Author’s note: To get the most out of this story, I recommend you first read the previous blog about the place. Thanks!
The sun had not yet risen. Lauren moved in ghostly half-light, searching for any signs of life in the loose rock at the base of the canyon cliffs, any tufts of green that could provide nourishment. She found none.
When the sun rose above the cliffs, baking the landscape, she sought shelter in a small cavity in the basalt rock. It would be another day without food or drink. Resting in the cavity, she observed movement on the canyon floor as late risers took up their own desperate searches for sustenance.
Northrup Canyon had not always been such an inhospitable place. When Lauren was just a baby, a stream had flowed here for most of the year. There were fruit trees, vegetable gardens, birds and other small animals. It was a modest life, but they wanted for nothing.
Until the drought came—year after long year of no rain. The creek dried up, becoming little more than a strip of mud, then it too dried up. Families dug ever-deeper wells, but eventually they proved not deep enough. Gardens no longer sprang up, the trees withered, and wildlife vanished. Babies died first, followed by children with matchstick arms and distended bellies. The highest point in the cliffs became known as The Leap, for those who’d lost all but the hope of reuniting with their departed. After her mother and two brothers died, Lauren’s father had chosen The Leap.
At the end of the day, when long shadows fingered into the canyon, Maxim approached the cavity where Lauren sat. The concept of friendship had dried up along with everything else, but Lauren considered Maxim someone she could trust.
“I’m thinking of heading over to Steamboat,” he told her.
Lauren spit on the ground. “Why?”
He shrugged. “Maybe something fell off the cliffs that we could use.”
The difficulty of walking three miles battled the possibility of finding a morsel of food.
“Okay, I’ll go with you.”
Steamboat Butte. The very words stirred up loathing among the canyon survivors. On the upper plateau of the enormous butte lived a community of a dozen families. They had everything they needed to flourish—gardens, fruit trees, wheat fields, pigs, goats, and an unending supply of water. Eight-hundred-foot vertical walls protected the plateau, except for one narrow, steep gap in the rock. The Steamboaters had erected a wall across the gap, and guards patrolled the wall night and day. Beggars, refugees, old acquaintances—anyone who tried to pass through the gate in the wall was executed, no questions asked.
The source of their unending supply of water was a mystery. Some believed a wizard lived in the community and worked his magic to bring the water. “Not true,” Lauren’s father had told her. “Wizards don’t exist. I bet there’s an engineer, or maybe a hydrologist, up there, someone who knows how to find water and get it to the top of the plateau.” He may have been right, but that hadn’t helped him or his family.
When they reached Steamboat, Lauren and Maxim began to circle the base. On the eastern side, a final beam of light from the setting sun exposed a crack in the basalt just wide enough to permit two skeletal humans to slip through. They inched their way from dusk to darkness.
Lauren stopped. “I don’t want to go any farther.”
Maxim touched her shoulder, then placed his finger across her mouth. They listened. Through the throbbing silence came the sound of gurgling water.
And that was how Lauren and Maxim, who later married and had a child, found water. It was soon channeled into Northrup Canyon, and guards were stationed at the crack in the butte with orders to execute anyone who approached them, no questions asked.
