Water Rites Read Online Free Page B

happening, why we can’t fix it now.”
    Jeremy tensed as Dan laid a hand on his shoulder. “In the cities you’d be so hot. What you do is fantastic. It’s wonderful, Jeremy, not something wrong. People would pay you money to see what you could create for them.” He sighed. “Your Dad’s scared of them, isn’t he?”
    Scared? Jeremy shook his head. Rupert was scared of the brown lizards that lived under the rocks out behind the outhouse. He killed them all the time. But Dad wasn’t scared of his makings.
    Dad hated them.
    “Look at this.” Dan yanked a grubby red bandana out of his pocket and shook it. “Watch me make it disappear. Watch carefully now.” He stuffed it into his closed fist. “Are you watching?” He waved his fist around, then snapped open his hand.
    Jeremy stared at his empty palm.
    “Your handkerchief, sir.” He reached behind Jeremy’s ear, snapped the bandana into view.
    “Wow.” Jeremy touched the bandana cautiously. “How did you do that?”
    “It’s pretty easy.” Dan looked sad as he stuffed the bandana back into his pocket. “Card tricks, juggling, oh, you can entertain folks, but they all know it’s fake. What you can do is . . . real.” His pale eyes burned. “I think we’d all give a lot to believe in something real. Like what you do. You should come with me, Jeremy.”
    Dan acted like the making was a wonderful thing. But Dad had had to ask the Brewsters for food. And the Reverend knew more than anyone in town. Suddenly unsure, Jeremy bent to scoop up the apples that Dan had dropped. “You don’t want to waste these.”
    “I wasn’t going to. They’re good apples. I’d give a lot for your talent. It’s real, Jeremy. And it’s wasted here.”
    Talent? Jeremy dumped the withered rings of apple into the pack. “You’re a surveyor,” he said. “You don’t need to do tricks.”
    “I guess I am.” Dan’s laugh sounded bitter. “So I guess we’d better get back to surveying, huh?”
    As they worked through the lengthening shadows of the fading day, strange feelings fluttered in Jeremy’s chest. Could Dan be right? Would people really look at him like Dan had looked at him? All excited?
    He could find out. If he went with Dan.
    Jeremy thought about that for the rest of the day, while he steadied the machine and pushed buttons. He didn’t say anything to Dan. He might not want Jeremy along.
    *
    It seemed like everyone within walking distance was waiting at the house when they plodded back to the farm in the first faint cool of evening. Covered dishes and water jugs cluttered the kitchen table, and Dan was swept into the crowd.
    Dan didn’t belong to him here, in the dusty house. Here, he belonged to the grown-ups and the Army Corps of Engineers. Jeremy led Ezra off to the barn to struggle with the pack straps and give the pony some water. If he left with Dan, if Dan would take him, Dad wouldn’t have to ask the Brewsters for food. He pulled at the pony’s tangled mane until the coarse horsehair cut his fingers.
    *
    After the first three days, the crowd didn’t show up at the farm any more. They’d heard what news Dan had to tell. They’d sold him the food and supplies that he’d asked for, taking his pale-green voucher slips as payment. Now they were waiting for the construction crews to arrive. Even Dad was waiting. He whistled while he carried water to the potato plants, and he smiled at Dan.
    Dan was the water bringer. Everyone smiled at Dan.
    It made Jeremy jealous when they were at home and Rupert, Jonathan, and the twins hung around him all the time, pretending they were grownups, too. But they weren’t home very often. He and Dan trudged all over the scorched hills along the river. Dan talked about cities. He talked about the heart of the drylands, with its ghosts and the bones of dead towns and about the oceans eating the shore. He taught Jeremy how to describe the land in numbers. He asked Jeremy to make things every day, and he laughed when