Stringer and the Deadly Flood by Lou Cameron Page A

puddle that might have formed in a soft spot a wagon wheel or hoof had dug into. The puddles were almost gone now, despite the overcast sky and unusually moist air. He spotted a big one, formed naturally where wind had scoured the dust on the lee side of a brush clump. He hunkered down and drew a line in the damp dirt with his finger. The water in the puddle didn’t seem interested in running south. He tried a tiny ditch to the north. The water filled it as fast as he could move his finger through the dirt. He nodded and muttered aloud, “All right, Herb. You were right. I doubt we could be below sea level, therefore we have to be north of an almost dead-flat divide. So, no water on this side has any outlet to the sea.”
    He straightened up, wiping the damp grit from his finger on his jeans, and headed back to rejoin Juanita as he stared due north at what seemed to be dead-flat desolation. There were no signs of erosion, however. Rainwater soaked into the thirsty silt too fast to run enough to matter in any direction. He found Juanita frying bacon in a cast-iron spider. He hunkered down beside her and announced, “I dunno. If they hadn’t shot old Herb, I’d feel more sure he was just a worrywart. If they’re running a mite north of such north-south drainage as there is, north-bound irrigation water ought to just soak in before it can cause any damage. Maybe I’d better have a look at his other charts and see if I can make heads or tails of his fuss with the water company.”
    She told him he wasn’t going anywhere without a proper breakfast. So he stayed put, wondering idly just how long it was apt to take before she got down to the serious nagging that tended to dry the dew from the rose and remind a man of all the thorns that went with such delights. But when she suggested sex al fresco for dessert he decided she hadn’t meant to sound so bossy after all.
    They were just starting to climax together when a gentle rain swept across the desert floor to inspire them to try again and left them laughing, feeling clean but a mite chilled. So they got dressed, broke camp, and continued to move north through alternate spells of soft rain and bright but not too hot sunshine. Even the mules seemed to enjoy such unusually decent desert weather. So they made good time until Stringer, scouting out ahead, reined in and raised his free hand to halt Juanita and her cart. As he rode back to her he said, “I want to have another peek at that barometer. It looks as if we’ve come to a sort of fossil beach.”
    She climbed down and moved forward to see what he was talking about while he dismounted and climbed up into the back of her cart.
    The needle on Herb Lockwood’s barometer read 29.98, or a tad below or above mean sea level, depending on the weather. He climbed back out and walked over to join Juanita. He found her holding a bitty prehistoric conch shell to her ear. She smiled at him and cried, “I hear it. I can hear the sea, inside, just like they say!”
    He stared curiously around, replying, “Any sea that ever made a sound around here is long gone, indeed.” Certainly there was no actual beach to be seen cutting east and west across their path. The desert winds and rains had long since done away with any traces of wave action and the knee-high, slate-gray greasewood had marched right out into what must have been a very shallow sea in its time. The old waterline was there to be seen only because of the sun-bleached seashells spread out across the bare silt. Stringer was no expert on the topic, but most of the shells seemed to be those of saltwater mussels. The conch shell Juanita had found just didn’t go with fresh water. So, all right, there’d been a time when anyone standing here would have been staring across open blue water to the north horizon, with the vast inland sea cradled between the bare brown mountains, east and west, perhaps thirty to fifty