Then there was Britain’s disastrous time in Afghanistan, mid-nineteenth century, I think. I don’t remember the dates, but the British commandeer in Kabul decided the British who were there must withdraw. Women and children trying to leave were ambushed and slaughtered in the Khyber Pass. Now it’s our turn.”
“So it seems.” Mags came to sit beside Jeep. “No one reads history anymore.”
“If they do, they don’t learn anything. Well, Saltov is a start. Good for you.” She smiled broadly, then mused. “What is it about Christmas that makes you remember all your other Christmases?”
“I don’t know. It’s a touchstone, I guess.”
“I remember Christmas 1943 like it was yesterday. We were based in Sweetwater, Texas, at Avenger Field. Cold, rainy. We decorated a little tree in the barracks and all of us girls knitted scarves and socks. We gave one another the products. My best friend, Laura, forgave me because my scarf was just awful. We rarely had copilots but on those occasions when we flew the biggies, Laura was my copilot. The scarf I knitted was so awful that everyone laughed themselves silly but Laura wore that damn thing every cold day. What a sense of humor she had, dry. We stayed best friends. Each year we’d have a reunion on the Fourth of July—either in Minneapolis, where she lived with her husband, or here. She died totally unexpectedly in 1972. Heart attack. Boom. Just like that. Here we got through the bloody war and then our bodies betrayed us. How did I get off on that? Morbid.”
“Your body hasn’t betrayed you. I’m working on mine. I’ve got to live up to your example.” Mags smiled
“Good girl. I have another present for you. It’s a loan more than a present. You can’t afford to rent that Camaro. Take it back. I have my old Chevy truck, the one with the four-fifty-four engine. Not much by way of amenities, but it’s free until you can do better and you will love that engine.”
“Thank you, Aunt Jeep.” She leaned over to kiss her.
“What are your thoughts at Christmas?” Jeep asked, eyes twinkling.
“Like you, brings back memories. I’m glad to be here. I want to look forward, not back.”
“Well, in theory I do, too, but I’ve got more life behind me than in front of me.” She looked down at King. “Do you think dogs ever suffer from insomnia?”
“Not Baxter.”
“Must be a marvelous way to live. In the moment. No worrying about the future. No government papers to fill out. All the baggage that burdens us. Maybe in my next life, I’ll come back as a dog.”
“That’s a thought.”
“Well, sweetie, I’m tired. Off to bed. Tomorrow is Boxing Day. Big day in England.”
“Good night. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“God willing.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Little Christmas lights in the shape of chili peppers festooned the topless bar. A silver Christmas tree was wedged in with the liquor bottles behind the bar. Each of the girls hung decorations on it.
The men frequenting Jugs on Christmas night oozed loneliness. A false gaiety filled many of their voices. Old, young, with money, with little, they were all men without women.
The girls, wearing Santa costumes—but topless, of course—acted happier than usual. Sentimentality meant bigger tips.
Lark answered the call of men at the bar, men in the booths.
Nowhere else to go since his family sure as hell didn’t want to see him, Teton sat at the end of the bar. Since he was a neighbor, the owner never pressed for him to spend a lot of money nor to drink. He knew of his struggles, as did the regulars. Teton pitched in when help was needed, whether it was helping to throw out an unruly patron or to push one of the girls’ ever-faltering cars to give it a jump start. He was a likable guy.
His cell rang. He walked outside to hear, since the Christmas carols playing in the bar were deafening.
“Merry Christmas,” Teton answered.
“Did you give Egon my name?”
“It slipped my tongue. He wants to put a lot of money into your next project.”
“I could kill you. Never, never give out my name.”
“I’m sorry, but he’s a good player. He’s eager. He loves money.”
“That’s the American way.” The voice on the line lowered. “I’m home. But we’ll talk more about this later. You haven’t blown my cover to anyone else, I hope?”
“No. Don’t worry about it. Egon has a lot to lose if he opens his mouth.”
