Water Witches

  Ian is supposed to answer here by citing the permits we have submitted to the state and federal govenments: environmental impact statements, building permits, expansion permits. I can almost see the filing cards flashing on the gray matter screen behind Ian's eyes, as he tries desperately to remember his lines.

  "How we will respond," he says slowly, groping, "will depend on a variety of issues."

  "Such as?"

  He opens his eyes wide, having found his mental crib notes, and begins to stammer a response. "We have no intention of building anything that will ... undermine the environment. Of course. We are ... we are now awaiting an environmental impact statement on the effect our expansion will have on the Chittenden River ... and on the mountain itself. Obviously, if that statement suggests our plans will have a negative impact, we'll ... we'll revise our thinking."

  "And amend your plans?"

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  There is a moment of silence that is probably only seconds, but feels to us all like minutes. Hours.

  "We would have to," I add finally. "That's the law."

  Rosamond turns her small recorder in my direction. "I assume you expect the government to rule in your favor?"

  I nod. "Yes. The resort does. But it's not as if Powder Peak views it as an 'our favor/your favor' issue, Rosamond, it's not as if the resort views it as an 'us against them' issue. The fact remains, this expansion is in the best interest of this entire area."

  "Now why is that?"

  "There are enormous economic benefits to expansion," I begin. I hadn't planned on jumping in like this, but Ian is clearly relieved that I have. Sweat is running down the sides of his face, triggered more by Roger's new reporter than by the overhead sun.

  Continuing, I tell the writer, "The expansion would create construction jobs throughout this year and next. But that's only a small part of the story, a short-term benefit. In the long run, it would create hundreds of permanent jobs in the lodging and hospitality industries in this area. Jobs in restaurants, in gas stations, in welcome areas. I think it's also worth noting, Rosamond, that these are environmentally 'clean' jobs."

  "Do you have exact figures?"

  "Sure do. In the resort's economic studies and forecasts."

  "May I see them?"

  "I can drop them off at the Sentinel on my way home tonight. My office is just around the corner from the paper."

  "What time do you leave?"

  "I can have them on your desk by five thirty."

  "That would be great," she says, smiling for the first time since we've met. "That would be very helpful."

  "It's no problem," I say, hating for a moment the sound of my voice: It sounds cloying, ingratiating, and slick. Unstoppable at this point, however, I continue, "What I think it's important to understand" and I repeat her name yet again

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  "Rosamond, is that the people who work at Powder Peak are environmentalists too. They really are. That's why they work there. They love the outdoors. They don't merely love to ski, they love to fish. Their children don't simply love to snow-board, they love to camp. They love to hike. No one up there wants to hurt the river or hurt the mountain. That's the bottom line."

  Behind her the television cameras are approaching, led by the eleven o'clock anchorman. Rosamond Donahue and the Montpelier Sentinel have been a first-rate dress rehearsal for opening night on the news.

  After successfully defending a utility company's request for a rate hike before the state power commission ...

  After convincing the socialist mayor of Burlington to give a ski boot manufacturer huge tax incentives to build a plant on the outskirts of the city ...

  And, again, after helping a real estate developer get all of the state and federal permits he needed to build a forty-unit luxury condominium complex at the edge of the national forest ...

  Patience told me I was so slick I should never clear the table after dinner: She was afraid that the plates would slip right through my hands.

  These memories come back to me as I watch myself on the television news that night at eleven, telling Vermonters that the executives who run Powder Peak are environmentalists, that their expansion will create hundreds of new jobs.

  Every time that I incorporate the name of the television anchorman who is interviewing me into my response, Laura pokes me in the ribs ("I think he knows his name," Laura says). Every time I refer to the resort in the third person, Laura rolls her eyes and pretends to wash her hands ("Me, work for the resort? Nah. I don't have anything to do with them," she says, clicking her tongue against her teeth).

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  When the news is over Laura turns off the television, and then sits on the ottoman beside the couch in the den.

  ''You know something, sweetheart?" she says.

  I sit back in the couch and wait. I know exactly what's coming, I know exactly what Laura is thinking.

  "It's a good thing I already know you and love you," she begins, "because if I only saw you on television, I'd think you were the fastest, sleaziest thing on two legs in this state."

  Patience walks through the weeds that once, when the Scutter twins were many years younger, were the backyard of the Scutter family homestead. She walks with her L rods before her, her eyes half-shut, her feet barely leaving the ground with each step. She is almost shuffling.

