Page 68 of South of Nowhere

29.

“There’s this thing called the Law of the River,” Debi Starr explained.

Colter had never heard of it, and it was clear no one else had either, even Tolifson, who mayored a town sitting right beside one.

“You hear it most often about the Colorado River—seven states in the basin are in a compact to share the water—but it’s a legal principle everywhere. The first person to use water from a source has senior rights. The next is secondary. The next is thirdiary or whatever the word is. The person with senior rights uses what they need and what’s left over goes to the second-rights person and so on. That’s hunky-dory if there’s enough, but in California, usually there isn’t, so somebody gets the short end of the stick.

“Well, Nowhere—excuse me,Hinowah—is like some town out of an old-time Western. Clint Eastwood flick. Don’t you love him…Two warring sides.”

Tolifson was nodding now. “I see where you’re going. The Coynes and the Reddings. Bad blood.”

Starr snapped her fingers again. “Bingo. Annie Coyne runs thatfarm you were just looking at on the map, Colter. And Gerard Redding has that copper mine just north of her.

“All right, Law of the River. We clear so far? Good. I taught third grade, so, sorry. Just want to make sure I see that burst of understanding in everyone’s eyes, not a glaze-over. The Coynes, the Reddings. Both families came to Hinowah around the time of the Silver Rush. Eighteen forties. They both used water from the Never Summer. Farming, well, that goes without saying. But copper mining uses a bunch too.”

Tolifson said, “I went to a booster club lunch a few months ago, and Gerard was talking about the mining business. He needs the river, because copper miners do the refining on-site. It’s cheaper to do that than to ship raw ore to refineries someplace else. And refining’s water intensive.”

Debi Starr continued, “Well, all was good waterwise between the two during the eighteen hundreds, when it was share and share alike. The twentieth century starts out fine. Oh, a few disputes, because the Never Summer’s starting to get lower and lower. Then forty years ago: bad. It’s drought city and there just wasn’t enough to go around. They go to court, Ezra Coyne—Annie’s daddy—and Redding’s pa, Henry. They make their claims, but there’s no—what the judge called—‘credible evidence’ about who was first. So the court orders a fifty-fifty split.

“Now, one thing about mining towns. Gambling.Hinowahcomes from ‘gambling bones’ in Miwok.”

Colter and Dorion shared a glance at this.

“So Ezra and Henry are in a poker game at Butch’s. You remember that place?”

Tolifson said he did and his face darkened remarkably, which told Colter two things. One, Butch’s was either a biker bar or strip joint, and two, Tolifson was probably a churchgoer.

“Ezra bets four hundred acres of farmland against ten percentof Henry’s entitlement to the water. Ezra loses. His daughter goes topsy-turvy. She drives to the mine and confronts Henry and his son and says words I won’t repeat to you. Claims he cheated. But there was no evidence of that either. Ezra had no choice but to deed over the land. A whole one-third of the farm.

“Their old men have both passed and Annie and Gerard have inherited the landandthe feud. I’ve had to serve a dozen warrants. And respond to complaints from both of them. Water smuggling, diversion from irrigation troughs, sabotaging pipelines. There was a settlement here, a fine there.”

Tolifson muttered, “I think you listen to toomanypodcasts, Deb. Call me slow. But how would that work? Annie Coyne—who does notlooklike a killer, I’ll tell you. If you’ve ever seen her. But we’ll assume. She brings down the levee, floods the town and the water runs into the mine? Drives him out of business?”

Gutiérrez said, “Or vice versa, Gerard Redding blows it to floodherout.”

Olsen said, “But they’d each risk ruining their own companies.”

Tolifson: “My point.”

But Colter was intrigued with the idea. “Could one of them have been building up some savings to live on, and outlast the other one after the flood, hoping they’ll go bankrupt? One survives. The levee gets rebuilt and the water supply stabilizes and they get a hundred percent of it.”

Starr said, “That means that the guilty party knows what’s coming and wants to minimize their damage, so they’ve been making plans all along for this—and started protecting their placebeforethe levee went, maybe, I don’t know, sandbagging last night.” She looked to Dorion. “Like that arson vulture you were telling us about. The one who started the fire in Arizona—the police found the letters he’d written to homeowners ahead of time.”

A solid idea, Colter was thinking. He noted Olsen’s striking eyes above that mysterious smile drift his way.

McGuire said, “I know both of them. And they’re tough businesspeople, I’ll admit. But this is murder you’re talking about.”

Colter, though, said, “Not necessarily. Look how it’s working. Two feet of levee goes. There’s a risk of more flooding. The town’s evacuated. When everybody’s out, whoever’s behind it blows the other charges.”

Tolifson said, “Nearly killed the people were on the levee this morning.”

Starr said, “Six a.m., Han? Probably didn’t expect anybody to be driving along it then.”

Colter said, “I give it a forty-, forty-five percent chance that’s what happened. I can go have a talk with them. Tell them I’m working with Dor’s disaster response company. Seeing if they’re complying with the evac order.”

Tolifson said, “If you find out they started prepping early, then we’ll get a warrant, search the property.”

Starr turned to Colter. “Keep that toy six-gun of yours with you. That Bear fellow’s probably working for one or the other.”

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