“Like what?”
“Like huge future profit.” Teton said.
“Let’s hope you’re right.”
Teton heard the disconnect, then folded the phone and slipped it into his back jeans pocket. “Prick.”
Once back in the bar, he hung out until close to closing then gave Lark, quietly, a small wrapped package.
She opened it to find two tasteful, beautiful sapphire earrings flanked with small diamonds.
“Matches your eyes.” He smiled.
“Oh my God! They’re beautiful.” She grabbed him and kissed him.
“Merry Christmas, Lark.” Then he blurted out. “I think about you all the time.”
“Oh, Teton, you’re so sweet.”
His reward, once the bar closed, was all he had hoped for and more, though for one wonderful, desperate moment, he’d worried when his face was stuck between her bosoms. He could suffocate.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Tuesday, December 29, people returned to work. As there’d only be a few days before New Year’s, there was a noticeable lack of urgency, regardless of profession. Out of curiosity, Twinkie and Bunny returned to Pump 19.
“Looks good.” Bunny lowered himself down.
Twinkie followed. “These new pumps are easier to work with.”
“Yep. What do you think about checking out Pump Twenty-two tomorrow?” Bunny ran his fingers over where the blue outtake pipe joined the pump.
“Not a bad idea. We’ll see how the seal is holding.” He clambered out. “I’d sure like to catch the creep doing this. My hands are still aching from the cold.”
They climbed back into an SSRM half-ton truck, their usual mode of transportation. A locked toolbox across the back under the window carried their regular complement of tools. Most jobs required replacing seals, perhaps a damaged pipe. In various spots on their watch, culverts funneled water into small holding tanks. They checked those, too. Given that rainfall was light, catching every drop was vitally important.
Once SSRM secured new water rights, the company set about harvesting water in simple ways. They knew water flow could fluctuate, and the company monitored underground flow for a year before installing expensive equipment like a pump, digging wells, or creating holding tanks.
Born on a ranch, Twinkie believed the color of sagebrush could give you an idea of rainfall, but it wasn’t his job to find water. He kept these thoughts to himself.
Back in the half-ton they drove down to Jake Tanner’s.
On his Bobcat, Jake saw them turn into his drive. He cut the motor, climbed down, and greeted them.
“Hey.” Jake smiled. “Get laid for Christmas?”
“Why would I tell you?” Twinkie shook his head.
“Just the best present, that’s all. That’s why you want to give your wife something she really wants for Christmas. Bought mine a new stove.”
“Then you’re both happy,” Bunny chimed in.
“Seen anybody up by Pump Nineteen since we put in the new one?” Twinkie asked.
“Nah. Heard you had another blowup south of town. The news did a good job, showed the water in the pump housing. You two looked so pretty.” He rolled his eyes. “Same deal?”
“Yeah, looks like. Anyone around here been talking? I mean about the pump,” Twinkie quickly added.
“Did when it first happened. Not much now.” Jake stroked his long beard. “Some people think it’s a way to get back at the politicians who keep bringing up seizing water rights. Others say SSRM is a monopoly and it’s about that.”
“Hmm. You think anyone around here might pull a stunt like that?”
“Hell, no. Couldn’t even set off a cherry bomb.”
“Good to see you, Jake. We were checking on the pump and figured we’d better check on you. Never know what you’re up to.”
“Twinkie, that warms my heart.” Jake climbed back up on his white Bobcat. “Oh, hey, there was something. Craig Locke stopped in to visit Howie Norris. Can’t hardly see anymore, but he’s still kicking. Howie told him to get lost. Guess Craig checks up on people in the upper valley once a year ’round this time.”
“Wonder why Howie threw him out? Craig’s never rude about it.”
“Howie’s just getting ornery. Said he doesn’t want to see anyone from SSRM, even once a year. Howie’s got that big well, you know. A lot of gallons per minute.”
“Up there on the northern edge of Wings. Yeah, it must be pretty good.”
