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US Gummint Cunning Man : Volume 1

By Johnson, Kevin, Wade

Book Id: WPLBN0100303388
Format Type: PDF (eBook)
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Reproduction Date: 10/16/2020

Title:	US Gummint Cunning Man : Volume 1
Author:	Johnson, Kevin, Wade
Volume:	Volume 1
Language:	English
Subject:	Fiction, Drama and Literature
Collections:	Fantasy, Authors Community
Historic Publication Date:	2020
Publisher:	Self-Published

Member Page:	Kevin Johnson
Citation APA MLA Chicago Johnson, K. W. (2020). US Gummint Cunning Man : Volume 1. Retrieved from http://www.gutenberg.cc/

Description
Shade mammoths, iron buffalo, and dodos; honeyberries, lightning pines, and mistle… It's 1840 in the United States, but a different country from the one we live in. Magic has been known for tens of thousands of years, and the only reason the colonies freed themselves from British domination is that Pennsylvania Rifles outrange the tyrannical power of Mastery. The colonies haven't gotten far into the interior yet; a different man from Thomas Jefferson was born in this different world, no one sent a Lewis or Clark to cross the continent, and any such expedition would have had to fight their way through undervines and dust wolves and more anyway. Zebulon Japheth Wright finds himself in a pivotal position. Even though he grew up just another hunter-farmer, he knows about yet another danger: society's suspicion of people who might be witches, especially slave liberators, gets those people attacked. What Wright will do with the power he finds he has, how he will use it in a society of individuals that distrusts individual power, and how his use of it will shape both him and his society, underlies a tale of magic, exploration and adventure.

Summary
An alternate history of the United States, where magic has been known since the Paleolithic, with the struggle of one young man to understand his own place in the country, while navigating the pressures of power, not to mention race

Excerpt
I stepped into a world o' gold, gold and yellow and orange and all the colors 'twixt 'em, with a hint o' red too. I didn't see no underbrush, nor the scrubbier trees, leavin' only the giants, 'cept they rose on up even higher here, no leaves or branches till hunnerds o' feet up. I could see the stream a mile or so t' the north, same as the world back home, the other burblin' along t' the east, and t' the south the ridge risin' slowly up, all reddish, till it topped out a hunnerd feet up. A native warrior sat astride a horse up there, silhouetted against the dawn-sky, impossibly stretched out tall, just like the Old One. He held a spear I knew he could throw a-fore I could move, could pin me to the yellow-orange sandy soil a-fore I could breathe. I raised a hand slow-like t' him, but he didn't move. I knew he was still poised t' throw that spear. And I could understand. Couldn't blame him, not really, though I didn't want him to, nohow. Aunt had told me 'bout our grandparents and great-grandparents, and hunnerds and thousands of others, all comin' t' these shores, all 'scapin' the trollin'—controllin'—tyranny wars in the Old World, comin' here all a-yearnin' for freedom. Most, they'd been brought here what didn't have no choice, a-cause tyranny seeps into the bones till lordin' it 'round seems natural, but still some had come here t' get away from the horrors back 'cross the ocean. And t' others, they found theirselves free, in time. And the lashwillows and grabgrass and River Horses and grisly b'ars and all the rest, even the Atlantic Serpent, hadn't stopped 'em, and so the natives had given up tryin', their druids stopped bloomin' up tougher and meaner critters, 'cause the British had their druids cast their own charms and magicks on what turned into iron buffalo and passage pigeons and all. So the natives, they'd given up the land o' their ancestors, given up and left it t' us. And though they'd retreated t' where magic comes from, t' the land wellin' up with it, where the sun shines magic on down, still they hadn't wanted t' come here. Hadn't chose to, till all other choices were worse. So they'd left green and blue and brown and honest earth and coolin' breezes behind forever. We wouldn't be welcome t' follow. We'd followed 'nough. I squatted just long enough t' pick up a shiny red pebble off the ground, then I stepped back through the portal I'd made. The spear never twitched. That native never moved. I stood back in the land o' afternoons and dusks and nights, and let go a breath I hadn't known I was holdin', and let my portal go with it, dwindlin' and fadin' on the movin' air.

Table of Contents
Foreword: Different World, Different People Chapter One: Taken for a Witch, 1836 Chapter Two: Natura, 1840 Chapter Three: Magica Chapter Four: Diablerie Chapter Five: Charms Chapter Six: Shapeshifting Chapter Seven: Sorcery Chapter Eight: Mastery I Chapter Nine: Necromancy Chapter Ten: Fascination Chapter Eleven: Phylactery Chapter Twelve: Mastery II Chapter Thirteen: Liberation, 1840-1841 Chapter Fourteen: The Will of a Free People, 1841-1869 About the Author