1887 the Day They Turned off the Water

A. E. Wasserman

Description

Can Sally reveal the truth that frees her husband and their hired man? Both prosecutor and judge are aligned. Will she watch both men hang?
Spring 1887. Melting snowpack from the high Sierras will soon turn California’s Central Valley into lush fields, but an armed man with a Sharps rifle shut off a headwater gate to a water-ditch and stood guard. After an unexpected confrontation with Double B Ranch owner, Jake Sanders, along with ranch-hand Kacha, this gunman now lies dead and Jake along with wounded Kacha, are both jailed for murder.
The unscrupulous lobbyist who ‘steals to get the office and who gets the office to steal,” Billy “Boss” Carr, claims to know nothing about the man or the situation, in spite of owning the land where the headwater gate is. Water is profitable for Carr, however, and he is aligned with both the prosecutor and judge. It is up to Jake’s wife, Sally, to find a way to prove Jake and Kacha’s innocence; the truth of the matter. But with these powerful men stacking the odds against her, can she? Or will she watch both men hanged?
“Few writers can do what Wasserman has done: weave a historical thriller around the early battles over California water rights and the entrenched racism toward Blacks and the region’s Native Americans. Authentic characters enrich this crisp, exciting legal/thriller.”
Pamela Sheppard, Publishing Consultant
“A thrilling read, with twists and turns up until the very end.”
Will Klipstine, Hollywood Screenwriter/Producer

Sujets

• Legal
• Historical
• Años 1880
• Central Valley
• 1880s
• Sally
• Legall de Kermeur
• Water
• California
• Thriller
• Fiction
• Western

Informations

• Publié par: Archway Publishing
• Date de parution: 04 octobre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781665726436
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Also by A. E. Wasserman
 
The Langsford Series
 
Novels
1884 No Bounda ries
1886 Ties That Bind
1888 The Dead & The Despe rate
 
Novellas
1885 Cross ings
The Notorious Black Bart 1883
1887
The Day They Turned Off The Water
 
 
 
A. E. WASSERMAN
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
Copyright © 2022 A. E. Wasserman.
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidences may be loosely based on historical individuals and events. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Because this is historical, the language, dialects, and social attitudes should be considered in the context of both the era and the characters.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
 
Archway Publishing Books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting Archway Publishing, 1663 Liberty Drive, Bloomington, IN 47403 844 669-3957
 
Cover Art
Acrylic painting by Richard Krevolin
 
Richard Krevolin is an award-winning artist, screenwriter, author, playwright, and professor hailing from New Haven, C. A graduate of Yale University, he has masters’ degrees from UCLA and USC.
 
 
ISBN: 978-1-6657-2642-9 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-2644-3 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-2643-6 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022912289
 
 
Archway Publishing rev. date:  09/14/2022
Contents
Chapter 1     June 1887
Chapter 2     The Day It Happened
Chapter 3     Double Bar Ranch
Chapter 4     Double Bar Ranch
Chapter 5     The Attack Long Ago
Chapter 6     Adobe House, Double Bar Ranch
Chapter 7     Lazy J Ranch
Chapter 8     Hanford, California
Chapter 9     Hanford
Chapter 10     Adobe House, Double Bar Ranch
Chapter 11     1849 Alta California
Chapter 12     Double Bar Ranch
Chapter 13     Tulare County Jail, Visalia
Chapter 14     1856, Tule River War
Chapter 15     Tulare County Jail, Visalia
Chapter 16     The Visalia Times, Visalia
Chapter 17     Courthouse, Visalia
Chapter 18     Courthouse, Visalia
Chapter 19     Hanford
Chapter 20     1868, Tulare Lake
Chapter 21     Courthouse, Visalia
Chapter 22     Courthouse, Visalia
Chapter 23     Courthouse, Visalia
Chapter 24     1873, Tulare Lake
Chapter 25     Visalia
Chapter 26     Visalia
Chapter 27     Visalia
Chapter 28     Visalia
Chapter 29     Kadiston Village
Chapter 30     Martin’s Ranch
Chapter 31     Tulare County Jail, Visalia
Chapter 32     Visalia
Chapter 33     Visalia
Chapter 34     Visalia
Chapter 35     Palace Hotel, Visalia
Chapter 36     Courthouse, Visalia
Chapter 37     Courthouse, Visalia
Chapter 38     Courthouse, Visalia
Chapter 39     Courthouse, Visalia
Chapter 40     Courthouse, Visalia
Chapter 41     Courthouse, Visalia
Chapter 42     Double Bar Ranch
 
Afterword
About the Author
 
Dedic ated
With Gratitude
to
Patricia Staes
&
William Curry
Both of Whom Aid and Abet
And In Memory of
Paul D. Marks
 
Whiskey is for drinking and water is for figh ting.
— unknown
[often incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain]

