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net. They were predators. He thought about poisoning them, but<br />
a bevy of dead sea lions washing up on his beach would look very<br />
bad indeed.<br />
Although Lonny was pleased that he hadn’t buckled to the<br />
government’s pressure and sold his fishing rights, the truth was<br />
that Lonny had wearied of fishing. And this was something he<br />
had never believed would happen. The fishing was less<br />
productive than it used to be, and he wasn’t getting younger. He<br />
had long ago dreamed of becoming a high school wrestling<br />
coach, but this dream was impossible for a felon. With a baby on<br />
the way he thought about finding work in the North Slope oil<br />
fields, and he contemplated an apprenticeship in the trade of<br />
heating and air conditioning, but these possibilities lay in the<br />
future. Lonny still had a difficult choice to make before the way<br />
ahead became clear to him.<br />
The commercial salmon season was set to open on the ninth<br />
of June, and in early June Lonny left Kodiak town and headed to<br />
his fish camp to prepare his equipment. Florence, knowing that<br />
the baby was close, broke into tears when Lonny told her he was<br />
leaving. She begged him to stay in town with her, but Lonny’s<br />
fishing instinct was so strong at this time of year that he really<br />
had no choice. He had to go. It was not an easy decision to make,<br />
but he made it.<br />
At three-thirty on the morning after he left, Florence went<br />
into labor. From the hospital she called Lonny on the satellite<br />
telephone, and Lonny got the news and tried to return to town<br />
to be with her, but the weather had changed since he left, with<br />
gale winds blowing and dangerous seas, and Lonny couldn’t get<br />
closer to Kodiak town than the village of Port Lions. Stranded<br />
there during the storm, Lonny missed everything, both the baby’s<br />
delivery and the start of salmon fishing.<br />
“He’ll hear about that one for the rest of his life,” the old<br />
salts in Kodiak say, and they tell Lonny’s story with a laughter<br />
born of a lifetime’s learning. “He made his decision and it was<br />
the wrong decision.”<br />
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