"John Dalmas - The Second Coming" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dalmas John)

kinds. Hippies! Tents enough for a hundred people or more, even now at the
beginning of October, with cold weather coming. Here and there were structures she
assumed were sanitation facilitiesтАФlatrines perhaps, and bathhouses. On a nearby
knoll stood a large water tank.


And a barbed wire fence, with a sign reading children at play, speed limit 15. Bar
Stool had slowed way down. A uniformed entry guard waved them through a gate
without stopping them. Why barbed wire? Lee wondered. And the guard wore a
pistol! Good God!


The truck tires had thrummed momentarily as they passed through, a sound they'd
heard several times since leaving Henrys Hat.
"Mr. Bar Stool, what was that sound?" Raquel asked.


"That was a cattle guard, honey. Made out of railroad rails. Cows won't cross them;
afraid they'd get their feet caught. Which they would. It's all range land around here.
Pasture. That's why the place is fenced: to keep the cattle out."


The adults Lee saw in the camp stood or squatted or sat in openings among the tents.
Children ran and played. They should, she told herself, be in school somewhere.


Then the camp was behind them. Bar Stool's mundane comments had relieved and
emboldened Lee. "I noticed the guard had a gun," she said.


"Yep. There's been murder threats. On Dove. Ngunda."


She supposed there had been. Another worry. There were crazies running around.


A knoll ahead had a watchtower on top, like those at prisons. The road curled around
it, and a mile or so ahead she could seeтАФnot exactly a town, but with a lot more
buildings than Henrys Hat, if with less character. As they neared it, she began to see
details. The central and largest building was long and three-storied, of dark brick. An
office building, she decided, its ridged tile roof bright red in the autumn sunlight.
Near it on one side were several long, two-story frame buildings suggesting small
motels or dormitories. Their siding appeared to be one of the new synthetics, cream
colored. Their roofs were bright red, green, or blue. The rest, fifty or more, seemed to
be small ranch-style homes. They looked much alike, but again with red, green, or
blue roofs. Their sidings were various pastels or white. Everything was landscaped,
the trees small. Two or three hundred yards beyond the "village" were several large
machine sheds.