Michael Malone - Weebly

—"
"Look here." Gripping his putter hard, Scaper
stared out across the lush fairway of the country club. "I
swear I'm starting to think some…pollutant's gotten
loused up, maybe in our water, or produce; or we got
ourselves some kind of industrial poisoning, or some
such goddamn thing is going on. Now I went ahead and
sent out a water sample."
"Let's not get any rumors started now that are going
to get people upset, Otto. I mean, people do die."
"I know that. Die as sure as the sun shines. I know
that. But you just get a feeling after all these years. This
is different, it's unnatural, it's wrong. Ever seen a bird
that died from oil slick? Another bird that dies a regular
way is just as dead, but it's different."
It was then that the image still troubling Ransom
even after his party had suddenly surfaced in his mind.
He had suddenly remembered a gash of burned-out
earth covering a lot the size of a football field. He had
come upon it four years earlier, when he had hiked out
near the marshland to look at some land of his he
intended to sell.