She nodded and replied, “Those rainmaking Wasichu girls. I don’t think they’re going to make it rain. But some have paid good money for some much-needed sky-water, while those wheat farmers down the other side of the Sappa have threatened bodily harm to anyone fixing to dampen their ripening crops with a heavy dew before they can reap it, standing proud in dry fields.”
Longarm rolled his eyes heavenward and tore after the town law, shouting, “Wait for me, you anxious cuss!”
Chapter 6
Longarm caught up with Dad Jergens a furlong up a narrow side street, fell in beside him, and mildly observed, “I seem to be missing a detail or more. First you tell me those turn-the-other-cheek Mennonites support their friendly neighborhood gunsmith, and now Olive Red-Dog has them threatening rainmakers with violence?”
Dad Jergens replied, “Oh, there you are. Thought I’d lost you for a minute there. I asked Horst Heger about selling guns to such a flock of doves when I got him to fix my Schofield. He said they ain’t as set in their ways about guns as them Pennsylvania Dutch, and even some of them hold with hunting for the pot or shooting a weasel in the chicken coop. Mennonites are agin’ marching as to war. Their faith allows for self-defense, within reason.”
Longarm demanded, “Including the assassination of ignorant water witches who think they’re being scientific?”
To which Dad Jergens simply replied, “Some of them Dutch-Rooshin sodbusters are sort of ignorant in their own right. Them Ruggles gals claim they have a U.S. patent on their noisy method, with magazine and newspaper clippings in a big old scrapbook to back their brag.”
Longarm snorted in disgust and said, “That patent, if it’s theirs to begin with, is on a method of setting off explosives carried aloft by a balloon without losing the balloon. There may or may not be something to setting off charges inside a brooding rain cloud. Detonating dynamite in a clear sunny sky, low enough to impress the folks on the ground at lower cost, is what the alienists who study the peculiar call ‘sympathetic magic.’ That’s where you treat snakebite by biting a snake, get your trees to bear more fruit by holding an orgy in the orchard, or curdle an enemy’s milk by pouring vinegar in some of your own, with his name written on the jar.”
Dad Jergens shrugged and said, “I heard beating the trunks of fruit trees works. What’s so sympathetic about setting off bombs in the sky?”
Longarm snorted in disgust and replied, “It sounds like thunder, and everyone but old Ben Franklin used to know how thunder brought on rain. It was wise old Ben, way back when we still had a king and queen, who proved scientifically that first it starts to rain, and then the rain falling through the clouds builds up this electric charge you need for thunder and lightning. Big chemical bangs up yonder are as likely to bring on rain as buying a gal a box of chocolates and eating it yourself is likely to make her fall in love with you!”
They could see the top of that orange balloon above the rooftops ahead now. Hauled down to ground level, it looked big as hell. Dad Jergens said, “I hope you’re right about it being a heap of horseshit. I can handle our own disgruntled Methodists, Baptists, and such. Them rainmaking gals offer a money-back guarantee, and I warned ‘em what I’d do if they tried skipping out with the money along a dusty road. But I ain’t sure each and every Mennonite would listen to me, or anybody, if the Ruggles sisters managed a good gully-washer just as they were fixing to haul their mighty McCormick reapers over firm fields rapidly turning to gumbo.”
Longarm whistled softly. “Lord have mercy, they’ve drilled in enough of that red Russian wheat to rate mechanical reaping?”
The old-timer said, “Turkish red. Some of our boys asked where they got such wondrous seed. They said they’d tried all sorts of winter wheat for their czars, and settled on this one strain the Turks to the south did well with. Some of our boys are of a mind to try it, crazy as it sounds to plow and plant in fall with a blizzard likely to blow in any minute. You’re sure those Ruggles gals ain’t likely to make it rain? The way I hear tell, that red winter wheat down Sappa Crossing way has made a bumper crop this year thanks to that early wet spring and all this dry summer sunshine.”
As if to argue that very point, the big balloon ahead shot skyward again on its braided line, a pasteboard box about right for a pair of new Justins dangling about thirty feet under the gas bag against the eastern sky that was now sort of lavender. As the rays of the low western sun caught the balloon broadside, it seemed to light up like a Japanese paper lantern. Fakes or not, those mysterious Ruggles sisters knew a thing or two about putting on a show.
Dad Jergens seemed to think so too. Striding faster, he moaned aloud, “Damn their sassy hides, they told me they only meant to set off that last blast!”
Picking up his own pace, Longarm said, “It ain’t fixing to rain no matter what they might do! There ain’t enough clouds for a beautiful sunset this evening, and we were talking about bank robberies, kidnappings, and a Mennonite gunsmith named Horst Heger, remember?”
Dad Jergens replied, “Heger ain’t one of them Dutch-Rooshins. His wife and a mess of in-laws are. He told me one time he hailed from Berlin Town, and studied on guns in that Prussian Army under Bismarck. Said them Prussian needle guns sure shot the shit outten the French in that war they had.”
Longarm scowled thoughtfully up at the rapidly rising balloon ahead. “Stranger flimflams have been pulled on this child. So could you tell me whether Horst Heger sports a dueling scar on his left jaw, or a beard that might be hiding it?”
Dad Jergens shook his head. “Wrong both times. Has one of them pointy waxed mustaches Bismarck’s boys go in for, but both cheeks are smooth shaven. All the time. He says he used to be an officer and he’s a bit of a dandy about it.”
Longarm didn’t answer aloud as he told himself an exPrussian officer recognizing a renegade Prussian officer made more sense than a wanted killer wiring in his current whereabouts. But if Heger was still looking like his old self, how come Wolf Ritter hadn’t recognized him? Or had a killer on the dodge been just as slick and kept such thoughts to himself for later?
The two lawmen broke out into the open, east of the last housing, to join a good-sized crowd for such a town as, up above, that orange balloon rose ever higher with the low western sun gilding it brightly against that clear darkening sky. A wishing star had just winked on over to the east. It was easy to guess what most of the corn planters for miles were wishing for.
As Longarm followed the older lawman’s elbowing progress through the crowd, they came to where a single-strand rope barrier held most of the locals at a respectful distance from the big red wagons and a modest-sized circus tent in the center of about a quarter acre of trampled dusty grass. Longarm could see at a glance how what seemed a combination of a Papist nun and a college don was working the reel brake of the big winch between the wagons to let that balloon rise ever higher, but not too fast for its safe return.
Another oddly dressed figure stood nearby with a cluster of six or eight townsmen dressed a mite more imposingly than some. As Dad Jergens strode over with Longarm in tow he called out, “I told you not to blow up no more charges with nightfall coming on, ladies! They’ll have heard that first one for miles in ever’ direction and do those Anabaptists ride, like they said they might, I don’t want ‘em riding after dark!”
A big portly cuss with mutton-chop whiskers got between Jergens and the rainmakers to thunder, “Leave ‘em be and let the National Grange worry about those sun-worshipping Ana baptists! Your mayor and board of aldermen are with the Grange on this. For if we don’t get some rain before the Fourth of July, you’ll hear the corn popping in the fields instead of fireworks!”