A Fish Story

The air was cool, and the sun warm as the pickup bounced down the dirt road. My brother, Prestyn, and I stood on the bed of the pickup, tilting our heads back and letting the cold morning wind whisper through our hair and in our ears. Our older brother, Tyler, was at the wheel. Earlier that morning, my dad had asked my brothers and me to drive out to one of our dried up dams to fish out the carp that were in there and take them to a fuller dam. We passed through a group of cows, and soon we were at the dam. There was deep mud all the way around it with a small puddle of water in the middle where nine or ten fish lived.

Tyler grabbed a rope from the pickup and quickly tied it to the net. The puddle was too far out in the middle to reach with just the pole. You couldn’t step in the mud, because you would sink deep and fast. I had seen a cow once walk into mud like this to get a drink from the water in the middle. She took three steps, and the mud was up to her sides, and she couldn’t move. My dad had to rope her, and he and his horse heaved her out of the mud. There were other cows, too, that hadn’t been so fortunate to have been pulled out. I was only six at the time, but I knew what had caused it: the Bog. I had heard my dad use the term before, and I knew: whatever went into the Bog never came out unless it had help.

The plan to catch the fish was to throw the net out into the water, scoop up a fish or two, tow them to shore, and put them in the buckets, which were filled with water. It sounded easy enough, but these fish swam as fast as they could, darting in and out of range of the net, and absolutely refused to be caught. Tyler wasn’t much for patience, and after he threw out a barrelful of misses, he gave up. Prestyn wanted to try next, so he picked up the net and sent it hurtling into the dam. The only problem, however, was that the genius forgot to hold onto the rope, so that we could pull the net back in. The net made it to the water, but the rope lay, sitting on top of the mud.

First we tried grabbing a nearby board, to get the rope to us, so that we could pull the net out. That plan failed, so then we tried taking another rope, to rope the rope, but that also didn’t work. Our last effort was the dog, Ringo, so we pushed him out to grab the rope for us. As soon as his feet touched the mud, he spun right around, and ran back to the pickup and hid by the tire.

We took a break for lunch, and then Prestyn and Tyler walked around to the other side of the dam. Ringo and I stood by the shore, just staring at the net. I glanced down at the mud, and reached my arm out as far as it would go, and stuck my finger into the mud. It only sunk down to my first knuckle. In the back of my mind, running over and over again was: “Whatever goes into the bog, doesn’t come out.” I ignored it, and took a step. The wet mud slipped out and away from my boots. I wasn’t sinking. A wave of relief flooded my body, and drowned out the voice in my head. I took another step, and another. I was almost to the rope now, just a few more steps. I breathed deep and took one more step. As soon as my boot hit the surface of the mud, it sunk. My foot sunk all the way up to my knee. I was losing my balance, and didn’t want to fall, so I pulled my other foot out, and stuck it next to the foot that was stuck. It sunk even further, and the mud oozed all the way up to my thigh. It was soft, gooey mud, and it smelled bad, like a mixture of cows and fish. I quickly looked all around me. I couldn’t see Tyler and Prestyn. I was starting to panic now, and the voice came on again, playing over and over again in my mind like a broken record, “Whatever goes into the bog doesn’t come out.” I shut it out. It wouldn’t help me get out, so I started looking around for things to get me out. My head was reeling with ideas and fear. I put my hands down in the mud around me, and squished it down, trying to find a hard spot. My hands felt something hard and skinny, like a stick. I pulled it out, anxious to see what it was. It was the rope. I gave it a jerk, and I saw the net move from out in the middle. I pulled the rope towards me, coiling it into a pile next to me. Once I got to the net, I grabbed the pole of the net, and started poking around in the mud. Surely there would be a hard spot that I could hold onto and pull myself out. I tried to move my feet once more, and the mud made sucking noises, and I sunk deeper still. By now, I was immersed up to my waist.

I stayed there for a few more minutes, and when I couldn’t stand it anymore, I started yelling my brothers’ names. I only yelled for a few seconds, when I saw them pop up over the hill to my left, and they came running down towards the shore. Tyler called me an idiot for walking out there. I ignored the comment, and stared at them for answers. Prestyn noticed the rope coiled next to me, and told me to throw it to them. Tyler took the rope off of the net, and then he threw it out toward me, and roped me. Images of the cow and my dad pulling her out flashed in my mind. The rope squeezed tight around my lungs, and it was hard to catch a breath. I hollered for them to stop, and I loosened the rope, and gasped for air. I took a deep breath, filled both my lungs, tightened the rope, and they began pulling again. The rope pinched through my shirt at my skin, and I could feel it tear. But I could also hear the sucking of the mud, and soon my jeans became visible. I must have been one of those lucky cows that got help. I took another breath, and they pulled again, until my knees were almost out. One more pull from my brothers, and I was free from the mud.

Without saying a word, we all walked up to the pickup. Prestyn and Tyler then burst out laughing at the mess I was. I smelled horrible, and it was hard to walk because of the mud that was even in my socks. Once we were home, I ran to the corral to wash my pants off in the water tank. Instead my brothers took a hose, and sprayed me. The water was freezing, but we laughed the whole time, and once I was all cleaned off, we walked up to the house where my dad was waiting.  We approached the house, dripping wet with big smiles on our faces. My dad took one look at us, shook his head, and asked, “So where’s the fish?”

Megan Mutchler