Whispers in the Marsh Grass

Three a.m. found me knee-deep in tannin-stained water, the rubbery scent of decaying cypress needles sharp in my nostrils. My headlamp cut through the fog like a blade, illuminating dancing swarms of midges. 'Just one cast,' I murmured to the bullfrogs croaking in the darkness – the same lie I told myself every full moon night at Okefenokee.

I'd nearly backed the truck into a ditch avoiding an armadillo on the access road. Now my favorite frog lure – a battered hollow-body frog with chipped paint – felt unnaturally heavy as I false-cast toward a gator-gnarled log. For ninety minutes, only the slurping sounds of feeding gar answered my retrieves. Then the water erupted.

Not the expected boil of a bass. This was a primordial thrash that sent mud raining down on my shoulders. My braided line screamed like a banshee as something dragged me stumbling through sawgrass. 'C'mon big girl...' I chanted through gritted teeth, the rod doubled into a question mark. The moon chose that moment to break through clouds, silvering the monstrous bowfin that launched itself airborne, its prehistoric scales glistening like chainmail before it torpedoed into the lily pads. When the line finally went slack, I stood trembling in water up to my waist, holding only a shred of reptilian skin caught on the hook. The swamp had reminded me: some legends bite back.