66Becca toted her basket down the walkway and around the end of the last cabin. She could smell the rich smoke emanating from the other side of the mesquite stand, but she turned away from the forge and walked over an embankment toward the riverside. The massive flow of water had diminished, and she marveled at how quickly the runoff from the sluices had disappeared.
Becca watched the ground as she maneuvered among the river rock and pieces of water-smoothed wood that reminded her of the driftwood she had sometimes collected on the Jersey Shore. She reached for a piece of bone-white tree limb about as long as her arm. The object had numerous branches, all polished clean by the rushing river water. She placed the pale stick in the basket. She collected several other pieces of wood, in vari
