HUNTER LAKE 18/100 Grebe Dance
The next day Henry Setterholm lifted military grade binoculars to his ruddy face.
"Alma, look at this!" His deep voice rolled the words out like a river rumbling before a flood.
"That Engineering Company got the contract. Ole did this, that's 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 Hunter Lake.
"Like bore beetles, they're gonna' put that plastic pipe in the earth and suck the lake dry," said Alma.
"Damn!"
Alma's hair, bright red, glowed in the morning light as she stretched her arms out to the youngest of the five.
"Uppy, uppy." She planted him on her shoulders.
The earth shook. Henry remained unrattled.
"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 the night before, same look as when he hunted.
"Come on." Alma leaned into him, Henry Junior on her shoulders.
"Son." The father's gaze enveloped his son with crystal blue eyes.
"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."
"Sometimes, money don't always win." Henry smiled.
"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 looked like it had for a hundred years.
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