Up the road, in his shack, the old man was sleeping again.He was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him.The old man was dreaming about the lions.
“You must get well fast for there is much that I can learn and you can teach me everything.How much did you suffer?”
“Of course.With coast guard and with planes.”
He started to climb again and at the top he fell and lay for some time with the mast across his shoulder.
Inside the shack he leaned the mast against the wall.In the dark he found a water bottle and took a drink.Then he lay down on the bed.He pulled the blanket over his shoulders and then over his back and legs and he slept face down on the newspapers with his arms out straight and the palms of his hands up.
“Plenty,”the old man said.
“Sleeping,”the boy called.He did not care that they saw him crying.“ Let no one disturb him.”
“How is he?”one of the fishermen shouted.
He was asleep when the boy looked in the door in the morning.It was blowing so hard that the drifting-boats would not be going out and the boy had slept late and then come to the old man's shack as he had come each morning.The boy saw that the old man was breathing and then he saw the old man's hands and he started to cry.He went out very quietly to go to bring some coffee and all the way down the road he was crying.