As he glided around the river bend, Scott’s eyes widened in surprise. It wasn’t the swamp stretching out before him, rotting wooden sentinels standing guard over brackish water, a glut of sticks marking a distant beaver dam. The still lake was certainly impressive in a decaying sort of way, and Scott was already calculating the spots where large fish were laying wait for him.
It was the lone structure clinging to the shore along the left side of the expanse that was the most surprising: a barely-recognizable cabin. While it had not sheltered man, nor probably beast, for decades, it was still the first hint of humanity that Scott in his kayak had seen for the past hour or more. Like the swamp, its fallen-in roof and ragged exterior suggested that it had been left on its own, abandoned, for a long, long time.
Scott paddled up to a pair of stumps hunkering in the water about 20 yards off-shore from the cabin. Just beyond, the water of the swamp turned starkly darker, a sure sign of depth and, Scott hoped, large catfish or some other scaly monster. As he flipped open the kayak’s forward hatch and started baiting up his pole, a familiar shape drew his eye to the nearest stump.
It rested amid the sticks and other debris that had been building against the stump for years, and at first Scott thought it was just another stick and his eyes playing tricks on him. He paddled over for a closer look. What he had seen had not been an illusion, but the outline of a small fishing rod and reel, its thin pole nearly indistinguishable amongst the driftwood ensnarled it.
Scott inched closer to the pile. He leaned out over the brackish water, the kayak tilting precariously, one edge sinking lower and lower in the water as Scott shifted his weight towards the prize. As his face got closer to the blackness, Scott could smell decay, decades of rot and stagnation. The point between upright and overturned was reached, surpassed, and Scott was going over into the black water. Flailing in panic, his fingers hooked onto a bit of driftwood, and he pulled himself closer to the stump, the kayak once again upright and buoyant.
It took a few minutes of untangling, but he finally managed to free the pole from the knot of bleached wood. It wasn’t much of a prize. For one thing, it was a kid’s pole, barely larger than a toy. The rod itself was missing an eye and was bent slightly at the tip. The reel was mostly rust, traces of red paint and a name, Fishin’ Pal, barely legible on it. Scott tried to turn the handle on it. It did give, grudgingly, with an unhealthy rasping shriek. The line was still intact though, running from the reel, up the rod, and into the dark depths beyond the stump.
Scott tugged on the pole, but the line still held fast to whatever it had latched onto years before. The kayak slid slowly away from the stump and towards the dark water as Scott tried to free the line, but it held firm.
“Junk,” Scott said, his voice foreign in the dead stillness of the swamp. He tossed the pole towards the dark waters. It arced, turning end over end, before slicing the surface and sinking. And scaring any fish that might have been waiting, Scott thought with a sigh. He grabbed his paddle and started out across the swamp to find another spot to try his luck.
He didn’t get very far. Two, three kayak lengths, and all of a sudden Scott felt drag on the boat. His forward momentum slowed, slowed, and then stopped completely.
Scott turned in the kayak. Perhaps one of the dead branches had grabbed him? But it wasn’t a branch. The line from the old fishing pole had caught on the stern of the kayak when Scott had tossed the pole away. He paddled a few strokes. The line grew taut, but did not give. Scott paddled a little harder. Still the line held, like an invisible hand clutching the end of the boat, holding it fast to one spot.
Scott turned and snapped the paddle into place on the side of the kayak. He drew his knife from its belt sheath and, turning to the back of the boat, began carefully edging out along it towards the tangled line.
The boat rocked in protest, but held fairly steady as Scott inched towards the fishing line. Kneeling in the cockpit, then one knee out, he adjusted his balance as the kayak rolled from side to side. Stretching, Scott grabbed the line with one hand, triumphantly, and was reaching out the other, knife grasped, when the line gave three quick tugs.
Scott froze in disbelief, waiting. The line lightly slackened, then slowly grew tauter, twice. Tug. Tug. Scott laughed, still not quite believing what he was seeing. Somehow, some way, after sitting idle and waiting for decades, the Fishin’ Pal had managed to catch itself a fish.
Scott imagined the scene as it had unfolded in the water. The line, hook intact, tangled in a glut of wooden debris and mud on the bottom. He on the surface, freeing the pole, moving it just enough to wiggle the hook, a dancing enticement to some monster slowly swimming by…
Tug.
