The rain was pitiless and unremitting. Water ran in rivulets from Oscar's sou'wester, over his rain gear and plopped on the deck. The stern of the aged but rugged gillnetter was bathed in the white glare of its spotlight. The yellow oilskins of the old fisherman glistened in its dazzling light.

Oscar's seamed Norwegian face was unemotional. He turned the spotlight to illuminate floating bits and chunks of drift. The beam couldn't reach the end of the net in the heavy rain, but he saw the yellow light of his kerosene lantern wink farther on.

Three nights ago there'd been a record high, which, backed by strong winds, had raked and scoured the beaches. As it ebbed, it carried logs long since barked, kelp, bits of styrofoam, seaweed, beer cans, lumps of bark, roots and bobbing bottles; all the debris flung far above the mean tide by the fierce storms of the preceding winter.

He'd slept five minutes too long and now his net and boat were snarled in the slowly heaving accumulation on the quiet sea. This mass, begun on many beaches, had been brought together by the currents that eddy and swirl around the islands. Oscar and the "North Star" had drifted into what seemed the middle of it. His eyes scanned the limited horizon. Two lanterns came into view; the "Argonaut" and the "Lamplighter," he decided, from their dimly seen silhouettes. As he watched, flood lights appeared on the other fish boats. Other figures in rain gear assessed the homogeneous mass.

His mind slipped back to his youth in these same islands where he'd been brought as a child. There'd been times when the salt water's entire surface, as far as he could see, would be covered with odds and ends of floating fragments.

In those days the saw mills were going full blast, and the up-river loggers loosed scrap material into the rivers. Everything eventually found its way to the Saltchuck.

Another memory pierced his mind - one in the distant past when he and Tag, then a pup, now gone long ago, had set out in his rowboat to drag a line and maybe catch a fish. Tag always barked when a salmon was boated. This time his shrill, excited bark echoed three times from the steep, wooded heights. Fishing over for the evening, Oscar made a slow turn. As they rounded the point, his oars were deflected by the floating drift.

It became denser as they approached the small dock, in the cove. Tag must have thought they were on the beach. Oscar's grin split wide to show his nearly toothless mouth as he remembered how Tag had jumped, and the dog's surprised glance at the fisherman when he had to swim, not walk, home.

Oscar turned to his reel; recollection time was over. He stood at the stern and alternately engaged and disengaged the hand-operated clutch as the net came up and over the roller. Stop; more chunks of wood, bark, and seaweed to be picked out; start; bring up a few more feet of line; stop; pick out the occasional drowned sea duck that couldn't see his net as it dived for fish near the surface and was enmeshed. Start; another few feet over the roller. Stop; more bits of wood, and, now and then, a salmon picked out. He had not expected many on this set. The calm sea, even though there was no moon, had made it easier for the fish to see the net. Instinct guided, they were headed for the ancestral stream of their spawning to complete their life cycle. Even a little chop would have helped conceal it from them.

Another few feet of picking debris from the net, another stop. It was a rhythmic routine. The man's wiry body began to feel fatigue, his wrists aching from the effort. Finally all eighteen hundred feet of net, lead line and corks were wound around the reel. The lighted lamp came over last. He blew it out and set it aside just as the dawn brought the gray outlines of the islands into focus.

His boot pushed the seventeen salmon he'd caught over toward the bulkhead from where he could pitch them easily to the fish buyer he would see on the way home. Wearily he descended the three steps to the snug and warm cabin. The engine had been idling during the time the power take-off had been at work reeling in the net. He eased the boat into gear, noting that the ebbing tide had carried the "North Star" out toward the middle of the channel.

Slowly he turned the wheel and directed the old boat's ironwood bow toward home, more than an hour's slow run away. Only then did he ease his hot aching feet out of the rubber boots, slide off his oilskin pants, remove his slicker and hang them on brass hooks in the bulkhead. The fire in the galley stove needed only a few chunks of sawdust log; the coffee pot only a nudge to put it at the hottest place over the fire.

Oscar was "loner." The "Lamplighter" and the "Argonaut," each manned by a crew of two, had reeled in and cleared out nearly an hour ago. He preferred his boat to himself. Less talk that way, and a man had more time for his thoughts. Never a man to be unmindful of profits, he had that to consider, too. Not for him an automatic pilot, or radar, or even a depth finder. He'd go it the old way. Relunctantly he had installed the power drive some years ago. He was considering even now, a clutch control flush with the deck. Just a foot's pressure on it to engage; remove the foot and the clutch would immediately disengage. It couldn't catch in your sleeve like the leaver he was presently using. Maybe next year...

The old Norwegian poured a thick mug full of obsidian coffee and took his place in the seat behind the wheel. He corrected his heading a point or two to port. Oscar would not sleep until he dropped the hook at his usual moorage.

The rain was unrelenting and continuous.