William T. Hathaway has taught English and creative writing at several colleges in the USA and as a Fulbright professor in Europe. He is currently an adjunct professor of American studies at the University of Oldenburg in Germany.

Wellsprings

A Fable of Consciousness

By William T. Hathaway

John Hunt Publishing Ltd.

Copyright © 2013 William T. Hathaway
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78099-994-4

CHAPTER 1

Pack my rucksack and get out of this place. Like the song says,”I’m leavin’ LA, baby. Don’t you know this smog has got medown.” Taj Mahal. I found his album—one of those old blackdiscs—in a box with a bunch of others in granddad’s garage. Oldrecord player with it, kind that goes around and ’round. Beenlistening to them ever since—all gramp’s favorites from thesixties and seventies when he was a kid. Great songs … scratchesand all.

He said the smog then was nothing compared to what we gotnow. They didn’t have alkali smog back then. We’re breathingborax and potash blown in with the dust. Granddad died ofemphysema but he never smoked. The doc said some people aremore sensitive than others. I got his heredity. Mom and dadcoughing, especially when they wake up. Even hear theneighbors coughing. Gotta get outa here. “We gotta get out ofthis place, if it’s the last thing we ever do.” Another song—TheAnimals.

Animals now are dying even in the zoos. Birds gone.

Like to take all his old records with me, but no room in therucksack. They’ll be here when I come back … if I come back. Momand dad will be pissed I just left them a letter. But if I told them,they’d just pressure me into staying again, like they did last timeI told them I wanted to go. No money for college. They want meto get some shit job here. If I’m going to have a shit job, I want itto be at least some place where I can breathe.

Rucksack’s pretty heavy. Outta here.

Little bungalow house like all the others. Dust on thewindowsills. Sand in the drain spouts. Hasn’t rained this year.Wind patterns changed so it rains over the ocean but hardly everover the land. Grass died, then even the weeds died. At least thedirt won’t die. The Great Drought, they call it. I don’t knowwhat’s so great about it.

Strap the pack on the back of the little Honda 250 bike, sparkit alive. So long, Long Beach. Miles of bungalows, fourplex apartments,gas stations, strip malls. Sand on the road, sand in thegutters, sky cloudless but gray. Plenty of water for people whocan afford it, but there’s fewer and fewer of those. Outta here.

Onto the Golden State Freeway—what a joke. All the goldbelongs to the people in the big houses behind gates with greenlawns and swimming pools. Beverly Hills, Palos Verdes, SanMarino—oases in the desert. Water for the rest of us is rationed,but they buy all they want from the private companies—pay afortune. But they’ve got a fortune, so it’s no problem.

North. Cooler there … maybe they still have dew. Never seendew. Must be wonderful. Want to see Yosemite. Maybe I can geta job there. I better. $320 won’t last long.

Cars filthy, people can’t afford to wash them. Some of thepeople filthy too.

Stop in Santa Clarita for gas. Wash up first—face grimy, eyesstinging despite the visor, cough up brown crud. Rinse off myhelmet and windbreaker.

Pump the gas. Big tanker truck with a trailer pulls into theother slot. Guy gets out—heavy set, round face, almost bald buta thick salt-and-pepper mustache, camo T-shirt, khaki pants,running shoes. Smiles and says, “Wish this truck got your gasmileage.”

I point to my face and say, “Wish this bike had yourwindshield.”

“Yeah, well, that’s life. It’s always something.” He lights acigarette despite the sign. “Where you headed?”

“North.”

“Me too. You want a job?”

Why would he ask someone he doesn’t even know? “Whatdoing?” I ask warily.

“Roustabout, general labor, simple mechanical stuff you canlearn. We’re drilling and pumping water. We can put your bike inthe back. You won’t have to drive.”

“Why me?”

“Guy I had just left me in the lurch. You look strong enoughto do the job. I can’t afford to pay much, so it’s hard to find help.”

“What does it pay?”

“Fifty bucks a day.”

“You’re drilling for water? I thought all the wells weredry … water table’s gone.”

