Water Rites (2 page)

“I won’t.” The man answered him seriously, as if he was talking to another grownup. “How old are you?”

“Twelve. I’m small for my age.” Jeremy watched him pick up his marvelous light and swing its bright beam over the pony.

“You look pretty settled, Ezra. I’ll get you some more water in the morning.” The surveyor slapped the pony on the neck. “Come on.” He offered Jeremy a hand. “Let’s go in. I think your mom left a plate out for you.” He gave Jeremy a sideways look. “Your dad went to bed.”

“Oh.” Jeremy scrambled to his feet, wondering how the stranger knew to say that. “Are you going to bring us water?” he asked.

“No,” the man said slowly. “I just make maps. I don’t dig wells or lay pipe.”

“I bet you’re good,” Jeremy said. He wanted to say something nice to this man, and that was all he could think of.

“Thanks,” the surveyor said, but he sounded more sad than pleased. “I’m pretty good at what I do.”

No, he didn’t act like a grownup. He didn’t act like anyone Jeremy had ever met. Thoughtfully, he followed the bright beam of the surveyor’s flashlight into the house.

*

Next morning was church-Sunday, but the family got up at dawn as usual, because it was such a long walk into town. Jeremy put on his good pair of shorts and went down to take on Mother in the kitchen.

“You can’t go.” She shoved a full water-jug into the lunch pack. “It’s too far.”

She was thinking of the dragonfly. “I won’t forget. I’ll be good,” he said. “Please?”

“Forget it.” Rupert glared at him from the doorway. “The freak’ll forget and do something again.”

“That’s enough.” Mother closed the pack with a jerk. “I’ll bring you a new book.” She wouldn’t meet Jeremy’s eyes. “What do you want?”

“I don’t know.” Jeremy set his jaw. He didn’t usually care, didn’t like church-Sundays, with all the careful eyes that sneaked like Rupert when they looked at his hands and knees, or flat out pitied him. “I want to come,” he said.

“Mom, no . . .”

“I said that’s enough.” Mother looked past Rupert. “Did you get enough breakfast, Mr. Greely?” she asked too cheerfully.

“More than enough, thanks.” The surveyor walked into the kitchen and the conversation ended.

When Jeremy started down the gravel road with them, Mother’s lips got tight and Rupert threw him a look that promised trouble, but Dad acted like he wasn’t even there, and no one else dared say anything. Jeremy limped along as fast as he could, trying not to fall behind. He had won. He wasn’t sure why, but he had.

It was a long, hot walk to town.

Rupert and Jonathan stuck to the surveyor like burrs, asking about the iceberg tugs, Portland, and Seattle and if LA had really drowned in the rising ocean. The surveyor answered their questions gravely and politely. He wore a fresh tan shirt tucked into his faded jeans. It was clean, and the tower on the pocket made it look like it meant something special.

It meant water.

Everyone was there by the time they reached the church — except the Menendez family who lived way down the dry creekbed and sometimes didn’t come in anyway. The Pearson kids were screaming as they took turns jumping off the porch, and Bev Lamont was watching for Jonathan, like she always did.

As soon as they got close enough for people to count the extra person, everyone abandoned their picnic spreads and made for the porch.

‘This is Mr. Greely, a surveyor with the Army Corps of Engineers,” Mother announced as they climbed the wide steps.

“Pleased to meet you.” The surveyor’s warm smile swept the sun-dried faces. “I’ve been sent to make a preliminary survey for a federal irrigation project.” He perched on the porch railing, like he’d done it a hundred times before. “The new Singhe solar cells are going to power a deepwell pumping operation. We think we’ve identified a major, deep aquifer in this region.”

“How come we ain’t heard of this before?” It was bearded Ted Brewster, who ran the Exxon station when he could get ethanol, speaking up from the back of the crowd.

“Come on, Ted.” Fists on her bony hips, gray-haired Sally Brandt raised her voice. “You don’t hear nothin’ on the Spokane radio news.”

“No. That’s a good question.” The surveyor looked around at the dusty faces. “You don’t have internet out here?”

“No power, out here.” Sally shook her head. “Bonneville Power didn’t put the lines back up after a big storm took ’em out . . . oh, must be eight and a half years ago. Said it wasn’t cost effective.”

The surveyor nodded and reached inside his shirt. “I have a letter from the regional supervisor.” He pulled out a white rectangle. “I’m supposed to deliver it to the mayor, city supervisor, or whoever’s in charge.” He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

A gust of wind whispered across the crowded porch, and no one spoke.

