"Dalmas,.John.-.Lion.Of.Farside.2.-.Bavarian.Gate.v1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dalmas John)

parents, this return of a youngest son, who'd left with his bride, bought a farm
in Illinois, then abruptly dropped out of sight, never writing for three years.
"Curtis!" Charley said, and reached out a hard-callused hand. "Good God! It's so
good to see you again, son!" Then, startling Curtis, his father hugged him, hard
arms clasping him against a hard chest. Perhaps, Curtis thought, he didn't want
him to see the moisture in his eyes.
For a while they stood talking in the chill late-April breeze, his father as
careful in his questioning as his mother had been. Like Edna, Charley feared the
answers; most questions could wait till they'd got used to each other again.
Curtis was welcome to stay as long as he'd like, Charley told him, but there
wouldn't be much money in it. "Especially not while I'm paying a hand," he said,
adding ruefully: "Not that I pay Ferris much; not what he's worth. He's been
with us three years now, and it wouldn't be right to just cut him loose all of a
sudden."
He looked questioningly at his son. "You are going to stay, aren't you? This
place can be yours when I can't keep up with it anymore. Maybe sooner, if you
want."
Initially Curtis had planned to stay, farm with his father, but the closer he'd
gotten to home, the less real it had seemed. After where he'd been, and the life
he'd lived there, it likely wouldn't work out. If nothing else, there'd be too
many questions without answers-and sooner or later the question of age. Best to
start new, someplace where he wasn't known.
"I'll stay till the spring work is done," he replied. "Harvest at the latest.
Then I'll need to move on."
Charley nodded, looking at the ground, then brightened a little. "A few weeks
ago, some folks stopped by and asked after you," he said. "A woman and two men.
Moneyed folks; drove up in a big Packard. The woman did the talking. Seemed real
disappointed you weren't here; thought you might have come back. Said they had a
job for you. Didn't say what."
He paused, noting his son's frown. "She called herself Louise," he went on. "Kin
to Varia, all three of them; I'd bet on it. Same eyes, same build. Hair not so
red though. You know them?"
Louise? Not hardly, Curtis thought. No Christian name like that. Idri maybe,
with her long, unforgiving memory. "I'm not sure," he answered. "Varia had lots
of kin, but I never knew a Louise. Most that I did know, I didn't greatly care
for."
Both of his parents needed to hear something that made sense to them, which
meant lying. He'd foreseen the problem and knew what he had to say, but didn't
like it.
He'd been out of the country, he told them at supper. Varia's family was
foreigners; he didn't say where from. She'd gone back to the old country with
them; they'd insisted. He'd followed, had farmed there and even done some
soldiering. Then Varia had drowned, he went on, had fallen through the ice on
horseback, and the current had carried her beneath it. He'd recovered her body
at a rapids downstream.
He lied, of course-wrong wife-but Charley and Edna believed him. They felt bad
about it, but at least he hadn't abandoned her.
As the weeks passed, Curtis became more comfortable with the idea of leaving.
Ferris Gibbs, the hired man, was a good hand-a self-starter who noticed things
and knew what to do about them. He'd had a farm of his own, but lost it to the