Wells, Surveying and the Hydrologic Cycle
The well is a metaphor for our self, soul, spirit, identity, innocence, etc. When a well is poisoned, improperly sealed or capped or simply abandoned the ground water beneath is subject to contamination. Contaminants on the surface will find their way into the ground water through infiltration and subsurface flow. People ultimately pay the price. Metaphor for covering up past sins, atrocities, crimes.
Well locations are mapped and stored in centralized databases, but during the time in which Christopher's mother (or grandmother) worked in the HPUWA that data was stored on maps.
When Christopher returns to his parents home in Lamesa (with Amina's dead body), he discovers that his mother kept old maps that would have normally been sent to the shredder or thrown away. She would use these maps (the reverse side) as her letter stock to a pen pal in Egypt. Unknown to him and his father, the letters reveal that before his father married his mother, she left for Egypt and had a child with this man. He discovers an unsent (map) letter that his mother was hiding and had planned to send the day she died, the reverse side of which contained well data for the northeast quadrant of the toxic waste facility. In this letter he learns that she was going to return to Egypt with Christopher, so that he may meet his sister Amina.
Although Amina's death was accidental, Christopher feels deeply responsible for it and fled the scene (in Enchanted Rock) with her body because of this guilt. This guilt has a long history, which began the day he saw his mother die (her lifeless body on the ground next to the water truck that hit her) and which was intensified in Iraq when he accidentally ran over the girl who sold ducks on the side of the road. Confused by his guilt (and also led by it), Chris feels that it is his responsibility to give her a funeral that the world will remember. He feels that everyone should be invited to mourn in her death and that he should be punished for it.
If he returned the body to the police, they may do nothing but charge him with kidnapping a dead person. This would have to be proven because the coroner never arrived at the scene to pronounce Amina dead. It would be covered up by police.
While trying to determine what his plan of action is, he notices the well data on the reverse side of the letter. He is holding a smoking gun, proof that the aquifer at one time existed underneath the toxic waste facility. He then decides to concoct a plan to bury Amina in one of the wells (or claim to have done so). He invites the press and the police to the location in Andrews, TX where the "unknown" wells are located. He is met with a flurry of people and as they arrive he gives them a copy of the map.