Robert Baylot, author of The One, has published short fiction in Mysterical E, Every Day Fiction, and The Blue Moon Literary and Art Review. He has also published poetry in a variety of magazines and journals including Deep South Magazine, The Delta Poetry Review, Poetry Super Highway, The Broad River Review, and numerous others. A long time employee of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, he now writes from western Tennessee.
*****
A long-ago summer, 20 years ago, they were around 10 years old– Trey, Marshall, and Donnell. For Trey’s tenth birthday they were going to a cabin at Lazy Lizard Lake. Trey’s father was the only father who could go; all worked at NASA.
The cabin was small, rustic, but neat. Simple furniture, old rough-cut wood-framed chairs and couch, oak end tables, a white pine table with pine chairs, and one acknowledgement to the rest of the world, a big, soft easy chair.
Destined to be days of grilled hamburgers, hot dogs and chips, and pancakes and sausages for breakfasts. Ten year old boy heaven.
The second day, early in the morning after the pancake breakfast, Trey’s father got the call from work he had hoped would not come.
“I’m going to be on the phone, helping with a programming glitch,” he told the boys.
“We could fish from the pier until you’re through,” Marshall said.
Trey’s father had put his hand over the phone. “OK, but no further. You don’t need to be roaming around.” He started back to his phone call and added, “Lifejackets for all.”
Trey’s father retreated to that easy chair with his phone, his notebook, and his user manuals. The boys gathered up their fishing gear.
A hot Texas sun tried its best to penetrate the canopy of loblolly pines with its brilliant rays and suffocating heat. The boys didn’t notice. They fished with crickets and caught some small fish, but as it got hotter, the results were not as good. They cleaned a couple of bigger fish, not quite enough for a meal but they would be fishing more.
A hot Texas sun tried its best to penetrate the canopy of loblolly pines with its brilliant rays and suffocating heat.
They went back into the cabin for Doritos and Three Musketeer bars, noting that Trey’s father now had a huge stack of papers he had written on and a man-possessed look on his face.
Later the boys got his attention long enough to tell him they would wear their lifejackets but walk down the lake’s edge and stay close to the bank. Not sure he heard, but he did wave and that meant ok, right?
They walked and the pines were sometimes replaced by oaks, some oaks already showing signs of browning leaves. Following the bank, they knew they could retrace their steps back to the cabin. They walked more than a mile, talking, skimming rocks, walking past a few other cabins. Finally they came upon another fisherman. He had a reddish, scaly face and smiled.
“Howdy, boys,” he said.
“Hello,” Marshall answered. Marshall always had an answer.
“You can call me Nathan, ok? What kind of bait are you guys using today?”
“Crickets.”
“Crickets are good but the worms are working today. Try these worms.” He handed them a handful to divide as they squirmed in his hand. “Fishing tells you a lot about a boy or a man.”
“I fish this lake all the time since I live right over there,” the man said as he pointed generally back over his shoulder where no house was visible. “I have a small pond near the lake where you can fish. Easy fishing. The fish just hop up and grab the bait. No hassle.”
Marshall started to back away, but Donnell asked, “Where is the pond?”
“Just right there. You can see it if you round the next bend.”
The boys moved slowly and rounded that bend, but they had to leave the bank and start up a small hill, where they could see the pond, which also curved behind the hill and cabin.
“I keep this pond stocked with bass. Two or three pounders,” the man said. “What do you think about a three pound bass?”
That would go a long way toward having enough fish to actually cook and eat.
“And the bass have messages in them, messages that predict your future.”
All three looked at him, somewhat puzzled.
“What are you talking about?” Donnell asked.
“It’s sort of like at the school fairs where somebody puts something on the line, only it’s real fishing,” Nathan said.
“Really?” Donnell asked. “How did these messages get in these fish?”
“My secret,” Nathan said.
So, ok, the boys baited up their hooks with the worms and began to fish.
“You can each catch one fish. That fish will have your secret message, and it stays secret, right? No sharing with anyone.”
The fish popped quickly at their bait and soon each of them had their one bass, and coming down from the lake they could hear Trey’s father retracing their steps, looking for them.
“Go. You need to go,” the man said. “You can meet back here in 20 years when you are all men and share your messages then.”
Why twenty years? Was that just a passing comment? Whatever, the boys moved back toward the cabin.
“You can meet back here in 20 years when you are all men and share your messages then.”
Each boy cleaned his fish, looking for his message, looking for his future prediction, a prediction he would keep secret for twenty years.
*****
Marshall was the one who ended up staying around Houston for a while. Trey moved to Huntsville, with his father at the NASA facility there, and Donnell ended up in Huntington Beach, California, with his father taking a job with an aerospace consultant.
