Water Witch (10 page)

With that, she stomped off toward the truck and climbed in. Damn Sam Garrett! With him about, her emotions bounced around like a paddleball. He was making her crazy. She revved the engine a couple of times before she spun out, spewing gravel in her wake. In her rearview mirror she could see Sam standing where she’d left him, hands on his hips, shaking his head and talking to Dowser.

Dowser. Damn. She slammed on the brakes, opened the door, and whistled. The Doberman looked up at Sam, licked his hand, then dashed for the truck.

*    *    *

Well, he’d done it again, Sam thought as he stood on the hill watching Max roar off. He winced when she almost collided with a juniper stump, then breathed relief when she whipped around it. Was he ever going to learn? Every time he tried to help her—and he knew she damned well needed some help—that little chin came up and she got stubborn as a mule and madder than the dickens.

Why was she determined to be so all-fired independent? Why wouldn’t she let him do things for her? He could make her life a whole lot easier. He liked doing things for her. Wanted to do things for her. He’d have been willing to hire a drilling crew and let them sink dry holes in this rock from now till kingdom come. He could afford it. She couldn’t.

Maybe there was something to this dowsing business, but he didn’t think so. He’d had a psychology course or two. He suspected that she wanted so desperately to find water that she’d unconsciously moved her hands and made the branch quiver. Lord, he’d never forget the ecstatic look on her face when that stick bobbed up and down. She was going to be devastated when she didn’t find that vein of water at a hundred feet. His gut wrenched at the thought of her being hurt.

Somehow he had to figure out a way to help her. It wasn’t going to be easy. He wondered if it was worth it. Then he remembered black eyes that could melt him with one glance, a body that molded perfectly to his, lips that could set him on fire. There was chemistry between them for sure, but there was something more. For all his grumbling, he admired her more than any woman he’d ever met. He was enchanted by her, head over heels about her. Max had a spirit that matched his. They would make a hell of a team. And he knew, if he could tap it, she had a well of love inside her that would never go dry.

But damn her stubborn pride! It was giving him fits. Did he really want Max in his life? Was she worth the aggravation?

Hell, yes.

As Sam started down the hill to his car, he began planning his next move. He’d give her some time to cool off, then come up on her flank.

*    *    *

Max stopped by the Dairy Queen drive-thru and got small curly-topped cones for Dowser and her. Now that she was about to come into money, she could afford the extravagance. She loved ice cream. Somehow it was comforting. After her encounter with Sam, she needed it.

Dowser devoured his in two bites and settled down to snooze in the back seat of the truck while Max parked beside a convenience store next door and licked hers slowly, savoring the taste on her tongue. She absolutely refused to allow any thought of Sam Garrett to enter her mind. Except that she was going to prove to him that she was right about the water.

After she finished the last of her treat, she wiped her fingers and got a notebook from the glove compartment. She pulled out her phone and checked for drilling companies in the area. The list was very short. She copied down the names and addresses and got directions from an old fellow who was collecting aluminum cans from the trash bin beside the store.

The closest one was only a couple of blocks away, so she headed for it first. A bell tinkled over the door as she entered the office. Sitting at a desk was a plump lady wearing lots of rouge, her yellow hair piled into a nest of ringlets atop her head.

“May I help you?” the woman asked, looking up from filing her computer screen.

“I certainly hope so,” Max replied, “I need to hire someone to drill a water well. As soon as possible. Like tomorrow.”

“Oh, honey, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. Earl’s got both his crews on a big job over in San Antonio. The soonest he could get to you would be right after Thanksgiving.”

“Well, thanks anyway,” Max said, managing a smile.

“Don’t mention it. Say, you might try Jesse Sebastian over in Ingram.”

Max glanced at her notebook. “He’s on my list. I’ll drop by there.”

“Better yet,” the woman said, picking up the phone, “why don’t you have a seat and I’ll give him a call and see if he can take a job.”

“I’d appreciate that.” She sat down in a hide-bottomed chair next to the desk. After so many years in the big city, she had forgotten how neighborly people in small towns were.

