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Chapter 77
September, 1987
Heather looked out the window of her apartment at the lake. It was a brilliant blue, reflecting the brilliant blue of the morning sky. In only a few weeks, it had chilled noticably, and even though Labor Day wasn't here yet, the beach was empty. The kids were back in
school, and had been for a week now, and it seemed lonelier than ever. She sighed, and turned back to the laptop.
"So, all in all, not much has happened," she wrote. "Everything has been fairly quiet here, and even the local newspaper hasn't had much to say about the situation since early in the month. The next move will come down to the decision of the Fish and Wildlife Service,
and what action they will take with the Environmental Protection Agency. I visited the Fish and Wildlife Service Office in Minneapolis last week, to try and get a feel for what direction their decision is taking, but a couple of the key people were on vacation, and I was unable to
get much of an idea of what their thinking is."
It was entirely possible that the Fish and Wildlife Service might not want to take on the EPA, Heather thought. If they don't, then the city will go ahead with the sewer separation project; they were not about to fight it out with the EPA over the snake. If the snake
saved them a fight with the EPA, so much the better, but there was not a lot of desire to go beyond that. Which wasn't surprising. In theory, the defenders might have to go to court, but she doubted that would happen unless fresh funding were available. There was no local
support that she could see, but she'd already outlined that earlier in her monthly report. Whatever happens, it's all futile unless the Fish and Wildlife Service decided to fight. She turned back to her laptop.
"So far, there has still not been another sighting of a Gibson's Water Snake. I interviewed the woman that captured and killed the specimen that the Fish and Wildlife Service now has, and she was not very helpful, and certainly not very sympathetic."
In fact, she was downright hysterical. That woman didn't like snakes. Her little daughter was actually more helpful about what had happened, but it didn't help matters any.
"The chances of another one turning up before the snakes go into hibernation is now very limited. The weather is cooling a bit, and fewer specimens of any kind of snake have been seen. The primary investigator from Athens University is a graduate student, and
returned to her classes last week, so there's no active investigation going on. I have tried to continue some of her searching, and I think I could identify a candidate for identification as a Gibson's Water Snake if I saw one, but without professional assistance, I am very doubtful that
further examples can be found this season. However, an enhanced search next spring might be more rewarding, and we should consider continuing funding for future searches."
The joker with that, Heather thought, is that the whole question of whether the city should go ahead with the sewer separation system would probably be settled by then, unless a miracle happened. Another species, lost forever. It made her sad to think about it. Had
that woman actually killed the last Gibson's Water Snake on the face of the earth? She couldn't be very sensitive to wiping out an entire species. It was disgusting to even think about. She took a sip of her coffee, and got down to the hard part.
"Considering that the investigation of the snake is nearing a standstill, and that whatever happens next is dependent upon the direction of the decision of the Fish and Wildlife Service in Minneapolis, there is no point in maintaining a field operative here in Spearfish Lake.
The time being spent here is nearly totally wasted. A couple of local contacts, particularly the biology teacher at the local high school, have been developed that can keep us abreast of new developments, and the local paper can be depended upon for information on
developments, as well. With that in mind, I recommend that I be withdrawn from this project to work on other, more substantive matters, until such time as the need for action arises."
There, she thought. That said it about as clearly as it could be said, without getting on the phone to McMullen, and pleading, "Get me out of here."
The local newspaper did seem to be pretty good, at least as a source of information, Heather realized. That tall editor from the paper had interviewed her, and had done a nice story on her, despite his wife. He wasn't an environmentalist, an ally, but he was sympathetic,
and easy to talk to. When she'd read the story, she'd sent a copy of it off to California, just to let them know that the locals appreciated her presence.
But, she had a backup, in John Pacobel. He'd become something of a friend, although she couldn't get over the feeling that he was just waiting for the chance to get her in bed. Though she'd made it clear to him that she wasn't interested, he still called her up, now and
then, and they would get together for dinner, or something. With Pam gone back to school, he was about the only semblance of a friend that she had left in town, and it was hard to get through the days. There had been more than once that she'd been tempted to take him up on
his unspoken offer, but so far, she'd managed to resist the temptation.
She read back over her report, hoping that it sounded as bleak as she felt, and, once she was done, hooked the telephone cable into her modem and sent it off to the Defenders office. McMullen should just be getting in, she thought, and she might get a reply quickly.]
With the monthly report sent off, there were only two possibilities of things to do: to go downtown and get some more copies made of her resume, and go back to sending it out, or to take the periscope and go looking in the sewer for snakes. Neither one was worth
taking the whole day over, so she decided to spend half a day at each.
She could stop and get copies made while she was walking around town, so that argued for the periscope.
After a long, hard, fruitless morning with the periscope, she came back to the apartment, with her new resumes in a paper bag. She could see that it was going to be a long afternoon, and probably not very rewarding. She looked in the refrigerator, and realized that she
was going to have to go grocery shopping again, and soon. On an impulse, she decided to check the E-Mail, to see if maybe there was a response from McMullen.
There was: "Continued funding dependent upon your presence in Spearfish Lake," it said. "Feel free to investigate other possible actions, but to protect funding source do not start anything major without approval. Good job so far. Hang in there."
