"Daniel da Cruz - Texas Trilogy 01 - The Ayes of Texas" - читать интересную книгу автора (Da Cruz Daniel)

Creech had never seen. It was empty of expression, except for the pain registered when the
dressings on his stumps were changed. Forte reacted, when he reacted at all, as if he had been
heavily sedated and seemed only faintly aware of what was going on around him. He didn't smile,
let alone laugh, at the jokes on the Charlie McCarthy or Fred Allen or Jack Benny shows, which
convulsed the other radio listeners in the ward. He had no visitors, read no news-papers or
magazines, spoke to no one except in neces-sary reply to doctors' questions and the insistent
queries of his ward mates. They would ask him how he felt today, and he said fine. They said it's
beautiful weather this time of year, and he said that's fine. They said somebody had just
assassinated the president of Bolivia and raped his wife yesterday, and he said fine, fine. His eyes
were on the ceiling, but his thoughts were considerably further away. The silent young man
seemed to be awaiting only a decent excuse to die.
Otis Creech tried to cheer Forte up. He read the comics to him, and repeated the gossip he
picked up in his rounds of the wards. He stole ice cream and cookies from the kitchen and fed
them to the lad, who ate as if it were a duty. He reminisced on how it was in the Great War, and
goaded veterans of the re-cent conflict into argument within young Forte's ear-shot, in the
unrequited expectation that he might somehow get involved. In vain. Forte's response was always
the same-a nod to show he was listening, and a mur-mured "Thanks" for services bestowed.
Nobody, not even the outgoing Creech, could penetrate that wall of spare civilities. Creech kept
trying, with flagging reso-lution, because he felt it his Christian duty, but he recognized a death
wish when he saw it. Privately, he gave the boy three months, six at the outside.
"Too bad about that boy," Creech remarked to a friend several beds down the line one day, when
his reading of the news of the day had produced only a suppressed yawn from Gwillam Forte and,
a little later, the regular breathing of one fast asleep.
"Yeah," the other agreed. "He don't have much to live for."
"You got it wrong. What I mean is, it's too bad he don't realize he's got everything to live for. He's
one of the luckiest young men I ever met."
The other veteran laughed. "Ever tell him that?"
"Course not. Way he feels, he wouldn't be likely to agree, let alone understand why I think that
way. And that's too bad, because that there's one lucky white boy . . ."
A few days later, when most of the others were still in the dining room, Otis Creech was holding
down the steak on the plate with a fork while Gwillam Forte sawed at it with a knife held in his
good left hand. Suddenly Forte swung the knife up against Creech's neck, the point at the angle of
the jaw and Adam's apple, where the slightest pressure would sever the jugular vein. For the first
time since he had been wheeled into the ward, Forte's eyes glowed with life- and an insane
intensity.
"What do you know about luck, nigger?" he rasped.
Otis Creech swallowed. The knifepoint pricked the skin. A drop of blood appeared.
Gwillam Forte stared at it for a moment, then threw the knife across the ward. He slumped back
against the pillows.
"Oh, so you was awake?" Creech said, getting the breath back in his one good lung.
"I was awake. I'm always awake."
"I thought you was." Creech smiled gently.
"You-you what?"
"I thought you was awake." He wiped away the drop of blood with his thumb. He inspected it. "
'Bout time you woke up, too."
"What do you mean by that?"
"What I said. You're one lucky boy, and it's time you stopped feeling sorry for yourself and did
some-thing."
"Did something?" Forte's expression was a mixture of incredulity and outrage. "Like what? Fight
Joe Louis? Or play the piano, or walk a tightrope, maybe?" He sneered. "What do you think I can