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March of Progress

Murphy raised the whiskey glass to his snout again. His claw wanted to tighten around it, but he feared he might break the glass. Cuts were the last thing the alligator needed now, with his leg already aching like a son of a bitch.

"Damn swans," he muttered as he took a swig. "Damn railroad."

In the last few years, Cattail Patch had just begun to boom. The gas resources in the swamp had started to have some value as city folk were learning they could be used to power some of their fancy machines. When his grandpappy had helped found the town, no one had imagined it could produce anything so fine, they had just settled to make a life for themselves in their natural habitat. Still, the boom was happening.

That was until some wealthy swans from the railroad had come proclaiming that the entire town was to be removed to make way for their fancy rails that would link the oil fields to the more southerly states.

A long stint as mayor due to his lineage and working hard to help Cattail Patch grow, and now it was all for nothing. Murphy was going to lose everything because of the blasted swans choosing his town as the sight of their railroad.

"It's because we're mostly gators and you know it," he said to no one in particular at the bar, "My great-great-great-something-or-other used to eat their great-great-something-or-other, and now they want to run us into the wild because they have money."

"Yup... prob'ly." The dragonfly barkeep seemed sympathetic, but largely disinterested. Murphy wanted to be angry at Henry, but just couldn't bring up the energy. It would be easy enough for him to flit off and serve hooch someplace else. For Murphy, Cattail Patch was the only home he'd ever known.

"Now the money makes them all high and might. Arrogant, preening bastards. I just wish I could do something. The old days, a gator wouldn't take nothing from a swan. Now... nothin' I can do."

The dragonfly's wings fluttered, one leg stroking his chin. "I might have an idea, boss."

"Like what?"

"Swamp's a funny place, and I know a camp where they're settin' up their equipment to demolish the town. Wouldn't be too hard to make it go away."

The gator looked intrigued. "What are you thinking?"

"Well, they started staging right close to a pocket of gas that they don't know about. A few fires in the right place could make it blow sky high."

Murphy scoffed. "That wouldn't do a damn thing. They'd just bring in more later."

Here, Henry grinned. "Not if it happened again and again. Get a few folks together who don't want to leave, make sure accidents keep happening. Get them superstitious-like. Spread some stories about haunts in the swamp, use the lights the gases make sometimes. Make them think after a while that ghosts or God want them to stay away from Cattail Patch. Birds can be a flighty lot when it comes to that."

Murphy had just enough liquid courage roiling in his gut to think that it just might work. He had to start tonight though, before he could lose his nerve.

"Damn, Henry, sometimes you just know exactly what to say."

Henry nodded and smiled as Murphy slipped off the stool and hobbled out of the bar.

It was slow going that night and he chose to work alone. There wasn't time to get together a group of friends to help, but tomorrow he'd spread the word among a trusted few to start the rumors about haunting and angry spirits and all other manner of hokum that the swans might believe.

The old wound was flaring up something fierce as Murphy scoped out the site where the strange machinery from the city waited to start tearing apart his town. No, they wouldn't succeed. He just couldn't let his grandpappy's legacy be eliminated by a bunch of pretty, prey birds.

The few people left to watch the site must have been all asleep as he crept around, looking for just the right place to light the veins of gas on fire to have the site go up in flames. He worried with every painful, aching step that at any moment he'd hear a squak and wouldn't have the speed to escape their "justice".

Finally, he found what would be just the right place. Growing up, he'd had to learn about the dangers around his town, and the veins of flammable gas were one of them. He knew how fire could spread from just the wrong spark and destroy acres of land. It was such a shame the swans had no idea.

At a safe distance from the site, at just the right place for flame to spread, the gator took a match and lit a hand-rolled cigarette, something forbidden in many areas of Cattail Patch. He inhaled the sweet tobacco and grinned to himself.

"To hell with your railroad, and to hell with you," Murphy said as he flicked the smoldering cigarette and watched the beautiful fire travel through the marsh and set the equipment up in a blazing ball. He left as quick as he could for his bed in town.

The next morning was a big to-do. Government creatures were going throughout the town, pulling everyone from their homes as fast as they could. Murphy wasn't sure what was going on, but they were all being ferried to the outskirts in the fancy motorized carriages that city folk favored, or on any beast of burden available.

He followed along on his own feral horse to the site where a group of the government men and the swans from the railroad company waited for everyone. Was it a shake-down? Were they going to try and find out who sabotaged the equipment by gathering up the whole town? Murphy hoped his people would be strong.

"Good morning, everyone!" a fancy dressed swan called over the confused growls and grumbles of the denizens of Cattail Patch.

"I realize everyone here has been expecting a long, drawn out process of evacuation before we build the glorious railroad that will connect these great states to one another in brotherhood! I know you've all worried about where you'll go, what you'll do, but rest assured, we stand before you today as your benefactors!

"Thanks to an experimental site that one of your townsfolk was kind enough to help us set up, we've discovered a way to expedite everything! You all know Henry Martell as your local barkeep, but he came to us in great concern over your well-being, and the folk at the Gilded Wings Railroad shall heed your cry!

"Today, we will gather up all your belongings! They will be tagged based on household and taken to your destination. What destination you ask? The temporary housing in the city of St. Marvin that the GW Railroad has graciously purchased for your benefit. Then, as the sun sets in the west, we will ignite underground gas veins that Mr. Martell has mapped out for us, and give Cattail Patch the glorious send off she so richly deserves, paving the way for the rail line with greater speed than we ever could have hoped."

Murphy stood aghast and agape. He'd been rooked completely and there wasn't a blasted thing he could do about it. He looked around, and none of his other townsfolk showed any desire to fight back. They all had their worries and the government had their power.

Turning to return to his home and wait for the government men that would catalogue his belongings, the mayor of Cattail Patch limped down the road, trying to decide if he would go to St. Marvin, or simply go to St. Peter with the town his grandpappy had built.