Two Paddles are Not Enough

(Chapter 3 from the book "The Chicken Who Didn't Know Where to Lay Her Eggs")


There were no words as sweet to Shellie's ears as when Paula asked, "Shellie, are you ready to go fishing?"

Dingo also jumped for joy when he heard those words.

Some of the most pleasant hours that Shellie and Dingo had ever spent with Paula had been while the three of them were sitting in the boat on one of the ponds. Those were extremely enjoyable hours of doing nothing but being outdoors, basking in the beautiful weather sun, and soaking up pure peace and togetherness. For all of them, it was the closest they could get to heaven without leaving earth for good.

Mike never went with them, but Shellie figured that was just as well. He couldn't have sat still in the boat anyway. He was too fidgety and always had to be doing something considered productive. Being in a boat for hours on end with three other creatures who were hardly moving would have been true torture for him.

Anytime Paula announced a fishing trip, both Shellie and Dingo watched her with great anticipation as she got the fishing gear ready. They observed her every move. They watched her put the fishing poles and rods in the SUV. They watched her get the tackle box out of the garage cabinet. Both of them knew the entire process by heart.
Today was no different.

As soon as Paula took her seat in the SUV, Dingo sprang up onto the passenger's seat and Shellie hopped up onto Paula's lap. Off they went.

The ride to the Dark Pond didn't take long, no more than five minutes. It was directly behind the house, back next to the swamp and creek. It was called the Dark Pond because a small stream from the creek fed into it and filled it with tannin-tinted water from the numerous cypress trees growing in the swamp. The water was so dark that Shellie couldn't see more than an inch below the surface.

The Dark Pond was Paula’s favorite fishing hole by far. It was full of large-mouth bass, some of them weighing as much as 15 pounds. Paula liked everything about large-mouth bass. They were a fascinating fish. They were fun to reel in and she always had to figure out just the right type of lure to catch them with. Some days, they bit only flashy metallic lures. Other days, they preferred plastic worms. Sometimes they would only bite insect-like lures. On other days, they wanted nothing but live worms. And some days they wouldn't bite anything at all, as if they simply took a day off to fast. But all that made them the more challenging. Paula enjoyed figuring out exactly which type of lure worked best on any given day.

It was a perfect day in June for fishing. Not too hot, not too cold, with a gentle breeze blowing across the water. It was the kind of day that, if you weren't going fishing, the only other thing you would've wanted to do was sleep or watch baseball. Paula watched baseball a lot. She often told Shellie that baseball was a game she had learned to appreciate from her first husband. When Shellie was alone with Paula, Paula often told her about him.

Paula loaded all the fishing gear and two paddles into the 12-foot boat. Shellie and Dingo hopped in, and all three of headed out to the center of the pond as Paula rowed the two paddles.

Now came Shellie's favorite part.

Paula took out her tackle and placed a black plastic worm on her fishing rod. But before she cast it into the water, she got out the can of live worms. She dug around a bit, pulled one out and dangled it in front of Shellie. It was about four inches long and very fat from a steady diet of chicken pellets.
Shellie quickly snapped it with her beak. She swallowed it in one gulp. That was the reason she really loved fishing.

After every few casts of her rod, Paula gave Shellie another worm. Shellie really liked the days when the large-mouth bass preferred artificial lures over live worms. That left more worms for her.

Today was one of those days. On only her second cast, Paula got a strike. She hauled in a nice, five-pound bass. She took it off the line and placed it in the bucket of water in the boat.

Over the next hour, she had far more luck than she had been expecting. She got a strike about every 15 minutes. She caught two more bass, both good-sized.
With the three bass in the bucket in the boat, Paula looked forward to a fine evening of fishing. She still had at least two hours before the sun went down, and the fishing should only get better as the sun got lower.

Paula looked at the three bass in her bucket. She realized that if her luck kept up today, she would soon have enough to invite the preacher out for a fish fry. She knew that he preferred baked chicken, but he had never said "No" to a fish fry, or to any other supper invitation for that matter.

She cast the plastic worm a few more times without any luck.

Paula didn't forget Shellie. Every half hour or so, she took an earthworm out of the can and fed it to Shellie.

Shellie was just swallowing a fat, juicy worm when Paula got a strong strike.

Paula pulled the line gently to see if the fish had swallowed the plastic worm. The line fell slack. The fish hadn't gotten serious yet.

Paula slowly began to reel the line in. When the worm was about 30 feet from the boat, the fish struck again, but just lightly. Paula let the line go slack for a moment. The fish seemed to have lost interest. Paula started reeling it in again.
The bass struck again. This time, the line pulled taut.

Paula yanked the line to snag the fish for good. She began to reel the fish in. The pole bent sharply. It was sure to be a large fish.

After half a minute or so, Paula had reeled the fish in far enough that it broke the surface of the water. It sprang out of the water as it thrashed about, trying to get away. It had to weigh at least eight pounds.

Dingo spotted the fish. He placed his feet on the edge of the boat, and whined and trembled with anticipation.

Dingo dreaded water for any purpose other than drinking. He always made a large circle around any puddle of water he came across. He never ran through one. Anytime he sensed he was about to get a bath, he did his best to hide or, even better, escape for the rest of the day. And he never dived directly into the middle of the pond.

Today was different. When Dingo saw the fish jump out of the water, he suddenly seemed to completely forget about his fears of the water. He sprang over the edge of the boat.

When he sprang, he struck the end of one of the paddles. Dingo hit the water and the paddle flew in after him. Dingo swam in the direction of the fish, and the paddle floated off in the opposite direction.

