We Counted Living Cages While The Disposal Folder Stayed Shut

"Stop," Mercer said.

Bell kept her meter in the water.

"Dissolved oxygen, one point six," she said to Farah. "Write the time."

Farah wrote 11:27 on the inventory sheet.

Mercer held out his folder.

"I have determined this material requires disposal."

The deputy stepped close enough to read its cover.

"There's a court order governing this inspection. Give that to counsel."

"You're letting a violator handle evidence."

"We're documenting every move," Bell said. "You're welcome to stand where the camera can see you."

Mercer moved back.

For a moment, all I could hear was the meter beeping and a loose flap of tarp striking a post.

The cages had been stacked three high on the basin's concrete shelf. Most of the upper row sat above the water. A tide gate stood nearly closed, with sticks jammed along its edge.

Bell checked the outside channel as well as the basin. The oxygen outside was better. Inside, the water was warm and still.

"We move them now," she said.

Farah connected the rented pump to draw river water into a holding bin. She checked the intake screen twice.

I pulled on gloves.

"Top row first?"

Bell nodded. "Shade them. Don't pour cold water on hot stock. Keep the handling gentle."

Oysters did not cry out when you failed them. They stayed in their shells and left you to count later.

We photographed each cage where it sat. Then I lifted it to the work table, called its wire mark, and passed it to the barge crew.

The steel handles were hot through my gloves. I checked each latch before lifting, afraid a bad catch would spill seed into the mud. Farah held the count sheet against a board with two clamps. When sweat fell from my chin onto cage seventeen, she waited until I could read the mark twice. Nobody guessed a number to save a minute.

The tags were gone, but I had also pressed small numbers into the metal frame with a punch. Paint wore off. Wire marks stayed.

"Forty-one," I said.

Farah checked the camera image against the frame in front of us. The bent corner matched too.

"Recorded."

Colin watched from beside his truck.

"Those marks could be anything," he said.

I put cage forty-two on the table.

"Then we'll record those too."

He had expected a fight loud enough to hide the count. I gave him numbers.

Inside the gray tub, Bell found sixty-four yellow tags and a handful of cut stainless loops. She photographed the layers before touching them.

Every tag number matched a cage.

The deputy noted the tub's location. Bell sealed it for the county evidence custodian under the preservation order. Colin signed the inventory beside the words Received Copy, then wrote Under Protest.

I was glad he wrote something.

Halfway through the load, Farah crouched near the pump.

A small diamondback terrapin had become wedged between the concrete and a broken piece of plastic. Its front foot had a thin cut.

"Easy," she whispered.

It was the first gentle word I had heard her use all week.

She put on fresh gloves, lifted away the plastic, and called Bell. They placed the terrapin in a shaded, ventilated box for a licensed wildlife rescuer Bell knew.

"You charge that one by the hour?" I asked.

"That one paid in advance," Farah said. "By eating things I don't want in my cables."

Then she went back to calling cage numbers.

By one forty, all sixty-four were aboard the barge. The basin shelf was almost dry.

We had beaten low water by less than an hour.

Bell rode with the load. At my nursery, she checked oxygen and temperature again. We set the cages in a single layer where the current could pass through them.

I wanted to stay underwater until every latch was right.

Instead I took breaks and let the other diver Bell had arranged check my work. Tired hands made bad knots.

My notebook entry read: Visibility twelve inches. Cages sixty-four. Returned under order.

I pressed hard enough to break the pencil point.

Bell kept samples for a later loss count. Some oysters had died. She would not guess how many from a glance.

"Most still closed when touched," she said. "That's a start."

At the dock, Ruth called. She had sent the inventory to the court and the county lawyer. The disposal folder had never become an order. Mercer had lacked the authority to override the judge.

"Tomorrow we deal with your boat," she said.

Farah was washing mud from the pump when my email chimed.

The county procurement officer had answered Ruth's request for the native transfer packet.

Attached was a version saved at 5:49 Tuesday morning, more than an hour before Mercer claimed to see me on the reef.

Its first page carried a different heading: Demonstration Stock For Grey Heron Contract Review.