Clockwork Fairy Tales: A Collection of Steampunk Fables by Stephen L. Antczak, James C. Bassett Page B

time until he can find a way to get the property for himself.”
    “I wouldn’t put such a thing past him. He’s a cruel creature, is Mr. Halprin,” Sarah added.
    The soldier looked back to Sarah. “What business is it that you’re wanting Halprin to do?”
    “I’m wanting him to let us drill for a deeper well. We all know there’s an aquifer below the town—just look at how the cottonwood trees are still green even in the heat and dry: they must be getting water from below the topsoil. But Mr. Halprin won’t allow it. I’ve asked the council and I’ve asked him, and the answer is the same—which isn’t surprising considering the council is no more than Halprin’s puppets these days. And I wouldn’t countenance what Mr. Halprin suggested.”
    The soldier raised his eyebrows, but it was the railroad man who asked, “Surely he didn’t impose himself…that way?”
    “I’ll content myself with saying Mr. Halprin is no more a gentleman in that respect than one could suppose from his other dealings,” Sarah replied. “And he did not get what he wanted, though I very nearly had to run from the room to make it so.”
    The soldier frowned and asked, “Why can’t you dig your own well?”
    “I don’t own the land and Mr. Halprin has made it very clear none of us are to go around digging holes on his property without his permission—which he won’t give. So I tried to convince him we should drill for a public well, since that benefits everyone and we could use a bit of Morton’s property on the south side of the main road—since Mr. Morton can’t be found to say no to it. But Halprin refuses to consider it—same argument as he’s giving to the railroad, but really, it’s because he’d like some of Morton’s tenants to up and leave. Without water, it’s certain that some of them will. And soon.”
    “Won’t he lose some of his own tenants?”
    Sarah gave a wry smile. “Of course, but that makes no nevermind. Once the railroad is through, there’ll be plenty of people lining up to buy every scrap of land, built on or no.”
    The soldier looked thoughtful and made a sound in his throat, nodded, but didn’t say any more.
    After dinner, he retired to his bedroom, pacing and wondering if he could do anything to help, for he’d taken a liking to the widow Sarah and hated to see her and her neighbors so abused by both nature and a single, greedy man. He also regretted having killed Morton—though not much. His thoughts ran in circles and eventually he sat down on his bed, wishing he had some distraction such as music or cards, but as it was Sunday, the saloon was closed and he didn’t dare disrupt the house by going down to the parlor to play Sarah’s piano—badly. His eye fell on the music box he had brought out of the caverns, sitting where he had put it down months ago on his chest of drawers. He picked it up, but it had no key. He tried the key he always carried in his pocket. The fit wasn’t perfect, but he was able to wind the mechanism one turn before the cylinder began to revolve with a sudden chord that gave way to a strange tune.
    Before the song had ended, he heard a scrabbling sound outside his window and when he opened the sash, he was confronted with the face of the smallest of the mechanical hounds from the cavern. He fell back, making room to do battle with the beast, but it only stepped delicately into the room and looked up at him with its flickering electric eyes.
    After a moment of stilted silence the dog spoke: “What would you have me do, Master?”
    Thunderstruck, the soldier sat down on the hard chair beside the door. “Who would have thought…?” he muttered.
    “What would you have me do, Master?” the mechanical beast repeated.
    “Can you dig a well?”
    “I cannot, Master. But I can fetch the digging machine to you.”
    “Can you, indeed, little dog?”
    The gleaming metal dog nodded its heavy head.
    “Then fetch the machine and take it to the field beside the