"Gardner Dozois - Flash Point" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dozois Gardner)

"You know what I was nuts about when I was a kid?" Jacobs suddenly observed to Wilbur Phipps.
"Rafts. I was a'ways making rafts out of old planks and sheet tin and whatevah other junk I could
scrounge up, begging old rope and nails to lash them together with. Then I'd break my ass dragging them
down to the Kennebec. And you know what? They a'ways sunk. Every goddamned time."
 "Ayah?" Wilbur Phipps said.

Jacobs pushed the bowl of viscid chili away, and got up. Restlessly, he wandered over to where
Dave Lucas, the game warden, was drinking beer and talking to a circle of men "тАж dogs will be the end
of deer in these pa'ts, I swear to God. And I a'n't talking about wild dogs neither, I'm talking about your
ordinary domestic pets. A'n't it so, every winter? Half-starved deer a'n't got a chance in hell 'gainst
somebody's big pet hound, all fed-up and rested. The deer those dogs don't kill outright, why they chase
'em to death, and then they don't even eat 'em. Run 'em out of the forest covah into the open and they get
pneumonia. Run 'em into the river and through thin ice and they get drowned. Remember last yeah, the
deer that big hound drove out onto the ice? Broke both its front legs and I had to go out and shoot the
poor bastid. Between those goddamn dogs and all the nighthunters we got around here lately, we a'n't
going to have any deer left in this county тАж" Jacobs moved away, past a table where Abner Jackman
was pouring ketchup over a plateful of scrambled eggs, and arguing about Communism with Steve
Girard, a volunteer fireman and Elk, and Allen Ewing, a postman, who had a son serving with the
Marines in Bolivia. "тАж let 'em win theah," Jackman was saying in a nasal voice, "and they'll be swa'ming
all over us eventu'ly, sure as shit. Ain' no way to stop 'em then. And you're better off blowing your brains
out than living under the Reds, don't ever think otherwise." He screwed the ketchup top back onto the
bottle, and glanced up in time to see Jacobs start to go by.

"Ben!" Jackman said, grabbing Jacobs by the elbow. "You can tell 'em." He grinned vacuously at
JacobsтАФa lanky, loose-jointed, slack-faced man. "He can tell you, boys, what it's like being in a country
overrun with Communists, what they do to everybody. You were in 'Nam when you were a youngster,
weren't you?"

"Yeah."

After a pause, Jackman said, "You ain' got no call to take offense, Ben." His voice became a whine.
"I didn't mean no ha'm. I didn't mean nothing."

"Forget it," Jacobs said, and walked out.

Dave Lucas caught up with Jacobs just outside the door. He was a short, grizzled man with iron-gray
hair, about seven years older than Jacobs. "You know, Ben," Lucas said, "the thing of it is, Abner really
doesn't mean any ha'm." Lucas smiled bleakly; his grandson had been killed last year, in the Retreat from
La Paz. "It's just that he a'n't too bright, is all."

"They don't want him kicked ev'ry so often," Jacobs said, "then they shouldn't let him out of his
kennel at all." He grinned. "Dinner tonight? About eight?"

"Sounds fine," Lucas said. "We're going to catch a nighthunter, out near Oaks Pond, so I'll probably
be late."

"We'll keep it wa'm for you."

"Just the comp'ny'll be enough."