More waiting.

Finally – his legs were turning bluish from the cold – another whip of silver appeared, this time slightly further away, almost directly beneath the submerged spear point and he lunged again, aiming the downward thrust at the lower edge of the salmon, felt the soft-thick thud of the spear point going into flesh and twisted it so the barb would hold. Then he pulled the fish sideways to shore, not lifting it yet for fear the weight would make it fall from the spear, and flopped the fish up on the gravel.

It was a fine silver-sided female salmon. A little longer than his arm – heavy and fat – and he killed it with a round rock to the head and when the fish was still he cut it open with his belt knife. She had some eggs, perfectly round and pinkish red, and he stripped them out onto a flat rock. He knew they would make a good soup – had eaten it many times – but he was so hungry that he ate some raw, and when they had settled on top of what was left of the blackberries, he turned back to the fish.

He thought of building a fire and using the copper pot to make a fish stew but that would take time and there was a slight breeze working back into the woods. There would be smell now, the blood smell of the dead fish, fresh because he had opened it, and that would travel fast on the breeze. And if he took time to cook, to boil water into a fish stew, the hot cooking smell from the steam would also catch the wind and move into the forest.

Pulling.

Pulling.

And the bear from the blackberry stand was probably not too far away. Certainly close enough to catch a thick blood smell on the wind and it would come and take his meal . . .

No. He put the fish in the canoe, turned it and pushed off into the inlet. He would find a small island and cook the fish there, and if not, he could eat it raw, cutting the rich red meat off in strips, dipping them once in the sea to get a slightly salty taste, and eating them – as Old Carl had often said – plain and clean.

Soon enough he found a place on the main shoreline that he considered more or less isolated – he thought perhaps far enough from the bear in the berry patch to be safe – and pulled up on the edge. It took him just moments to find another dry, unused mouse nest beneath a rotten log, spark a fire in the nest, add wood, and sit down to a meal by the fire.