Water War

By Stephen Foehr

The Snake Valley Okies are in a water war with the City of Las Vegas. The battles include the bombing of a Las Vegas Water Authority car, the occupation of a Las Vegas golf course, a naval confrontation on Lake Mead, the murder of a Las Vegas water department geologist and the theft of millions of gallons of water from Las Vegas’s underground reservoir.
The water war pits Stet, leader of the Okies, against the Lounge Lizards, two Las Vegas cops. Stet’s intent is to stop the 285-pipeline from Las Vegas to the Snake Valley Aquifer, an actual case. The Lounge Lizards set out to remove Stet as the opposition leader by framing him for the car bombing and the murder.
Stet and his cohort, Lolly, a high-tech maven, devise elaborate and clever systems to hold virtual protest demonstrations that allow Stet to rally worldwide support to the Okies’ cause and stay one step ahead of the cops. While on the lam hiding out in a series of “safe ranches,” Stet and his wife Ali find new and creative way to say “I love you” without using the word love.
Stet unravels the mysteries of the car bombing, the murder, and the theft of Las Vegas’s water. His threat to expose the people behind the grand scam causes the water pipeline to be cancelled.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen Foehr
• Release date: Feb 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9780615950631

Stephen Foehr

OTHER BOOKS BY STEPHEN FOEHRKiller LoveStoryvilleWaking Up in NashvilleDancing with FidelWaking Up in JamaicaTaj Mahal, Autobiography of a BluesmanOn Heart's Edge, Love and Adventure in AfricaEco-Journeys

Book preview

Water War

The Snake Valley Okies vs. Las Vegas

By Stephen Foehr

Jiri Vanek Publishing

Brno, CZ-EU

Copyright Stephen Foehr

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Smashwords Edition

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in an form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the author.

Requests permission to make copies of any part of the work must be submitted online to [e-mail]

Cover photo: Lake Mead with Meadview, Arizona on the lower right. Courtesy of Doc Searls (www.flickr.com/photos/52614599@N00/8148616321). Color edited by Berger & Föhr.

Cover design by Berger & Föhr.

ISBN 978-0-615-95063-1

Also by Stephen Foehr

Fiction

Killer Love

Storyville, The Eternal Triangle of Love, Sex and Money

Nonfiction

Waking Up in Nashville

Dancing with Fidel

Jamaican Warriors

Taj Mahal, Autobiography of a Bluesman

On the Heart’s Edge, A Powerful Story of Love and Adventure in Africa

Walkin’ the Walk While Talkin’ the Law

Eco Journeys

Chapter 1

Stet puts a pebble in his mouth as he watches the dust plume come down his ranch lane. He’s dry-mouthed, having never before gone against the government. He wonders if he’ll outright lie. Given his reputation, he can get away with a big lie.

Sheriff Ortega skids his squad car to a stop. Stet tugs down the brim of his sweat-stained cowboy hat and squints to keep the dust out of his eyes. The sheriff bounds up the porch’s single wooden step and damn near chest-butts Stet, he’s so riled about being betrayed by friends and neighbors. The men are the same height, a bit over six feet, fit with bulky shoulders, but the sheriff has twenty extra pounds of belly.

You wouldn’t know anything about the car bombing last night, would you? His voice is stone-sea calm, but his fury accuses. The car bombing forces him to take sides and go against people he’s known all his life, and he believes Stet is responsible for this awkward conflict.

Goddammit, Stet, that’s going too far.

First I’ve heard of it. Stet keeps his face impassive so not to betray his relief. The Snake Valley Okies have a clandestine plan, but blowing up a car isn’t part of it.

You’re the leader of the Snake Valley Okies and you’re telling me you know nothing about that car bombing?

That’s right. What happened?

Somebody taped a stick of dynamite to the Las Vegas Water Authority’s car’s gas tank and lit the fuse.

