The wind grew stronger.

Watching him and the others, seeing the blood of the whale, the sun a red line going over the horizon, Ruth searched for Marco. He wasn’t present.

Ruth went down to the whale and the men. The whale, though large, was even younger than she’d thought. It was a mess of wounds. It had suffered, she could see that. “Where’s Marco?” she asked Thomas. Her words were urgent, hair blowing about her face.

Thomas looked at her. He shook his head. He didn’t know. Even though he and Marco had spoken in the canoe, he had no idea. He thought of Marco and the whale. In the canoe, Marco had said, “I hear it beneath us.” It was a low rumbling sound. It was the same sound Witka had spoken of. Then it came to greet them; it breathed out in a strong spray. It looked at them. It moved the water. It was friendly and it was too young to be killed. Marco said, “This is the wrong whale to kill.” But there was yelling in the background. Thomas heard his son and he was of two minds. He looked at the whale. The waves were changing, the wind blowing the spray of the whale toward him, a mist. He heard the other men, their excitement, their preparations to shoot it, even if it was friendly. The canoe was precarious. And then he, Thomas, shot it with them. Maybe he was even the first to fire. Hell, he couldn’t remember now, except at the same time wondering, Why? Why am I doing this? He would later wonder, At which second could I have stopped myself? But then it was the familiar feel of the weapon, the sounds. It was because he had the rifle, a gun. It was the feel of it, of war. It was habit. Somewhere, in the old or new of his memory, he heard other shots. In spite of its size, it fought back, as befits the whale’s reputation as Devil Fish and sea demon. He shot again, almost falling into the water, as Marco looked at him with surprise, Marco wondering why his father had shot the whale, and Thomas, too, wondering why he had fired, why the weapon in his hands had the life it had, or the death, but this all happened as if it had its own will. And he saw Marco’s face when he shot. This time to put it out of pain as much as to stop the fight. “I’m sorry,” he said to the young man, and just at that moment the whale whipped about and broke the canoe. Thomas and Marco and the others were cast into the bloody water. The Coast Guard helped them out of water. Those in the other canoe pulled in two men, almost upsetting their own balance. There was confusion and spraying blood coming from the blowhole, all of the men covered in it, the sea red.

Someone from the Coast Guard boat yelled, “We got them all. Everyone accounted for.”