“Hello, Ruth? This is Mary Lou. Listen, I’ve got somebody here looking for a driller and you know Earl’s over in San Antonio . . . No, you don’t mean it. When did that happen?” The woman shook her head and frowned. “Is there anything I can do for you?” She shook her head again. “Well, now you let us know how he gets along, hear?” Mary Lou hung up the receiver and said, “Jesse had a heart attack last night at the supper table. Just up and keeled over in the mashed potatoes. He’s in the hospital. It looks like he’s going to be all right, but he won’t be working for quite a while.”

Max must have looked crestfallen because the woman grabbed up the phone again. “Let me try a couple of more people.”

There wasn’t a single driller in the area who’d be available for the next five or six weeks.

Max began to panic. “I’ve got to find someone. Maybe I could get a crew from another town. Maybe from Austin or San Antonio.”

Mary Lou looked sympathetic. “Honey, I know for a fact that you couldn’t get anybody from San Antonio. Every drilling company around there is tied up on the same job Earl’s on. And if you hired someone out of Austin, it would cost you an arm and a leg. In advance.”

Max swallowed back the bile that was rising in her throat. “How much is an arm and a leg?” When the woman told her, she almost fainted. There was no way on earth she could raise that kind of money. She had planned to pay for the drilling out of her profit. “There’s got to be someone who can drill that well for me. I’m desperate.” Tears began to gather in her eyes. She was so close. So close. She couldn’t lose it all now. This was like somebody’s idea of a sick joke. “There has to be someone.”

“The only other person I can think of is . . .” Mary Lou twirled a stiff yellow curl around her finger. “No. No, he wouldn’t do.”

“Who? Have you thought about another driller?” Max felt a glimmer of hope, sat up straight in her chair, and leaned forward.

“Well,” Mary Lou said, wrinkling her nose, “I suppose if you’re really desperate, you might try Goose Gallagher. But he’s over eighty years old, and most of the time he stays drunker than Cooter Brown.”

Max slumped back in the chair. It was like an eleventh hour reprieve. “Right now I’d try the devil himself if he had a drilling rig. Let’s give him a call.”

Goose Gallagher didn’t have a telephone, but Mary Lou wrote out the directions and drew her a map.

Max crossed her fingers and said a prayer as she drove down the winding road by the river.

Goose Gallagher’s place was little more than a shack. No, it was a shack, she revised as she pulled up to the decrepit structure beside the river bank. Put together with mismatched, unpainted boards, it listed north about twenty degrees and looked as if it might collapse at any moment. In the yard, a dilapidated school bus, minus wheels and windows, sat gathering rust under a pecan tree. It looked as if it hadn’t run in thirty years. Five or six chickens scratched at the bare ground beside its gaping door. Two goats pulled at the high grass growing between a discarded wringer-type washing machine and a twisted bedspring propped against a pile of rotting lumber.

Max parked behind an ancient pickup held together with baling wire and determination. Ordering Dowser to stay in the Silverado, she got out and picked her way through scattered debris and chickens and animal droppings. Beer cans of every imaginable brand littered the area. The old collector at the convenience store could have had a field day here.

Rounding the house, Max stopped and stared. A precarious porch, shored up by stacks of rocks, faced the river and was attached to a rickety pier extending out over the water. On the sagging porch an old man sat in a rocking chair, rocking back and forth and swigging from a can of beer. She felt as if the bottom had dropped out of her stomach, as if her last hope had been snatched away. Mary Lou had said he was over eighty. He looked a hundred.

God only knew when his worn khaki shirt and pants had been washed. He had about a two-week growth of white whiskers, and irregular patches of liver spots stained his bald head, pink and slick as a baby’s bottom. His nose was large, hawk-shaped, and covered with a spidery network of red. He must have had a thousand wrinkles around the rheumy blue eyes that looked up as Max approached.