Stet rolls the smooth stone under his tongue from side to side to worry up a thread of spittle. He steps to the porch rail, puckers up and waters the weed in the coffee can, the only green, living thing left on his ranch.

Anybody get hurt?

No. The LVWA fella was asleep in his motel room at the time. This morning he rented a car in Partoun and hightailed it back to Las Vegas.

Well, that’s good.

Sheriff Ortega stares hard to read Stet’s eyes under the brim of his cowboy hat, looking for a minute glance sideways, a sliver of deceit. Stet tilts his brim up so his eyes aren’t in its shadow.

Make you feel better that no one got killed? The sheriff’s blunt brogan taps the pointed toe of Stet’s boot. Less guilty about starting a shooting war?

Stet’s surprised to see the blood vessel in the sheriff’s right temple throb, out of character for the normally stolid man. Why you asking me that? I had nothing to do with blowing up that Las Vegas Water Authority car.

Stet knows the sheriff won’t actually accuse him. Snake Valley residents, townies and ranchers alike, look to him the way people in the Old West deferred to the gunslinger who wore a badge—with respect and loyalty. He’s rallied the opposition to the water vultures, including the LVWA, who prey on ranchers made so desperate by the fifteen-year drought that they sell their water rights. To raise sagging spirits, he and his wife, Ali, invite the entire valley to old-fashioned square dances in their barn. They manage food for families forced by the hard times to eat their pride, and arrange for good clothes slyly delivered so kids don’t go to school in worn rags.

Just the other day Don Altron warned me right in Hal’s Café there’ll be trouble if Las Vegas builds their pipeline to the Snake Valley Aquifer. Sheriff Ortega grinds out his words in a low growl and rolls his shoulders forward, porcupine quills up in warning that his authority will not be debased by personal friendship. Altron made a point of reminding me what the people in Owens Valley did when Los Angeles siphoned off their water. They blew up the aqueduct. Altron said the ranchers would do the same to the pipeline to protect their heritage and way of life. Now—the sheriff jabs a stubby finger into Stet’s chest—two days later, somebody blows up the car belonging to the agency overseeing Las Vegas’s pipeline proposal.

Stet leans within a cigar length of the sheriff’s nose. One more finger jab and he’ll tilt into biting range. Don Altron talks hot air. We’ve never done an act of violence in all the years of fighting that pipeline. We’ve followed the rules, all legal and above board. Even petitioned President Obama to declare this drought a national disaster and send us relief money. Nothing. Not even a Christmas card.

Sheriff Ortega backs off a half-step but doesn’t tamp down his anger. This is a game-changer, Stet. The Las Vegas police department called me this morning. A couple special investigators are on their way. Those outsiders have no reason to be neighborly. We don’t need the trouble those boys will bring.

No, we don’t need their trouble, Stet says. We’ve got big enough troubles as is.

You know I have to open an official investigation.

Stet nods. You doing all right, Oscar? The sheriff’s wife is dying of cancer.

The sheriff takes a moment to shut out the image of the grateful smile his wife gave him while he fed her grapefruit slices at breakfast. I don’t know how I should be doing, to tell the truth. I don’t need this distraction right now, you understand, Stet? I’d appreciate your cooperation.

Stet glances at the weed in the coffee can to give the sheriff privacy. He remembers the time of Ali’s miscarriage, when he thought he might lose her, the utterly blinding fear that gutted him. We don’t want their trouble, Oscar. Not here in the valley. He would like to give the man more, some heart comfort, but knows the sheriff won’t take it. He’ll insist on finding solitary strength so as not to burden others, as Stet did and now regrets that stubbornness; that self-inflicted scar binds his heart a bit too tightly. All he can offer is, I’ll get Ali into town to visit your Mary.

To get past the moment, Oscar Ortega gestures to the patch of aluminum pie tins painted various colors elevated on stakes at the side of the house. What’s that?

One of Ali’s projects. You have to look down on it from high up to see the message. It’s meant for aliens and God.

