The Partisan

The plan is to change the river’s flow so it runs through houses across the street. That will leave the banks just fifty yards from his porch. Several rows of his neighbors’ houses will be destroyed. Good friends will vacate. More quarrelsome neighbors will also vacate. Parts of the houses not washed away by the sudden water will make splendid fisheries, the largest, most profitable fish lurking in the remains of door frames and staircases and furniture that would not float. Quibble takes to loitering at Thole’s Hardware, learning what he can of nets, imagining the configurations he should master.