The Water Hazard

I

OLD ONE-EYE, the sunfish, felt hungry and depressed. He was always discouraged at the end of winter, and this had been the longest, coldest winter the water hazard had ever known. Circled by sheltering hills that broke the icy winds, the water hazard was a prosperous and self-supporting community, and, even this year, had fared better than many of the neighboring waters.

The lazy little creek had always been there. Thousands of generations of sunfish, dace, shiners, and darters had lived and died, had hunted and been preyed upon, in its drifting waters. But it was only a few years, as we count time, since golf-course architects had dammed up the south end of the creek, stilling its waters. The banks overflowed, widened, assumed the proportions and the characteristics of a miniature lake. The darters moved out, into running water, and turtles moved in. Frogs came from everywhere. A colony of Daphnia settled in the hole near the dam, where dirt and sediment drifted. Cattails and arrowheads sprang up along the shore. In the still, shallow water, baby fishes grew fat on the wriggling larvæ of mosquitoes. Water striders and boatmen, frogs and turtles, grew fat on insects and little fishes. Living was generous and dangerous in the water hazard.

Old One-Eye was its undisputed patriarch. He was born the year the dam was built, and his father had died trying to protect a handful of wriggling babies against the avalanche of earth dumped into his nest by heedless workmen. Only one of the hundreds of babies lived to reach maturity, and he had watched the darters leave and the invading frogs and turtles move in. He had learned their ways and had, so far, outwitted them.

II

Old One-Eye swam out from behind the pile of sheltering stones and looked around for food or trouble. The frogs and the turtles had not yet stirred from their winter-long sleep — and it was just as well, for he was a ragged shadow of himself and in no mood for battle. Fungus and intermittently freezing weather had shredded his fins until they barely served to propel him. His scales were dull and tightly compressed. Hunger had tightened her belt about his belly until it was shrunken and concave; yet it felt enormous and very empty to Old One-Eye.

Slowly, warily, he slunk down to the Daphnia hole. Not a water flea in sight, but a school of gaunt little dace hovered anxiously at the edge of deep water. Without producing the slightest current, Old One-Eye crept up on them, his dorsal fin down, the ventrals drawn tight to his empty belly; then, with a mighty heave of his frayed tail, he lunged. The startled little dace scampered in every direction and Old One-Eye was left — fins spread and quivering with rage — empty-mouthed.

Can’t even catch a miserable, stupid little dace, he thought. I’m not as strong as I used to be.

He considered the advisability of digging in the mud for pond snails, or baby mussels; but, of all things in the world, Old One-Eye most hated to grub in the mud for his food. It was beneath his dignity as the oldest resident of the water hazard. Besides, he was a mighty hunter who won his food by stealth and skill and the power of his great jaws.

There were no protecting rocks near the Daphnia hole, and the summer crop of Anacharis had not yet begun to sprout; so, remembering that there might be an early turtle about, he turned and swam toward the mouth of the creek.

A few yards up the lake, he saw a dead fish. It was last year’s wife, bloated and obscene. Old One-Eye moved over slowly, conscious of the fact that he was the tiger of the water hazard and no carrion-eating jackal. But he was n’t above eating the jackals if any of them appeared. Sure enough, three large pond snails were crawling with gluttonous deliberation over the empty eye sockets of last year’s wife. Snap, he grabbed the first snail and crunched it between the powerful teeth in his palate and his hard tongue. He spat out the shell in a fine spray of tiny particles and ate the next snail — and the next.

He felt better. Getting old, what nonsense that was! He was the biggest, strongest fish in the water hazard.

Battered, but debonair, Old OneEye swaggered up the shore in search of more food and, if the gods of little fishes willed, adventure.

III

As the days lengthened and all the inhabitants of the water hazard woke from their long winter’s nap, there was food for everybody and everybody was potential food. The snails ate discarded bits of dead fish and the minute algæ plants that grew on water weeds. The fishes ate snails and bugs and other fishes. The turtles and the frogs ate anybody. A belted kingfisher and his wife set up housekeeping in the side of the dam and began their tireless, vigilant watch. Minnows and frogs disappeared by the hundred, and Old OneEye had several narrow escapes. The kingfishers were solitary, morose birds who sat silent, unmoving for many minutes, until the inhabitants of the water hazard forgot them; then, a graceful, swooping dive — and a minnow, or a newt, or a frog was gone.

But close behind the kingfishers came the golfers and the caddies, and the rain of golf balls over, but more often into, the water hazard. As solemnly as they had come, the kingfishers left. The dace and shiners schooled closer to the surface. Frogs sunned themselves fearlessly amid the duckweed, and Old One-Eye began to think of love.

He was tired of solitude and thought longingly of last year’s wife. He wished he had not driven away quite all of his daughters, but that is the way of sunfish. Fat and gleaming, red and green and blue, he began to circle the water hazard; always from left to right, so his blind side was toward the bank where least danger lay. Two or three of last year’s children, rickety little wretches, hung around; but they were hardly old enough to breed and no mates for Old One-Eye, who would as soon eat them as not.

