My Google is failing me, or perhaps I invented this memory long ago, or maybe I slipped into an alternate universe sometime in the last 45 years or so and the story i’m looking for doesn’t exist here, but I’m at a loss.
The story would probably date from the New Wave period of late sixties to mid seventies. The old phrase from many treaties with the Native American tribes is referenced, maybe even in the title, “as long as grass grows or water runs.” The basic idea is that the last treaty is about to be broken because some valuable resource has been found under Native land, and at the end the sun stops shining, the plants dry up and die, and the rivers stop flowing.
I’ve read it, too. I used to buy those Best SF/Horror of the Year anthologies and I’m sure it was in one of those. I had the books released from 1988-92, if that helps.
Maybe it was a Haldeman short story? I seem to remember this but its not in my end of the world short stories. Could it be some conflation with the Martian Chronicles? I dunno. All the pieces in one story dont seem familiar. But seperate parts do.
Thanks for the replies, but I don’t think we have a match yet.
Another detail I think I remember about the story structure; there are alternating sections, one of the machinations going on in D.C., the other of a shaman doing a ritual. That’s all I’ve got.
I remembered reading the same story, and after some extensive Google-Fu I tracked it down. Here’s the publication history from the ISFDB: Title: Or the Grasses Grow
Um, what? Where is there a “see all book covers story appears in” function? Using the ISFDb, you can find all the books that a story appears in, but what would it even mean for a story to appear in a book cover?