“Most people just left.” Jeremy’s father finally stepped forward, fists in the pockets of his patched jeans. “This was wheat and alfalfa land, from the time the Oregon Territory became a state. You can’t farm wheat without water.” His voice sounded loud in the silence. “The National Guard come around and told us to go get work on the Columbia River Pipeline project. They said they had camps for workers. Camps.” He turned his face as if he wanted to spit, but didn’t. “That’s all the help the government was gonna give us. If we stayed, they said, we was on our own.” He paused. “We don’t have a mayor anymore, and the Rev, he died in a dust storm a couple years back. There’s just us.”

The surveyor looked at the dusty faces, one by one. “Like I told Mr. Barlow last night,” he said quietly. “I can’t promise that we’ll find water, or that you’ll grow wheat again. I’m only the surveyor.”

For a long moment, Jeremy’s father stared at the envelope. Then, with a jerky, awkward gesture, he reached out and took it. He pried up the white flap with a blunt thumb and squinted at the print, his forehead wrinkling.

Without a word, he handed the paper to Ted Brewster. Jeremy watched the white paper pass from hand to hand. People held it like it as precious —like it was water. He listened to the dry rustle of the paper. When it came around to Dad again, he stuck it into the glass case beside the door of the church. “I hope to God you find water,” he said softly.

“Amen,” someone said.

“Amen.” The ragged mutter ran through the crowd.

After than, everyone went back to their picnics. After the Reverend had died, they’d moved the pews outside. Families spread clothes on the long, rickety tables inside. There weren’t any more sermons, but people still came to eat together on the church-Sundays. The surveyor wandered from group to group in the colored shadows of the church, eating the food people pressed on him, sharing news from Portland and the rest of the world. They crowded him, talking, brushing up against him, as if his touch would bring them good luck, bring water to the wells and the dead fields.

Jeremy hung back, under the blue-and-green diamonds of the stained-glass window. Finally he went down the narrow stairs to the sparse shelves of the basement library. He found a little paperback book on insects, but it didn’t have a picture of a firefly. He tossed back onto the shelf. When it fell onto the dusty concrete floor, he kicked it, feeling both guilty and pleased when it skittered out of sight under a bottom shelf. Upstairs, the surveyor was giving everyone the same warm grin that he’d given to Jeremy in the barn last night. That made his stomach hurt.

He wandered outside and found little Rita Menendez poking at ants on the front walk. Mrs. Menendez was yelling at the older kids as she started to unpack the lunch, so Jeremy carried Rita off into the dappled shade under the scraggly shrubs. She was too little to know about his makings or mind his hands. Belly still tight, Jeremy made a bright green frog appear on Rita’s knee.

Her gurgly laugh eased some of that tightness. She liked his makings. And she couldn’t tell anyone about ’em. He turned the frog into the dragonfly and she grabbed at it. This time, Jeremy heard the surveyor coming. By the time the man pushed the brittle branches aside, the dragonfly was gone.

“Do you always hide?” He reached down to tickle Rita’s plump chin.

“I’m not hiding.” Jeremy peered up through his sun-bleached hair.

“I need someone to help me.” The surveyor squatted, so that Jeremy had to meet his eyes. “I talked to your father and he said that I could hire you. If you agree. The Corps’ only paying in scrip, and it’s crisis-minimum wage,” he said apologetically.

Jeremy pushed Rita gently off his lap. This man wanted to hire him? When he couldn’t even pull weeds? Hiring was something from the old days, like the flashlight and this man’s clean, creased shirt.

Jeremy wiped his hands on his pants, pressing hard, as if by doing that he could straighten his bent fingers. “I’d like that, Mr. Greely,” he said breathlessly.

“Good.” The man smiled like he meant it. “We’ll get started first thing tomorrow.” He stood, giving Rita a final pat that made her chuckle. “Call me Dan,” he said. “Okay?”

*

Jeremy didn’t see much of Dan Greely before the next morning. It seemed like everyone had to talk to Dan about watertables, aquifers, deep wells, and the Army Corps of Engineers. They said the words like the Reverend used to say prayers.
Army Corps of Engineers
.

Dan, Dad, and Jonathan stayed in town. Mother shepherded the rest of them home. The twins were tired, but Rupert was pissed because he couldn’t stay, too. He shoved Jeremy whenever Mother wasn’t looking.

“I hope you work hard for Mr. Greely,” Mother said when she came up to say goodnight. The twins were already snoring in the hot darkness of the attic room.

