The Water Knife

by Paolo Bacigalupi

  Part of Lucy couldn’t help but agree. There were dozens of rules that she kept to when she went out into the desert—everything from remembering to bring a dust mask and sunscreen and twice the amount of water she thought she would need, to never going farther than she thought she could get back if something went wrong, and now she was ignoring all those rules.

  And for what? To keep following this story, to keep playing along the sharp edge of disaster…

  Toomie gave a shout and raced ahead.

  Angel squeezed her tight and pointed. She could hear him saying something, words of gratitude in Spanish, too fast and muddled by the speed of the wind in her ears for her to know for sure but sounding like a prayer nonetheless.

  There.

  The thing that Toomie had sighted. A few clothes, discarded. Clearsacs and energy bar wrappers.

  The last markers of the girl who had gone into the river.

  Lucy guided them to a stop beside the discarded gear.

  “Shit shit shit,” Toomie was saying. “This was her stuff! She was here!”

  Lucy scanned the muddy beaches and willow beds, the lonely tamarisk stands. Beyond them the river flowed, languorous.

  So this is it. This is where it ends. All that work, and this is where it ends.

  Lucy couldn’t decide if she felt disappointed or relieved.

  She scanned the far banks, wondering if she’d catch sight of the militia that Angel had helped create. The people who would have chewed the refugee girl up and dumped her back in the water to flow down to Carver City as a lesson to others.

  There was no trace of activity. Just the ripple of the river and a cool damp breeze coming off the water.

  So this is where it ends.

  Angel was limping back and forth, staring across the water, wide-eyed and frantic. Looking as if he had been led by a vision to the edge of the abyss, wishing and praying for the Virgin and salvation and coming up with nothing instead. He sank to his knees, gasping, the last of his hope draining from him.

  Not all epic quests ended in success. Instead, paranoid and greedy people made stupid mistakes. People died and hurt each other and struggled, and in the end everyone came up dry.

  It was so much a story of the desert that Lucy wondered how she had thought it could possibly end any other way.

  From deep in the weeds, a muddy girl emerged, carrying a backpack.

  “Toomie?”

  “Maria!”

  Toomie ran for her, his arms spread wide.

  Angel let out a whoop of relief and hauled himself to his feet as well.

  While Maria and Toomie embraced, Angel knelt down beside her backpack and started going through it.

  “Hey!” Maria shouted. “Get out of my stuff!”

  “It’s here,” Angel said. “It’s here!”

  He came up with a book, holding it high, then riffled through the pages. Pulled out paper, grinning. Triumphant.

  Lucy came to look over his shoulder. Sure enough: old paper and seals. It wasn’t what she’d expected. Two short pages, that was all. Dry and creased with folds. A paper right that could change everything. For someone, at any rate. She reached for the papers, but Angel jerked them back.

  Lucy glared at him. “Seriously? How many trucks and cars have I given up for you?”

  He sheepishly surrendered them.

  “They’re so old.”

  “More than a hundred and fifty years.”

  She couldn’t help but hold them with reverence. “It’s hard to believe this is worth people dying for,” she murmured as she read.

  Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, the signatures of tribal leaders…Liquid promises. Symbolic compromises for a moment that no one expected to ever come. Millions of acre-feet of water. The missing piece to a puzzle that would allow the pumps of the Central Arizona Project to roar fully to life. With rights like these, they could dig new and deeper canals. Rechannel the Colorado away from California, away from Nevada. Pour water into a different set of deserts and a different set of cities.

  A few simple sheets of paper with the power to make Phoenix and Arizona the arbiters of their own fate instead of a place of loss and collapse.

  A way for people like Toomie and Charlene and Timo all to thrive, along with all the refugees who crouched there, dreaming of a way north.

  Lucy sighed, knowing what she had to do. Jamie was right. At some point she’d gone native. She couldn’t say when, but at some point Phoenix had become her home.

