warmth lingered within her, forcing her to admit, in spite of her humiliation, that the only thing she regretted about those ardent, wonderful moments was that they must not be repeated.
VI
The redtails were up there again. Might be some eggs in that relined nest this spring after all. Shea left the pickup by the gate and started to walk the fence along the leased land. He wanted to be sure it was in good condition. The next thing he expected Judd to do was drive cattle into these pastures but claim innocence, say the fences must be down.
Sheaâs smile was grim as he thought of how riled Judd would be when he found that his half-brother had a permit designating the lease as an experimental area. The permit left to Shea the decision whether to graze this land.
Though grazing leases were public lands, such leases were attached to ranches and traditionally were sold along with the ranch. A rancher paid so much per head and this lease money went into the state fund for schools and other public facilities. There were about nine million acres of these âtrustâ lands in Arizona, more than the combined acreage of Connecticut and Massachusetts. Grazing leases also took up some of the over thirty-one million acres of federal land. If one added to that about nineteen million acres owned by Indians, only about seventeen percent of the state was under private ownership.
Take away Phoenix and Tucson and the state was still pretty much frontier with the accompanying mentality. No one worried about what would happen when the water was gone. Developers, ranchers, agribusiness and mines were racing each other to the bottom of the aquifers, though the mines had started using recycled water.
Green, irrigated fields brought no joy to Shea. He got physically sick when he saw water running to waste along the roadsides. The groundwaters between Phoenix and Tucson had been pumped for alfalfa and cotton till the ground was buckling, scarred with cracks twenty feet wide, and it was the same story all over the stateâs arable lands. Make a bundle now and for as long as taxpayers foot the bill for bringing in water from far away. Get out when the waterâs gone or when it starts costing the grower what it should.
It was the same with the land. Overgrazed since the 1880âs, a hundred years had turned grasslands to desert just as irrigating had sucked the rivers dry. The Socorro had been more careful than most about rotating graze and trimming herds to fit, but even before Patrickâs blindness, Judd had been running more stock than the hundred thousand acres would support.
Shea looked approvingly at the way Boer and Lehman lovegrasses and plains brittlegrass were spreading over the pasture he and Geronimo had cleared laboriously of most mesquites. It took a bulldozer to knock down the trees and drag out their long taproots. But the hardy grasses were thriving despite the sparse rainfall.
A federal study Shea had cooperated with showed that if scrub and mesquite in southern Arizona was replaced with native grasses, the amount of groundwater saved over twenty years would be almost double what would come from the $2.5 billion Central Arizona Project in the same time, even if the heavily overcommitted Colorado River werenât sucked dry long before that. Revegetation would cost a fraction of that and would last as long as grazing was held to reasonable levels.
If Patrick could see, this grass would convince him. Shea had to hope the looks of the field would eventually penetrate even Juddâs more impervious blindness, but he was braced for trouble when Judd came back from a fruitless chat with the land commissioner.
Judd. Shea frowned. His half-brother had a way with women; heâd give Tracy all the sweet talk and attention she could want. That ought to console her if the hurt in those wide-spaced dark amber eyes had been real.
Probably it had. As real as the tears sheâd shed for the trapped ringtail, as
VI
The redtails were up there again. Might be some eggs in that relined nest this spring after all. Shea left the pickup by the gate and started to walk the fence along the leased land. He wanted to be sure it was in good condition. The next thing he expected Judd to do was drive cattle into these pastures but claim innocence, say the fences must be down.
Sheaâs smile was grim as he thought of how riled Judd would be when he found that his half-brother had a permit designating the lease as an experimental area. The permit left to Shea the decision whether to graze this land.
Though grazing leases were public lands, such leases were attached to ranches and traditionally were sold along with the ranch. A rancher paid so much per head and this lease money went into the state fund for schools and other public facilities. There were about nine million acres of these âtrustâ lands in Arizona, more than the combined acreage of Connecticut and Massachusetts. Grazing leases also took up some of the over thirty-one million acres of federal land. If one added to that about nineteen million acres owned by Indians, only about seventeen percent of the state was under private ownership.
Take away Phoenix and Tucson and the state was still pretty much frontier with the accompanying mentality. No one worried about what would happen when the water was gone. Developers, ranchers, agribusiness and mines were racing each other to the bottom of the aquifers, though the mines had started using recycled water.
Green, irrigated fields brought no joy to Shea. He got physically sick when he saw water running to waste along the roadsides. The groundwaters between Phoenix and Tucson had been pumped for alfalfa and cotton till the ground was buckling, scarred with cracks twenty feet wide, and it was the same story all over the stateâs arable lands. Make a bundle now and for as long as taxpayers foot the bill for bringing in water from far away. Get out when the waterâs gone or when it starts costing the grower what it should.
It was the same with the land. Overgrazed since the 1880âs, a hundred years had turned grasslands to desert just as irrigating had sucked the rivers dry. The Socorro had been more careful than most about rotating graze and trimming herds to fit, but even before Patrickâs blindness, Judd had been running more stock than the hundred thousand acres would support.
Shea looked approvingly at the way Boer and Lehman lovegrasses and plains brittlegrass were spreading over the pasture he and Geronimo had cleared laboriously of most mesquites. It took a bulldozer to knock down the trees and drag out their long taproots. But the hardy grasses were thriving despite the sparse rainfall.
A federal study Shea had cooperated with showed that if scrub and mesquite in southern Arizona was replaced with native grasses, the amount of groundwater saved over twenty years would be almost double what would come from the $2.5 billion Central Arizona Project in the same time, even if the heavily overcommitted Colorado River werenât sucked dry long before that. Revegetation would cost a fraction of that and would last as long as grazing was held to reasonable levels.
If Patrick could see, this grass would convince him. Shea had to hope the looks of the field would eventually penetrate even Juddâs more impervious blindness, but he was braced for trouble when Judd came back from a fruitless chat with the land commissioner.
Judd. Shea frowned. His half-brother had a way with women; heâd give Tracy all the sweet talk and attention she could want. That ought to console her if the hurt in those wide-spaced dark amber eyes had been real.
Probably it had. As real as the tears sheâd shed for the trapped ringtail, as
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