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yeah,” Jennifer said, running to her room. She came back with her M4. “What the hell? You didn’t tell me about that.”
    “It’s a pump house,” Ian said and shrugged, following Lance out. Dino almost knocked them down as he ran out the door. “That dog can hurt you not even trying.”
    Walking around the ATV shed, Jennifer saw a small, ten-by-ten building. “Is that the pump house?”
    “No, that’s a cold storage butcher room,” Ian said, walking past it. She followed them up the rise toward the ridge behind the house. The northwest corner was the highest and much steeper than the rest of the area inside the fence. Panting as she walked up the steep grade, Jennifer saw the fence ahead through the small trees. She turned to see the cabin below her several hundred yards away.
    “How far down did they have to dig to get water?” she asked, thinking digging closer to the house would’ve been smarter.
    “Water was coming out of the ground where they put the well,” Ian said as she turned around, and she saw him waiting on her. “When we first came here, water was just running out of the ground into the draw beside us,” he said, pointing at the draw on the west side of the house. “It was really rocky here then too.”
    When Ian turned to leave, she saw Lance standing just inside the corner of the fence and looking at a door raised above the ground that looked like it led to an underground tornado shelter. “I’m so lost,” she mumbled, walking over with Ian.
    Opening the door, Lance propped it open and walked down some stairs. “Is this room electrified?” Jennifer asked before stepping inside.
    Halfway in the door, Ian turned to her. “Why? It’s the pump house,” he asked with a shrug then walked down.
    “Duh, it’s our water,” she said, scampering down the stairs after him into a room made of cinderblocks. In the middle was a large, cement circle that came to her chest. “Even I know without water, you don’t survive shit.”
    Lance looked up at Ian. “Never thought of it like that,” Lance said with a nod.
    Ian pointed at the cement circle. “Those are cement culverts,” he said. “Fifteen feet around and they go down like forty feet. The water supplies for the cabin and powerhouse are at the very bottom of the well. From here to the house is a sixty-foot drop, and with this much volume, we get great pressure.”
    Moving over, Jennifer saw the top was covered in metal, and the room suddenly lit up as Ian turned on a light. Jumping back, Jennifer watched Lance walk over and lift a hatch on the top. “Whoa,” he said, jumping back. “Ian, it’s never been this high.”
    She walked over with Ian and saw the water just a few inches below the lip. “It hasn’t rained that much,” Ian said, moving to the side near a six-inch metal pipe that ran into the culvert at the floor.
    “Dude, it’s never been this high,” Lance said as Ian started turning a large valve on the pipe.
    “How high is it normally?” Jennifer asked, hearing water humming in the pipe as Ian continued to open the valve.
    “A few feet below the floor. Uncle Doug recorded once that it got level with the floor, but that was a year ago when we had that record amount of rain,” Lance said, looking down in the well.
    “Overflow is open,” Ian said as he stood, and they watched the level slowly drop.
    “Where does it go?” Jennifer asked.
    “Come on,” Lance said, heading for the door. “We’ve never seen it actually shooting water.”
    They followed him out, and Jennifer heard the roar of water long before she saw it. Moving over to the fence, she saw a pipe sticking out the side of the draw below them shooting water sixty feet across the draw and knocking shrubs and dead leaves to the bottom. “Kind of loud,” she said.
    “It won’t last long, and we’ll see if we need to leave it open,” Lance said with a grin, watching the water race down the draw. “Almost makes me want to play in the