Free A Shoot on Martha's Vineyard by Philip R. Craig Page B

Rover. “You might get one of them instead.”
    â€œDrat,” said Mondry. “I guess I’ll have to stay well.”
    We spent the day driving back roads and walking paths through reservation areas.
    â€œI thought you were mad at the environmentalists and the conservationists,” said Mondry as we stood on a sandy trail beneath tall trees and admired a brook that tumbled over rocks at our feet, then disappeared beyond a grassy embankment. “I could have sworn that you dunked one of them in the Atlantic Ocean just yesterday.”
    â€œIf I could afford it,” I said, “I’d buy this whole island and keep as much as I could looking just like this. But I wouldn’t keep people locked away from it. Every beach would be public, and I wouldn’t keep people from hunting and fishing and blueberry picking and doing the things they’ve always done on the land.”
    He jabbed the needle. “How about lumberjacking and building gas stations and more houses?”
    â€œThey farm trees in a lot of places,” I said. “They could probably farm them here, too. You plant them and grow them and cut them down and plant new ones, so you always have the trees you need. The same goes for shell-fishing. If I owned the place, I’d have shellfishing farms in some of the ponds. As far as the houses are concerned, everybody wants to be the last person to own here, butactually there’s a lot of room on this island for more houses. The problem is that I’m not so sure there’s enough water for too many more people. I guess I’d go for individual homes, but not for developments.”
    â€œNo constraints?”
    I don’t like constraints. “No more than need be,” I said.
    â€œWhat about those gas stations? What about more people coming every year and more cars coming and all that stuff I keep hearing about?”
    â€œWhen I own the island, there won’t be any more of that stuff.”
    â€œHow about since you don’t own the island?”
    One reason I’d given up being a cop and come to the Vineyard to live a quiet life was because I’d grown tired of trying and failing to make the world a better place. I’d decided to get away from society’s problems, but like the guy says, there is no “away.”
    â€œHow should I know?” I now said. “You don’t let go, do you?”
    â€œI don’t get paid to give up,” he said, and I knew then that he would, indeed, be telephoning Zee to invite her to lunch.
    We walked on along the trail with Joshua out of his backpack and in my arms, sucking on a bottle.
    â€œAre there roads into these places where we’ve been walking? If there aren’t, I don’t know how we could do location work in them, even though they’re beautiful.”
    â€œThere are old roads all over this island, and the conservation groups that own these places always need money. If you offer them enough and can convince them that you can get your trucks or whatever in and out without damaging things, you might be able to make a deal.”
    â€œCan you put me in touch with the people in charge?”
    What an irony. Me contacting the very people whose policies I had criticized so often in the past.
    â€œI can do that,” I said.
    His smile revealed his awareness of the contrast between my feelings and my promise of action. “You don’t mind being a go-between for me and your enemies?”
    It is a truism that we judge groups we don’t belong to by their least desirable characteristics, and hold their most extreme members as being typical of their fellows. I wasn’t immune to such stupidity, but I tried to fight it.
    â€œI don’t mind,” I said. “Besides, they’re not my enemies.”
    â€œNot even Lawrence Ingalls?”
    â€œEvery group has its jerks,” I said. “He’s theirs. I’ll talk to some other people, but