He could not rise to grasp the oars in their locks, to keep the skiff heading in the direction of his cabin, at ease in the current of strong water. Without lifting his head, he knew that the tides would take him back eventually because the bay ended at his steps, fed by the quick tea-coloured water of the creek that ran by his cabin and the other creeks that ran down off the mountain to the east and entered the chuck at the mud flats. This was not the way he’d intended to return to the cabin, after a day and a night of hand-trolling out beyond the mouth of the bay. He’d sold his salmon to the pot scow—nice bluebacks that he’d wrapped in damp burlap potato sacks—and then begun the hard row home, feeling each pull of the oars right into the muscles of his back. Once he’d come through into the bay, he’d felt he could row until tomorrow at that rate, his shoulder joints oiled by the sweat that dripped down from under his cap into the collar of his pullover. It was seeing the moon in the eastern sky, still visible, though it must’ve been nearly noon by the position of the sun, that had slowed him.
