Free Recessional: A Novel by James A. Michener

trees. Anyway, that’s what somebody called it before we got here, and we like it.”
    “Am I free to walk through it?”
    “Oh yes! It’s one of the features our residents appreciate most. There’s a footpath beside the channel. It’s marked by the palm trees, and you can walk for maybe a mile. Some do.”
    “Do we own it?”
    “A decent portion, but most is owned by a church. It’s not worth much as land, farming and the like, but it does face the water, so it’s really invaluable. Our adventurous residents consider it one of the most valuable features of the Palms.”
    “Could you show me how to reach the footpath?”
    “Walk to the far end of the main building, go out the door and turn left. You’ll enjoy it.”
    When Zorn left Gateways and headed south toward the savanna, he saw instantly what a remarkable place the Palms was, for to his left—that is, to the east—lay the swimming pool while to the west stood that row of glorious palms, eighty and ninety feet high. In the open space between the trunks he had a fine view of the channel and its rich bird life. He could see pelicans dive for fish or long-legged birds he could not name, some black, some white, that seemed also to be fishing but in their own motionless way, waiting for the fish to come to them. Nature surrounded him and he felt at ease.
    He had proceeded about two hundred yards from the Palms when he came upon an elderly black man perched on a four-legged stool and maneuvering a long fishing pole whose baited hook he kept far out in the water. “Any luck?” Andy asked, and the man turned on his stool. “About like always. I usually get one or two small ones.”
    “What do you do with them. Fry them?”
    “Oh no! I live at the Palms back there. Their cooks wouldn’t know what to do with fish that wasn’t frozen. All meat and potatoes is their specialty.”
    “I’m going to be at the Palms too. New member of the staff. Name’s Andy Zorn.”
    The fisherman propped his rod with the aid of two big stones, rose and extended his hand: “I’m Lincoln Noble, federal judge from the St. Louis district, retired of course.”
    As he spoke, four of the long-legged birds Andy had passed flew boldly in to cluster about the old gentleman. They had learned he was their friend and that when he ended his day of fishing he would throw his catch, one by one, to them. He was their supply ship along the channel and they now jockeyed for favorable positions, two very tall blackish birds and two reasonably tall slender birds with snow-white feathers. “Those are my herons,” he said of the first pair. “Victor and Victoria. And the white ones, the egrets, I call my princesses. Are they not exquisite?” When Zorn studied the birds more closely he noted their incredibly thin legs, long as reeds in a windy marsh, their lovely feathers and their graceful necks that seemed three feet long and realized that he had not fully appreciated their beauty when he first saw them.
    The four birds had learned from generations of experience how to maintain a safe distance from any other living thing, a separation that would permit them to take instant flight if menaced, and they observed the rule until the moment they saw Judge Noble unfasten his reel to reach for the day’s catch. Then, abandoning caution, they crowded in till he could almost touch them, and as he threw his fish one by one onto the ground nearby, they thrust forth their long necks and amazingly long bills to snap up the morsels.
    “Oh!” the judge cried as the birds came closer. “Are they not a delectable foursome?” But Zorn did not answer, for one of the white egrets in search of a fish had come almost to his shoetips, and for a moment, until the delicacy had been safely taken, the egret looked up into the doctor’s eyes and seemed to smile in companionship as he prepared to gulp the fish.
    “What were the names again?” Zorn asked, and the judge repeated: “Blue heron, white