Fire Brand by Diana Palmer Page A

food and water were available. Bowie had plenty of windmills that pumped out groundwater into troughs for the cattle. All the same, the groundwater table on his land was dropping steadily. There were small streams running out of the mountains, but not nearly enough to supply his vast herds of cattle with adequate drinking water. It was this facet of ranching that the proposed agricultural project threatened. Agriculture used tremendous amounts of water for irrigation, and drawing it out of an already stressed aquifer only made the water table drop even lower. Besides that was the danger of pesticides leaching into that ground water and contaminating it, and the erosion from the disturbed soil. Agriculture was big business all over Arizona, but more and more farmland was being sold as agricultural ventures failed. Farmland was being developed into housing and business enterprises, which used less water.
    But Gaby had a sneaking suspicion that Bowie would be just as opposed to a housing project or an industrial park on his land—maybe more so. It was the history and heritage of the land that he wanted to preserve, and its natural beauty. He had a keen sense of continuity, of saving his heritage for posterity—laudable goals that were hard-kept against the kind of public opinion that was polarizing against him. Unemployed workers wanted jobs. Conservation was all well and good, but it didn’t pay bills and feed hungry children.
    â€œWe have some fine grazing land here,” Aggie was telling Ned, sighing over the panorama that spread to the mountains on the horizon. “Despite the desert environment, there’s plenty of food for the livestock.”
    â€œWe can even feed them prickly pear—cholla and oco-tillo, too, but the thorns have to be burned off first,” Bowie offered.
    â€œHow do you get enough water to them?” Ned asked.
    â€œWe use windmills to pump it out of the ground,” Aggie said.
    Ned frowned. “Why not pump it out of the river?”
    Aggie laughed. “Ned, our rivers aren’t like yours up in Wyoming. Ours only run during the rainy season. We wouldn’t know what to do with a river that ran year-round.”
    â€œMy God,” Ned said reverently.
    â€œDo you have prickly pear up your way, Mr. Courtland?” Gaby asked politely.
    He shook his head. “Lodgepole pine, aspens, prairie grass. It’s an easier country for cowboys, except in the winter. We lose a hand or two every winter to wanner country. Six-foot snowdrifts just don’t appeal to everybody.”
    â€œWe get snow here once in a while,” Aggie said. “Up around Tucson, the saguaro cacti get a white dusting of it. It sure is pretty. Did you know that saguaro grows nowhere else in the country except in southern California, Arizona, and Mexico?”
    â€œI thought I’d seen a few in west Texas and New Mexico.” Ned frowned.
    â€œOrgan pipe cactus, maybe, or cardon cactus.” Aggie nodded. “But not saguaro. There’s a lot to learn about them.”
    â€œFor example?” Ned grinned.
    â€œWell, they can live for over a hundred and fifty years. They can weigh up to three tons. They’re pleated so that they can expand during the rainy season like an accordion. They’re woody inside. The fruit was and is gathered by the Papago Indians to make jelly and a fermented drink...”
    â€œTohono O’odham,” Gaby corrected. “They changed the name.”
    Aggie made an irritated sound. “You and your Papago history. Well, I can’t pronounce that and I won’t try.”
    â€œYes, you will.” Gaby chuckled.
    â€œYes, I will,” Aggie sighed. “But it’s hard.”
    â€œAll the same, it’s their own word, in their own language, not a borrowed name in ZÅ©ni, which Papago is,” the younger woman replied. “Tohono O’odham means ‘People of the Desert.’”
    â€œYou people