Water Rights
August 10, 2016
“Help us, please,” says an erect white man shooting his rifle.
“What should I do?”
“Pick up a rifle and start firing.”
“You and your partner have the only two.”
“Then go get help.”
“You deserve help from an Indian scout?”
“Sure. My buddy and I’d be happy to just give the Indians the whole damn thing. What’s it matter. My horses’s dead, his eye scary-big-open white, and my buddy’s horse is about dead, and savages are circling fast.”
“Would you be willing to surrender the water, or even share it, if Frederic Remington had painted ‘Fight over a Waterhole’ favoring you?”
“I reckon.”
“I reckon you’d take the waterhole and the plains and the mountains and put all of us on reservations.”