"What do you mean?" he said quickly.

"You know. Like long ago. When they had all sorts of clever devices like that."

"Those are just stories," he said. Then, after a time, "Aren't they?"

She shook her head, pale hair dancing.

"No. My father's passed by one of the forbidden places, down south by Anvil Mountain. You can still see all sorts of broken things there without going in--things people can't make anymore." She looked back at the horse, its movements now slowing. "Maybe even things like that."

"That's--interesting..."he said. "I didn't realize--and there's still stuff left?"

"That's what my father said."

Abruptly, she looked him straight in the eye.

"You know, maybe you'd better not show this to anybody else," she said.

"Why not?"

"People might think you've been there and learned some of the forbidden things. They might get mad."

"That's dumb," he said, just as the horse fell onto its side. "That's real dumb."

But as he righted it, he said, "Maybe I'll wait till I have something better to show them. Something they'll like...."

The following spring, he demonstrated for a few friends and neighbors the flotation device he had made, geared to operate a floodgate in the irrigation system. They talked about it for two weeks, then decided against installing it themselves. When the spring runoff occurred--and later, when the rains came--there was some local flooding, not too serious. They only shrugged.

"I'll have to show them something even better," he told Nora. "Something they'll have to like."

"Why?" she asked.

He looked at her, puzzled.

"Because they have to understand," he said.

"What?"

"That I'm right and they're wrong, of course."

"People don't usually go for that sort of thing," she said.

He smiled.

"We'll see."

When the boy was twelve years old, he took his guitar with him one day--as he had on many others--and visited a small park deep in the steel, glass, plastic and concrete-lined heart of the city where his family now resided.