The late-summer Georgia sunlight shone down through the lush oak leaves, casting shimmering patterns of light upon the woodland floor as two boys made their way through the backwoods. With whoops and laughter they clambered over gnarled oak roots, chased the fat cicadas from their perches, poked at snails, but never lost their direction. They had a mission today, and it was only a few hours until sundown. As they ventured deeper into the woods, following the dirt path they'd carved themselves from so many of these trips, the sound of the birds and animals gradually fell behind them. Soon, all was quiet in the forest; even the leaves above made no noise. There was no wind to move them.

They knew they were close.

Finally, they broke through the thicket of bushes to the riverbank. The bushes made a clear boundary edge about ten feet parallel to the stream — plants didn't dare grow any closer. Hunter, the older boy, pulled his bandana up over his mouth and nose and ran to a large flat rock by the river's edge. From his worn and tearing rucksack be produced a bug net on a telescopic metal pole. He extended it, holding it vertically like a kingly scepter as Jed set down the metal bucket beside him. Hunter reached the net out over the river and lowered it down into the tar-black sludge. The net sat on the top and then sank slowly - like drifting into molasses - and disappeared beneath the surface. This was the boring part, waiting for something to attach. Sometimes it took hours. Jed nestled into his favorite spot: an empty space between two thick roots that made near-perfect armrests beneath a dead oak tree. He took out a peanut butter sandwich from his rusty lunch box and started to eat while Hunter waited.

"Don't eat it all, now!" Hunter called out over his shoulder. "Them's our provisions!" Jed rolled his eyes. Hunter liked to use big words he learned in the old National Geographic magazines he'd got from his grandpa; As far as he was concerned, he was an intrepid fisherman, perched at the prow of his boat with a rod in the water, waiting for "the big one" to bite. Jed was more content to sit in the crook of the tree and eat his peanut butter sandwich and watch the black river inch along on its way. The river didn't want to be anything more than it was; it had nowhere pressing to be. It wasn't like there were fish in it, anyway. And so the boys sat and waited, one watching the water, the other reading faded comic books, their pages curled and creased from being rolled up and carried around in pockets for years.

Judging by how the shadows had moved, it was 40 minutes before Hunter pulled up the net the first time. He angled the mouth up to the sky as he raised it out of the muck, letting the black goop filter through the wide netting and fall back into the river with little splats.

"Damn it. Nothin' good this time, just a buncha fingers." The thumbs and fingers in the net were barely recognizable as such. The nails were almost completely melted away, the skin had shrunk and shriveled against the bone. Hunter scowled beneath the bandana that protected his mouth and nose, soaked in his mother's perfume, flicked the net to cast out the bad catch, and lowered it back into the river. Jed tied his own bandana around his face to creep closer to the edge, making sure to stay a few feet back so as not to fall in; He just wanted to watch the sludgy river flow, so slow and heavy, as black and dense as a creeping sadness. Hunter didn't bother keeping an eye on his friend; they both knew the dangers, and if the unthinkable were to happen, if one of them fell in... there would be no helping it. Simple as that.

It was another half hour before he pulled it up again. This time, something in the net caught a glint of sunlight and Hunter pulled it in quickly - being careful not to touch the black slime on the net and pole.

"Jed, grab the tools!" The younger boy dug through his bag to snatch up a pair of metal tongs he'd stolen from his father's kitchen, which Hunter used to nudge around the grey, unrecognizable chunks and black muck in the net. Within the detritus, a shine of gold - a ring! Hunter grabbed it with the tongs and lifted it up, letting the gold band and its pristine diamond shine in the sunlight.

"Golly, Hunter..." Jed whispered in reverent awe. "That's th' purdiest thing I ever seen... reckon we can buy a boat with it?"

"You numbskull! Don'tcha know what things cost? We can buy th' whole county with this!" Jed's dreams of the metal dinghies advertised in old Sam's bait shop were immediately overshadowed by his obvious new status as king. He stood with a new posture, straight-backed and goose-stepping around the riverbank, shouting orders at the trees and stones. "Bow down! Worship yer new king!" Using the tongs, Hunter dropped the ring into the bucket with a clang, dumped out the meat and sludge, and put the net back into the river. The droning wail of the siren rose to the east, right on time. Far, far off upstream, three plumes of black smoke began to rise up above the brown forest, billowing out to the north and far away.

"Once we own th' county I'm gonna march up to the fact'ry and find out what they do in there." Jed had taken off his shirt and tied it around his neck like a cape, and was brandishing a large stick like a sword to challenge the smog-breathing dragon far off up the river.

"Does it matter?" Hunter asked flatly. His gaze was fixed on the debris inching along on the surface of the slowly flowing river - a few digits peeking up from the ooze, scraps of fabric that might have been clothing, patches of hair sticking up like grasses, all flowing through the woods to somewhere far away. It didn't matter what the factory did, or why the river was black, or why the geese had stopped migrating over their county. The only thing that mattered would be the money they'd make off the richer folks in town, who didn't care where the jewelry came from.