Water

"Our family lived on the reservation. It begins now where our farm ends, on the east. Many years ago, the Government tried to break up the reservation. They offered land to own to Indians who already lived on the reservation. The land would belong then to the family, not to the tribe. We don't share the white idea of ownership. How can you own land? The land will still be here after any owner leaves or dies. The land is the land, it isn't owned by anyone. But the Government wanted us to own it, and so we do. We didn't move, we already lived here. The Government just moved the boundary line for the reservation. They wrote some papers, which they still have, I think, that said all that. It means very little to me. I still live here, where I have always lived, and always will."

She paused and looked all around the room, making sure everyone had understood her so far. Satisfied, she continued.

"Then about ten years ago, maybe eleven, there was a great earthquake and the land shook. Someone told me that the rocks beneath us shifted around a little bit. Anyway when the earth was done shaking, we had a spring in our corn field.

"I remember my Grandfather telling me that there used to be a spring on our farm but that it had dried up before his time. Now with the earthquake it has come back. Before it came back we didn't have water. When it didn't rain, we didn't have crops. Now we have water. The spring runs from our corn field east onto the reservation and families still there who are farming have water also. From then until now the spring has given us water for irrigation and drinking and our harvests are better."

"About a year ago, a white man came to see us. He said that he wanted to buy our farm. He offered a lot of money and promised to relocate us to another place, a better place. He didn't say why he wanted our farm, even when we asked him."

She paused again to make sure we understood the importance of what she had said.

"I was troubled. I went to see the lawyer for the Tribe. He told me that I owned the land by white people's rules, and could sell it to the stranger if I wanted to. He also said it was probably the water the man wanted, not just the land. He wouldn't be trying to buy the land except for the water. What did he want with the water, I asked. Does he want to farm the land? He didn't look like a farmer." She smiled at that.

"No, he doesn't want to farm." The lawyer said. "He wants the water for some other reason. Your land has become much more valuable since the earthquake brought you the spring.

And something else you should know. The white people's laws about water are very complicated. Even the white people have trouble deciding who owns the water in a stream or coming from a spring. But your case is much much simpler. You own the land free and clear, as the white man's law goes. When you were given the land by the Government there was no water on it. And while you owned the land absolutely, the water appeared.

"This is very unusual. Usually, the water is already there when property is purchased, sold, and purchased again. In the white way of thinking, the water becomes separated from the land. It's very confusing, even for the whites, who seem to love complications and confusion.

"But your case is simple. You own the water. Period. It came while you owned the land it came on. The whites won't give any credit to what your grandfather might have told you when you were a child. They don't honor their own signatures either, but that's beside the point.

"You can sell the water with the farm. Then under white man's rules, the new owner can do whatever he wants to with the water. For instance, he can build a dam and stop the water from leaving the farm. He can stop the water from flowing onto the reservation.'

"But then the people downstream won't be able to farm any more. Why should they be harmed in this way? That isn't fair."

"It isn't fair but it's the law. White law anyway."

"Anyway, I will not sell the land. Not now, not ever. But why does he want the water, I wonder, if he isn't going to farm?"

"No idea. But I can tell you this, I think. He isn't going to tell you why he wants the water. He hasn't even told you why he wants your farm. So best if you don't sign anything, anything at all, unless I am there to read it.

"I will do as you say. Thank you for talking to me. He will never get the land or the water. Never."

Grandmother looked around the room, pausing at each face. Once the silence had made clear that Grandmother had finished talking, I tried to return the conversation to the dead goat.

"So, did you see the man who wanted to buy your farm again?"

"Yes. He came a week ago," Margaret said, "And this time there was a second man. The second man didn't say anything, just looked at us. The first man offered money again and said bad things would happen to us if we didn't sell the farm to him. He didn't say that directly, but that was the message, wasn't it Joe?"

Joe must have been Margaret's brother and Edward's uncle. He spoke for the first time. "That was the message. We would have bad luck. Something might happen to one of us. The second man was looking at Edward when he said that."

Joe went on. "The first man said, 'It's dangerous living out here by yourself, there are bad people who might rob you, or kidnap little Edward here. You need to live somewhere safer. Somewhere closer to a town.'"

