Water Witch Read Free Page B

company—airports, football stadiums, that kind of thing. But we often had to drill wells to provide our own source of water for construction. My crew was headed by a top-notch man. If he said there was no water, there was no water.”
    A terrible sinking feeling crawled in the pit of her stomach. Sam must have been the nephew who, as Buck said, “drilled a bunch of doodlebug holes that were drier than a liar’s lips.” She wouldn’t allow herself to believe that there was no water on the hill. There had to be. Buck Barton had a hunch there was. He hadn’t made millions as an oil wildcatter without good hunches. She had to believe him. She needed that seventy-five thousand dollars.
    “I’m a geologist. And a damned good one,” she said. “Don’t worry about Buck’s money. Our deal is: If I don’t hit, he doesn’t pay. If there’s water to be found, I’ll find it.” Plunking her glass down, she stood and glared at Sam Garrett. “Now get yourself and your . . . leg out of here. I’ve got to go to bed. Some of us have to work for a living!”

Chapter 2
     
     
    Elbows to her sides, Max clutched the prongs of a forked willow branch, holding them tightly in her upturned fists. Watching the skyward-pointed tip for any movement, she slowly picked a path over the rough ground. Despite her thick-soled field boots, the jagged rocks and gravel made her search tedious.
    With the sleeve of her chambray shirt, she mopped the sweat off her face and made her way over the rocky terrain toward where her pack lay. It was already one-thirty and she’d barely made a dent in the area to be covered. So far there wasn’t a hint of water on the property. Not once had the small limb twisted in her hands, nor had the tip dipped downward. Whistling for Dowser, she sat down on the limestone boulder and laid the willow branch she’d cut this morning beside her. Maybe her skills were just rusty. After all, she hadn’t witched for water since she was thirteen or fourteen and under Gramps’s careful eye.
    When Dowser came bounding up, she scratched his head and laughed. “You’re not having any luck either, are you, boy? I doubt if we’re going to find any oil around here.” She dug a bowl from her pack and poured him a drink of water from her canteen. As she watched him lap up the water, she sighed. “I wish you were as good at locating water as you are oil. Water,” she said, wiggling her fingers in his bowl. “We need to find water.”
    Dowser sat back on his haunches and gave her a tongue-lolling grin. She tossed him a dog biscuit and watched him trot off to the shade of a scrub oak nearby. Until the bottom had fallen out of the domestic oil market and she’d lost her job with Tex-Ram Petroleum two years ago, they’d made a darned good team. When her witching rod and Dowser’s nose agreed, there was always a good producing well drilled on the spot. Nobody ever knew her secret—not even John Ramsey, the owner of Tex-Ram. Everyone simply thought she was an excellent geologist. And lucky for her, for even the best geologists hit dry holes. Max never missed.
    For the three years she had worked for him, John Ramsey had rewarded her well. After her first big strike, he’d given her the blue Silverado pickup she still drove; after the second, a new Lexus; after the third, a trip to Hawaii. Then cash bonuses added up to provide a down payment on a house and furniture. The last year John had started giving her a share of the business with every strike. He’d laughingly said that at the rate she was going, it wouldn’t be long before she owned more than he did. But with the downswing in the economy and the domestic oil business, Tex-Ram went the way of most of the small producers. Oh, they had managed to hold on longer than some, but in the end, the company had folded. Even the big concerns had huge layoffs. And geologists were a dime a dozen.
    Max walked to the truck, took a bologna sandwich and an apple from the cooler, and