Limited Resources - word count 215 (prompt - bone)

Ever since the mining company, SilverKiss Inc, forced his family off the land, Jayson has lived in a cave at a barren corner where even the hungriest cattle wouldn’t wander in search of food. If there were any cattle left, which there aren’t. SilverKiss’s enforcers shot all the livestock the day they arrived.

Jayson’s Elders taught him the art of survival long before they were loaded into the vans headed to city internment centres. Now it is his job to see, but not be seen, on this sprawling property. Five generations of his people have eked out a living here. It’s Jayson’s job to document what happens next.

One sultry summer day he shadows the drilling team to its latest test spot. He trains high-powered binoculars on them. The bore has barely touched the ground when the jubilant dance of the miners announces that the mother lode has been struck.

The bone necklace around his neck clatters as he lifts the camera and records their discovery.

He knows what they have found and knows its presence will be classified top secret. Here, under the graves of his grandparents and their parents before them, is a vast reservoir of the world’s most precious resource. SilverKiss has found one of the planet’s last basins of clean, potable water.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons: Photograph of the first oil district in Los Angeles. Circa 1895-1901 from USC Libraries.

http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p15799coll65/id/16225