Page 16 of Head Above Water

Danny nodded slowly. “I’m aware.” Instinctively, they both looked skyward to where the blue extended unimpeded all the way to the horizon. “We have barely enough for now, but….”

“I know. We need rain.” It was always dry this time of the year, but this season was exceptional.

“You know, we could enlarge the paddock for them. We got those temporary barriers in the back of the barn, and there’s fresh grass outside the current boundary.”

“Good idea. I’ll get a couple of the guys on that.”

“I’d also recommend watering that area of grass. We have the water for that, and we’d only need to do it about every threedays. The grass will grow, and we can avoid using some of the hay we’ve put up.”

“Let me look into that,” Danny said, before striding off with a definite purpose. Hazard was pretty much done for the day, and Dusty joined him in watching Danny carry out whatever mission he was on.

“You done?” Dusty asked.

“Yeah.”

“A group of us were going into town. You want to come?” Dusty pulled off his hat and fanned himself with it.

“I can’t. I got something to do.” He turned toward the distant stand of trees to the south.

“What?” Dusty plopped his hat back on his head. “It is hot and drier than shit. I heard Danny say that they may need to sell some of the head early because there isn’t enough water.” He bit his lower lip. “And a smaller heard means less hands.”

“Then do you want to do something?” Hazard asked.

“To save jobs, sure.” He turned, motioning over a few of the other guys, including Wes, a kid they’d hired on a few months ago. “What do you have in mind?”

“Look, grab shovels and some pry bars and meet me out at that stand of trees as fast as you can. I’ll explain once we get there.”

Some of the men looked at him like he was crazy. “I’m in,” Wes said, and hurried away. Dusty followed him, and Hazard got a shovel of his own before heading out on an ATV across the dry range toward the old water hole. After ten minutes, he heard other motors following behind him.

“What’s with the hole?” Wes asked once he pulled to a stop and climbed off, following Hazard through the ring of trees.

“There used to be water here. That was before the Carson family dug wells. Then it dried up. But those wells were cappedand filled in a few years ago, so I’m hoping that the water will return.”

“The hell you say,” Dusty said after he and a few others joined them.

“Bryce told me. If we can get water in this part of the ranch, then we can open it up to grazing. Then they aren’t gonna need to sell head, and everyone keeps their job.”

Wes was the first one down into the hole. “Where do we start?”

“Let’s get that rock out and then see how far down we can dig. You can see it’s dry now, but there was water here once, and there can be again.” He levered the rock, and two of the others joined him. They got it moving and hefted it upward before pushing it along the dirt and up to the rim.

“We should get bigger equipment.”

“Can’t,” Wes said. “We’d never get it through the trees.” They had managed to get that rock out and deepened the one-time water hole by about two feet.

“It’s got to be ten feet deep already,” Wes said as he began digging. “The soil has water in it,” he reported as he tossed the dirt upward. “How far down should we go?”

Hazard rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not sure.” He had been starting to wonder if this was a fool’s errand, but then Wes and Dusty began pulling up wet dirt. That meant that there was water, but he had no idea how far down they were going to have to go to get to it.

“I suggest we go down a few more feet if we can,” one of the guys said, and everyone got to work, with Wes and Dusty digging deeper and the rest of the men widening the hole and getting the dirt out of the depression to avoid a collapse. It was hard work, but by the time the sun was setting, they had dug one hell of a hole in the ground.

“Shoot,” Wes said as he climbed out. “I thought we were getting close once it started getting damp.” He and the others all climbed out, reaching the surface through a series of rock steps. “Do we dare go deeper?”

“No,” said a voice from behind them. Bryce approached the rim and looked down at their handiwork. “This isn’t worth putting yourselves at risk.” He did smile, though. “I appreciate the effort each of you put in.”

“We were doing it for the ranch,” Wes said.

“I know that.” Bryce clapped the kid on the shoulder. “But sometimes you’ve just got to accept reality. So go on back to the ranch and get yourself some dinner. There’s still evening chores to do.”

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