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— Charmaine, honey, where have you been? Didn't you remember about your four o'clock appointment with Mr. Arbidian? We had to give him Esther, 'cause she was the only one available, and you know, he was not happy . . . because of Esther being so large and all? . . . and him being such a tiny man!
— I'm sorry, Lou, I kinda lost track of time. I went to clean the channel from the river to the toad nursery, and there was a new batch of tadpoles. With the next quarterly report due so soon, I thought if I counted them, well, it might be helpful. I just didn't realize how long it actually took to count 213 tadpoles: with them flitting and twitching about, you couldn't always be sure that you hadn't already counted a particular one.
— Of course, darlin', and you did right, but Mr. Arbidian, he was quite upset. Maybe you want to give him a bit extra on his next visit . . . he is a good client.
Charmaine acknowledged that Mr. Arbidian was indeed a good client of the Welcome In and Amargosa Toad Preserve. And he wasn't too bad looking either; a mite hairy, but he had those big brown eyes, kind of sad looking, not unlike the Amargosa toads. Anyway, she surely did owe him some extra for disappointing him. He was one of her regulars, twice a week like clockwork, and he did tend to have a temper when he was crossed.
She made up her mind to be super-nice to him on Thursday. Meanwhile, she did not have another appointment until the evening and thought she might as well check on the older toads, which usually hopped down to the banks of the Amargosa River around this time each evening. She took the small canning jar of live flies (she'd been trapping them all day) from her room, and concealing it (barely) in the pocket of her flowered silk Chinese robe, sashayed down to the river.
She was thinking so deeply about how to prevent toad predators from invading the sanctuary without, of course, endangering them, that she bumped square into Ida, jostling one of Ida's ample breasts out of her bustier.
Ida unceremoniously tucked herself back in and glared haughtily at Charmaine.
— Girl, you are already in hot water for leaving your post today. You'd best be keeping your mind on business.
— I know, Charmaine replied, but honestly Ida, isnt the environment everybody's business?
Ida picked up the plastic bag that she'd dropped when Charmaine had bumped her. Of course Charmaine was curious, and Ida, who could never stay mad long, showed her the contents: dozens of worms—Charmaine guessed red wigglers, by the looks of them.
— Ida, you're just an old softy.
The two girls giggled and traipsed off together, down to the river, where their hearts had preceded them.
~
Thursday came and so did Mr. Arbidian. But he was still in a bad mood because of Saturday's no-show. Zipping up his pants seemed to inflate his sense of importance. He called Charmaine ungrateful, and complained of her lack of enthusiasm and inattention during the last hour.
Charmaine owed that he was correct in his assessment. Even during her special attempt at conciliation, when she had him handcuffed to the bed, hands and feet, and whipped him firmly all over with a length of flexible, thin green alder branch till he was red striped and throbbing with desire—even then her mind and heart had been with the young toadling whose foot had been crushed while attempting to cross the road in front of the Welcome Trailer. Amargosa toads are very docile and friendly; they'll just walk right up to you. Probably that's what he'd been doing, visiting, but failed to notice the oncoming traffic.
— I am sorry Mr. Arbidian. Its just that I'm so worried about Limpy—that's what I call the toad I found with the squished foot. It's—like—well, honestly? I am all frazzled thinking about his future. Will his life be a study of wasted potential? How will he ever be able to compete for food and a mate? It's like the only thing that could save him would be that indefatigable American spirit that takes adversity as a challenge, that lives the motto "Necessity is the Mother of Invention."
Mr. Arbidian sputtered and turned an ugly, angry purple.
— You're insane, he screamed. Your'e talking about a toad! Your stupid Amargosa Toads were not even added to the Fish and Wildlife's Endangered Species List, he taunted. Why? Why? Because toads are an abomination, because nobody cares anything for these particular toads except the feral burros who like to eat them, and a handful of losers and whores!
That's when Charmaine lost her objectivity. Picking up the nearest object, which happened to be a large bronzed bust of Former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, commemorating the establishment of The Wilderness Act, she indignantly and deliberately brought it down upon Mr. Arbidian's head, killing him instantly. Standing over the body, chest heaving with emotion, she tied the words of Aristotle to the tail of Mr. Arbidian's fleeting spirit: There is something of the marvelous in all things of nature.
When Sheriff Gray "Wolf" Hosteen, who was in the next room down, finished his business with Dora, he came to see what the ruckus was about. Charmaine told him all that had happened, including Mr. Arbidian's last words. The sheriff totally sympathized, and spoke his heart: Mr. Arbidian had not done even a tiny percentage of what The Welcome In and Amargosa Toad Preserve and its employees had for the environmental cause.
— The Earth will no worse for the loss of Mr. Arbidian, he said.
Sheriff Hosteen went into town to have a private chat with Mrs. Arbidian, current president of the Amargosa Valley Sierra Club. Apparently she concurred with his opinion of the ex-Mr. Arbidian.
It was Wolf Hosteen who removed Mr. Arbidian's car to a remote area of the Amargosa River and wiped it clean of fingerprints. It was he who threw Mr. Arbidian's raft, fishing gear, and lucky fishing hat into the river and, later, it was also he who found the evidence. After a search and investigation, conducted by Sheriff Hosteen, it was concluded and officially reported that Mr. Arbidian's death was an accidental drowning while on a fishing excursion. Certainly, no one at the brothel would ever mention that Mr. Arbidian had been there that evening. These women cared for each other as stalwartly as they came to care for their toads.
The whereabouts of Mr. Arbidians body remained a secret between Charmaine and Esther. It seems that he had really hurt Esther's feelings that time she went with him and it was her that devised the fitting end to Mr. Arbidian—she said it was the only way he could ever pay back his debt to the environment and all those who protected it.
Charmaine and Esther—Esther was a large girl, and strong, too—carried him down to the river where Esther tied the body of Mr. Arbidian to the trunk of a fallen tree that lay half submerged in the channel near the toad nursery, wedged him firmly between the tree and the overhanging river bank, covered him with branches, and left him to the adolescent appetites of a clutch of blowflies and the natural curiosity of an emerging generation of Bufo nelsoni—Amargosa toads.
Charmaine was too busy to worry about Mr. Arbidian or the toads for the next 2 weeks, first because of the Shriners, followed by an unexpected convergence of renegade Elks. But when she next went down to the river, it seemed like there had been a significant increase in eggs, tadpoles, and sleek, well-fed toads.
Before returning to work, she conscientiously counted 409 tadpoles, at least 800 eggs and another 100 tadpoles in a quiet sub pool. She counted 83, no, 84 toads that were hopping near her, but spotted dozens more in the field just beyond the river banks.
Her heart knew content. It was apparent the tide was turning in favor of the toads. Perhaps the need to count them quite so accurately had passed. She decided that her next report would include some "approximately's."
Charmaine closed her eyes and breathed in the clean Nevada air.
In sudden inspiration, she raised her hands to the heavens. Concentrating her mind, she collected her loving, joyful feelings and willed them, Buddha-like, to flow over the Earth and embrace all living things.
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