BIG SOUTHERN CHAPTER 83

AUGUST 2012

DAVID

It's time, he thinks. He drives left at the turnoff to the museum, past Springfield and the Lake, takes the first right, north to the bridge just before where his uncle lived. There's an old house just to the north on the east side of the canal, but it's been vacant for decades, is just part of one of the few old homesteads evading erasure, probably because it sits at the corner of a field and wouldn't be irrigable with a pivot. Byron's and Norma's house is on the west side, somewhat dilapidated after being out of their meticulous hands for nearly twenty years. If someone is there they'll see him but he intends to work fast.

He parks at the bridge, looks downstream and then up, sees the white umbels that signify water hemlock. He didn't bring boots but he did bring a shovel, which he retrieves and hauls up to the patch of flowering plants. Sitting, he removes his shoes and socks, rolls up his pant legs but it won't be high enough, they'll still get wet. He wades in.

It's cold, but the mud on the canal side feels good oozing between his toes. He fires the shovel into the mud around the clump of hemlock, wishing he had boots so he could use his feet as leverage to deepen the shovel's cut, but it goes in far enough with a thrust from his arms to pry out a root. It looks a little like a carrot. To a child, maybe—he remembers a five year old dying from ingesting it decades ago, near Blackfoot—or a city person. Wrong color, though. He throws the plant, the root still attached to the substantial stalk, onto the bank and works the shovel again, harpooning the mud.

After he's dug up six plants he wades back out of the canal, tries to drag the mud off his feet but yields to imperfect cleanliness and settles for almost dry. Socks on, shoes on, pant legs down, he hauls the plants over to his truck and throws them into the bed.

He doesn't know how much he'll need but he's guessing he has plenty. He'll dry the stalk and umbel after separating them from the roots. Those he intends to put in the freezer, fearing they will mold if he leaves them out to dry. Or he may grind them down to a paste, then either dry the paste or keep it refrigerated until he needs it.

My 401k, he thinks. Retirement.

© 2025 Ralph Thurston