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

Devil's masterтАФthat, too, was a matter for fear and whispering.

Even as Nathan stepped to the door, he heard the clop of shod hooves carefully negotiating his trail. The
cat hadn't mentioned the visitor was mounted; but the cat made nothing of the difference between
someone on foot who hoped to barter for knowledge, and a horseman in whose purse might jingle silver.

Spanish King smelled the visitors and snorted in the pasture behind Old Nathan's cabin. A man or a dog
was beneath the notice of the huge bull, save on those days when the motion of even a sparrow was
sufficient to draw his fury. A horse, though, was of a size to be considered a potential challenger. King
wasn't afraid of challenge, or of anything walking the earth. The blat of sound from his nostrils simply
staked his claim to lordship over all who heard him.

The horse, a well-groomed bay gelding, stutter-stepped sideways, almost unseating his rider, and
whickered, "No, I'm not goin' close to that. D'ye hear how mean he is?"

"Damn ye, Virgil!" shouted the rider as he hauled on the reins. The gelding's head came around, but his
body continued to slide away from the cabin.

"Now jist calm down!" Nathan snapped as he stepped onto the porch. "That bull, he's fenced, and he
wouldn't trifle with you noways if he got a look. Set quiet and I might could find a handful uv oats t' feed
you."

"Hmph!" snorted the horse. "And what'dyou know?" But he settled enough to let his rider dismount and
loop the reins around the hitching rail pegged to the porch supports.

"I find speakin' with 'em helps the beasts behave, sometimes," said Old Nathan, truthfully enough, to the
man who watched him in some puzzlement and more pure fear. He didn't know the fellow, not truly, but
from his store-bought clothes and the lines of his smooth-shaven face he had to be kin to Newt
Boardman. "Reckon you're a Boardman?" the cunning man prompted.

"There's a cat here, too," said the shaggy, blond-haired dog who had ambled out of the woods to
intersect with the more deliberate horse at the porch rail. The dog sniffed the edge of the puncheon step
to the porch and wagged her tail.

"I'm John Boardman, that's a fact," said the visitor with a hardening of his face muscles that made him
look even younger. "But I'm here on my own account, not my daddy's."

Old Nathan knelt and held out the clenched knuckles of his right hand for the dog to sniff. "You leave the
cat alone and we'll be fine, hear me?" he said to the bitch firmly.

"Sure, they're not the fun uv squirrels t' chase nohow," the dog agreed.

The old man stared at the visitor. Boardman's ramrod stiffness gilded the fear it tried to conceal.

"Scared to death, that one," said the dog and licked the offered knuckles.