That's what it is. Jimmy Dorsey and Glenn Miller. The music of his youth. Music that burst with jazzy excitement and force, bugles driven with abandon.

A thunderclap riveted the distance and he saw a streak of lightning flash toward the ocean's surface. The wind picked up around him, steadily, whispering a warning in the snapping of the lines to the riggers and the pennants. He looked again at the waterspouts. Two miles, he said.

Leave and live. Stay and die.

He smiled to himself. Not time for me yet.

In a single, quick motion, he twisted the ignition key on the console, firing up the big Johnson motor, which growled at him, as if it had been impatient, waiting for his command, reproaching him for trusting his life to the vagaries of an electronic switch and a gas-powered engine. He idled the boat in a half-circle, putting the storm at his back. A spatter of raindrops spotted his blue denim work shirt, and he could abruptly taste the fresh rainwater on his lips. He moved swiftly to the stern and reeled in the two baits. He hesitated one moment longer, staring at the waterspouts. Now they were a mile away, looming large and terrifying, looking down at him as if astonished at the temerity of the insignificant human at their feet, nature's giants stopped in their charge by his insolence, hesitating, shocked by his challenge. The ocean had changed color, the blue deepening to a dense dark gray, as if trying to reach up and blend with the approaching storm.

He laughed as another thunderclap, closer, like a cannon, exploded in the air.