“Howie, who I called on for Christmas, was just sputtering and stuttering. Said he told Craig as long as Jeep Reed rented his water rights, Craig could bugger off.”
“Given that Howie’s as old as Jeep, he won’t have to deal with anything much longer. The man’s probably pickled.”
“Ten shots of whiskey a day starting when he opens his eyes. He’s still going. I’d be dead. I can knock back a few, but that’s it.”
“Me too. Good to see you, Jake. Happy New Year.”
“You too, boys.”
Back in the truck, SSRM logo on the sides, they headed down toward Reno.
“Bunny, let’s check Pump Twenty-two now. It’s been an easy day. I don’t know why, but I keep thinking we’re missing something.”
Forty minutes later they reached Pump 22. The water had finally drained out of the bottom.
“We should ask George W. for some small sump pumps that can run off a generator. That way if a pump blows we won’t be standing in water to put in a new one,” Bunny suggested.
“Good idea.” Twinkie, at the pump with him, checked the seals. “Looks fine.”
“Yep,” Bunny agreed. “Don’t think we missed anything.”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“Just me.” Twinkie hoisted himself up and out.
On the way out, Twinkie jammed on the brakes.
“What the hell!” Bunny lurched against his seat belt.
Twinkie was out the door. “Bunny, get out!”
Bunny did. “What?”
“Look down.”
Clear tire prints snaked toward the pump.
“Could be one of our guys.” Bunny walked up to the pump as did Twinkie.
“Looks like a small car’s tire. SSRM doesn’t have any small vehicles.”
“True, but again, it could be one of our guys in his own car.”
Back in the truck, Twinkie dialed George W.
“Christina, will you get me the boss?”
“Sure.”
George W. came on and Twinkie asked, “George W., did you send anyone back to Pump Twenty-two?”
“No.”
“There are tire tracks here, and not just tracks of someone turning around. Someone drove up to the pump, then came back out.”
“I can check. We only have three crews on duty because of the holidays. You stay there. I’ll call back.”
Within ten minutes, Twinkie’s cell rang. “Bosun.”
“No one.”
“Any ideas?”
“No. I guess the sheriff can send someone out to make casts. I’ll see if that’s possible. Stay there awhile. I’ll call back.”
The team showed up two and a half hours later. In the meantime, Twinkie had sent Bunny down to the nearest convenience store for food. He didn’t want to leave the site. By the time the people from the Sheriff’s Department got there, the two men were full.
It didn’t take them long to make a cast.
“Small car?” Twinkie was curious about the process.
“Deep tread. Newer tires. Yeah, small car. Won’t be hard to find the tire make, but there has to be thousands of cars with this tire,” the man making the cast told them.
“Yeah, but if this shows up again at another pump, that’s some help for us.” Twinkie felt a rising anger at whoever was doing this.
That evening at seven o’clock, Mags drove her great-aunt back from town in her new F-150. Once out of Reno, darkness settled over them, punctuated by all the headlights coming in the opposite direction. The extended cab allowed the dogs to settle in on the short backseats. A sheepskin throw had been fastened over the leather seats. Baxter, once lifted in, stood on the center console. King curled up. Both dogs loved to ride.
“So much for the white sale.” Jeep sighed.
“The four-hundred-thread-count sheets were marked down.”
“I’m no good at this stuff,” the old lady grumbled. “Dot always did it. You’d think after all this time I’d learn, but I go in those department stores and I’m overwhelmed. For one thing, there’s no windows. I hate stores without windows.”
“Me too.”
“Don’t ever go into Walmart,” Jeep said.
“Never been. If there was one in Manhattan, I missed it.”
“They’re huge and the funny thing is, sound kind of woo-woos. Makes my ears feel like someone covered them with their hands. Here is this enormous big space with no windows. I can’t do it. However, millions of Americans can.”
“If you make a list of what you want, I’ll find it. Sheets and stuff like that.”
“Mags, I don’t know. I don’t notice until they get holes in them. I’m not cut out for this.”