She forced a smile on her face and stepped up on the porch. “Morning,” she said. “You must be Mr. Gallagher. I’m Max Strahan.” She stuck out her hand.

The old man tossed his beer can onto the pile nearby and rose. A little unsteady on his feet, he wiped his hand on his britches leg and extended it to her. “Most folks just call me Goose. What can I do for you, little lady?”

She was surprised by the strength of his grip. Gnarled and rough with calluses, his was the hand of a working man. And his shoulders, though slightly stooped, were almost as broad as Sam’s. “I’m looking for a good water well driller.”

“Well, you’ve come to the best,” he said, puffing out his chest, then catching himself on a post as he swayed. “Drag up a chair and let’s talk business.” He pointed to an aluminum lawn chair leaning against the front wall.

Max unfolded it and sat down carefully, testing her weight against the seat, which had several strips missing. When Goose settled back in his rocker, she told him the location of the well she wanted drilled.

He shook his head. “Little lady, there ain’t no water out there. You’d just be throwin’ your money, down a rat hole. I’ve been drillin’ around here purt near all my life, and I’ve run afoul of that place before. You’d have to accidentally hit a vein off the Edwards formation, and they’re scarcer than hen’s teeth.”

Max couldn’t believe it. He was turning her down. She had to find some way to convince him. Goose Gallagher was her only chance. “What do you think about dowsing?” she asked, broaching the subject carefully.

“Witching, you mean?” Max nodded. “Well,” he said, running his hand over his whiskers, “I know some folks don’t hold with it. And me, it never worked for me. Tried it a time or two. There’s some around here who think they can do it, but they ain’t really no better at findin’ water ‘n anybody else. Wasn’t but one feller I ever saw that could do it. Him and me used to partner some, but he’s been gone from here for a lot of years. Heard Dal died.”

Her heart almost stopped. “Dal?”

“Dal Maxwell. Damned good witcher. Never saw him miss.”

“He was my grandfather, Goose. And I’m just as good as he was.”

Max had said the magic words. Soon she and the old man were trading stories about her grandfather, and he agreed to drill the well. The only problem was, as usual, money. It seemed that Goose had tied one on a couple of weeks ago and driven his pickup into the fountain in front of the courthouse. Tom Phillips, the local sheriff, had confiscated his drilling equipment until he paid the damages.

“Didn’t hurt my pickup none, but I tore that fancy new fountain all to hell. Tom said the mayor told him it would take about two thousand dollars to fix it back. And I ain’t got the wherewithal.”

Max almost groaned. Where was she going to get the money? Maybe she could get a loan at a local bank. Promising to get back with him when she raised the cash, Max headed for town.

All the banks were closed. She had forgotten it was Saturday and, by the time she arrived, after noon. Unless she could come up with another idea, there was nothing to do but wait until Monday. As she drove back to the cottage, it occurred to her that she could borrow the money from Sam. She quickly discarded the idea. She’d sell the Silverado first—and that was her last resort. It was her only remaining asset of any value. She stroked the leather seat beside her. She’d hate to part with this vehicle; she loved it. It had been her first big bonus, and they had traveled a lot of miles together.

When she pulled in the driveway, she stopped and let Dowser out for a run, then turned toward the house. Waiting on the steps were two huge baskets of red roses. She parked quickly and ran over to the house; she laughed as she read the note.

This is all the florist had.

 Love, Sam

She took the baskets inside and put one arrangement in the living room and the other in the bedroom. Cupping one bud in her hand, she inhaled the sweet fragrance. No one had ever sent her roses before. She was humming as she went in to take a bath, fantasizing all sorts of delicious scenarios for tonight. “A softer place,” he’d said.

*    *    *

It was almost ten o’clock. The chicken was dry, the broccoli was mush, and the parslied potatoes had congealed in their butter. Max stashed the whole mess in the refrigerator and blew out the candle on the table. Where was Sam anyway? She’d been sure he would come over. Now she felt like a fool for putting on a silk dress and sexy underwear. She didn’t even know why she’d packed such things.