With some misgivings, he ventured out of the water hazard. It was the first time he had ever gone up the creek. Darters hopped about on the rocky bottom. Crayfish crawled out from under stones and menaced him with their huge claws. There was little vegetation, and sandy spots, where a sunfish could raise a family, were few and far between.

He was beginning to think that there were no sunfish in the creek, when out of a little inlet, barely two feet across, swam the loveliest female he had ever seen. She was an Amazon, nearly as large as he, and her plump sides shone in the sunny water.

With one grand delighted swoop, Old One-Eye sailed in front of her, spread his fins to splitting, and blushed as he had never blushed before. She stood, her pectoral fins just paddling enough to keep her there, while he posed again and again, but always with the good eye toward her. When he thought she had seen enough to be properly impressed, he butted her in the side and bit a chunk out of her tail.

Herding and leading, biting and dancing, Old One-Eye started back to the water hazard with her. She was n’t eager, but females never are at first and the sunfish is a strenuous lover.

They had traveled twenty feet or more down the creek and were making fairly good progress when something hit Old One-Eye hard on his blind side. Furious, he whirled, and there, quivering and slashing, was, obviously, the lady’s husband. He was not quite as large as Old One-Eye, but he had two good eyes, he was defending his own on his own territory, and his wrath was righteous.

Old One-Eye dodged and circled, sparring for time until he could gain the protection of the bank for his blind side. The creek fish, disconcerted by Old One-Eye’s peculiar behavior, rushed recklessly, again and again, ripping and slashing fins.

Finally the changed current told Old One-Eye that the bank was near, and by that time the creek fish had mistaken caution for cowardice and the invader’s lopsided habit of swimming for infirmity. He rushed for the nearest pectoral fin, missed it, but landed in the centre of Old One-Eye’s body with a force that sent him sprawling and ripped off a mouthful of scales. Old One-Eye sank until his anal fin scraped bottom; then, just as the creek fish lunged again, he turned on his side and struck up at the belly. His jaws seized the right ventral fin and together they crashed through the water, against the rocky bottom, scraping the bank, until the fin gave way, and, with it, part of the flimsy pelvic girdle. The creek fish was hurt, but he continued to fight — not so steady and not so strong, but desperate.

Old One-Eye took his time. He dodged and circled and snapped until his enemy weakened, then struck for the nearest pectoral fin. Chewing, flailing, he dragged and banged and scraped his rival against the rough bank until he pulled the fin out and the creek fish sank, unbalanced, helpless and hopeless, to the bottom. A little haze of thin, pale blood spread through the water. The snails and the crayfish drew near.

IV

When Old One-Eye remembered his bride, she had disappeared. Frantically he blundered up the creek, until he reached the little inlet where he had first seen her. There she was, sleek and pretty as ever, chewing on a yearling dace. Its tail protruded a little from her mouth and she looked as unconcerned as though lovers fought for her every day.

Old One-Eye took a joyous small nip out of her tail and they started again for the water hazard. She went more willingly tills time, so they loitered here and there for food. Old One-Eye was hungry and he was anxious for his bride to eat plenty, so that she would lay many eggs.

They passed the scene of the battle, where a nervous, hungry little crowd had gathered. The creek fish was little more than a skeleton, but the scavengers were still picking over the bones.

A little farther down the creek, they saw a school of dace grazing on an algæ-covered rock. They all faced upstream, heads down, little tails up and wagging to balance them against the current.

Quietly, side by side, Old One-Eye and his bride sneaked past, then turned and crept upstream behind the dace. A pounce, a second’s chase, and the sunfish swam downstream again, chewing and spitting out the bones.

Back in the water hazard, Old OneEye undertook to show his mate some of his own choice feeding grounds. He took her to the shallow stagnant spot where Tubifex worms writhed. Gayly they chased bugs and the larvæ of dragon flies. They found an earthworm in the bank, whose tunnel had been broken by the eroding water. Old OneEye tried to get the worm for himself, but the female bit off a small piece before he could entirely swallow it.

They were idling along, when suddenly she darted ahead. Old One-Eye saw that his female was headed for a worm that, contrary to all the laws of the water hazard, dangled far out from shore and moved upstream, against the slight current. He knew that worms pulled wriggling from the bank were rare and delectable food; but just such a worm as this, coiled and suspended by a string, had cost him his right eye. It happened during his second summer, yet Old One-Eye never forgot that such worms bite. He could still remember the searing pain in his lip and his terrified rush into the branches of a submerged limb, the struggle among the branches, and the shock of finding half his world in darkness.

He had no means of telling her what had happened to him, but he could and did prevent her from biting that worm. He rushed on her in fury, he bit and bumped her away from the worm. She was sullen and reluctant, but no female fish can argue with a determined male.

They traveled faster after that, until they reached his own rock-sheltered little cove at dusk. Late as it was, Old One-Eye began to clear a place for his nest and chased out the newts and dace who had moved in during his absence.

