Joshua Malbin307 12
th
St. Apt 8Brooklyn NY 11215
1Swamp TaleA sparkling-new SUV drives up the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge accessroad as the sky begins to lighten towards dawn. A middle-aged man in a soft fisherman’scap and a blue windbreaker has the wheel, and in the passenger seat rides a middle-agedwoman in high-waisted jeans and an oak-leaf-patterned sweatshirt. Pine savannahstretches around them flat and sparse, with a three-foot-high understory of palmetto; thenthey enter a burn area and ride through pine woods just as open and quiet but without thepalmetto, only scorched earth among the trunks.Shy of the visitor center they turn onto a side road, follow it half a mile to a parkinglot. The sky is dully blue when the man cuts the engine. He takes a knapsack from theback seat and he and the woman walk onto a boardwalk trail. Within fifty yards thelandscape changes, pine replaced by cypress. It isn’t yet light enough to see through thebrush and ferns growing on tussocks around the cypress roots, but the smell of water tellsthat they are in the great swamp. The woman slaps the back of one hand with the palm of the other and they pause to spray each other with bug repellant.A catbird’s trill breaks the quiet. The boardwalk winds left and right, finding its waythrough the cypress columns. They round one of these turns and face a surprisedraccoon, frozen, one paw suspended over the plastic-wood surface. It lowers its pawgently and slides off the path into the undergrowth.At its end the boardwalk widens tenfold, making room for a thirty-foot observationtower. The man leads the way up the stairs. Around them the marsh is waking,
Joshua Malbin307 12
th
St. Apt 8Brooklyn NY 11215
2birdsongs in clear air. A crane calls, a rattling, musical sound like a stick dragged along awooden fence. Another joins it, then two more, then a chorus of dozens. They stand upfrom the reeds where they’ve spent the night and gather in the pools below the tower, tallgray birds with red heads borrowed from their dinosaur ancestors. Soon there are aroundfifty, some walking about, others standing in place and staring fixedly.The man sets down his pack and takes from it a plastic mixing bowl and a full Ziplocbag. He pours the contents of the bag—seed corn mixed with mealworms—into thebowl, and he and the woman move away from it as far as the deck allows.“Do we say anything?” the man whispers. “An incantation or something?”“How should I know?” the woman says. “I read the same website as you.”The man removes his cap with his free hand, revealing a bald head. “I’m going tosay something.” He yanks the hat back into place by its brim. “O Great Crane,” heintones. “We—uh… We beseech… we ask for your humble—I mean, we humbly ask…for your—”A crane swoops up, fanning its great wings forward to lift its legs over the deck rail.It sets its feet on the deck, tucks its wings away, and adjusts its shoulders to make themlie right. It is a giant, as heavy as a swan and with a neck almost half as long, balancedon long, sturdy legs. In the morning light its gray body and red forehead seem to glow.It lowers its bill to the food and pecks it a few times, then stops and looks at thecouple with the eerie nervousness of a wild bird.“What can I do for you folks?” it asks in a high, gravelly voice.The man and woman glance at each other. The man makes a gesture that she shouldbe the one to speak.
Joshua Malbin307 12
th
St. Apt 8Brooklyn NY 11215
3“We’re having an affair,” she says, with a hint of pride. “We want to know, if Ileave my husband and Nate leaves his wife, will we stay together? We don’t want to putthe kids through the divorce if it’s no good.”The crane stands silent. It is impossible to tell what or even whether it is thinking, asit has no expressive features a human might interpret. “What are your full names?” itsays at last.“Dinah Garnowitz,” says the woman.“Nathan Myers,” says the man.“Where are you from? What do you do?”“Raleigh,” Nathan says. “I teach high school. She’s a real estate agent.”The crane turns away, opens its wings, and takes three running steps to launch itself,barely clearing the rail with its wingtips. It sinks out of sight and reappears ten yardsaway, flapping steadily, its body oscillating around the steady level of its head and feet.It remains a few stories above the ground, just over the tops of the trees, and stays visiblea long time before it is lost in the endless vista of pools and wet prairies.Dinah sits on one of the two benches provided. Nathan sits beside her. She draws acell phone from her pocket and looks at the face.“You can’t think he’s called,” Nathan says.“I was only checking the time.”He puffs out a snort of disbelief.“You think I’m lying?” she says. “I don’t even have reception here.”
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