Lightbringers and Rainmakers - Felix Gilman [8]
(If you travel out here long enough you hear all kinds of stories about the Folk. They mess with the weather, they send weird dreams, they change their shapes, they take the forms of men or animals. Who knows, is what I say).
My friend Jo led me up to the Founding Day stage. It is in a wide dusty bowl just above town, in what you might describe as the hem of Big Witch’s skirts. Half the town was up there, sawing or hammering or painting or sewing. I guess with the Drought they have nothing else to look forward to except for the long-dead and faraway past, which is kind of sad. Anyway Flood was there, sitting on the floor with his back against his Pole, drinking from a bottle. It was the early afternoon. He is dark—a little darker than you or me, about as dark as Father. He is brown-eyed, and flat and a little plump in the face, and curly-haired. He is maybe five years older than me.
I said, Hello Mr. Flood.
He said, Who the hell are you?
I said I wanted to discuss a proposition with him. I said I am a master of Electricity, and my assistant Mr. Carver is the deftest mechanical hand in the west, a real miracle-worker, practically a wizard. For a thirty-seventy share in Flood’s favor we would fix whatever ailed his machine, or alternatively we would take our payment in parts, because I had my eye on some of the things glinting up there at the top of his Pole. What Flood said to me cannot be repeated to a woman of your sensibilities.
I do not often get angry but sometimes you have to or no one will take you seriously, so we stood there and shouted at each other in the heat and the dust for a while. And to cut a long story short, he told me that story about how it was the fault of the Folk again and there was nothing he or anybody could do. And Adams from the hotel, who I should have mentioned was also there listening, same as just about everyone else in town, said that in that case they should just get together some guns and go up on Big Witch and sort things out, or maybe petition the Linesmen to take care of the Folk, a couple of good poison-gas rockets should settle the issue, because he had heard the Line had its armies in the area. And Jo started crying, and I was angry with Flood for that and also for a lot of other reasons including that no Scientist should ever say there is nothing anyone can do—that is like religion for us—and so what it came into your brother’s head to say was:
“In addition, ladies and gentlemen, to being a master of Electricity, I am also learned in the ways of the Folk. I shall go out on Big Witch and negotiate with them for you. If and when they consent to let Mr. Flood’s machine work we will split the money thirty-seventy, this time in my favor, because it seems to me I am taking the risk here.”
Jo smiled. Carver grunted in surprise.
Flood said, “Like hell you are. You’ll just go and hide in the next town over for two weeks and if it so happens to rain you’ll come running back and claim your money. Ladies and gentlemen, I know his kind.”
I said I would cut a long story short and I haven’t, but I will now. I light out on Big Witch tomorrow, and Flood is coming with me, to protect his investment. “I’m not taking my eyes off this cheating son-of-a-bitch,” he said. He does not want to go, but perhaps his pride is making him. We are now talking fifty-fifty, or more if it turns out that he is just a fraud. He is no doubt thinking the same about me. It is true I guess that I do not really know anything about the Folk except that they scare me a little, but I got carried away with optimism in the moment. Now I had better think quickly. You will say that my problem is I think too much, and it is true I have a lot of ideas flashing in my head right now about the Folk and about Clouds and Electricity and Lightning Rods, but May, there is also a small