Gwen, in Green

He’d been saving a big oak. He’d cleared around it, because it was a monster and would take all the Cat could give. He wanted room to work it. He was used to having people watch him work the Cat. People were fascinated by power. Girls liked dozer operators, maybe because they thought some of that power was transferred to their loins. So he was doing his job and putting on a show at the same time when he rammed the big oak, causing it to shiver to the top of its hundred-­year-­old mass. Man, it was a mother. It fought and fought, but the power of the big Cat was just too much. The tree dropped a few brittle limbs on him when he hit it hard, the limbs crashing and crunching atop his protective cage, but in the end it went over, with a groan of splintering wood which could be heard over the roar of the big diesel engine. The thing went down on its outstretched limbs. They shattered under the weight of the main trunk. For a while, there it was, crash, crunch, snap. Billy looked over toward where the girl was standing. As he watched, she turned and disappeared into the woods, but not before he saw enough to arouse his interest. Billy was a fanny man. She had a fine one. He didn’t say anything about his audience to Jock. Hell, a man can only share so much with his buddy. While he ate he wondered if she had been just a passing tourist or if she lived nearby. He hoped the latter. At any rate, he’d be watching for her.

Gwen had been drawn to the canal cut by the noise and by something else, a nagging sense of something, duty, curiosity, disgust. It was just too nebulous to define, that feeling, but she’d been saddened by what she saw. It reminded her of the air view of the area. Hundreds of acres of former woodland now bare and blowing sand. When the big oak went down, she felt like weeping. A hundred years to grow, outliving generations of man, surviving hurricanes, drought, fire. It took the machine about ten minutes to negate a century of growth. She was moody and hot after her walk through the woods. She walked to the clear pond and pulled off her shoes. The water was delicious on her feet, but she did not even consider a swim. Without George around, the pool looked deep and lonely. George’s swimming activity had flattened the tall grass at the edge of the water. She sat down, feeling a slight dampness on her seat. She splashed her feet idly, trying to dispel the gloom. The roar of the heavy equipment, at least of the bulldozers nearest her, was silenced. Nature, however, is never totally silent. She heard birds rustling the leaves in the uncleared areas, a squirrel calling, the caw of a crow, and the lovely trill of a mockingbird. Gradually, a feeling of contentment came over her.

She’d had a nice long session with Dr. King, talking freely about her mother. She decided that she felt better, understood the woman more, although the doctor had not done any more than George had done. He had mainly just allowed her to voice her opinions.

“You know,” she told herself, “you’ve really got it made.”

At their age they were unusually secure, thanks to George’s father’s belief in insurance. George liked his work. They had a beautiful home. There were dark areas in her life, but a monthly show of red had negated one of her most awful worries. She was not pregnant by the meter reader.

It was really unbelievable, that thing that had happened. If she lived to be a hundred, she’d never understand her actions, but there, in the hot sun, with the cool water laving her feet, she no longer felt suicidal about it. Desperately sorry, yes. She thought she’d give her right hand to erase that event. Then she wondered why she’d thought of that particular old bromide. She shook her head. She didn’t want to think of unpleasant things, the dreams for example. She felt that she was on the way back and was going to beat it, whatever it was. It was simple to accept the Freudian thing and blame it all on mama.

She had so much that she was not going to throw it away, a great man, a fine life, and all the love she could handle—taking the meaning of the word both ways.

She lay back and covered her eyes with one arm. It was so peaceful there. She was dozing when the bulldozers started work again. The muffled roars caused her to frown. Even that would pass. People had babies and the babies grew up and used electricity. There had to be power plants or the race would go back to cave-­man living, and she would not have liked that. She liked having a nice stereo set with records which turned her on, liked the ease of electric cooking and washing and ironing and all that. It would pass. She pushed the engine sounds into the back of her mind and tried to regain that drowsy sense of well-­being.