The Secret of the Desert Stone by Frank Peretti

Author:Frank Peretti
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc.
Published: 2010-09-08T16:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

Back on Jo-Jota’s porch, the chief and Bengati sat with the Coopers and Dr. Henderson. They were enjoying one of Jo-Jota’s fruit juice concoctions as they rested from the day’s heat.

The chief spoke, and as always, Bengati translated his words. “I know there is no water in the ditch. I know that no water can be seen. But do you see that well?” The chief pointed to the village well in the middle of the square. “Long ago, when there was no village, our ancestors came to this place. Their chief said, ‘This is where we will live.’ His people said, ‘We cannot live here, there is no water.’ But the chief had found a special stone upon the ground, and when he struck it with his staff, water came from beneath it. That water has been there ever since, and that is where our well is today. We are here, and our village is here, because long ago, a chief saw there would be water where once there was none.”

Dr. Cooper smiled. The tale reminded him of Moses in the wilderness, striking a rock to bring forth water for the children of Israel. “In our culture, we have a story like that.”

“So are you going to strike the Stone as your ancestor did?” Dr. Henderson asked.

The chief looked just a little awkward. “I have already done that, even before we dug the ditch.”

Dr. Henderson couldn’t hide the fact that she was troubled about all this. “But still you believe there will be water?”

“There is water there,” the chief insisted. “Our well is going down. We have dug it deeper, but it is difficult to draw any more water from it. We have tried digging other wells, but cannot dig deep enough through the rock. If the Stone does not bring us water, we will perish. Our god would not let that happen.”

Dr. Henderson said nothing and looked toward the square. Dr. Cooper could see she felt sorry for these people. “Dr. Henderson, what about the well these people have now? Doesn’t that indicate the presence of water down there, some kind of aquifer?”

She weighed that and finally nodded. “Certainly. There are hills and mountains on all sides of the desert. Cracks and fissures under the ground could carry the rainwater from those hills into a vast reservoir under the desert floor. But even if there was water down there, you heard the chief: It’s lying under solid rock and too far down for these people to reach it.” She added glumly, her voice quiet and secretive. “And a two-foot-wide ditch across the desert isn’t going to make much of a difference.”

Dr. Cooper shot a glance over the thatched rooftops of the village and through the trees. He could see the Stone still glistening in the afternoon sun. “Unless something really unusual happened,” he offered.

She gazed at the Stone and shook her head fearfully. “You mean something cataclysmic. Doctor, any geological event big enough to break open that aquifer would probably wipe out this village in the process.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.