Marshall had kept up with them through email and their web activities for a while but not much in the way of direct communication. He wanted to know where they were, but never asked what they were doing, what they had thought about that day long ago.
Marshall thought of the incident often, realizing later on the real danger they had been exposed to. “You are the one,” his message said, and what could that mean?
But as the 20 year anniversary of the boy’s almost grand naiveté approached, he reached out to Trey and Donnell. It would be great to see them, but he also wondered how a simple message that each of them had received had affected their lives. Ultimately he worked out with them a reunion at Lazy Lizard Lake.
*****
Marshall got the keys to the cabin and opened up. He’d brought some groceries, broccoli and carrots, lean chicken for the grill, and such. He assumed everyone else would bring what they might want. He did bring light beer, bratwursts, buns, and pancake mix.
Marshall walked down to the pier. The pier was in great shape, freshly painted in a dark brown. Leaves and limbs floated on the lake near the bank. The day was cloudy but still hot and afternoon would likely bring the usual extreme heat. He heard the trampling of pine straw and oak leaves. It was Donnell.
“Marshall.” Donnell had a small paisley suitcase that he rolled by his side with an easel and some art supplies in his right hand. “Beautiful view.”
“But familiar too, huh?”
“I suppose it is, but I see all the vistas differently now, the colors, the contrasts in light and dark, the story that the images tell. I’m a painter now, you know, and art teacher in the Ozarks, beautiful country there too.”
“I might have guessed at least some of that,” Marshall said.
“I am going to paint that landscape before Trey comes,” Donnell said.
“Sure thing.”
*****
Trey had flight issues into Houston with delays out of Reagan National and then some problems with the car rental; he was running late. Donnell painted his landscape. Later Marshall cooked the bratwurst and broccoli and they ate near the pier.
“Marshall, I’d like for you to have this painting to remember our outing together,” Donnell said.
“It’s beautiful. I can’t believe how talented you have become.” The landscape was of the pier and the lake.
The sun rays of the twilight were fading now. They could see the headlights coming up the road.
Trey parked the rental truck next to the two cars, opened the door and greeted his friends. Donnell was exuberant with his hug and pats on the back.
Trey went back to get a suitcase and a holstered handgun.
“So national security issues?” Marshall asked, mostly joking?
“No, just the normal weather delays in airports.”
“Good,” Marshall said. “Then you won’t have to tell us why and then kill us.” Marshall looked at the handgun, something he always sized up given his background.
“You learn things in the NSA. Better to be prepared.”
Trey returned to the pier. “Wonder if there’s any fish in this lake, gentlemen?”
“I’m sure,” Marshall said. Marshall had brought fishing rods and supplies for the group. Of course, they would all fish tomorrow. They had to recreate the experience from exactly 20 years ago when they were young men who loved being together, but were separated shortly after the trip.
*****
Sausages sizzled, and pancakes cooked on the grill. Coffee brewed. They walked down to the pier and Donnell took his camera to capture scenes he could paint later.
They tried their luck fishing from the pier.
“When we were kids,” Marshall said, “we were about to separate. We didn’t know what our future held, but this old man we met said he could tell us.”
“What an odd man,” Trey said.
They walked at a slow pace and stopped for five minutes, maybe ten minutes at promising fishing spots, under a tree or in a curve in the lake.
“So, as for our futures, here I am with a camera. Painting and teaching are my life. I’m a loner most of the time and love it, but I do have the students I interact with,” Donnell said.
“But is that the summary of your life? Are we living out the fate we learned about 20 years ago?” Marshall asked.
“We’ve never really talked about those predictions,” Trey said. “Maybe it’s time.”
“Old secrets may be hard to talk about,” Marshall said.
“Not really,” Donnell said. “I’ve found that my access to painting has taught me to look into myself and open up. I’ll go first, ok?”
They stopped walking and sat briefly at a picnic table.
“It was hard when we separated,” Donnell said. “I am so glad we got to take that trip, my closest friends and me. Nathan was an unrecognized danger at the time, but we’re ok, right?”
“I remember he told us that our destiny would be on a note in the fish. I cleaned that fish like we all did and gutted it. . . .”
He hesitated before continuing. “There was no message, but I kept even that secret.”
“So what did you think about no message?”
“It meant he was a strange man,” Donnell said. “Later on I thought about the danger. That really opened my eyes. I realized my life was a canvas that I would paint my future on.”
“What about you, Trey?” Marshall asked.
“Donnell is the feeler, maybe the philosopher. At NSA, I have learned to keep a tighter rein on my feelings, but I enjoyed the trip.”