“Mostly that’s true. But there’s still some places that got water.A few underground springs here and there. The trick is knowingwhere to drill.”

“You travel around, looking for water?” I ask him.

“Yeah. You from LA?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ll get to see the rest of California,” he says.

“How often would I get paid?”

“That sounds like you just want to make a few bucks andsplit. That I don’t need again.”

I don’t get a bad feeling from the guy, and I need the money.If it turns out there’s a hitch, I’ll quit.” How about if I try it for aweek. As long as everything’s OK, I’ll stick with it.”

“Fair enough. Then you get paid every week. Cash. No taxes.”

“But that probably means no benefits. No unemployment ormedical.”

“That’s the way it is now. New economy. Every man forhimself. I got those pressures too. We’re both in the same boat.”He shrugs. “That’s the best I can offer.”

“I’ll give it a try.” We shake on it. He has a real firm grip, so Isqueeze back.

“We’ll put your bike in the trailer.” He opens the tarpcovering the ten-foot trailer and lowers the gate at the end whileI wheel the bike around. In the bed lie lengths of plastic pipe, abig metal contraption, and a gas motor. He pushes the pipes asideto make room for the bike, and we heft it in, rucksack and all.Pointing to the contraption, he says, “This is a Big Beaver drill rig.A real honey. We can sink a well down to 250 feet with it. I’ll teachyou all about it.”

We walk to the cab, and he opens the door and says tosomeone inside, “We got a new roustabout.”

A woman leans out, sees me, and smiles. “Welcome aboard.”Tan skin, long black hair braided into a single strand down herback. White blouse well filled out and embroidered with redflowers. Silver crucifix around her neck.

“This is my wife, Cora,” the man says. “And what’s yourname?”

“Bob Parks.”

“I’m Gene, Gene Reynolds.”

I shake hands with Cora, and she smiles again. Red lips, broadhigh cheekbones. “Get on in,” she says and scoots over on theseat. From the sun visor on her side dangles a small teddy bear,from his a .50-caliber machine gun cartridge. On the dashboardjiggles a hula dancer. Two half-empty giant cups of Pepsi Light sitin the drink holder.

I like riding in a big truck. Maybe he’ll let me drive itsomeday. Sitting way up above the road, the opposite of a bikewhere it’s whizzing by right under you. Both are better than a car,where you’re just sort of in the middle.

“We’re headed for Owens Lake,” Gene says, rumbling outonto the freeway. “It’s not a lake anymore, just dry mud, butthere’s a spring that’s still active. We got a bore hole drilled there,going to pump it out. We’re water wildcatters. Ever hear ofthose?”

“No.”

“You are a city boy, aren’t you? We’re like the old prospectors,but instead of gold, we’re after water. Cora here,” he raises hiselbow towards his wife, “has the gift of water witching.” Corasmiles. “She can tell where underground streams are.”

“Not by myself I can’t tell,” Cora corrects him, “but with awillow branch. I hold it in my hands and can feel what it’ssaying, where the water is. Willows are tuned in to water—theyneed lots of it. And I can tune in to the willow. The thing is, thebranch needs to be fresh, and willows are hard to findnow … ’cause there’s not enough water. Vicious cycle. We got acouple of trees at home. We take real good care of them, so theydon’t mind sparing me a branch every now and then.”

“Where’s home?” I ask.

“Simi Valley,” Cora says. Her Spanish accent gives her speechlilting rhythms, sharp consonants, and clear vowels.

“But we stay on the move,” Gene adds. “Only way to make aliving in this biz. We got a bunch of bore holes, and we make therounds and pump them out. It takes about two weeks for them tofill up again. We got a regular route. But after a while they rundry, so we’re always prospecting for new sites to drill. It’s a toughway to make a living, but everything’s tough these days. I usedto be a building contractor, but no one’s building now.”

The road starts rising through the San Gabriel Mountains,arid rocky heaps dotted with dead tree trunks. “When I firstcame here,” Cora says, “this was a pine forest. We used to drivehere on the weekends—cool and shady, and you could wade inthe streams. Now the streams are gone. Only things that cangrow here is mesquite, sage brush, yucca.”

