Flashes of Speculation

• Post Information
  • Date: Tuesday, March 20, 2007 Time: 10:18 am Category: Stories Discussion: 4 Comments

• Post Navigation
  • « Missive #7
  • Master Race Malice in Manhattan - Rod Drake »

For the first few days we admired the beautiful clear blue skies, but then we started to wonder where the clouds went. No clouds meant no rain, which was not a happy connection for a small community that lived off the land. We all knew what was coming.

Dust.

First the crops shriveled up and died. Then the cattle started to drop in their tracks. When people started dying we decided it was time to do something.

This wasn’t the first killer drought to curse our lands. Some of the old-timers remembered the rainmaker who had saved the town back in the summer of ought eighty. Quentin Rios still remembered where he hung his hat. Somebody pulled out a map. Quentin found the location and marked it with a savage red X. Taking more water with us than we could spare, six of us made the trek to his distant homestead.

We walked for a day and a half. We got there about a week too late. His boy showed us the grave a hundred yards behind the shack. We took off our hats in respect. With bitter irony, we noted how damp the freshly turned mound of dirt appeared.

We just about gave up then and there, but Gus Timmons was quick enough to ask the boy a question.

“Can you make it rain?”

The boy hesitated. He went pale. Then he nodded. His lips parted like he wanted to say something, but he clamped up before he did.

He didn’t want to come with us. He turned down our money. He turned down our goods. Marco Grimes offered his own flesh and blood, but the boy wouldn’t even look at the picture of pretty little Amanda.

We stopped negotiating. We pushed him to the ground. We tied him up. We tossed him into the back of his Daddy’s wagon. Then we dragged the whole mess back to our town.

When we reached the fields we cut him free. When he tried to flee we beat him with sticks. He glared at us, so we beat him some more. That seemed to take the fight out of him. Jerking the tarp off the wagon, he reached in and pulled out the items he needed. Properly motivated, he got right to work.

I wasn’t sure what he did was science or magic. All I can tell you is that in less than ten minutes the sky darkened and thunder started to rumble. Shortly after that raindrops that were as fat as tadpoles started falling from the heavens.

We started to dance. Right there in the fields: grown men literally dancing with each other in the rain. It was quite a sight top see.

Four days later it was still raining. Before we strung him up the rainmaker’s son made his confession.

His Daddy had taught him everything there was to know about making rain. Unfortunately, he passed on before he could teach the boy how to make it stop…

Content © Flashes of Speculation
Proudly powered by WordPress
Theme designed by The Design Canopy

Entries (RSS)
Comments (RSS)

38 queries.
0.399 seconds.