At first, Paula didn't say a thing. She didn't want to scare away all the fish in the water by causing an even greater commotion. Instead, she tried to reel in the fish as quickly as she could. She figured that the best thing to do was to get the fish close enough to the boat that she could scoop it up and then Dingo.

As the bass got nearer and nearer the boat, so did Dingo. He kept snapping at the fish, trying to grab it. Mostly, however, all he achieved was to get one mouthful of water after another. He had no trouble swimming, but he was very awkward about it.
When the fish was about five feet from the boat, Paula shifted forward in her seat to be nearer the edge of the boat. She got ready to grab the fish and Dingo when they were close enough.

Suddenly, there was a large splash about ten feet out from the boat. The fish on the line and the snapping rat terrier were about halfway between the splash and the boat.
Paula glanced quickly at the spot of the splash. She froze.

"A gator!" she cried.

This was the first gator she had ever seen in the Dark Pond. She knew that several gators lived back in the creek and swamp, but she thought they always stayed there. The swamp was much woodier and offered lots of places to hide. A gator out in the open waters of the Dark Pond was something brand new.

The fish, frightened by the splashing of Dingo and the approaching gator, pulled firmly against the line.

Paula jumped up and grabbed the second paddle. Her quick motions made the boat rock dangerously. Water sloshed in over the sides.

All of this was too much for Shellie. The last thing she wanted to do was to end up in a deep pond full of large-mouthed fish and an even larger-mouthed gator. She took one last look at the situation and began flapping her wings. Shellie didn't fly much, but today was an exception. She jumped up on the seat of the boat to get a good start and then struck out in the air toward the dam, about 50 feet away.
While Shellie was in the air, she heard Dingo yipping and Paula yelling "Get away! Get away!" She heard Paula strike the water with the paddle. She couldn't tell if she had hit the gator or driven it away.

Right as Shellie landed on the dam, she heard an even bigger commotion.

Shellie turned around and saw the boat flip upside down. Paula fell into the water.
The boat turned all the way over and floated belly up.

The rod-and-reel went darting away. The fish on the other end dragged it along as it swam for freedom.

Paula still had the one paddle. She whapped the water as hard as she could in the direction of the gator.

Then Shellie heard a sharp crunching noise. Her heart started thumping. Horrible thoughts raced through her head.

She saw the gator's head raise out of the water. She saw the broad end of the paddle planted squarely in its mouth, now mostly just a collection of splinters. Just as fast, the gator disappeared under the surface, taking the crushed paddle with him.
With one hand, Paula grabbed the edge of the upside-down boat. With the other, she grabbed Dingo. She lifted him up onto the bottom of the boat.

She then managed to get a solid grip on the boat. She started pulling herself up.
At the same moment, the crunched paddle floated back to the surface of the water.
Right behind it appeared the gator's eyes. They began moving toward the boat, toward Paula.

Paula was now halfway on top of the boat. Only the calves of her legs were still in the water.

The gator got nearer. Then it disappeared.

Shellie held her breath.

Paula succeeded in pulling her right leg up on the boat. As she started pulling her left foot out of the water, the gator resurfaced right where her foot was. He snapped hungrily.
He missed Paula's left f
oot by only a hair. His jaw caught the side of the boat and crunched shut so hard that he sent squirts of water flying over the boat.

He disappeared below the surface.

Paula yanked her left foot up onto the boat. She hurriedly crawled to the middle of the boat and grabbed Dingo. The two of them sat there huddled together, completely padddleless.

Paula knew better than to try to row ashore using her hands. The gator was hungry and seemed to have little fear of humans, or dogs or chickens.

Shellie could see swirls in the water where the alligator swam submerged next to the boat.

Shellie didn't know what to do. She ran up to the top of the dam and then stood there like a statue. She decided to stay as far away from the water as she could. She could never know where the alligator might decide to show up next.
Paula occasionally yelled "Help!" at the top of her lungs. But no one came. The wind had picked up a little and was blowing the sound of her voice away from either Mike's house or her daughter's house.

The evening wore on and the sun fell lower. Finally, darkness settled in.
Paula kept calling for help. By now, she had now called so much that her throat was getting hoarse. Her voice was getting weaker and weaker.

Shellie sat there on the dam of the pond. The darkness made her very uneasy. The only light was from the moon. It was about three-quarters full.

Paula and Dingo sat on top of the boat in the middle of the pond. At times, the boat floated a little in one direction and then a little in the other. But it never got close enough to the dam for Paula and Dingo to risk running for safety.

About an hour after dark, Shellie heard Mike's truck. She heard it come closer to the pond. Finally, it drove up onto the dam.

Paula called out to her husband as loud as she could with her hoarse voice. He spotted her.

She tried to explain their situation as well as she could with her failing voice.
Mike got a flashlight out of his truck and shined it on her and Dingo.

He grabbed a roll of thick twine from the bed of the truck. He found a heavy, hand-sized stick on the dam and tied it to the end of the twine. He threw the stick and twine out toward Paula.

The first throw was too short. Mike pulled the twine and stick back in.
The second throw was too wide. Mike pulled it back in again.

Finally, on the third throw, the stick landed right beside the boat.
Paula was able to grab it by lying down flat on the boat.

As she lay there with the stick in one hand and her other arm around Dingo, her husband began towing on the twine. Slowly, the boat moved closer to shore.

After a few minutes, Mike pulled the boat close enough that he could drag it up onto the dam. First Dingo and then Paula jumped onto solid land.

Paula kissed her husband. Then she bent down to Shellie, kissed her too, and said, "Shellie...I'm sorry I lost the worms."



Copyright 2010 (c) Thorsten Taylor