“Waste of time to hire him,” Rupert growled from his bed. “The pony’s more use.”

“That’s enough.” Mother’s voice sounded sharp as a new nail. “We can’t spare either you or Jonathan from the pumping, so don’t get yourself worked up. You don’t have to go with him.” She bent over Jeremy’s mattress. Her hand trembled just a little as she brushed the hair back from his forehead.

“I’ll be okay.” He wondered if she was worried that he wouldn’t do a good job. He almost told her that Dan knew about the makings and wouldn’t tell Dad, but Rupert was listening. “I’ll do good,” he said, and wished he believed it.

It took Jeremy a long time to fall asleep, but when he did, it seemed as if only moments had passed before he woke up again. At first, he thought Mother was calling him to breakfast. It was still dark, but the east window showed faint gray.

There it was again. Mother’s voice. Too wide awake to fall back to sleep, Jeremy slipped out of bed and tiptoed to the top of the steep stairs, just this side of their bedroom door.

“Stop worrying,” Dad’s low growl drifted through the half-closed door. “What do you think he’s gonna do?”

“I don’t know. He said he needed a helper, but what . . .”

“What can Jeremy do? He can’t do shit, but Greely’s going to pay wages, and we can use anything we can get. Do you understand me?” Dad’s voice sounded like the dry, scouring winds. “How do you think I felt when I had to go crawling to the Brewsters and the Pearsons for food last winter?”

“It wasn’t Jeremy’s fault, Everett, the north well giving out.”

“No one else has an extra mouth to feed. And I had to go begging.”

“I lost three babies after Rupert.” Mother’s voice sounded high and tight.

“Whatever he wants from the boy, he’s paying for it.”

Jeremy tiptoed down the stairs, his teeth clenched so hard they felt as if they were going to break.

A light glowed in the barn’s darkness. “Hi.” Dan pulled a strap tight on the pony’s packsaddle. “I was going to come wake you. Ezra and I are used to starting as soon as it gets light. It gets too hot to work before noon.” He tugged on the pack, nodded to himself. “Did you get something to eat?”

“Yeah.”

Dan gave him a searching look, then shrugged. “Okay, let’s go.”

It was just light enough to see as they started down the track. The pony stepped over the thin white pipe that carried water from the well to the field. The old bicycle frame of the pump looked like a skeleton sticking up out of the gray dirt. In an hour, Jonathan would be pedaling hard to get his gallons pumped. Then Rupert would take over. The twins would be hauling the buckets, dipping out water to each plant in the bean rows.

“Did your dad build that?” Dan nodded at the metal frame.

“Uh huh.” Jeremy walked a little faster, trying not to limp.

He had had a thousand questions about the outside world to ask, but the sharp whispers in the upstairs bedroom had dried them up like the wind dried up a puddle. He watched Ezra’s big feet kick up the brown dust, feeling dry and empty inside.

“We’ll start here.” The surveyor pulled Ezra to a halt. They were looking down on the dry riverbed and the narrow, rusty bridge. The road went across the riverbed now. It was safer.

The pony waited patiently, head drooping, while Dan unloaded it. “This machine measures distance by bouncing a beam of laser light off a mirror.” Dan set the cracked plastic case down on the ground. “It sits on this tripod and the reflector goes on the other one.” He unloaded a water jug, lunch, an axe, a steel tape measure, and other odds and ends. “Now, we get to work,” he said when he was done.

Sweat stuck Jeremy’s hair to his face as he struggled across the sunbaked clay after Dan. They set up the machine and reflector, took them down, and set them up somewhere else. Sometimes Dan hacked a path through the dry underbrush. It was hard going. In spite of all he could do, Jeremy was limping badly by mid-morning.

“I’m sorry.” Dan stopped abruptly. “You keep up so well, it’s easy to forget that you hurt.”

His tone was matter of fact, without a trace of pity. A knot clogged the back of Jeremy’s throat as Dan boosted him onto Ezra’s back. He sat up straight on the hard packsaddle, arms tight around the precious machine. It felt heavy, dense with the magic that would call water out of the ground. Jeremy tried to imagine the gullied dun hills all green, with blue water tumbling down the old riverbed.

Plenty of water meant it wouldn’t matter so much that he couldn’t pump or carry buckets.

Jeremy thought about water while he held what Dan gave him to hold, and, once or twice, pushed buttons on the distance machine. He could manage that much. It hummed under his touch and bright red numbers winked in a tiny window. He had to remember them, because his fingers were too clumsy to work the tiny keys on Dan’s electronic notepad.