“I’m no domestic goddess, but I think I can do better than you.” Mags smiled.
“Aren’t you a good woman?” Jeep teased her.
“It’s been on my mind. So I’ll ask you—why did you call the president of Silver State Resource Management to remind him about the series the paper did concerning water? It would seem to me that you and that company are enemies or maybe rivals is a better word. Wouldn’t they just kill to get all the water rights you own and those you rent?”
“We both want water rights for different reasons so we are on opposite sides of the fence. But Silver State owns a tremendous amount, far more than I do. What I control may be critical in the future, but it’s not in my best interest to create antagonism.”
“Makes life easier, that’s for sure.”
“Take the long view, Mags. They are the only company capable of supplying Reno. The noise about the city passing a law so they own the water rights is bullshit. It’s a way to get people upset and thereby divert them.”
“From what are we being diverted?”
Jeep smiled slyly. “You pay attention to national politics, right?”
“It’s like watching a train wreck. I can’t help it.”
“When did the issues of abortion, teaching creationism, and gay marriage surge forward? Well, gay marriage is a latecomer.”
“Right around the election, first term of George W. Bush.”
“Here it is in a nutshell, where it best belongs: Those issues are fundamentally irrational. I’m not saying they aren’t important, but they are so emotional all too often they preclude rational examination. If people are divided, pro and con, on irrational issues it means they aren’t paying attention to the store. It was during this time that the controls relaxed on brokerage houses, banks, mortgage lenders. I’ll go to my grave believing this latest blatant robbery of the American public was carefully planned and brilliantly executed by diverting the public’s attention.”
“Oh, Aunt Jeep.” Mags felt a flop of her stomach. “That’s a terrible thought. I never ever considered that.”
“Few have. When I was in the war, I thought I ought to read the classics, you know, von Clausewitz, stuff like that. I learned a lot, but the one phrase that sticks in my mind is from Shu Tzu, the Chinese writer about strategy in his The Art of War is, ‘Uprising in East, Strike in West!’
”
“What suckers we are.”
“It’s a tactic that’s worked for thousands of years. We aren’t suckers, we’re just human. And maybe some of our problems are unsolvable. Congressmen who knew what was going on beat the drums for or against abortion or whatever issue would divert the public. That way they didn’t have to go home, face their constituency and say ‘I don’t have an answer to crime, a faltering educational system, the continued rape of our environment, but I am your champion to overturn Roe versus Wade.’ What’s going on in Reno isn’t too far from that tactic. Make a big noise, but do more by stealth.”
“In what way?”
“Scare people. Maybe folks will sell their water rights if they fear a year down the road they won’t get a penny for them if the city declares them public property for the public good. Or if people are all worked up, they might miss the real threat. Strangle the water supply. That will scare them, too.”
“So Silver State is behind it?” Mags paused, “Would they blow up their own pumps?”
“Don’t know. When there is so much money at stake, I wouldn’t rule out anything. Look, it isn’t just maintaining what Reno now has, it’s the ability to create new subdivisions. Up goes the construction industry, the nursery trade, even interior design. The benefits extend outward. There really is a lot at stake, but to me the primary issue is environmental sustainability. Nevada isn’t meant to host large numbers of people demanding services. It is a hostile environment; it’s high desert.”
“And it’s cold.”
“Sure is now. You know, this is my home. I can’t put up border guards and say to people ‘stay out,’ but I think the most responsible thing citizens can do, forget the goddamned government, is to honestly assess just how many people Nevada can sustain.”
“I can see why you scare them at Silver State.”
She laughed. “I’ve always scared people, even when I was poor. But Mags, you have to cooperate with your enemies to some degree. Again, I shouldn’t call Silver State an enemy. I can’t deliver the services they can. Their machinery is in place. But what I can do is try to slow down further acquisitions. The whole idea of continued growth, an American faith, is suspect.”
A Nose for Justice Page 15