The farther they traveled west, the dryer the air got. Thick forests turned to rolling grasslands, then rocky sand with little but scrub brush, and water became scarce. “Dig here,” Nell said with her rod in her hands. “I don’t know how far down, but there is water here.”
“I surly hope so, Nellie June,” George said, wiping sweat from her forehead, “because I’m parched.”
Pete pushed the shovel they’d taken from the burned-out ranch and shoved it into the sandy soil. After only a half dozen shovels, water began to bubble up to the surface, filling the hole and spreading out into what had once been a streambed. Within an hour, the women and their animals drank cool, clean water that spread in both directions in the old worn bed.
“You’re one heck of a witch with that rod, Nell,” George said
