"Chalker, Jack L - DG1 - The River of the Dancing Gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

you to skid, jackknife, then fall over into a gully. The over-
turning will break your neck."

He froze, an icy chill going through him. "How did you
know my name was Joe?" His hand went back to the .38.

"Oh, it's my business to know these things," the strange
man told him. "Recruiting is such a problem with many people,
and I must be very limited and very selective for complicated
reasons."

Suddenly all of his mother's old legends about conjure men
and the demons of death came back from his childhood, where
they'd been buried for perhaps forty'years -- and the childhood
fears that went with them returned as well, although he hated
himself for it. "Just who -- or what -- are you?"

"Ruddygore. Or a thousand other names, none of which
you'd recognize, Joe. I'm no superstition and I'm no angel of
death, any more than that truck radio of yours is a human
mouth. I'm not causing your death. It is preordained. It can
not be changed. I only know about it -- found out about it, you
might say -- and am taking advantage of that knowledge. That's
the hard pan, Joe. Finding out. It costs me greatly every time
I try and might just kill me someday. Compared with that,
diverting you here to me was child's play." He looked up at

16 THE RIVER Of DANCING GODS

the woman, who was still in the cab, straining to hear. "Shall
we let the lady join us?"

"Even if I buy what you're saying -- which I don't," Joe
responded, "how does she fit in? Is she going to die, too?"

The big man shrugged. "I haven't the slightest idea. Cer-
tainly she'll be in the accident, unless you throw her out ahead
of time. I expected you to be alone, frankly."

Joe pulled the pistol out and pointed it at Ruddy gore. "All
right. Enough of this. I think maybe you'll tell me what this
all is, really, or I'll put a hole in you. You're pretty hard to
miss, you know."

Ruddy gore looked pained. "I'll thank you to keep my weight
out of this. As for what's going on -- I've just told you."

"You've told me nothing! Let's say what you say is for real,
just for the sake of argument. You say I'm not dead yet, and
you're no conjure spirit, so you pulled me off the main line of