The cove was Old One-Eye’s permanent home and was specially suited to his needs. It was protected on two sides by a natural curve in the bank, on the third side by the wall of the dam, and was partially barricaded in front by rocks. Handicapped by the lack of an eye, he could not have raised his babies in open water. The cove seemed impregnable.

V

Next morning, before the first slanting rays of sun struck across the water, Old One-Eye was at work on his nest. First, he cleared away the drifting muck with curling sweeps of his anal fin. Then, with only his body and his mouth for tools, he began to excavate the nest. Round and round, every whirl of his body swept away another layer of sand. He shoveled out pebbles and shells with his big mouth and arranged them in a rough circle around the edge of the nest hole. Gradually the nest took shape, more than a foot across and several inches deep in the centre. He shaped it and packed the clean white sand until it was, in its way, a perfect thing.

The female hovered near all morning, eating and watching him work, but when the nest was done she became coy and reluctant. She hid behind clumps of Anacharis; she chased tiny, gilled newts until Old One-Eye was exasperated. He beat her back to the nest and, roughly, the mating dance began.

Quick and eager, to some unheard rhythm of their own, they danced, just above the nest. They whirled in an endless, tireless circle; but always from left to right, for, even in love, he could not afford to forget his blind right eye. As they whirled, the eggs fell, now rapidly, now slowly, into the nest. When the female tired, he lashed her on with his jaws and with sharp blows of his tail. If she tried to run away, he brought her back. He would not stop until the last ripe egg was laid; then, far more brutally than he had courted her, Old One-Eye drove his wife away and took charge of the nest alone.

All afternoon and all night he hovered over the nest, fanning the eggs with his fins so no dirt or fungus could settle on them. Next morning he was still untired and unconscious of hunger. He chased away a school of inquisitive little shiners, crushed marauding snails, and threatened the heavens and the earth as well as the inhabitants of the water hazard. A golf ball struck the water with a splash and a bounce before it settled slowly, just outside the nest. Old One-Eye rushed out furiously and shoved it away.

His wife was troublesome. With bugs and worms and little fishes so plentiful, she wanted to eat her eggs. Time after time he drove her out of the cove.

Afternoon shadows had begun to lengthen, and Old One-Eye was beginning to feel a little bored with his job, when over the rocks, into the cove, swam the most dreaded enemy of all the water hazard — a turtle. Dace can slither away, newts can hide, frogs can leave the water in any emergency; but Old One-Eye could not, would not desert his eggs.

He knew the turtle could crush him as easily as he crushed a shiner in his jaws; so, avoiding the dangerous head, Old One-Eye darted under the turtle and bit a flabby, pendulous hind leg just where it emerged from the shell. He hung on desperately. He must, somehow, drive the turtle out. He shifted his position and bit again and again, always near the tough shell. The turtle did not seem to resent his attacks very much, but swam aimlessly out of the cove. Old One-Eye followed, still fighting. When the turtle raised his head above the water surface to breathe, Old One-Eye slipped out from under him and, once safe, swaggered back to his nest very proud of his ambiguous victory.

VI

At the entrance to the cove he knew something was wrong, even before he could see clearly. The water was turbulent, not clear as it should have been. He approached cautiously, but when he saw the hundreds of dace who were devouring his eggs, Old One-Eye went mad. He charged into the school with insane fury. He slashed and bit. The little dace scattered wildly. They jumped out of the water, up the bank, over his head; still he littered the cove with mangled and dead fish. When the last dace had been killed or driven out, Old One-Eye looked at his nest hopefully, then sadly, then despairingly. Not a single egg left, and his clean white home was a shambles.

He huddled behind his favorite rock and sulked. After a while he came out and ate a bug. He sulked some more. The scavengers were already at work, and soon the cove would be clean again — but he missed his eggs. All night he hovered dejectedly over the empty nest.

In the morning he felt better, but he felt aimless without eggs to guard. The situation could be remedied, but where was his wife? Despised and dangerous yesterday, she was again charming and desirable. Old One-Eye cleaned up the cove and repaired his nest, then he swam out in search of her.

He looked in the Tubifex swamp, along the bank, and in the Daphnia hole; no sign of her. He had to find her, so he started to circle the water hazard slowly, turning and looking everywhere.

Something was happening up toward the mouth of the creek. Dace and shiners streamed past at top speed. Newts scuttled along, from rock to rock. Cautiously, Old One-Eye crept up toward the creek, hiding and slinking and pausing.

Suddenly, as he rounded a little bend, he saw his lovely fat wife fighting and lashing at the end of a string. A barb stuck through her upper lip and half an earthworm dangled from her cruelly stretched mouth. As he watched, she disappeared into the fathomless blue heaven above the water hazard.

Old One-Eye crept into the sheltering gape of an old shoe and meditated. How stupid wives were; he had tried to tell her that such worms were dangerous. Now she would never come back. Fish never did when they left the water hazard at the end of a line.

He swam out of the shoe. He ate a bug, another bug, a shiner. He scratched his side on the sand. He shook himself; then, with all fins spread, Old One-Eye started up the creek again to find him a wife.