"David Drake - Old Nathan (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

his broad shoulders a bulk of muscle that the older man could never have matched at the height of his
physical powers long decades before.

Ransden's long hair was bright blond, the sole legacy he had received from the father who had beaten
the boy and the boy's mother indiscriminately . . . until the night the eleven-year-old Cullen proved that
fury and an axe handle made him a better man than his father. The elder Ransden had bolted into the
night, streaming blood and supplications, never to be seen since in the county.

Cullen Ransden had now spent a decade reinforcing the lesson he had taught himself that night: that his
will and his strength would gain him aught in the world that he wanted. All the county knew him as Bully,
but no one as yet had shown that wisdom of his to be false.

"Oh, I know the humbug what skins fools worse'n a Yankee peddler," Ransden said in mock agreement.

He took a step forward and Old Nathan stepped also, halving the distance between them to little more
than the reach of a fist. It was a dangerous choice, putting his back to the horns of Spanish King. If he
did not step forward, however, it would look as though he were trying to shelter in the bull's strengthтАФa
challenge that Ransden would likely meet with a blow of his ox-driving whip to King's nose.

Besides, Old Nathan was as little willing to crouch away from trouble as the bull was, or Bully Ransden.

"Well, where's the water, then?" King grumbled as he sidled to the hitching post before Ransden's door
and began rubbing his black hide on it.

"I'd thank'ee fer a bucket uv water, as the day's a hot'un," said the cunning man. His shirt of homespun
wool, gray where it was dry, was black with sweat in the middle of the back and beneath his armpits. As
he stood, he lifted his hat and fanned himself with it, smelling nervousness and anger in his own
perspiration.

"Cull, whatтАФ" called a clear voice.

As both men turned to look over the back of Spanish King, a woman appeared at the open door of the
cabin. She wore a gingham dress over a shift, and the body beneath was so youthfully taut that it had
shape despite the loose garments. Her hair was black and might have fallen to her ankles had it not been
caught up with pins and combs. Amazingly, it was clean and shone like strands of burnished metal when
the sunlight past the edge of the porch touched it.

"Well," she continued, "whatdo we hev?"

"We got the liar as says he'll plow Boardman's newground when I couldn't," said Bully Ransden. He
glanced back at the cunning man with the eye of a butcher for a hog squealing in the chute. "It's what he
does, milk old women and boys with no more balls 'n old women."

"Ransden, leave this be aforeтАФ" Old Nathan began, his mind white with the fear of the thing Bully was
about to say and what would come when he replied.

"Ye know, Ellie," Bully Ransden continued, still astraddle the center of the path, "his own balls, they wuz
shot off by the Redcoats at New Or-leens."