Gwen, in Green

They managed to extract only one life in return. It was a happy accident, at that. Jack Flores, pleased with the progress of the canal-­marsh crossing, was looking over the site. He borrowed a marsh buggy, a vehicle without a top which almost floated on high, wide rubber wheels, and drove the length of the surveyed route. The dredges had moved in behind him, following in the wake of the drag lines which were stripping the vegetation and top mud away, getting down to pulpy stuff which could be sucked up and pumped away through the long dredge pipes extending across the waterway to the two-­mile-­long spill basin. He had crossed the waterway in a small plastic boat and had noted that the operation was muddying the waters, but a vast amount of tidal flow swept down the waterway and would, according to his engineers, carry the silt away without silting up the waterway itself to a great degree. If it did, well, he had the dredges to dig it out again. He watched the operation for a while and chuckled as a group of small boys in boats yelped and played as they, too, watched man alter nature. Then he got into the marsh buggy and drove out toward the island into marsh which hadn’t yet been spoiled by the digging. There were tracks to follow. It was tricky driving a marsh buggy, because the marsh was cut by numerous guts, and near the guts the mud was bottomless. It wouldn’t look good for the boss to get a buggy stuck and have to call for help, so he was careful to stay on solid ground.

The little vehicle chugged along at a smooth pace and flushed out what the locals called marsh hens, long-­legged black birds of the rail family which flew awkwardly. When a marsh hen came up, its stubby wings beat against the tips of the grass for long moments before it freed itself to struggle a few yards downwind. Flores had hunted the erratic, wild Mexican quail of the Southwest, and he disdained the slow, awkward flight of the hens, wondering how anyone could find sport in shooting anything so easy to hit. But it was sort of funny the way they squawked as they were flushed out, wings fighting the air, long necks outthrust.

He was nearing the sandy cut on the island, with only a few yards of marsh between him and solid ground. He was feeling good. The job was on schedule, all the problems had not been solved, but were at least under control. He could almost see in his mind the print in his contract which guaranteed him one hell of a bonus when he brought the canal in on time. Then a big marsh hen came up right under his wheels and for a moment, Flores was a kid. He jerked the wheel of the buggy and followed the bird, the hood of the vehicle almost touching its long legs. He held no malice toward the terrified bird. It was only a game. He was just horsing around. There was good solid marsh under the wheels, and he juiced the vehicle as the bird started to draw away, steering to stay with it. “Fly, you mother,” he yelled gleefully, pleased with the bird, which was staying in the air much longer than they usually did. He was so intent on staying with the bird that he didn’t notice the change in color to a deeper green, which indicated that there was a small gut ahead in the grass. The vehicle’s front wheels hit, sank, stopped the forward motion. The gut was a tiny one, so narrow that the grass almost closed over the top of it. Flores flew through the air. He hadn’t bothered to strap himself in. The gut was a curving, snaky one and he flew over a bend and landed in a foot of water on living oysters. The shells dug in, cut, ripped. He landed with one arm under him, and he heard it snap. He lay there, dazed, the pain held back by the initial shock. He was just a few yards from the solid earth of the island. He looked down and saw that he was cut. He couldn’t tell how badly, but his blood was staining the water which lay, black and muddy, in the bottom of the gut.

He tried to move and his arm hurt. He felt weak. He had cut his head, too, and the blood was flowing down into his eyes. He tried to wipe it away, but his hands were muddy. He went dizzy and lay still. When he could see again, he washed his hands in the muddy water and then tried to clear his eyes. He wondered if his accident had been observed, but he doubted it. The work force was all the way over on the other side of the marsh.

He crawled a few feet, finding it easy to make his way through the mud and water as long as he lay flat. He was so weak he began to worry a little. He figured he might have a slight concussion. Then he heard someone coming through the marsh, feet sucking and slapping the wet mud. “Hey,” he called.

He looked up through mud and blood and saw a woman. She was standing on the more solid mud, looking down on him as he lay in the bottom of the small gut. “Hey, get a couple of the men,” he said, surprised to hear himself sounding as if he were half dead, his voice weak and puny. “I think I’ve got a broken arm.”