  If she were not wearing a white polo shirt and crisp new blue jeans, strangers to town might mistake her for a witch, for someone possessed, for a glazed-eyed sleepwalker. Instead, she looks merely like some nut from a local country club.

  "I got a hunch she'll hit us a water dome," Jeanette Scutter tells Gertrude. I know which woman is which at the moment because Laura is with me and has called each twin by her name.

  "Well, if she does," Gertrude says, "I hope it's not closer to China than Landaff."

  A water dome occurs when underground water flowing upward hits a layer of porous materials: Often, instead of flowing straight through that material, the water will form a dome and begin to spread horizontally in veins.

  "It'll be within one hundred feet of the surface, and it will give you five or ten gallons per minute," Laura says, trying to cheer up the Scutters. "You know that better than I do." She reaches down and runs her fingers along Cocoa's black fur, reminding the animal that it should stay here beside us. A jet black Lab, Cocoa is one of three dogs Patience has rescued over the last decade from the Humane Society in Montpelier.

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  She is the most demanding of the animals, the most dependent upon my sister-in-law for attention; if it were possible, she would never leave Patience's sight. If Laura had not been petting her every few moments, I imagine by now she would be racing beside Patience.

  "A hundred feet?" Gertrude says. "This summer, that'd sure be nice."

  When the L-shaped rods in Patience's hands openwhen they begin to point in opposite directionsthen Patience will be receiving a positive response to her questions. Is there water here? A spring? How deep? Is the water potable? Always the questions will demand a simple yes or no answer.

  "If she is thinking about a water dome," Laura continues, "she's envisioning one of our mother's light blue mixing bowls. Upside down, of course."

  "Of course," Jeanette says.

  "Once, when she was thirteen or fourteen years old, Patience took a half-dozen of those blue bowls, and set them all around the side yard like an obstacle course. They looked like some kind of lawn game."

  Occasionally Patience's lips move, as she tries to focus on the ground below her, and she asks herself questions. Sometimes, Patience says, she will not simply phrase her questions to elicit a general yes or no answer, but what she calls a "personal" yes or no response. Is there water here for the Scutters? Is it water the Scutters can drink?

  "What was she doing with 'em?" Gertrude asks, referring to the blue mixing bowls.

  "She was trying to divert the springs that fed our well."

  "What for?" Jeanette asks, incredulous. "Wh
y would she go and do a fool thing like that?"

  The two rods in Patience's hand quiver just the tiniest bit, barely enough for the four of us watching to notice. Reflexively the Scutters and I look to Laura for confirmation, but she shakes her head no. This is merely a false alarm.

  "The spring that fed our well also fed our neighbor's well,"

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  Laura answers, "The Mahlers. You remember them, don't you?"

  Patience turns and begins to walk away from us, and we can no longer watch the L rods. Cocoa sits up and cries once, and Laura quickly loops two fingers underneath the dog's collar. Gently she scratches the top of the animal's head.

  "Of course," Gertrude says. "He died, and she moved to ..."

  "She moved to St. Johnsbury. Her son now lives in Boston. Ethan. Anyway," she says, "there was some sort of dance at the school, a real big deal. Patience wanted to go to that dance very, very much. Unfortunately, every boy in the school was already scared to death of her. Even at thirteen, she had a pretty sharp tongue."

  Patience stops walking, and stands perfectly still. She is probably thirty yards from the house.

  "None of the boys in the school asked Patience to the dance. Not a single one. So Patience decided to take matters into her own hands. One afternoon she marched over to Ethan Mahler's house, knocked on the back door, and asked him to take her to the dance. I think she said she'd give him the money for the tickets, and for soda."

  "I don't see it," Gertrude says, "I just don't see Ethan Mahler goin' anyplace with your sister. It doesn't seem like a real good fit."

  "Well, Ethan didn't think so either. As I recall, he did say yes to Patience that afternoon, but only because he was afraid to say no. The day of the dance, he came down with the sort of life-threatening cold that prevented a boy like Ethan from going to the dance that evening, but not playing baseball all afternoon."

  "Poor Ethan. I always knew that child was born without a spine," Jeanette tells us, shaking her head.

