Father turned and went into the house. He lighted the lamp, the upflare of the flame before he put the chimney on showed the deep furrows down his cheeks. I prodded Timmy and we sat on the bench across the table from Father.
“Why is he digging?” Father asked again. “Since he responds to you, ask him.”
I reached out, half afraid, and touched Timmy’s wrist.
“Why are you digging?” I asked. “Father wants to know.”
Timmy’s mouth moved and he seemed to be trying different words with his lips. Then he smiled, the first truly smile I’d ever seen on his face. “‘Shall waters break out and streams in the desert,’” he said happily.
“That’s no answer!” Father exclaimed, stung by having those unfitting words flung back at him. “No more digging. Tell him so.”
I felt Timmy’s wrist throb protestingly and his face turned to me, troubled.
“Why no digging? What harm’s he doing?” My voice sounded strange in my own ears and the pit of my stomach was ice. For the first time in my life I was standing up to Father! That didn’t shake me as much as the fact that for the first time in my life I was seriously questioning his judgment.
“No digging because I said no digging!” said Father, anger whitening his face, his fists clenching on the table.
“Father,” I swallowed with difficulty, “I think Timmy’s looking for water. He-he touched water before he started digging. He felt it. We-we went all over the place before he settled on where he’s digging. Father, what if he’s a-a dowser? What if he knows where water is? He’s different-“
I was afraid to look at Father. I kept my eyes on my own hand where Timmy’s fingers rested on my wrist.
“Maybe if we helped him dig-” I faltered and stopped, seeing the stones come up and hover and fall. “He has only Merry’s spoon and an old knife.”
“And he dug that deep!” thundered Father.
“Yes,” I said. “All by himself.”
“Nonsense!” Father’s voice was flat. “There’s no water anywhere around here. You saw me digging for water for the stock. We’re not in Las Lomitas. There will be no more digging.”
“Why not!” I was standing now, my own fists on the table as I leaned forward. I could feel my eyes blaze as Father’s do sometimes. “What harm is he doing? What’s wrong with his keeping busy while we sit around waiting to dry up and blow away? What’s wrong with hoping!”
Father and I glared at each other until his eyes dropped. Then mine filled with tears and I dropped back on the bench and buried my face in my arms. I cried as if I were no older than Merry. My chest was heavy with sorrow for this first real anger I had ever felt toward Father, with the shouting and the glaring, and especially for his eyes falling before mine.
Then I felt his hand heavy on my shoulder. He had circled the table to me. “Go to bed now,” he said quietly. “Tomorrow is another day.”
“Oh, Father!” I turned and clung to his waist, my face tight against him, his hand on my head. Then I got up and took Timmy back to the cot and we went to bed again.
Next morning, as though it was our usual task, Father got out the shovels and rigged up a bucket on a rope and he and I and Timmy worked in the well. We called it a well now, instead of a hole, maybe to bolster our hopes.
By evening we had it down a good twelve feet, still not finding much except hard, packed-down river silt and an occasional clump of round river rocks. Our ladder was barely long enough to help us scramble up out and the edges of the hole were crumbly and sifted off under the weight of our knees.
I climbed out. Father set the bucket aside and eased his palms against his hips. Timmy was still in the well, kneeling and feeling the bottom.
“Timmy!” I called. “Come on up. Time to quit!” His face turned up to me but still he knelt there and I found myself gingerly groping for the first rung of the ladder below the rim of the well.
“Timmy wants me to look at something,” I said up to Father’s questioning face. I climbed down and knelt by Timmy. My hands followed his tracing hands and I looked up and said, “Father!” with such desolation in my voice that he edged over the rim and came down, too.
We traced it again and again. There was solid rock, no matter which way we brushed the dirt, no matter how far we poked into the sides of the well. We were down to bedrock. We were stopped.
We climbed soberly up out of the well. Father boosted me up over the rim and I braced myself and gave him a hand up. Timmy came up. There was no jarring of his feet on the ladder, but he came up. I didn’t look at him.
The three of us stood there, ankle-deep in dust. Then Timmy put his hands out, one hand to Father’s shoulder and one to mine. ” ‘Shall waters break out and streams in the desert,’” he said carefully and emphatically.
“Parrot!” said Father bitterly, turning away.
“If the water is under the stone!” I cried. “Father, we blasted out the mesquite stumps in the far pasture. Can’t we blast the stone-“
Father’s steps were long and swinging as he hurried to the barn. “I haven’t ever done this except with stumps,” he said. He sent Mama and Merry out behind the barn. He made Timmy and me stay away as he worked in the bottom of the well, then he scrambled up the ladder and I ran out to help pull it up out of the well and we all retreated behind the barn, too.
Timmy clung to my wrist and when the blast came, he cried out something I couldn’t understand and wouldn’t come with us back to the well. He crouched behind the barn, his face to his knees, his hands clasped over the top of his head.
We looked at the well. It was a dimple in the front yard. The sides had caved in. There was nothing to show for all our labor but the stacked-up dirt beside the dimple, our ladder, and a bucket with a rope tied to the bale. We