  CHAPTER 46

  Angel reached for the papers, but Lucy stepped back, surprisingly quick. A gun glinted in her hand. The gun he’d given her.

  “I’m sorry, Angel,” she whispered.

  Toomie and Maria gasped.

  “What the—?”

  Angel lifted his hands, holding them carefully, trying to read the new situation. “What’s going on, Lucy? Why you doing this?”

  “I can’t just let you take these to Catherine Case,” Lucy said.

  Angel tried not to let panic leak into his voice as he evaluated his options. “Those papers are my lifeline,” he said. “I need them.”

  “What’s going on?” Toomie asked.

  “Just a little disagreement,” Angel said.

  He had his gun. He just needed to find a way to pull it. Some way to distract Lucy. Except, he didn’t like how Lucy was holding her pistol.

  When she’d first pointed her gun at him—what felt like lifetimes before—he’d been sure that she could be reasoned with. That his words could reach her.

  Now, though, her gray eyes were as hard as chipped stone.

  She was a good shot. He’d seen her nail that Cali’s leg in the near dark. He wouldn’t get a second chance once he drew on her.

  “I feel like we keep getting crosswise with each other,” Angel said. “Why’s that keep happening?”

  “I’m sorry, Angel.”

  From the way she said it, he actually believed her. She didn’t want to do this. He could see the pain there, along with the determination.

  “Come on, Lucy. All you got to do is get on board with this. Those papers, they’re our ticket across the border. With those papers I can call in Camel Corps, we can get a chopper, and we’re all in Vegas in time for dinner.”

  “I guess you’d better give me your phones, then.”

  “You can’t just leave us here,” Toomie protested.

  “Not you two,” Lucy said. “Just him.”

  “What do you think you’re going to do with those papers?” Angel asked.

  “I’m going to give them back to the city. The papers are theirs. The rights are theirs. They own them. Not California. And not Nevada. Definitely not Las Vegas or your boss.”

  “Phoenix doesn’t even know they exist! What they don’t know don’t hurt them.”

  “Are you really going to say people aren’t hurting in Phoenix? These water rights are people’s lives,” Lucy said. “Phoenix can rebuild. With water, it doesn’t have to be the way it is.”

  “Come on, Lucy! That place is doomed, no matter what. But we can go north. All of us can go north. You can come, too. There’s a place for all of us. We can even get your dog sent up, if that’s bothering you.”

  “It’s not that simple, Angel. I’ve spent too much time with those people, and too much time with all their suffering, to just walk away when there’s something I can do to help them.”

  “If you give those papers to Phoenix, you’re just going to move the suffering somewhere else. You think Vegas won’t suffer if you do this? It’ll dry up and blow away.”

  He eased forward a step, looking for a way to grab her. It would hurt, but he thought he could do it.

  “Don’t make me shoot you, Angel.”

  She meant it.

  “So let’s just talk then.”

  “Nothing to talk about.”

  “So…now what? You’re going to strand me?” Angel asked. “Seriously?”

  “I’ll leave your phone a
couple miles over. You can call for help then.”

  “There’s no help coming for me if I don’t have those papers.”

  “Then come with me,” Lucy pleaded. “Take these back to Phoenix with me. They’ll cover you.”

  Angel couldn’t help laughing at that. “Now who’s making up pretty stories? You know how much shit I’ve done to them?”

  “Do I get a say in any of this?” Maria asked dryly.

  Lucy didn’t say anything.

  “Think we might be a little past that,” Angel said. His whole being was focused on Lucy and the gun. The wildness in her eyes. The intensity of her belief.

  Phoenix made people crazy, he decided. Sometimes it turned people into devils so bad they weren’t recognizable as human. And other times it turned them into goddamn saints.

  Just my luck that I ran into the last goddamn saint in all of goddamn Phoenix.

  He could almost hear the sicario laughing at him.

  Live by the gun, die by the gun, right, mijo? You make a living cutting people’s water, at some point, the scales got to balance you out.

  Symmetry. Clear symmetry.

