Water Rites Read Online Free Page A

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.
    Dan didn’t really need any help with the measuring. Jeremy stood beside the magic machine, watching a single hawk circle in the hard blue sky. Mother had been right. Dan wanted something else from him.
    Well, that was okay. Jeremy shrugged as the hawk drifted off southward. No one else thought he had anything to offer.
    *
    The sun stood high overhead when they stopped for lunch. It poured searing light down on the land, sucking up their sweat. “We’ll wait until the sun starts to go down,” Dan said. They huddled in a narrow strip of shade beneath the canyon wall. Ezra stood next to them, head down, whisking flies.
    They shared warm, plastic-tasting water with the pony, and Dan produced dried apple slices from the lunch pack. He had stripped off his shirt, and sweat gleamed like oil on his brown shoulders. His eyes were gray, Jeremy noticed. They looked bright in his dark face.
    “Why do you have to do all the stuff?” Awkwardly, Jeremy scooped up a leathery disc of dried apple. The tart sweetness filled his mouth with a rush of saliva. The old tree behind the house didn’t give very many apples, most years.
    “I’m making a map of the ground.” Dan shaded his eyes, squinting in the shimmering heat-haze. “If they’re going to drill a well field, they’ll have to lay pipes, make roads, build buildings. They need to know what the ground looks like.”
    “I was trying to imagine lots of water.” Jremy reached for another apple slice. “It’s hard.”
    “Yeah,” Dan said harshly. “Don’t start counting the days yet.” He shook himself and his expression softened. “Tell me about your fireflies and your fish that jump out of pitchers.”
    “Not much to tell.” Jeremy looked away from Dan’s intent, gray eyes. Was that what he wanted? “If I think of something hard enough, you can see it. It’s not real.” Jeremy drew a zig-zag pattern in the dust with his fingers. “Don’t talk about it, okay? It’s wrong. It’s . . . an abomination. The Devil’s mark. That’s why the rain went away. It was God punishing us . . . for living with abominations. We . . . don’t let . . . abominations . . . live. Like the Pearson’s baby. Like Sally Brandt’s baby, born just this spring.”
    “Who said all that?” Dan asked in a hard, quiet voice.
    “The Reverend.” Jeremy fixed his eyes on the little troughs in the dust.
    Their old nanny goat had a kid with an extra leg last spring. About the time Sally Brandt had her baby. Dad had taken the biggest knife from the kitchen and cut its throat by a bean hill, so that the blood would water the seedlings. The apple slice in Jeremy’s mouth tasted like dust. Feeling stony hard inside, he made the dragonfly appear, sent it darting through the air to land on Dan’s knee with a glitter of wings.
    “Holy shit.” Dan flinched, scattering apple slices. “I can almost believe that I feel it.”
    He didn’t sound angry. Jeremy sighed and vanished it.
    “I heard your Reverend died,” Dan said softly.
    Jeremy nodded.
    “You got to know that he was wrong. He was just a narrow, scared man, who had to blame this crazy drought on something, because none of us really understand why we didn’t stop it from