the ladle—black eyes staring at him, silver-gray snout pointing at him, gaping jaw grinning at him. “Oh, God!” Brody said, wondering in his shock how long the fish had been there before he had stood up and turned around. “There he is!”