Taste for Mischief

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The four things happened at almost the same instant. He felt a thud against the hull. Something took a swift hard yank at his trolled lure, took line and then got free. His outboard motor began to whine and shudder. As he reached to cut it off, he saw in his mild wake a piece of old timber turning slowly as he drifted away from it, timber which had sheared the pin when the prop struck it.

On bright days like this, when the Gulf of Mexico lay calm under the east wind off the Florida coast, Homer Burns liked to take his old skiff out through the pass and troll along the Gulf beach. It was less predictable than bay fishing. He never ventured far from the pass. The weather could change too quickly.

With the motor turned off, he reeled in, discarded the ragged fragment of minnow left his hook, the boat dipping and lifting in the slight off-shore chop. He found the spare shear pins in his tackle box, and realized it would be folly for an old fellow of seventy-seven to try to lean out over the transom and replace the pin amid the dual unsteadiness of sea and age.

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