“You threaten me and my family and you’ll be the one who’s sorry, Smeg. I’ll get my wife to put a spell on your pecker and it’ll never rise again!”

Hephaestus gave a snort of laughter at the expression on Smeg’s face, for he knew that Rapture’s hoodoo reputation held sway over many people in town. As hard as Smeg talked, he would be worried now. You could see it in his eyes.

Lloyd’s eyes, meanwhile, shone back in the deepening sunset like lightning bugs.

“All right, Sitturd. But yoo’re bad business and the word’s out. I reckon yoo’ll lose all that high an’ mighty come winter. Yoo kaint git by on what that witch cooks up firever.”

“Good evening, Smeg. And don’t drive those nags too hard-I can see you’re about to bust an axle.”

“Pshaw!” Smeg exclaimed, and spat out a stream of stringy black juice that landed on his boot before hauling himself onto the wagon and whipping the two rib-stickers out of the yard.

After Grady’s father was gone, Lloyd said, “Farruh, do you think he’ll try to burn down our barn?”

“Naw,” Hephaestus mused. “But I reckon we should keep an eye open for trouble. He’s right when he says there’s folks in town who are mad with me about money.”

“Because of the Ark?” Lloyd asked.

“Yep,” his father said, sighing. “And the self-pulling planter… and the milking glove… and the air wheel. You don’t know anything about what Smeg was saying, do you? I get the impression that you did have a run-in with them Marietta whelps.”

“They chased me. I got away.”

“Did they?”

“What do you mean?” asked the boy, his eyes flaring.

“I mean did you lead them into some snare of yours? That deer noose ’bout broke my good leg.”

“They tripped a catapult,” Lloyd answered.

Hephaestus wanted to believe that that was all there was to the story. It was enough to accept that his son even knew what a catapult was, let alone how to build and wire one.