DITCHING THE GREBES
Henry Setterholm lifted military grade binoculars to his weather worn ruddy face.
“Alma, look at this!”
“Yes.”
“Uh, oh, you’re here, didn’t mean to shout.”
“That Engineering Company got the contract, huh? Did Ole do this, that why he wanted on the Water Board? For one more acre?”
“Yup.” Henry stood tall, feet planted on the earth his ancestors populated over a century ago. Overnight the Moore Engineering semis swarmed the shoreline of the nearby lake.
“Like bore beetles, they’re gonna’ put that plastic pipe in the earth and suck the lake dry,” said Alma.
“Damn!”
“Hey watch the language, Junior’s coming.” Alma’s hair, bright red, glowed in the morning light as she stretched her arms out to the youngest of the five.
“Uppy, uppy.” The littlest jumped up and she planted him on her shoulders.
Henry shook his head, he remembered his Dad admonishing him to protect the wildlife. “They’re like you son, they survive, you survive.” His Dad had pointed at the Grebe, a bird that required a unique habitat, one this particular North Dakota lake afforded. One where this unique waterfowl could create a nest in the reeds. “You see, the Grebe can’t run like ducks, they just fall over, without this lake, they couldn’t take care of their young.”
The earth shook him away from his reverie.
“Those semis comin’ over here?” said Alma. Junior wriggled back and forth on her shoulders.
“No…… just started to dig.”
“When did they get here?”
“Junior and I, we were out at the lake last night, they didn’t see us, but we saw ‘em comin’, the parasites.”
“Last night?” Alma looked at her husband’s boots, mud caked still wet, slept-in clothes, hands dirty with new dried blood.
“Need some coffee.” The imprint of the binoculars on his eyelids gave a peculiar look to his face, she had seen that look before, when he came back from Iraq. When he startled awake at night. When he hunted.
“Come on.” Alma leaned into him, Henry Junior on her shoulders, as though he was a light shawl.
“Son.” The father’s gaze enveloped his son with crystal blue eyes. Eyes that characterized the whole family.
“Daddy, daddy, red glebe.” The boy put his arms out, and stretched his neck, tried to dive like the prehistoric bird he sat so still to watch the night before.
“Whoa!” said Alma as she adjusted her walk to balance his moves. “They drain the lake…”
“The habitat goes, even our designated wetlands.” The surrounding yard filled with dew covered prairie grasses glistened in the morning sun.
“They’re pouring our farmland down the drain.” She patted Junior’s head as he nestled his face in his mom’s wild hair.
“We’ll have to sift for pieces of it in the Sheyenne River.”
Alma’s face glistened. “We tried.”
“They don’t give a ..”
“The kids.” Alma whispered.
“Sometimes, money don’t always win.”
“What d’ya mean, now Henry, what’ya do?”
“You remember that drainage ditch Ole tried to put on our land?”
“The one they say emptied back into his front yard?”
“Yup.”
“The one they say weird stuff from miles away ended out.”
“Not a myth.”
“You didn’t….” Alma looked up at him.
“Some things are kind of hard to explain, they just happen.”
They walked slowly across the prairie grassland to the two story farm house Henry lived in since he was born. Behind them, the shouts of semi drivers as they leaped out of their cabs, and ran for dry land. He looked back and smiled. The earth’s trembling stopped. The last of the semis sunk. The white three-foot diameter rigid pipes followed.
The Crested Grebes faced off in the reeds, heads down beaks pointed. They raced towards each other across the open water and stopped. Small waves of water pushed out in front of them and crashed. They lifted their necks high, swam off in pairs, leaving a lazy S pattern in the water behind. The shoreline returned to normal, ready for nesting, and egg laying, and diving. Diving in fresh water. The land had been honored for another generation.
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