  Some people had to bleed so other people could drink. Simple as that. It was just his turn.

  For a little while, maybe, he’d been fooled. Sitting all cool in Cypress 1, cutting other people’s water, enjoying the A/C and waterfalls, it had been easy to imagine that the only game that mattered was the one he was playing.

  “It’s not personal,” Lucy said. “I really like you, Angel.”

  “Yeah.” He found himself smiling slightly. “I know.” He shrugged. “We’re just little gears in a big machine. I get it. Sometimes we just got to spin because that’s how the machine’s built.”

  And it was true. He found he couldn’t take it personally. They were all just little wheels spinning. Him and the Calies and Carver City and Catherine Case, all the different pieces and parts.

  Sometimes you found a way to mesh up for a little while, maybe even spin the same direction, as he and Lucy had. Other times you just couldn’t find a fit. Sometimes you were the most important part in the machine.

  And sometimes it turned out you were obsolete.

  Angel wondered if Simon Yu had felt the same when Angel had come and cut Carver City’s water supply.

  He slowly lowered his hands.

  “Go on, then,” he sighed. “If that’s what you’re going to do, then do it.”

  Lucy’s eyes went to the bike. Angel whipped out his gun. Lucy jerked her pistol back around. “Don’t!”

  He grinned tightly. “I’m not doing anything, yet.”

  “Drop it!”

  “Come on, Lucy. You aren’t a killer. You don’t want blood on your hands. You’re the saint. I’m the Devil, remember?”

  “I’ll shoot you if you try to stop me!”

  “I’m just asking you to hear me out!”

  “There’s nothing to talk about!”

  “I thought you were the one who had all that confidence in words.” She stared at him, her expression fearful and panicked for a second, but then she started smiling.

  “You aren’t going to shoot me.”

  “I will if you don’t listen,” Angel growled.

  She just smiled. “No. You won’t.” She swung her leg over the bike. “Don’t do this!” he shouted. “Don’t make me shoot you!”

  “You won’t,” she said. “You like me too much to shoot me. Plus, you owe me, remember?”

  “I don’t owe you this.”

  “Let me go,” she said softly. “Just let me go.”

  Angel stared at her as she keyed on the bike. He thought of redemption and debts, remembering her kneeling over him, pulling him back from death. He wondered what good promises were. All the lies people told each other, all the promises lovers made.

  “Please,” he said, “I’m asking.”

  “I’m sorry, Angel. Too many people need this. I can’t just walk away from them.”

  “Ah, hell.” He lowered his pistol. “Get out of here, then. Go be a saint.” He holstered the gun and turned away.

  Behind him the electric bike started to roll, crunching over dirt. He found himself listening, hoping she’d change her mind, that she’d come back to him, but he knew she wouldn’t.

  Live by the gun, die by the gun.

  Already he was thinking about contingencies. He needed to find some way to explain himself to Case when Phoenix showed up in court waving those papers.

  No. It would never work. He needed to run. He needed to run as far and fast as he could. With Case on the hunt and a price on his head—

  A gunshot echoed flat across the river.

  Birds exploded into the skies, whirling and fleeing.

  Angel hit the ground.

  CHAPTER 47

  The gun’s kick hurt more than Maria expected, but the woman flipped off the bike and landed in the dust.

  “What the—” Toomie whirled and stared at Maria with shock.

  Maria ignored him. Her wrists were on fire, tingling with the kick of the .44, but she wasn’t done yet.

  She stalked toward the woman, holding the gun ready in her numbed hands, waiting to see if the lady would move.

  If the lady tried to shoot back, Maria knew she’d have to put her down good. The lady was lying in the dust, a dozen yards from where the bike had finally wobbled to a crash. She didn’t seem to be moving.

  Behind her footsteps came running. Maria whirled and brought up her pistol. It was the scarred guy, the water knife.

  “Whoa!” He held his hands up in the air. “Easy, girl. I ain’t doing nothing. We’re on the same side here.”