Grandmother took it from there. "I told him my family and my tribe have lived on this land for many centuries. We are much safer here than anywhere you could move us. We will not move from this land."

"Then the first man said, "I sure wouldn't want to live here. Would you, Sidney?"

"I saw the second man, apparently named Sidney, slowly move his head side to side."

"I refused again. They warned us again, but then they left. I'm sure they killed the goat. I'm sorry they took it to your house. You are not involved."

I wasn't quite so sure of that as Grandmother was. I could feel my Irish temper rising, except that I'm not Irish. I looked at Edward. "You said you wrote down the license number of the men's car. Will you give it to me?"

Looking at his mother and receiving a nod, he ran from the room, returning with a piece of paper torn from a writing tablet. I recognized the paper.

"Thank you, Edward. I'll see if I can learn anything about the people who want your land so badly. Did they give you their names, either of them?"

Grandmother responded again. "Yes, I have a business card the first one gave me. But why do you want to get into this? This isn't your problem? They don't want your property too, do they?"

"Maybe not, but they caused a lot of damage to the castle when they lived in it. If I can find them, maybe the owner can make them pay for it." That was an out and out lie. The damage part was true, but I wanted to find these guys for my own satisfaction. And I had an idea how to do it.

I handed Grandmother my own seldom used business card. "Please call me if you hear any more about this. I'm interested, and a little bit worried about you. We are neighbors, after all, aren't we?" I hoped that was the right thing to say. I also hoped they would do it.

Back to the castle, I carefully locked the gate behind me and parked the van. I saw Rose under the umbrella near the pool and walked over, shedding clothing as I went.

I dove into the pool at the deep end, swam to the shallow end and walked to the refrigerator in the workshop for a soda, squeezing some of the water out of my hair as I went. Soda in hand, I sat in the deck chair opposite Rose.

"I quit for the day," Rose said, "the light is changing and I can't get the colors right anymore."

I didn't respond. We both looked at the evening sky and the mountains in the distance fading in the twilight. After a moment, Rose tried again.

"So how did it go? What have you been up to? How did the visit with your schoolteacher go?"

"He knew who the kid was, the one who wrote the note. We went to his house. He's an Indian kid. We had a conversation with his family. Something going on there. I'm pissed about it."

"What's going on? Who shot the goat?"

It was full dark and the stars were out by the time I finished the story. We got cold and went inside.

The next morning at breakfast I showed Rose the business card Grandmother Toadlena had given me. It had a picture of a two-storey building alone with a driveway on flat ground. The building was brick and looked a little like a school with an entrance with steps in the middle. It was captioned "Resurrection Treatment Center, Lovelost AZ." Then at the bottom a name and a post office box and a phone number.

Rose looked at the card Claire had put down on the table in front of her.

"That's the business card Grandmother Toadlena gave me yesterday evening. What do you make of it?"

"Resurrection Treatment Center," Rose chanted slowly, "Pretty strong language. Drug treatment, I suppose. And church related. But what church? And where is Lovelost Arizona? And what would a treatment center want with an Indian's farm?"

"Same questions I had, Rose. Maybe we should go there and see."

"Why not just call them on the phone, ask for The Master Criminal?"

"I don't want anybody finding out I'm doing this. If this were a regular detective story, the private eye would go there, ask around, get beat up and warned off. I'm not a private detective, I'm a potter. I don't want to advertise. Why don't we just go there and look the place over first, before we start making phone calls and telling people what we're doing.?"

"We? How did I get into this? It's your goat, and your Indians. Your school teacher, too, I might add. By the way, how was he? Any use to us?"

"The schoolteacher is single, male, 30-ish, handsome, and absolutely out of the question. I did not come out here to get entangled with an elementary school teacher. I can be bored without help from anyone. You are welcome to him. Just drop by the school any afternoon and bring him home for dinner. I'll give you odds you can't get him into the pool. And you'll have to wear clothes. He can't risk his reputation on anything."

"I don't want your school teacher. He goes with your goat. But I'll go with you to visit the treatment center. Somebody has to find your bleeding broken body and call the ambulance. Somebody has to be by your bedside while we all wait for you to come out of the coma and tell us you didn't see who hit you."

"What an imagination. I'll help with the dishes."

"You'll find Lovelost. I'll do the dishes."