Chapter Eight
The river flowed serenely before him, some of the trees on its banks beginning to show bright hues of yellow and orange. He’d been studying the flora of this land, and so he knew the names of a few of them. Cottonwood, and sycamore, and acacia and manzanita and mesquite. Down here, the landscape was quite lush, a contrast to the sere desert that surrounded the city on all sides.
In his planting efforts, he’d made sure to use native trees and shrubs, specimens that could rely on the region’s meager rainfall to stay alive. But he enjoyed the fountain in the rooftop bar, and thought it would be pleasant to have a stream meander past the hotel, perhaps spill in a cascade to a pool below. To do that, he would need to divert some of the river’s water. Not so much that the alterat
