Gwen, in Green

For a few days the guard on the Pine Tree cut was alert. He walked around in his uniform, his gun at his side, and watched the big Cats tear into the trees with roaring efficiency. After a few days, however, it became apparent to the guard that those other guys had just taken off. Construction workers were like that. There was a big operation getting underway down in South America and he wouldn’t have been surprised to know that at least a couple of the four missing guys had just decided to go south. There certainly was no threat apparent on the island. The woods looked sort of thick, but they contained nothing more than a few foxes and a coon, maybe. There were no houses around, not within a half mile to the north and about the same on the south, with a new golf course coming right up to the edge of the cut on the south side. About the only danger the guard could see was the danger of being hit in the head with a stray golf ball if you went over on the south side of the cut near one of the few places where you could see through to the course. So after a while he found himself a shady spot where he could sit and watch both Cats working, unless one of them went around on the other side of the diminishing bunch of trees in the cut. He didn’t see it happen.

One of the bulldozers was pushing fallen trees into a pile. The pile was a huge one. The higher you made it the better it would burn when the burners came around, after a few days of drying out. The operator had his blade low and was digging in in the lowest gear to push the pile into a more compact mass. It was an accident, a freak thing that should never have happened. In the mass of broken trees in front of the dozer there was a young pine, about five inches thick at the base. It had been pushed out easily, its tap root broken just below the ground. Its branches had been stripped by rolling and crushing in the mass of trees. But it was lying near the top now, full length, its small end pointed toward the dozer. The tip had been broken, too, leaving a jagged point about two inches in thickness. The jagged end was lodged against a small oak limb and the butt end was pushed solidly against a large pine. The pressure bent it, compressed it into a bow. Just as the Cat began to bog down, unable to compress the mass further, the jagged end snapped free of the oak and the compression of the flexible young tree was released suddenly, sending it lancelike and deadly, under the protective cage on the machine and to pierce the operator just in the vee of his rib cage. No one heard his scream. The young pine went through, severing the backbone, punching a hole in the leatherette upholstery of the seatback. The big Cat spun its treads, slewed off, blade ripping free of the mass of trees. The guard saw it lumbering across the clearing toward the northern tree line, rose to see what was going on. The pine, embedded in the operator’s body, was extending out over the hood, heavy end bouncing up and down as the Cat rocked over the rough ground. The guard gave chase, but he knew nothing about heavy equipment. The Cat hit the tree line, crashed through and over small brush, and thudded into a huge oak, where it stopped, spun tracks, and then choked down.

It was clearly an accident, but Flores had four straight operators tell him, hell, no, they weren’t going over there. That was a jinx job.

Now there were too many of them. Two men on the machines, a guard, and others coming around during the day. All she could do was stand back in the woods, out of sight, and watch. Now the other was even more important. Now it was vital to her to have the visitors, for only then could she close her mind to the rending pain. The first two were still her favorites, but she liked the others, too. And there were always new ones coming. Usually she waited for them, standing in the clean, cool water, the soothing sand over her feet, the brushing touch of the plants on her legs. But sometimes they’d come when she was inside, and then they would stand by the pond and whistle until she went out. Then she’d feel ripe, swollen, and at peace. Then she’d blank out the noise of the bulldozers and the pain and afterwards she’d be rewarded with memories, with the delightful feeling of eternal peace and love and immortality.

Some of them wanted to swim in the pond afterwards. She’d let them, telling them to be very careful. Once two of them started a water fight in the shallows and, in their enthusiasm, ripped plants from the sand. She told them not to come back.

By mid-­August the Pine Tree Island cut was complete. Black smoke swelled into the humid air. Workers carried large cans of waste oil and other inflammables to help ignite the piles of broken trees. The fires burned for days, were put out by heavy rains, reignited. When it was finished, two bulldozers smoothed the ravaged area, leaving white sand, spotted here and there with torn, red, broken roots.