《The Tamarisk Hunter 》作者： - Paolo Bacigalupi【EPUB】

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The Tamarisk Hunter by Paolo Bacigalupi When the High Country News put out a call for stories about futures in which people have learned to live sustainably in the American West, they had high hopes. It turned out, however, that they received just one story that fit their stated goal of “a realistic assessment of people and their place in the landscape”—and it came from their own online editor, whom many of you know as the author of “Pop Squad,” “The Fluted Girl,” and “People of Sand and Slag.” Mr. Bacigalupi says that after this story appeared in the June 26, 2006 issue of HCN, it sparked a discussion of just how a deep drought might affect water rights in the West. Water managers and law experts were brought in, but nobody could produce anything more than wild guesses—of which this story was considered as good as any. And we think you’ll agree it’s a good yarn, too. * * * * A big tamarisk can suck 73,000 gallons of river water a year. For $2.88 a day, plus water bounty, Lolo rips tamarisk all winter long. Ten years ago, it was a good living. Back then, tamarisk shouldered up against every riverbank in the Colorado River basin along with cottonwoods, Russian olives, and elms. Ten years ago, towns like Grand Junction and Moab thought they could still squeeze life from a river. Lolo stands on the edge of a canyon, Maggie the camel his only companion. He stares down into the deeps. It’s an hour’s scramble to the bottom. He ties Maggie to a juniper and starts down, boot-skiing a gully. A few blades of green grass sprout neon around him, piercing juniper-tagged snow clods. In the late winter, there is just a beginning surge of water down in the deeps; the ice is off the riv