Over the pass, we drop down into the Mojave Desert, wherethe sparse vegetation of the mountains yields to barren, bakedearth. “Why look for water here?” I ask.

“Less competition. There’s not so many water wildcatters hereas over in the Central Valley,” Gene says. “There it’s a madhouse.Farmers are desperate for water, drilling and pumping whereverthey can. Lots of cops to bust you. Over here there’s feweraquifers, but they haven’t all been pumped out, still got somewater in ’em. But you gotta go deep.”

“This too didn’t use to be so dry,” Cora says. “It’s high desertand had lots of chaparral like the mountains have now. Scruboak, even grass. They used to graze cattle and sheep here. Nowall that’s gone.”

Gene gestures out the window. “What you see over there,looks like a riverbed? That’s the LA Aqueduct, still got a trickle ofwater in it. There’s definitely water here. Trick is to find it. That’sour job. Cora’s job, really. She’s good at it. My job is to drill andpump it out. That’s your job too now.

“This spring where we’re headed is a small one. We’llprobably get just one tanker load out of it, sell it to the Lone PineIndian Reservation. It’s not good for drinking, but it’s fine forcrops, and a lot cheaper than they can get from the county waterdepartment.

“Then we’ve got a couple of springs up in the Sierra foothills.They get what little runoff still comes down from the mountains.That’s better quality water and more of it. We’ll sell that to aprivate water company in Bishop. On the way we’ll prospect formore sites and hopefully drill a couple.”

Gene and Cora seem all right. Down-home, not phony.

Hours later we pull off onto a dirt road and stop. Ahead of usstretch miles of cracked, curling mud rimmed with white alkali.Bare mountains rise to the west. The only sign of people is amotor home parked off to the side.

“All that mud used to be a lake,” Gene says. “LA drank it dryabout fifty years ago, but then about twenty-five years ago,’round the turn of the century, they started restoring it, lettingmore water in, which meant less for LA. Environmentalistsforced them to do it, through the courts. But now with the bigdrought, water’s stopped running into it. Only one spring left.”

Gene opens his door, and I open mine but regret it as soon asI do. The cab is air-conditioned, so the air outside seems super-heated.I don’t even want to breathe, it’s so hot. The only water Ican see is a round pool with concrete sides, like a smallswimming pool but smelling of sulfur. “This is the water?” I askGene.

“Not our water,” he says. “Our bore hole is over there.” Heand Cora walk towards a pile of rocks, and I follow. They clearthe rocks away to reveal a six-inch wide plastic pipe sunk intothe ground. “We went down almost 250 feet to get past thesulfur. The water’s still not great, but it’s a lot better than that.This used to be a hot springs … been closed for years, though.”

Gene looks around, then his face brightens. “Hey, a barrelcactus!” He points to it, a spiny green mound like a miniaturefire hydrant. “They’re good. Get the machete, Cora.”

She goes to the truck and comes back with a big knife. Genelops the cactus off at the ground and hacks it into three parts.”They call these desert watermelons,” he says. “Grab one. Just becareful where you grab.” He picks up a piece and begins to chew.”Good!”

I try one. The moist pulp is refreshing in the heat but puckersmy mouth. Close to the rind it gets bitter. He shouldn’t havekilled it.

Gene stares at the motor home. “Wonder how long they’regoing to stay. I don’t like somebody around when we’repumping.”

At that moment the door to the motor home opens; a womansteps out and walks towards us. Gene puts his hands on his hipsand waits. “Hello,” she says with a lift of her hand and a smile.”Welcome, but I want to warn you about the fire ants. If you’regoing to camp, I’d recommend the other side over there.” She’sshort and thin, wearing light cotton pants, a colorful long-sleevedshirt with buttons but no collar, and a blue sun hat.About mom’s age. “They got me pretty good at first. That’s whyI’m wearing these now.” She points to her hiking boots with herpant legs tucked into them, and we glance nervously down atour feet. No ants.

