Water Rites Read Online Free PDF Page B

jerk wanted you to help him. You’re too dumb to figure out he was a fake.”
    Jeremy pressed his face into the pillow until he could barely breathe. If he made a sound, if he moved, he’d kill Rupert. Rupert might be almost sixteen, but he’d kill him. Somehow.
    Rupert was right. They were going to hang Dan. He’d seen it in their faces when they walked up to him. They hated Dan because he made ’em see that the government, the Army Corps of Engineers really didn’t care about them.
    Like Dad hated him for making him see what it used to be like. And would never be again.
    Jeremy breathed slowly, listening to the house tick and creak as it cooled a bit. He kept hearing Dan’s sad-bitter voice. Y ou do what it takes to stay alive. Sometimes you don’t like it much, but you do it.
    Dan hadn’t lied to him.
    Jeremy must have fallen asleep, because he woke up from a dream about the woman with the black hair. Was she part of the we that had turned into I ?
    Rupert snored, one arm hanging over the side of his mattress. The sloping roof held the day’s heat in and tonight no breeze stirred the hot, still air. Dan would be in the church. In the empty storage bin in the cellar. The one with the bolt on it. Jeremy sat up, heart pounding. The house creaked softly to itself as he tiptoed down the stairs.
    “Who’s up?” His father’s spoke from the bottom of the stairs.
    “Me.” Jeremy froze, clutching the railing with both hands. “I . . . had to pee,” he stammered. It was a feeble lie. The pot in the bedroom was never full.
    “Jeremy?” His father bulked over him, a tower of shadow. “It’s late. I just got back from town.” He ran a thick hand across his face. “You liked Greely.”
    “I still like him.” Jeremy forced himself to stand straight. “He’s not a bad man.”
    His father grunted, moved down a step. “He’s a parasite,” he said harshly. “His kind live on other peoples’ sweat. There’s no worse crime than that.”
    “Isn’t there?” Jeremy’s voice trembled. “Who’s going to share with him? Who’s going to let him have a piece of their orchard or pump from their well some? He was just trying to live, and he didn’t hurt anybody, not really . . .”
    “He lied to us and he stole from us.” His tone dismissed Dan, judged and sentenced him. “Get back to bed. Now.”
    “No.” Shaking, Jeremy clung to the railing. “If it doesn’t help the crops, it’s bad, isn’t it? Nothing else matters to you. Nothing.”
    His father’s hand caught him hard on the side of the head. Jeremy fell against the railing, hot pain spiking through his knee as he sprawled at his father’s feet.
    All by itself, the firefly popped into the air between them, glowing like a hot coal.
    With a hoarse cry, Dad flinched backward, his hand clenching into a fist. Jeremy stared up at his father through a blur of tears. “It’s not evil. I’m not an abomination. Is it so wrong to know what things looked like?” He cringed away from his father’s fist. “Don’t they count?”
    His father lowered his fist slowly. “No,” he said in a strange, choked voice. “They don’t. It doesn’t count, either, that a man’s just trying to stay alive. I . . . I wish it all did. I sure as hell do.” He stepped past Jeremy and went on up the stairs.
    *
    Jeremy was right. They’d locked Dan up in the church basement. Yellow light glowed dimly from one of the window wells along the concrete foundation, the only light in the dark, dead town. Jeremy lay down on his stomach and peered through the glassless window. Yep. Mr. Brewster sat on an old pew beside the wooden door of the storage unit, flipping through a tattered hunting magazine by the light of a solar lantern.
    He looked wide awake.
    Jeremy looked at the sky. Was it getting light? How long until dawn? He leaned over the rim of the well. Mr. Brewster wasn’t going to fall asleep in time.
    Mr. Brewster didn’t know about the makings. Probably didn’t