What’s it say?

Don’t know. I’ve never been high enough to read it.

There’s no hint of humor in Stet’s voice, but the sheriff knows a rancher’s joke when he hears one.

At the squad car, Sheriff Ortega turns back to Stet. I don’t want those big-city badges upstaging me, you understand, Stet? You hear anything, I want to know it first. He drives back down the ranch lane, careful not to raise a drifting billow of dust until he’s well away from the house.

Before the sheriff reaches the end of the lane, Stet’s on the phone to Lolly. Sheriff came a-callin’.

Ah, shit. How did he find out about the occupation? Lolly’s voice squeaks like a violin poorly played, highlighting his distress.

He didn’t. Fortunately, he’s been distracted by a burnt-out car.

What?

That’s what I’m asking. What’s going on we don’t know about? Stet relays Sheriff Ortega’s account of the LVWA car bombing. Is there a mole in the Snake Valley Okies trying to abort our plan? Maybe we’re supposed to freeze in place with the sheriff and the Las Vegas cops shining their spotlights on us.

Lolly clears his throat to take out the twinge of paranoia, but his words betray him. One of those water vultures setting us up, do you think? Maybe it’s a renegade with an out-of-control ego? Teenagers looking for excitement? A drunk playing a joke? Christ, the timing couldn’t be worse for us. Now the sheriff will be on us like a programmer hunting down a virus.

The Las Vegas police department is sending special investigators.

What’ll we do?

You start hacking for official chatter. I’ll go talk to—

Stop! Lolly shouts. Don’t say another word! We’re not on secure phones!

Who’s going to be listening?

You ever heard of the ninja librarians at the CIA’s Open Source Center? They assess five million tweets a day. They look at every Facebook update from around the world. And the NSA’s PRISM program that scoops up millions of e-mail messages and cell-phone calls. Remember that one? The NSA keeps records of everyone you call, and everyone that person calls and everyone who calls those people. They pluck all this out of the air, makes no difference where you are. They can find you if the phone or computer is tracked to you. If Google and hundreds of other companies can insert cookies and hidden forms on your computer to mine your interests, don’t you think the government does the same thing? Don’t underestimate your enemy, Stet. Why don’t you drop by for coffee? Dad would love to have a visitor.

Before leaving Stet calls out to Ali that he’ll be back soon. She’s in her sewing room and doesn’t hear him.

Stet drives his well-used pickup, the tires nearly bald, into Partoun, fifteen miles, while listening to Bruce Springsteen’s Wrecking Ball CD at full blast. The album has become the battle cry for Snake Valley, where ranches have been reduced to sun-blasted scrub that no longer supports cattle or hay to feed the cattle. He sees the hard times and quiet desperation and frayed hope in the busted cars and trucks in the farmyards he passes. Everyone he knows looks threadbare, with clothes patched and worn until all color has been washed out. It’s no secret that domestic abuse is the valley’s crime wave, an effect of having fewer moms and dads having work to bring in money. Stores have closed for lack of paying customers. Stressed mothers stretch ten days of food to cover a month. The birth rate has fallen. People have moved away.

He sings along to Jack of All Trades, a song of survival and pride, the number one hit in Snake Valley. He knows the album’s militant marching songs by heart, as do most the residents of Snake Valley. Death to My Hometown is their fighting lament, We Take Care of Our Own the valley’s defiant shout.

Stet, like his neighbors, takes sustenance from stubborn defiance. That’s about all they have without the thousands of dollars to drill deeper wells to find the aquifer. Their only strategy is to hang on until, by God’s mercy, the weather cycle brings back rain and snowmelt to recharge the underground reservoir, raising the water level up to their wells. He and Ali hoard every cup of water, grow a vegetable garden, keep a few laying hens and cut expenses to the bare survival level. He estimates their cash reserves might stretch for another two or three months. Then it will be difficult, if not impossible, to refuse the water vultures, representatives of deep-pocket companies that can afford to wait for God’s mercy.