“And?” Marshall asked.
“My future probably goes back to my father’s dedication and purpose in life. He programmed. I work to catch the bad guys in cybersecurity. May have cost me a marriage, though.”
“You cut open your fish. What was your message?” Marshall asked.
“The same as Donnell’s. I was careful, but I could find no message. I thought it was Nathan’s joke on us. He would delight in the same way a hacker would by screwing with our minds.”
Marshall got up and the other two followed and they continued their walk down to where they had met Nathan. They were silent pretty much. Marshall had not yet spoken.
“We have a gun this time,” Donnell said. “We should be safe.”
“I would imagine so,” Marshall said.
They had arrived at the bend in the lake where they knew the pond should be, just over the hill.
“Before we look over the hill,” Marshall said. “I want to tell you about me. Twenty years has been a long time. I floundered in my life, the way a fish on a hook might. I studied criminology and worked as a Houston policeman, going after the bad guys. Then I felt like I needed something more. This itch I have scratched in archeology, studying the past.”
Donnell asked, “You didn’t have a message either, did you? He was jerking us around.”
“I found a small plastic ball inside the fish. Inside the ball was a folded up message. It said, ‘You are the one.’”
Donnell and Trey looked at each other puzzled.
“Sounds like it was a threat from Nathan,” Trey said. “We should have told my father and maybe called the police.”
“Maybe so,” Marshall answered, “but as a kid I wondered how he knew and what he could know. It was constantly on my mind.”
“Man, that is bad,” Donnell said. “Having this on your mind so long.”
“I wish you could have ignored it,” Trey said. “Maybe now, you can take the pressure off. You’ve done great with your life.”
“It sounds so egotistical. How could I think that I would be the one?” Marshall said.
“But how did it mean ‘the one,’?” Trey asked. “Was it ‘the one who would succeed’? Or was it more sinister than that?”
They stepped around the fence that led down toward Lazy Lizard Lake. The fence had not been there twenty years ago.
“The pond was down there,” Trey said, as he pointed. They climbed the small hill and descended toward where the pond should have been.
“It’s been drained,” Marshall said.
“Twenty years to come back to this?” Donnell said. “Ironic, it would seem.”
They saw a shack through the clearing and walked toward it. Clearing out some brush, they could see a front door hanging ajar and open holes where windows might have been. They stepped inside and could see that it had a dirt floor and there were no signs of its being occupied for many years.
Marshall stayed back as Donnell and Trey stepped through where the back door would have been and there they stared at the small stone that indicated a burial site with “Nathan Stimpson” engraved on it.
“He was old,” Donnell said. “Not unusual to think that an old man living by himself, probably with no medical care, would be dead.”
“Not unusual,” Trey said. “But what difference does it make?”
“Marshall, you look different. What’s wrong? You’re shaking,” Donnell said.
“I knew he was dead,” Marshall said.
“Ok,” Donnell said, “but the shaking. This has had such an effect on you. Are you all
right?”
Trey had entered Nathan’s name on Google and walked toward Marshall and Donnell.
“You can get reception out here?” Marshall asked.
“NSA,” Trey said. “I can get reception. Looks like 12 years after we were here, law enforcement came to this area. Apparently there had been some missing boys over the years.”
“Creepy,” Donnell said.
“There was a shootout. Nathan Stimpson was killed. They drained the pond. Found the remains of five boys kidnapped over a period of nine years.”
“I was the ‘one,’” Marshall said after a few seconds of hesitation. “I was the lone police officer, off duty, outside my jurisdiction, but I had to confront him. I had to scratch that dreadful itch that he had caused in me. And I found in his shack, the clothing and fishing hats of these boys.”
“And you were the ‘one,’ according to the message” Donnell said. “Were you the one that he wanted to be his first kill?”
“But you ended up being the one who would end that old man’s reign of terror,” Trey said.
“Why didn’t you share all this with us, Marshall?” Donnell asked.
“We had to do the twenty year thing. You all needed to see how close we were to danger.”
“He’s dead, Marshall. We get it,” Trey said. “His prediction was right, just in a way that he couldn’t understand.”
“We have closed the loop now,” Donnell said, “and we should tie it off and let it wither away.”
“Let’s leave this place and get away from the memory of Nathan,” Trey said. “Let’s get a boat and get way out into this lake and fish.”
Donnell took a photo of the simple tombstone and another of the filled-in pond.
“I’d like to fish,” Marshall said, “where the fish don’t contain life messages.”
Donnell hugged Marshall hard. Trey patted him on the shoulder. Together, three young men, now grown, walked away.
*****
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