  "You can imagine how angry Patience became. She had a classic Patience Avery meltdown. And she directed every bit of that rage at our mother and me, and said some really hurtful things. At least she hoped they'd be hurtful. I remember her

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  storming through the kitchen, telling mother that she had been an abused and neglected child. Telling me that I was so ugly I was scary. Telling us both how ashamed of us she was, and how she hated going out with us in public because we were such an abnormal, repulsive family.

  "Well, mother finally got her to stop talking long enough to listen to a sentence or two. And she told Patience that it was okay to be hurt and it was okay to be sad, but she shouldn't be taking it all out on her sister and her mother. This wasn't the first time in her life she had been hurt, and it probably wouldn't be the last. Whatever mother said, it seemed to be registering. She quieted down, she agreed to behave. I think mother then promised Patience and me that we would all go to the new ice cream parlor in Montpelier the next day, and we assumed Patience was pacified.

  "We were, of course, wrong. That evening Patience took a half-dozen of those blue mixing bowls, and proceeded to try and divert the spring that fed the Mahler's well so the well would dry up and the family would lose their water."

  "My heavens, did she do it?" Gertrude asks.

  "Dry up the Mahler's well? No, thank heavens. Our mother saw what Patience was up to, and brought her inside. I think she grounded Patience for about a month after that."

  Abruptly Laura starts toward her sister, walking through the brown, dry grass.

  "I think she has found it," Laura says, as the Scutters and Cocoa and I start to follow.

  The L rods point away from each other, open, signaling yes to the last question Patience has asked.

  "Is this the spot?" Gertrude asks, smiling, her old, hoarse voice filled with excitement and hope.

  "It's a spot," Patience answers, shaking her head. Laura and I steal a glance at each other: Something has upset Patience.

  "What do you mean? Is there a better spot?"

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  Patience drops her L rods to her sides, and allows herself one long sigh. Cocoa nuzzles her leg, trying to get her head between the palm of Patience's hand and her thigh.

  "No," she says finally, "my recommendation is that we drill here. My recommendation is that we tap into the vein right here."

  "Is it a dome?" Jeanette asks, but with little enthusiasm. She too can tell that something has disturbed Patience.

  "No. There's no water dome here. Over there, by those mountain ash," she says, pointing at a pair of the trees, "there was a water dome once. But not anymore. It's all ... it's gone."

  "So what do we got?" Gertrude asks nervously.

  Patience runs her arm across her forehead, and gathers herself. I imagine the last thing she wanted to do was frighten the Scutters.

  "It's going to be fine," she says, forcing a smile. "There's a perfectly good vein here, one that should last a good long time. It will give the two of you lots of crisp, fresh, drinkable water."

  With her pinky Jeanette pokes at something deep inside her ear. "But it's deep, ain't it?"

  "It could be worse. It could be a lot worse."

  "Two hundred feet, ain't it? We're going to have to drill two hundred feet," Jeanette says, calculating in her mind how many thousands of dollars that will cost. She sounds almost angry.

  "Maybe. But I believe it's deeper than that."

  Gertrude gasps. "Deeper than two hundred feet?"

  "I'm sorry, Gertrude," Patience says. "But yes, you should expect to drill deeper than two hundred feet. The water table is low, you know that. A lot of springs have just disappeared, like the one that's been feeding your well for years."

  "How bad, Patience?" Gertrude asks. "How bad is it?"

  "Right where we're standing there's a vein that pokes up a bit toward the surface. A bit. My feeling is that if you drill hereand here is your best bet, by faryou should expect to drill somewhere between four hundred and four hundred and twenty-five feet."

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  Jeanette covers her eyes with her hands, as Gertrude taps her gently on the shoulder.

  "We'll have to go to the bank and cash in the CD," Jeanette groans. "And they'll make us pay penalties ..."

  "You don't know that for sure, Jeanette," I tell the woman. "You really don't know for sure how much it will cost. Let me talk to Michael Terry."

  Gertrude lets her hand rest on Jeanette, and says, "That Terry's a pirate. He's got the only drill for thirty miles. Don't waste your breath."

  "Terry Drilling is hoping to get some work up at the ski resort," Laura explains. "A lot of work, actually. Scottie might be able to help."

  Patience looks away. She hates this kind of political back scratching, even if in this case it might help the Scutters.

  "You're sure there ain't a better spot?" Gertrude asks Patience. "Maybe over by those sugar maples?"

  Patience clears her throat. "I'm sure," she says.