Stet keeps the pickup’s speed low to save gas. Behind his sunglasses, he squints into the midday heat that makes the road shimmer and the land appear wavy. In town, the houses glow as if from an atomic blast. The lawns are patches of sandpaper. Trees radiate like green balls of fire. Partoun, as a matter of civic pride, uses its gray water to keep the trees alive and to give birds, wary of heat stroke, a refuge.

At Stet’s knock, Lolly opens the front door and puts a finger to his lips as a warning. I haven’t swept this place yet or installed deflection protection, he whispers.

Caught up in the moment, Stet whispers back, Who cares about what we say?

Anyone who would profit by branding us as criminals and terrorists. That could be cops, the FBI, Homeland Security, the National Security Council, the Pentagon, the DEA and people we don’t even know about. From this moment forward, we don’t discuss our business on cell phones, tweets, e-mails, Facebook, Internet, chat rooms or any other social media.

What’ll we use, sign language?

No, they can read that, too.

Stet and Lolly played on Partoun’s West Desert high school football team, Stet as quarterback and Lolly as wide receiver. Except for the new streaks of gray in his coal-black hair and the lines of sorrow around his small rosebud lips, Lolly looks remarkably like he did in high school, tall and gangly and skinny. Four months ago, he returned to Snake Valley to relocate his father from their ranch to town for easier access to medical care. He will inherit the family ranch and the water rights, which gives him a stake in the battle to prevent Las Vegas from constructing a 285-mile pipeline to the Snake Valley Aquifer. The city intends to pump sixteen billion gallons of water out of the aquifer to service 120,000 new housing units.

Dad’s in his room. I’ll fix some coffee.

It has been a couple of months since Stet last saw Mr. Gottfried. He tries to mask his surprise at the changes in the man, but that is like trying not to react to being hit by a bucket of cold water.

It’s a shock to me, too. Mr. Gottfried’s voice is a hoarse whisper, his vocal cords having been partially paralyzed by the chemo. I’ll die before I get used to it. He smiles and Stet relaxes enough to smile back, glad that the man is not asking for pity. Tell me some gossip. I’m bored to death, in a manner of speaking.

Mr. Gottfried’s face, naturally round and full, is puffy from the lung-cancer treatments. His once-thick chestnut-colored hair hangs in wisps. Beneath the T-shirt, his chest has sunk into a concave hollow. His eyes have lost their luster, leaving them flat as dabs of mud. But there is a tilt of determination to his chin that says, I’m not dead yet. I insist on being part of the living.

Which of my neighbors are behaving like shits and who’s being brave? he asks.

Stet sits in the chair next to the bed. Mr. Gottfried lays a hand on the sheet, the most he can do in asking for kindness. Stet takes the hand in his and Mr. Gottfried gratefully curls his fingers into a loose grip.

Tommy’s afraid to touch me, he says, except when he has to change my diaper. I don’t hold it against him. Every man deals with his fears in his own way.

Stet holds the cold hand in both of his as if to warm it and leans forward on his elbows. Lolly is one of the brave ones. I doubt if he’s told you much, given his cautious nature, so here’s the news.

Stet tells the story of the car bombing. He adds imagined colorful details as if he’d been on the scene, making the tale a John Wayne movie. Mr. Gottfried deeply admires John Wayne; a stack of his movies is next to the DVD player at the side of the bed.

You’re not being scared off, are you?

No, Stet says, we’re still doing it.

Mr. Gottfried smiles. Good for you. Give ’em hell for me. He licks the front of his teeth as if preparing the way for more words to slide out. His eyes droop and he drifts into sleep.

Stet joins Lolly in the man den, the rear room that serves as Lolly’s techno cave.

He’s asleep.

Lolly nods, his eyes fixed on his coffee cup.

How you doing? Stet puts a hand on his friend’s arm.

"All right. Trying to let death teach me how to