 
Tulare County Courthouse 1876
On Court Street between Center and Oak Str eets.
Chapter 1
June 1887
Double Bar Ranch, California
Life as she knew it halted. Abruptly.
How had this happened?
Endings, like death, can do that; sneak up until its shadow obscures the sunlight of hopes and dreams. No one sees it until too late. Until then, everyone goes along as though life will always be normal. Good even. Until . . .
This, however, felt far worse than death.
Sally walked to her small desk, sat down with a quill and a blank page of paper to divert herself from thinking further. A letter to Lord Langsford to break her dismal mood. Indeed, writing her English friend would a pleasant task. She straightened her small frame, tucked a light brown strand of hair behind her ear, and began to write, blinking back tears from her dark brown eyes.
June 2, 1887
My dear friend Lord Langs ford,
I have been remiss, not writing sooner since the arrival of the dog you shipped us. How very kind you are and always have been ever since we met in San Francisco. Jake and I appreciate your friendship no end.
Sally sat back, uncertain what to write next, pausing to remember how she’d felt toward the Englishman when last they saw each other. Those final moments at the train depot. How difficult it had been, leaving Langsford. She, in love with the Englishman, and he, holding her at bay. He, the wise, sensible one. He’d sent her back to the ranch and to Jake, who wanted to marry her. The ranch and her life could never have been Langsford’s; his life could never have been hers. He had returned to his English estate and she went home to marry Jake, whom she now loved more than life itself.
Jake, her tall, lanky, smiling man, with twinkling brown eyes and tawny hair always in need of a comb.
But now? She shook away her fear and continued writing.
Our crops are doing well. All our sheep and cattle need herding, thus, the arrival of the Border Collie pup you shipped to us was perfectly t imed.
Sally dropped the quill on the desk and crumpled the paper into a tight ball, smudging wet ink on her fingers. She could not make her world sound carefree and rosy. It was far from that.
She got up from the desk and wandered out onto the veranda, the roof shading her from the hot June sun. She turned to look up at the mountains to the east, her hands smoothing the light blue calico dress she wore, as though her worries were the wrinkles in the fabric to be ironed away.
Those high Sierras held the winter snow pack for months; snow a dozen-plus feet deep that melted slowly when spring began to warm the peaks. Icy waters streamed down into the rivers that fed the Central Valley. Rivers filled the ditches that watered the fields and livestock. Rivers replenished the water table so wells, both hand-dug and artesian, could be drawn upon for ranches and households. Water had turned the Central Valley into a paradise filled with crops and pastureland. Life-giving water which ranchers and settlers relied upon during the long, hot, dry summer months. Water.
As she stood there, looking up at those high snow-capped Sierras, she only wanted to think of the tri-colored Border Collie from England.
Not Jake. Not water.
Not murder.
Chapter 2
The Day It Happened
May 1887, Double Bar Ranch, California
The Yokut Indian galloped into the barnyard, skidding his mount to a halt. “Jake! Jake!” He was off his horse before it stopped; hit the ground running.
“Jake!”
From inside the barn, the man he was yelling for jogged toward him. “What on earth, Kacha?”
“The . . . the . . .” the Indian caught his breath. “. . .water. There is no water!”
“What are you talking about?”
Kacha, shorter than Jake, but muscular and well built, shook his head and pointed past the wood corrals. “Dry,” he gasped, breathless.
Jake followed Kacha’s pointing finger. The Settler’s Ditch—the primary source of water for the Double Bar Ranch dug more than a dozen years before to bring water from the Kings River to dry land. His pa helped dig it—dry?
“Show me!” Jake grabbed a hackamore from a hook and slipped it onto the horse in the closest standing stall. Not bothering with a saddle, the tall thin rancher swung a leg up and over its bare back and joined Kacha at a brisk lope. Together they headed to the ditch.
There, they halted.
Dry.
The muddy bottom held puddles of stagnant water where a few dragonflies and small butterflies fluttered; a fly or two. What had been wide, flowing irrigation water was now just a long ditch with a mucky bottom.
“What in tarnation?” Jake pushed his hat up higher on his forehead to gain a better view as he walked his horse upstream. As far as he could see, it was the same. No flowing water. He looked for something that blocked the flow.
“I rode to the bend,” Kacha pointed. “Saw nothing. Came for you.”
Together they continued to ride up-ditch. “Something must have affected one of the weirs,” Jake said, referring to the large valves along the ditch where the water could be turned off and on as needed to divert the flow into the fields. But only Jake and Kacha tended this section of the ditch and its weirs, and they knew they had not turned any. As they progressed, it was evident that the upstream weirs remained shut. Water should be flowing beside them.
“Has to be at the headwater gate,” Jake deduced. They trotted toward the origin of the Settler’s Ditch, the Kings River. Probably debris coming down the river of melting snow got caught up; created a dam, Jake thought . A very effective dam . Hopefully it wouldn’t take long to clear. They needed to get the ditch flowing to fill the tanks for the livestock. The crops needed irrigating in a few days.
At the river, they saw the problem and Jake’s heart leapt in his mouth. There was a blockage all right, but not river debris. A human one. As the pair got closer, a man stood up at the headwater gate. Jake didn’t see the rifle in his hands at first, but Kacha rode in front of him, slowing him to a near halt. “Gun,” the Yokut whispered.
Jake nodded. “Let me talk to him, Kacha. I’ll see what this is abou