Chapter Fifty-One

Having found a credible location for water, everyone sprang into action. While José’s wife led Doña Alma and her assistants to the house for lunch, young Pete and a handful of men too decrepit to help with the digging trooped off to the corral to slaughter goats for the evening's feast. José led the rest of the men and the hardier women, including Amalia, to the site of the new well and everyone started digging a shallow basin with the predicted water site at its center. After watching for a few minutes, most of the women went back to the house to wait on Doña Alma, tend to the youngest children, and begin cooking. The children old enough to no longer toddle scurried back and forth among the different activities, sometimes helping the adults by scraping coals from the ovens or by taking water and tools to the well diggers. They played as much as they worked, hiding in the barn, chasing each other through the fields and getting underfoot as the men dragged the giant tripod and auger to the well site and set it in place.

The drilling was slow, difficult work. They had to stop often to let the mule rest and to allow water to soften the baked earth. Some men wandered off to see how the goat roasting was coming along. Some, like Donovan and Amalia, merely waited, talking a bit and occasionally fanning themselves with their hats. About twenty feet down, the ground became damp and sandy. The work sped up. When the mule tired at fifty feet, everyone took a break while one of the neighbors went to get one of his own mules to take over the task.

Donovan and Amalia wandered in the direction of the house in search of Carina, who they found sitting under a tree near Doña Alma, talking quietly, each in a pidgin of the other's language.

"Señora Amalia," the curandera greeted her. "Mucho gusto."

"Good to see you, too," Amalia said, taking the offered hand and squeezing it. "Me agradezco que me rememora."

"I forget no one. The old woman's gaze settled on Donovan. "¿Quién es este hombre?"

Carina made a quick introduction. The woman smiled, but when Donovan took her hand in greeting, a flicker of fear crossed her face. She composed herself with a shake of her narrow shoulders, and her benevolent wise woman's smile returned. "How did you find us?"

"I was lost in the desert. I got lucky."

"Lucky." Doña Alma considered the word. "La suerte es cosa misteriosa. ¿No tienes familia que te extraña, que te busca?" She frowned and considered how to translate. "Your family. They do not look for you?"

"I'm an orphan.”

"We're his family now," Carina added. "Nosotros somos su familia."

The curandera pondered this. "Cuídale bien," she finally said, directing her attention to Carina, "Cuídale quien le elige para ser miembro de su familia."

Amalia and Carina exchanged curious glances at this pronouncement. "What do you mean?" Amalia asked, unwilling to go so far as to ask what business it was of hers who they chose for family, but the old woman said she was tired and asked for a fresh cup of water. They hurried away to fulfill her request, leaving Donovan behind.

After an uncomfortable minute of Doña Alma's black eyes boring into his own, he could stand it no longer. "Is there something wrong?"

"Eres peligro a todo este valle," she hissed, no longer the kindly curandera but an angry Indian woman with the gift of sight. The lines on her face deepened into a scowl. "Eres débil y desagradecido." She reached for a staff lying in the grass beside her and shook it at him. "Déjanos. No te quedas aquí."

Donovan was so startled he took a few steps back, his eyes wide with shock at such treatment. He didn't understand Spanish, but the hostility of her meaning was clear. He quietly murmured, "I'm sorry," then followed the women toward the house.

* * *

After a snack of some nuts and dried fruit, Amalia, Carina and Donovan wandered back to where drilling on the well had resumed. Donovan was still shaken by his encounter with the curandera and he hung back, standing apart from the women as he watched the proceedings.

The new mule was stronger than the Montoyas' and was rapidly gaining ground, mud already oozing around the bore. Finally someone stopped the mule and set her trotting in the opposite direction to bring the shaft back up. When the pipe reached the surface, the bit was removed and the hollow pipe dropped back down the hole. Sledgehammers came out. The rest of the work would be done by hand.

The men stripped off their shirts and took turns pounding the pipe into the mud. As it went deeper, additional sections were screwed on, checked for proper fit and painted with sealant. Then the pounding would begin again. The pipe slowly inched its way downward and mud started bubbling over the top. This caused some excitement, even as the men wielding the sledgehammers became splattered with each stroke of the hammer. "It don't matter," one said, "I have a feeling we'll all get a shower real soon."

There were enthusiastic nods of agreement as the mud turned to brown, silty water. A few of the younger men were so encouraged that they rushed the pipe to catch a the overflow and rub it on their faces and in their hair. "Out of the way," said lame Lupe Garza, who was taking his turn at the sledgehammer. "You'll get your water soon enough."

A few hammer blows later, there was a rumble and spindletop of water burst from the pipe, showering everyone in cold, clear water. The flow died down quickly, but the shouts of the workers brought people running from the house and barbeque pits. Children swarmed out of nowhere, squealing and rushing to dip their hands into the bubbling flow. Women cupped water in their hands to drink, then wet the heads of their babies with the remaining drops, like a blessing.

After a little while, Doña Alma arrived, followed by her attendants. She dipped a bundle of sage in the burbling fountain and flung the drops at the crowd, chanting a blessing. Then the little Indian girl handed her a white china cup and she filled it with fresh water. She sipped the water with a pensive expression, then pronounced it "Sano y dulce."

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