Noah saw the fish moving, coming toward him, and then it dove to its right and disappeared.

He remembered another thing Hoke Moore told him: “Never seen a bass do that. Not one that big. Not coming out of the water so high. It was like he was telling me I weren’t good enough to catch him.”

A flutter crossed involuntarily over Noah’s chest. He rolled the handle of his reel twice, tugged at the line, let the tip of the rod dip toward the water, then let it rest. He braced his feet on the shoreline, waited.

The surface of the water seemed to bristle with movement and he remembered his dream of fish rising up, taking flight, leaving the lake to follow the see-through bass. He glanced at the water near the shoreline. In the days he had spent at the lake he had never seen a fish, not even a hatchling, in the shore water, and he had understood why the people of the valley believed no fish were in it. Now, he saw a cloud of small fish stretching along the shore, some nibbling at the top of the water, making popping sounds.

He had learned that a large bass—a bass fifteen pounds or over—did not have the fight of a smaller one. Not like an eight-pounder. An eight-pounder had a mean temper. An eight-pounder would try to rip its head from its body to shake the hook. Yet, he knew this fish was different, big as it was. Had fight in it. Had to, coming so high out of the water as it did.

He felt a vibration in the rod, saw the line go taut, and he pulled hard, whipping the tip of the rod upward. A violent jerk ripped at the rod, bent the shank of it, almost tearing it from his hands, and he knew the hook was set in the mouth of the fish.

He released the drag on the line, let it play out, then stopped the run.

It would take time, he thought. And he remembered a long story—a funny lie, it was—from Marvin Linquist about going west to become a cowboy, and why he had given it up. Horses. He hated horses, Marvin had said. Hated the way you could lasso one and corral it and put a saddle on it, but you couldn’t break it until it got ready to be broken. He didn’t mind the lassoing and the riding, Marvin had said. It was all the in-between time that aggravated him.

The fish was like a horse, Noah thought. It would not be pulled to the bank until it was ready to be broken.

Behind him, the morning sun made pale spears through the trees. The mockingbird kept up its solitary song.

And he began the fight.

He could feel the fish through the line and through the rod, could feel its jittery thrashing, its large head shaking against the hook, its muscles curling for the dive it would take before turning and hurling its way to the surface of the water. The beating of Noah’s heart drummed against his chest; heat coated his face.