“Thanks for the warning,” Cora says. “We’ll take youradvice.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Gene says. “You been here long?”

“Just a couple of hours,” the woman replies.

“How long you planning on staying?” he asks.

“Not sure,” she says with a shrug of her shoulders. “Few daysmaybe. Depends on how I like it.”

Gene frowns and scratches his chin with his thumb.

She waits a moment, then says, “Well, hope you enjoy yourstay,” and walks back towards the motor home.

“I don’t like it,” Gene says to Cora.

“She might not even know what we’re doing,” Cora replies.

Gene lights a cigarette. “Might not, sure. But she might. All itwould take would be one call to the cops.”

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“We don’t want to pump while she’s around,” Gene says.”Could cause trouble.”

My neck is getting tense. “What kind of trouble?”

Gene’s eyes meet mine, then glance away. “You see, technicallywe’re not supposed to drill and pump water here. The waterrights are all bought up by big outfits, and they’re trying tosqueeze the little guys out. LA Department of Water and Powerowns the rights here. Hell, they own all the way up to Reno. Theycan drill deep enough to get what’s left of the water. Their lobbygot a law passed to make what we’re doing illegal.

“So if she’s a law-and-order type and calls 911, the sheriff’sgoing to bust us. The fine would put us out of business. And if wedid it again, we’d go to jail.”

He looks at me again with wrinkles squinting his eyes. “Don’tworry, though. They wouldn’t do anything to you. You’d just loseyour job. But we’d lose everything. That’s why our bore hole ishidden.”

I’m getting mad. “You should’ve told me this before. I didn’tknow I was getting into something illegal.”

Gene shrugs. “I said we were water wildcatters. It’s commonknowledge that water wildcatting is illegal.”

“I didn’t know it.”

“Well, now you do. But the only reason it’s illegal is that thebig companies don’t want any competition. We’re selling water athalf their price. For a lot of people, farmers especially, that’s allthey can afford. We’re the last of the entrepreneurs. But this galmay be on the side of the corporations. We gotta find some wayto chase her out.”

“But she got here first,” I say. “She’s got a right to stay.”

Gene shakes his head in disbelief that I would say anything sodumb. “Attitude like that, you’re not going to get very far in thisworld.” He stares up at the pale-blue cloudless sky. “Come on, Igot a plan.” He walks towards the motor home; Cora and Ifollow.

The woman is sitting on a folding chair in the shade of her RVreading a book.

“Excuse me,” Gene says, and she looks up. “I thought I oughtto warn you. We’re the advance crew for a biker party. We’regoing to set the place up, and about a hundred of them are goingto be roaring in here tonight. They’re a mean bunch, especiallywhen they’re drunk. And they’re definitely gonna be drunk.”

The woman’s mouth drops open a bit and her cheeks sink,making her green eyes look larger.

“They got loudspeakers that are gonna be blasting out hardrock all night long.”

She closes her eyes in a grimace.

“You seem like a nice lady, and we don’t want anything tohappen to you … or your motor home. I seen ’em tip one of thesethings over just for laughs. These guys got a different sense offun. They get carried away. They won’t leave you alone, even ifyou lock the door … especially if you lock the door.”

She swallows with difficulty and says in a small voice, “Ohmy goodness.”

Gene touches the tip of his tongue to the bottom edge of hisupper teeth, nods his head, and says, “I’d recommend you find asafer place to spend the night.”

I look into her eyes, a clear light green, and she looks intomine. Something deep seems to open up inside me. I don’t wantto see her frightened. I can’t be part of Gene’s low trick. I turn tohim and say, “That’s a lie. It’s all lies. And I’m not going to let youget away with it.” I turn to her and say, “There’s no bikers. Youcan stay as long as you want. He’s just trying to scare you.” Backto Gene, “I quit!”

“You bastard,” he shouts at me, “I’ll get you for this!” Hestalks back towards the truck; Cora glares at me and follows him.
(Continues…)Excerpted from Wellsprings by William T. Hathaway. Copyright © 2013 William T. Hathaway. Excerpted by permission of John Hunt Publishing Ltd..
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