Tug.
Still grasping the line with one hand, Scott pulled on it. It cut slightly into his palm, but the kayak started to pivot towards where the line sliced into the water. Scott slid back into the cockpit of the kayak where he was better able to work the fish. All the while he could feel the line lazily tugging back, as if it was testing him.
He set the knife on the floor of the cockpit. Grabbing the line with both hands, Scott slowly pulled on it. Whatever it was, it was heavy, and for a second Scott thought that he had only managed to free the same log that some kid fishing two decades earlier had snagged.
Hand over hand the mass slid through the water towards the kayak. As line started pooling in the cockpit, Scot’s heart sank. No resistance at all. It had to be a log, a large branch, a…
As if awakened, the fish suddenly surged away from the kayak, the line burning into Scott’s hands as it slid through them. Reflexively, he closed his grip on the line, wincing as the line sliced deeper into his skin and drew blood. It worked though. For a few seconds, Scott and the fish had themselves a stalemate, each on the end of a taut, unyielding length of line.
The fish started to weave through the water, first to the left, then the right, the line making a ssssst, ssssst sound as it cut the surface. The kayak bobbed and spun. Ignoring the pain in his palms, Scott braced himself in the kayak’s cockpit and started once again to drag the fish in.
Visibility in the swamp was terrible to begin with, and Scott and the fish weren’t helping it with their battle. Still, Scott kept his eyes on the spot where the line entered the water, eager for a first glimpse of his prey.
When the glimpse finally came, Scott still wasn’t sure what he was looking at. He expected the flattened head and antennae of a catfish, or the familiar muscular markings of a large-mouth bass. Instead he got… flashes of color? Whites and reds, a touch of blue or two. It was hard to make out in the murk. The fish fought mightily, twisting and turning, colors flashing frantically. Scott saw eyes, eagerly seeking their first glimpse of him.
And then it was under the boat, so fast that Scott didn’t have time to adjust to it. The line went tight against the edge of the cockpit, pulling hard as Scott’s hands kept a tight grip on it. With a final wrenching jerk of the line, the kayak rolled over into the water, scattering Scott and his tackle over the dark surface of the swamp. Scott was under, flailing at the water, seeking the surface. He finally saw sky and swam towards it, the fishing line tangling itself around his legs and torso.
Scott broke the surface and breathed deeply. The kayak lay on its side a few feet away, partially submerged. Yellow bobbers danced in the rippled water all around Scott and the swamped boat. Scott swore to himself. All that tackle, gone. Big fish, gone. Himself, wet and more than a little pissed.
He started swimming towards the kayak, his arms struggling with the motion. The fishing line. He was completely tangled in it. Scott grabbed for the knife on his belt, but the sheath was empty. The knife had been on the floor of the kayak’s cockpit. He mentally added it to the list of items that were now slowly sinking into the mud an unknown number of feet below him.
Splashing around like a wounded duck, Scott finally made it to the kayak and reached out his hand for it… and stopped. The line held him secure, a good foot from the boat. He tried paddling harder, but this only tightened the line wrapped around him.
And then the boat started to recede, as Scott was slowly, steadily pulled backwards.
Scott laughed. Well, this would make for an interesting story when he got back home. He swam against the pull of the line, but still he was dragged backwards. He felt the first twinge of fear and swam harder, but the line continued its casual drag. Only the angle had changed, sharper, deeper.
“Help!” Scott yelled, but his cry only echoed off the dilapidated structure, the far edges of the swamp. The line was straight down, and Scott was no longer trying for the kayak, he was trying to stay on the surface. Inch by inch, his shoulders, neck, and head were dragged down into the water. He drew a last breath and blinked as water overtook the sky.
Underwater. He struggled with the line, desperately trying to free himself. He was dragged deeper, deeper, his lungs clutching their last breath tightly. Out of the murky depths, Scott’s adversary came into focus.
It had once been a boy, red and white striped shirt, little blue shoes. It gripped the pole, his pole, with a joyful determination known to anyone on the verge of landing their first big catch. Scott heard the rasp of the reel echo in the dark waters around him. Scott had never been one for catch and release. As unconsciousness took him, his last glimpse of the ruined, rotting smile told him that neither was the child.
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