  Maria hesitated. “You serious about those papers getting us out of here? Going to Las Vegas.”

  “Yeah.” He nodded, his expression solemn. “Yeah, I am.”

  “And I’m coming with you, right? That’s the deal?”

  “That’s right. All the way to Vegas. All the way to the arcologies. Cypress Four is almost done. There’s plenty of room for you.”

  “You promise?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

  The water knife nodded again, solemnly. “I’m not leaving anybody behind.”

  “Okay. Good.” She lowered the .44.

  He was past her in a flash, running to the woman where she lay in the dust. Maria came over more slowly. The woman lay limp. The water knife had her head cradled in his lap. He was making shushing sounds to her, as if she were a little baby. The woman looked up at Maria, her pale gray eyes puzzled.

  “You shot me?”

  “Yeah.” Maria knelt down beside her. “Sorry about that.”

  “Why?” she croaked.

  “Why?” Maria stared at the woman, trying to understand what made all these people see the world the way they did. “Because I’m not going back to Phoenix. Maybe you think those papers mean something, but that place ain’t never getting better, and I ain’t going back.”

  The water knife glanced over at her. “You only go forward, huh?”

  “Believe it,” Maria said.

  “God damn.” He shook his head, smiling slightly. “Catherine Case is going to love you.”

  Before she could ask him what he meant, he was calling to Toomie and getting a phone from him, and then he was calling someone else and saying things with numbers and letters in long codes.

  Toomie came up behind her and held her. Maria expected him to say something about the awful thing she’d done, but he just held her.

  Maria stared down at the woman, wondering if she was going to survive. Wondering if she would feel guilty for killing someone. If the trade was all right.

  She thought maybe she was supposed to feel worse that this woman was suffering, but she didn’t, and it made her wonder about herself. She wondered if something was broken inside her now, with all the things she’d seen and done, but in the end she couldn’t make herself care about that, either. All she could think about was that she was going to cross the river, and she’d see
the fountains in Las Vegas where anyone could dip a cup in, and where Tau Ox drove an icy Tesla, and where everyone lived inside huge gleaming arcologies where they didn’t suck dust and burn all day long.

  She shrugged off Toomie’s hands and stalked away to sit on the muddy banks alone.

  Dusk was coming on.

  She became aware of crickets chirping, sparrows flitting and diving, the splash of a fish. Bats and swallows windmilled and wove through the darkening air, catching insects.

  Maria watched the river flow, luxuriating in the chilled breezes from where the water kissed the air.

  Soft. The air was soft here, beside the river.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt a cool breeze like this.

  The crunch of boots warned of the arrival of the water knife. He settled down beside her on the riverbank. He didn’t say anything, just sat beside her, looking out at the river, too.

  “Sorry I shot your girl,” Maria said finally.

  “Yeah, well,” the water knife sighed, “she didn’t give you a lot of choices.”

  “She had old eyes,” Maria said. “My dad had that problem, too.”

  “Yeah?”

  “She thinks the world is supposed to be one way, but it’s not. It’s already changed. And she can’t see it, ’cause she only sees how it used to be. Before. When things were old.”

  She hesitated, not sure if she wanted the answer, but compelled to ask anyway. “Is she going to make it?”

  “Well, she’s pretty damn tough.” He smiled slightly. “Figure if she makes it to Vegas, she’s got a chance.”

  That made sense to Maria. More than anything any adult had said to her in the last few years.

  “Guess we’re all in the same boat, then,” she said.

  The water knife laughed quietly at that. “Guess we are,” he said. “I guess we are.”

  He stood up and brushed off his jeans and limped back up to the lady and Toomie, leaving her alone with the chirp of the crickets and rustle of the water along the willow banks.

  Maria took a deep breath of evening air. It felt so cool and fresh in her lungs that she almost felt like she was breathing the river into her. Taking it inside herself and keeping it there. She listened to the crickets chirping and watched bats flutter over the waters.