It looks like we'll need The Rainmaker

The Yellowstone River’s running high and muddy. Flood warnings have been posted for the Flathead. It’s still snowing in Great Falls.
But in northeast Montana drought persists.
Across much of the region less than an inch of rain had fallen this year through April.
Time to bring in the rainmaker.
An ad that ran in the Phillips County News two weeks ago said Matt Ryan was planning a return to Northeast Montana in late May and sought support for his work.
Then it began to rain.
Not a lot, but enough for Ryan to cancel his plans to travel to Montana.
Apparently the mere suggestion of a rainmaker was enough to prompt a change in the weather.
Ryan insists he doesn’t make it rain.
“Only God can do that,” he said recently from his home in Mt. Shasta, Calif. “I just know how to influence the weather.”
Ryan uses a combination of science and faith in a higher power to reorder the jet stream.
The process involves erecting steel pipes grounded in water that work as antenna to redirect energy flows.
He also relies on what “Christian people call prayer.”
The 55-year-old New York native has been influencing the weather for nearly 25 years. In 1984 – “on a wild hair,” he said – he sought out an Indian rainmaker.
“He was a prophet,” said Ryan, who studied under the Indian for 10 years.
Ryan doesn’t come cheap.
“For $15,000 I’d come up there,” he said.
The price, however, pales in comparison to the results.
“An inch of rain in Valley County is worth a million dollars,” he said.
And Ryan claims he always gets results
He can’t afford not to.
“You take hard-earned greenbacks from those Montana ranchers and don’t make it rain and they’ll hang your ass,” he said.
Ryan said precipitation in the first month following his rainmaking is usually above average and at least normal for the rest of the year.
While Ryan was glad to hear a half inch of rain had fallen across northeast Montana in early May cancelling his visit, he wanted folks there to know that if the drought persists, his services are still available.
“I just want to keep the consciousness going,” he said.
Like water witchers and faith healers, rainmakers have their skeptics. But when drought perists, desperate and expensive measures are sometimes called for.
So the call goes out to the rainmaker.
“We sometimes need to reach out in some way we’ve never reached out before,” Ryan said.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net