Read Online Soundkeeper by Michael Hervey - Free Book Online Page B

cumbersome gunbelt when he walked with Belker down the sandy driveway.
    Before he had walked a quarter of a mile he could see Mackay Creek where it met the Chechessee River. The water in Mackay Creek flowed both ways; Northeast with the rising tide and Southwest when the water drained back toward the Atlantic. The wind blew in Hall’s face, and he saw whitecaps on the water. His home was sheltered from this wind by the island itself, and he decided to use the weather as an excuse to stay off of the water for a day. He had plenty of work to do on dry ground, he reasoned, and the rough water would make it too dangerous to make any boardings or stop any boaters.
    After their walk, master and man’s best friend went to a pile of lumber stacked neatly behind the cottage. There were nine sheets of three-quarter inch plywood, one to cover every door and window of the small house during violent storms. There were also a dozen salt cured poles that appeared to be miniature telephone pole. The poles were twelve inches around at the base and tapered to six inches, twenty feet later. They weighed almost one-hundred pounds each. Hall selected one of them, and set to work after he took off his pistol belt and laid it on the seat of his truck.
    He put the heavy pole on top of two sawhorses and retrieved a ragged set of plans from the tool shed. Jimmy’s sharp handwriting and drawings detailed how to build an osprey nesting platform. This wasn’t a specific task for him as a refuge officer but it was something he wanted to do. Jimmy taught him that while law enforcement was his primary responsibility, he was expected to help out with other tasks that needed to be completed in the refuge. Jimmy had taken on the responsibility of building the platforms years ago and Hall planned to keep the tradition alive.
    As a wildlife refuge Pinckney Island was not just a nature preserve, but was actively managed for the benefit of all natural things, both plant and animal. Avian life was particularly abundant. Egrets, red knots, royal terns and endangered wood storks abounded. The grand American bald eagle was a common visitor to the refuge and hopefully a future resident.
    The ospreys, or “fish hawks”, as the locals called them, were already year-round residents of Pinckney Island. There were two nesting pair of osprey on the island that had been documented by members of the local Audubon Society last year on the annual Christmas Day bird count. Found on every continent except Antarctica near lakes, rivers, and the coast, osprey were magnificent to watch when they plucked fish from the water. Hall had seen osprey all of his life, on camping and fishing trips and in Charleston when he was in college. Their distinct arched wings in flight made them easy to identify, and it seemed to him the large birds of prey were much better at catching fish than he was. He remembered from his studies osprey were the only raptor that could grab an object with two toes in the front and two toes behind, giving it a very strong grip and they could close their nostrils to keep water out when they dove feet-first onto their prey.
    Of the two pair of ospreys that called Pinckney Island home, only one pair nested in a tree. The other pair built their nest on a tall platform that had been erected just for that purpose. Hall was building another. The nest of an osprey could weigh several hundred pounds, so the plans called for stout timbers and solid construction.
    The time passed quickly as he worked and soon the platform was finished and he bolted it to the pole. He ate a sandwich on the dock in front of his house and watched the male fiddler crabs wave their grossly disproportional claws at the wind, trying to attract a mate. Hall wasn’t their type but waved back anyway. They didn’t seem to notice. When he was finished eating, he strapped the platform in the bed of his truck and sat Belker in his lap.
    He dragged the platform and pole as close as he could to the