That was either really brave or really stupid. Both, Evelyn said. Yeah, that tracks. That night, they ate dinner together like nothing had happened, but everything had changed, and they all knew it. Evelyn had stopped pretending she was just passing through, had stopped pretending she didn't care.
She'd chosen them. And they'd chosen her. And there was no going back from that. The confrontation with Garrett should have been the end of it. It wasn't.
Three days later, word came through town that the main well had run dry. Not slowed down, not reduced to a trickle, completely dry. And in a place like Dust Hollow, where water meant survival, that was as close to a death sentence as you could get without pulling a trigger. Evelyn heard about it from the twins who'd ridden into town for supplies and come back with more than flour and coffee. They came back with fear.
"It's bad," Caleb said, pacing the kitchen like a caged animal. "People are already hoarding what they've got. Fights breaking out over barrels of water. One guy tried to sell a bucket for $5." "Five dollars?"
Levi's eyes went wide. "That's insane." "That's desperate," Cain corrected. "And it's only going to get worse." Holden stood by the window, arms crossed, staring out at the horizon like it might have answers.
"How long before our well runs dry?" "Hard to say," Jonas said. "Could be weeks. Could be days. Depends on how much the water table's dropped."
"We need to ration," Holden decided. "Starting now. Drinking water only. No washing. No cooking with more than we absolutely need."
Evelyn felt her stomach drop. She'd lived through droughts before. Knew what it meant when water became more valuable than gold. Knew how fast civilized people turned savage when survival was on the line. "What about the livestock?" she asked.
"We'll do what we can, but if it comes down to a choice between the animals and us Holden didn't finish the sentence. He didn't have to. The room fell silent. Outside the wind picked up, carrying dust across the plains like a promise of worse things to come. That night Evelyn lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, her mind racing.
There had to be something they could do. Some solution that didn't involve watching the town tear itself apart over buckets of water. She thought about the landscape she'd seen on the ride to the ranch that first night. The way the land dipped and rose, the the dry creek beds cutting through the valley, the northern hills where snowmelt would be feeding into underground channels this time of year. An idea started to form.
Crazy. Probably impossible, but an idea nonetheless. She got out of bed and pulled on her clothes. The house was dark and quiet, but she could see a light burning in the sitting room downstairs. When she descended, she found Holden at the table, surrounded by papers and maps, looking like he hadn't slept in days.