wonder if she is the only one-the last one-of her People left upon Earth. And only occasionally do I look at her and wonder where on Earth-or off it-did this casual miracle, this angel unawares, come from.
“This angel unawares.” Bethie’s whisper echoed the last phrase of the Assembly.
“Why I’ve been in Margin!” cried Meris. “I was there their last Founding Day and I didn’t hear a word about Marnie!”
“What did you hear?” asked Bethie, interested.
“Well, about the first mine collapsing and starting the creek and about the new mine’s being found-“
“I suppose that’s enough,” said Bethie. “How would you have included Marnie?”
“At least mention her name!” cried Meris. “Why even the burro a prospector hit with a piece of ore and found Tombstone or Charleston or wherever is remembered. And not word one about Marnie-“
“Maybe,” suggested Bethie, “maybe because that wasn’t her real name.”
“It wasn’t!” Meris’s eyes widened.
“Do you think she was called Marnie on the Home?” teased Mark. “Look what we did to Lala’s name. At least “Marnie’ couldn’t be that bad a miss.”
“Who was she then?” asked Meris. “What was her real name?”
“Why I thought you knew-” Bethie started.
“Marnie was Lytha. She used both names later on-Marnie Lytha.”
“Lytha!” Meris sat down absently, almost off the chair, and scooted back slowly, “Lytha and Timmy. Oh! Of course! Then Eva-lee’s promise to them must have come true-“
“She didn’t promise them each other,” reminded Mark.
“Only love.”
“Only love!” mocked Meris. “Oh, Mark! Only love?”
“I was just thinking,” said Mark slowly. “If Marnie was Lytha, then all those people who died in the fire-“
“Oh, Mark!” Meris drew a breath of distress. “Oh, Mark! But Eve wasn’t one of them. Bethie’s mother escaped!”
“Others did, too,” said Bethie. “The flow of Assembling about Marnie kept right on in the same general area and I didn’t stop when Marnie’s segment was finished. The next part-” She hesitated. “It’s hard to tell what is bright and happy and what is dark and sad. I’ll let you decide. The boy-well, he wasn’t sure either-“
Bethie gathered up the two willing hands gently and began-
TROUBLING OF THE WATER
Sometimes it’s like being a castaway, being a first settler in a big land. If I were a little younger, maybe I’d play at being Robinson Crusoe, only I’d die of surprise if I found a footprint, especially a bare one, this place being where it is.
But it’s not only being a castaway in a place, but in a time. I feel as though the last years of the century were ruffling up to my knees in a tide that will sweep me into the next century. If I live seven more years, I’ll not only be of age but I’ll see the Turn of the Century! Imagine putting 19 in front of your years instead of 18! So, instead of playing Crusoe and scanning the horizon for sails, I used to stand on a rock and measure the world full circle, thinking-the Turn of the Century! The Turn of the Century! And seeking and seeking as though Time were a tide that would come racing through the land at midnight 1899 and that I could see the front edge of the tide beginning already!
But things have happened so fast recently that I’m not sure about Time or Place or Possible or Impossible any more. One thing I am sure of is the drought. It was real enough.
It’s the responsibility of the men of the house to watch out for the welfare of the women of the house, so that day I went with Father up into the hills to find out where Sometime Creek started. We climbed up and up along the winding creek bed until my lungs pulled at the hot air and felt crackly clear down to their bottoms. We stopped and leaned against a boulder to let me catch my breath and cool off a little in what shadow there was. We could see miles and miles across the country-so far that the mountains on the other side of Desolation Valley were swimmy pale against the sky. Below us, almost at our feet because of the steepness of the hill, was the thin green line of mesquites and river willows that bordered Chuckawalla River and, hidden in a clump of cottonwoods down to our left, was our cabin, where Mama, if she had finished mixing the bread, was probably standing in the doorway with Merry on her hip, looking up as I was looking down.
“What if there isn’t a spring?” I asked, gulping dryly, wanting a drink. I thought Father wasn’t going to answer. Sometimes he doesn’t-maybe for a day or so. Then suddenly, when you aren’t even thinking of the same thing, he’ll answer and expect you to remember what you’d asked.
“Then we’ll know why they call this Sometime Creek,” he said. “If you’ve cooled down some, go get a drink.”
“But we’ve always got the river,” I said, as I bellied down to the edge of the plunging water. It flowed so fast that I couldn’t suck it up. I had to bite at it to get a mouthful. It was cold and tasted of silt. It was shallow enough that I bumped my nose as I ducked my hot face into its coldness.
“Not always.” Father waited until I finished before he cupped his hands in a small waterfall a step upstream and drank briefly. “It’s dropped to less than half its flow of last week. Tanker told me yesterday when he stopped for melons that there’s no snow left in the Coronas Altas, this early in the summer.”
“But our orchard!” I felt dread crawl in my stomach. “All our fields!”
“Our orchard,” said Father, no comfort or reassurance in his voice. “And all our fields.”
We didn’t find a spring. We stood at the bottom of a slope too steep to climb and watched the water sheet down it from the top we couldn’t see. I watched Father as he stood there, one foot up on the steep rise, his knee bent as if he intended to climb up sheer rock, looking up at the silver falling water.
“If the river dries up,” I offered, “the creek isn’t enough to water everything.”
Father said nothing but turned hack down the hill.
