Chapter 48

Circle of White Riders

White pelicans hunted in perfect inverted V formation, a flying multi-organism fishing net, thrown low over Pool 13 by millions of years of success at surrounding and consuming piscine prey.

William Vine sat with folded hands staring at the subpoena on his desk. Emma Parker’s plane passed high overhead less than 45 minutes after the end of their meeting. As he read further, Bill Vine was beginning to regret the weekly two gallon bucket of trichloroethylene waste he’d had Jimmy Caldwell pour on the pile of parking lot sand out back. Five years with the company…it seemed a convenient temporary solution at the time.

Twelve miles away in a narrow two-story, white farmhouse peeling paint, a ninety year-old mother tended a son shrunken from cancer.

“Owen? Owen, are you hungry?” asked Grandma Teresa. Owen Murphy did not answer. His face had collapsed on his skull, most of the flesh seemed to have melted from under his gray white skin. His eyes lay closed. His mouth hung open surrounded by lips thin and dry. Day-old white stubble speckled his chin and cheeks. Death from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma moved slowly over the farmer of nearly seventy-five years. Teresa felt his forehead for fever.

The black-tipped wing beats of the Pelecanus erythrorhynchos stirred the flatwater on the autumn afternoon just enough to distort the surface mirror image of the flyers’ swift passing.

From the field within sight of the house where his father lay dying, Alexander Murphy looked up for Laura Parruzzi’s old Honda on every westward turn of the combine. The rhythm of the big machine’s millworks and its rocking motion made him sleepy this time of day. The early edition evening news droned in his headset as the cornstalks plunged continually into the four-row corn head. This was not a huge harvester, nor was it shiny green and gold, but it was paid for and it worked. At corn picking time, that was all he needed. Yet, today Alexander knew no combine or corn crop, thin or fat, could save his dad.

Seven miles north of the farm, Laura tousled the hair of the last third grader of the day and walked from her classroom with the boy’s mother. A book bag on one shoulder and a balanced briefcase on the other did not diminish the teacher's ease of movement. She smiled at the mother and son, both out of relief at reaching a behavior agreement, and at the thought finding the warm air of an October afternoon outside.

Emma Parker flew her Cirrus east of the Quad Cities, turning south, she passed first over the Rock River, and then the Green on her path south. Emma's disappointment in William Vine increased with each river crossing. She was now convinced he was hiding something. She switch the headset and microphone selector to her cell phone clipped to the instrument panel. Emma punched Bill Vine's speed dial code.

Limestone dust whitened the dash of Laura's car from frequent trips to the Murphy farm. She wondered who was courting whom. She knew that farmers in spring and fall had about as much social life as tax accountants on April Fool's Day. Laura, nonetheless, was determined to make the best of it, and would ride the combine for awhile to share a striking October sunset with Alexander. She knew he was hurting at the looming death of his father.

The aerial formation began to dissolve when the pelican leaders read the marker flash of a shiner minnow shoal. The birds began to lift, wheel, and land. The summer drawdown on Pool 13 boosted not only floral productivity, but the whole system of close relationships -- the symbiosis of a repaired ecosystem, hands-on and doable.

The pelican net reformed afloat in a circle of white riders around a patch of shallow river buzzing with shiners.

Teresa Murphy turned away from the big lounger with its shadow man so diminished. She caught a tear in her apron, and steadied herself against the kitchen door frame. Through the big kitchen window, she could just see the top of the combine cab, the grain hopper, and the chute just now deploying at the end of the row near the road. Teresa picked up her favorite wooden spoon to stir the onion soup.

Isn't it bad enough, she thought, that cheap food has pushed farmers off the land for 40 years, but now the farmers' cancers are taking many more...

Bill Vine did not pick up his phone when it rang. He could see Emma's number in the display. The answering system took the call. Vine listened.

"Bill, I'm concerned," said Emma Parker from her aircraft. "Are you well? You seemed a little distracted today. The numbers aren't what we'd like. You feel you have to reduce hours or lay people off . What else? Call me."

Emma hung up. Bill Vine put the subpoena in his briefcase and left the office.

Alexander watched Laura's car slow and roll the ditchside wheels up onto the low limestone gravel berm the grader always left between passes. He checked the grain boom and eyed his approach to the pair of hopper wagons waiting on the headland. Laura waved. He could see her grin, and waved back. The corn dust boiled around the cab as the combine turned to parallel the wagons and stopped. The corn hissed up the chute and peppered the empty hopper. Alexander climbed the short steel ladder to the ground. He embraced Laura fully.

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Next... Chapter 49.

Thanks for these resources:

Pelecanus erythrorhynchos USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center

Mississippi River Pool 13 Drawdown Comes To An End, USACE News Release, Oct. 7, 2003
Water Management Center, USACE Rock Island District

U.S. EPA Air Toxic Website; Rule and Implementation Information for Halogenated Cleaning Solvents (Degreasing Organic Cleaners)

National Cancer Institute; Agricultural Pesticide Use May Be Associated With Increased Risk of Prostate Cancer, May 1, 2003

National Cancer Institute; NCI FACT SHEET: Agricultural Health Study; May 2, 2003

Our Stolen Future; Organic food really does have fewer pesticides

National Symposium: Wetlands 2003: Landscape Scale Wetland Assessment and Management, Nashua, NH, October 20-23, 2003

The Upper Basin Chronicles, Chapter 48 was written and edited by John Gabbert.

Upper Mississippi Basin Stakeholder Network and The Upper Basin Chronicles © 2003 Saint Mary's University of Minnesota. Your comments are invaluable. Please email feedback to The Upper Basin Chronicles, Chapter 48.

The characters presented here are purely fictional, and neither bear resemblance to persons living or dead, nor represent the views or opinions of Saint Mary's University of Minnesota.