Die-Off Read Online Free
brightly lit by lights powered by a generator. Marquez heard the voices of the first responders trying to get the driver freed above the sound of the diesel generator. He saw the pickup’s windshield was out and they were working on him through the opening. Their breath showed in the glare of the lights. It was cold and still an hour to dawn. A low fog lay over the river and Grace Headley, the area warden, stood with him and gave him her take, which seemed to be the right one.
The driver had tried to back down to the river with his lights off using only brake lights and moonlight. The truck slid in mud from the recent rain and the right rear tire ran up on a rock. Marquez’s flashlight beam illuminated muddy tire prints on the rock and he saw how as that tire rode up on the rock the other rear tire dropped into a rut. Then the truck rolled. The weight of the fish and water-filled coolers didn’t help.
Fish and water flowed out of the upended coolers and the truck, now on its side, slid down into a stand of trees and got wedged there. Getting it back onto four tires meant pulling it free with a tow cable. But that meant dragging it along its side and with the man’s arm pinned under the driver’s door they couldn’t do that.
He saw where they had cut five or six saplings down so they could get enough access to dig around his trapped arm. He watched as a tow driver repositioned his truck and ran a wench cable down.
Headley shook her head and touched Marquez’s back.
‘They found his wallet and I’ve run him. I’ll give you what I’ve got so far. Do you want to go down there first?’
‘Yeah, let’s go take a look.’
They followed the pickup’s tracks down the steep slope to where it rolled and fish flowed into the brush as the coolers spilled. That flood of water carried fingerlings almost to the river. Marquez shined his light on a red plastic cooler lid caught in a young bay tree and beneath saw hundreds of three-inch fingerlings. The smell was strong.
‘Over here, John, and you’ve got to walk around to the right. You’re not going to believe how many of them almost made it. They must have sloshed out in one big wave. What was he thinking, trying to back all the way down here?’
Marquez thought he had a pretty good idea of what the driver was thinking. Each cooler weighed somewhere around 650 pounds. Two orange-colored five-gallon buckets were downslope from the nose of the truck and were probably thrown out when the windshield popped loose. Good chance he was supposed to park and ferry the fingerlings down to the water two buckets at a time, more or less ten trips per cooler, and he figured it would be a lot easier to back down the overgrown dirt track to the edge of the river.
He brought his light back to the fish lodged in the brush and then worked his way over to Headley, where the fish had washed out and over rocks. He took in the flow of fish and estimated there were more than a thousand, and he didn’t have any doubt about what they were.
When he looked up Headley asked, ‘Ready to wake up a biologist?’
He was. He squatted down close to the water with the flashlight and picked up the largest of the fingerlings nearest him and laid it in his palm.
‘What’s going on with those fins?’ Headley asked.
The pectoral, the front-most fins, were cut short and damaged. So were the pelvic fins.
‘Whoever raised them fed them with pellets and they all race each other to get to the pellets. When they do that they get crowded in and bite each other’s fins. It happens in the feeding frenzy.’
Marquez looked at the dark line along the back, the start of speckled color along the sides, the long snout. He was sure but wanted to hear the biologist confirm it. He dropped the fish and with the light followed the rest of the wash of fish and saw several that had been crushed and, as Headley said, just a few feet from the water. She moved one with her boot.
‘I stomped these. They were dead
The driver had tried to back down to the river with his lights off using only brake lights and moonlight. The truck slid in mud from the recent rain and the right rear tire ran up on a rock. Marquez’s flashlight beam illuminated muddy tire prints on the rock and he saw how as that tire rode up on the rock the other rear tire dropped into a rut. Then the truck rolled. The weight of the fish and water-filled coolers didn’t help.
Fish and water flowed out of the upended coolers and the truck, now on its side, slid down into a stand of trees and got wedged there. Getting it back onto four tires meant pulling it free with a tow cable. But that meant dragging it along its side and with the man’s arm pinned under the driver’s door they couldn’t do that.
He saw where they had cut five or six saplings down so they could get enough access to dig around his trapped arm. He watched as a tow driver repositioned his truck and ran a wench cable down.
Headley shook her head and touched Marquez’s back.
‘They found his wallet and I’ve run him. I’ll give you what I’ve got so far. Do you want to go down there first?’
‘Yeah, let’s go take a look.’
They followed the pickup’s tracks down the steep slope to where it rolled and fish flowed into the brush as the coolers spilled. That flood of water carried fingerlings almost to the river. Marquez shined his light on a red plastic cooler lid caught in a young bay tree and beneath saw hundreds of three-inch fingerlings. The smell was strong.
‘Over here, John, and you’ve got to walk around to the right. You’re not going to believe how many of them almost made it. They must have sloshed out in one big wave. What was he thinking, trying to back all the way down here?’
Marquez thought he had a pretty good idea of what the driver was thinking. Each cooler weighed somewhere around 650 pounds. Two orange-colored five-gallon buckets were downslope from the nose of the truck and were probably thrown out when the windshield popped loose. Good chance he was supposed to park and ferry the fingerlings down to the water two buckets at a time, more or less ten trips per cooler, and he figured it would be a lot easier to back down the overgrown dirt track to the edge of the river.
He brought his light back to the fish lodged in the brush and then worked his way over to Headley, where the fish had washed out and over rocks. He took in the flow of fish and estimated there were more than a thousand, and he didn’t have any doubt about what they were.
When he looked up Headley asked, ‘Ready to wake up a biologist?’
He was. He squatted down close to the water with the flashlight and picked up the largest of the fingerlings nearest him and laid it in his palm.
‘What’s going on with those fins?’ Headley asked.
The pectoral, the front-most fins, were cut short and damaged. So were the pelvic fins.
‘Whoever raised them fed them with pellets and they all race each other to get to the pellets. When they do that they get crowded in and bite each other’s fins. It happens in the feeding frenzy.’
Marquez looked at the dark line along the back, the start of speckled color along the sides, the long snout. He was sure but wanted to hear the biologist confirm it. He dropped the fish and with the light followed the rest of the wash of fish and saw several that had been crushed and, as Headley said, just a few feet from the water. She moved one with her boot.
‘I stomped these. They were dead
Readers choose
Nina Bruhns
Jennifer Fischetto
Paul Garrison
Ivan Doig
David Eddings
Thomas Kinkade
Ann Budd
Frank Kowalski