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tank and in an urgent voice said, “Behind you, Curley. Move! ”
    Still not buying, Curley said, “You just want to see me jump forward and fall flat on my face.”
    “Curley, look down. Look between your legs. Now!”
    Sam watched as a little fear crept into Curley’s eyes. And then he saw a look that swept across his face that said, Maybe Sam’s not joking .
    Curley swallowed, then slowly lowered his head until his eyes were staring at the toes of his boots. Then he carefully lifted his right foot—and there, only inches from the back of his legs, was a four-foot-long rattlesnake. Its tongue flicked in and out as it sized up one of Curley’s ankles.
    Curley’s head snapped up. His mouth fell open. And, saucer-eyed, he leapt forward, took a few steps, but with the toes of his boots going in opposite directions, all he managed to do was fall and land flat on his face.
    “Curley!” Sam yelled just as Blossom, a three-hundred-pound sow, came trotting around the side of the barn, shot over to the unsuspecting snake—and, with a couple of fancy moves, did a pig’s version of the Mexican hat dance, killing the snake and severing its head with her sharp hooves.
    Blossom gave a victorious snort. She grabbed the snake in her mouth, violently shaking it back and forth—and then, with a flick of her head, sent it sailing through the air, landing in a ruined heap next to one of the tanker truck’s tires. Blossom snorted with delight, trotted over to Curley, and began slurping his face up one side and down the other.
    “Blossom, no!” Curley protested, pushing up into a sitting position. “Blossom, now cut that out!”
    “That pig hates snakes,” Sam said, breaking into laughter.
    Curley shooed Blossom away, then climbed to his feet and dusted himself off. But it made little difference in his appearance. A cloud of dust just seemed to follow Curley around.
    “Jeez, Sam, I thought you was kidding,” Curley said as he made his way to the truck.
    “Yeah…” Sam answered flatly, then he lowered a pipe from the top of the water tank. “Now, if you think you can handle it, how about swinging that fill pipe over to the truck?”
    “I can handle it, Jeez…” Curley protested. He grabbed a rope that hung from the end of the pipe and swung it towards the truck, positioning it directly over an open hatch at the top of the tank.
    “Okay, let her rip.”
    Sam spun a valve and water rumbled through the pipe, a moment later flooding out the end with a loud whoosh .
    Curley, still clutching the rope, instinctively took a step back to avoid being splashed and tripped over his ill-fitting boots. As he fell to the ground, the fill pipe swung out from the truck and poured its contents directly across his face.

Chapter 7

    A wedge of water kicked into the desert sky. There was a loud roar, and a speedboat towing a water skier shot down the center of the California Aqueduct, a four hundred and forty-four mile long, cement-lined river that runs north to south, supplying water to the thirsty metropolis of Los Angeles.
    The water skier screamed with delight as he illegally skied along the aqueduct, carving its glassy surface at over forty miles per hour.

    * * *

    A couple of miles away, just out of view, a Honda Civic drove through the nothingness of California’s interior desert.
    A hundred and five degrees on the asphalt.
    Not a cloud in the sky.
    The jumping off spot for flyover country , the elite’s name for anything other than the two coasts.
    Behind the wheel of the Honda was 33-year-old Dr. Laura Beecham. She was on unpaid leave from her job heading up the botany department of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles.
    Not her dream job.
    Not by a long shot.
    What she really wanted to be doing was field work. Tramping around a Venezuelan rainforest, maybe. Or exploring some exotic volcanic crater in East Africa.
    Before she went on leave, she had promised herself to redouble her efforts and start shopping her resume. She