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

"I have business with ye," Boardman said, setting his cup on the table so sharply that the fluid sloshed
over the rim. "You may hev heard I'm fixin' to be married?"

"I may and I may not," said Old Nathan, rocking slowly. He wasn't as much a part of the casual gossip
of the community as most of those settled hereabouts, but when folk came to consult him he heard things
from their hearts which a spouse of forty years would never learn. He recalled being told that Sally Ann
Hewitt, the storekeeper's daughter from Advance, was being courted by rich Newt Boardman's boy
among others. "Say on, say on."

"Sally Ann wouldn't have a piece from my daddy's cleared land," said the boy, confirming the name of
the girlтАФand also confirming the intelligence and strength of character Old Nathan had heard ascribed to
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Hewitt's daughter. "So I set out to clear newground, the forty acres in Big Bone Valley, and I did that."

"Hired that done," said Old Nathan, rocking and sipping and scratching the dog.

"Hired Bully Ransden and his yoke uv oxen to help me," retorted Boardman, "fer ten good silver
dollarsтАФand where's the sin uv thet?"

"Honest pay fer honest work," agreed Old Nathan, turning his hand to knuckle the dog's fur. Ridges of
callus bulged at the base of each finger and in the web of his palm. "No sin at all."

"So I fixed to plant a crop afore raisin' the cabin, and in the Fall we'd be wed," the boy continued. "Only
my horses, they wouldn't plow. Stood in the traces and shivered, thin they'd bolt."

Boardman tried a sip of his coffee and grimaced unconsciously.

"There's milk," his host offered with a nod toward the pitcher on the table beside the bowl of mush. "If
ye need sweetnin', I might could find a comb uv honey."

"This here's fine," the boy lied and swallowed a mouthful of the coffee. He blinked. "Well," he continued,
"I hired Bully Ransden t' break the ground, seein's he'd cleared it off. But his oxen, they didn't plow but
half a furrow without they wouldn't move neither, lash'em though he did. So he told me he wouldn't draw
the plow himself, and best I get another plot uv ground, for what his team wouldn't do there was no other
on this earth thet could."

"Did he say thet, now?" said the cunning man softly. "Well, go on, boy. Hev you done thet? Bought
another track uv land?"

"Sally Ann told me," said Boardman miserably to his coffee cup, "thet if I wasn't man enough to plow
thet forty acres, I wasn't man enough t' marry her. And so I thought I'd come see you, old man, that
mayhap there was a curse on the track as you could lift."

Old Nathan said nothing for so long that his visitor finally raised his eyes to see if the cunning man were
even listening. Old Nathan wore neither a smile nor a frown, but there was nothing in his sharp green eyes
to suggest that he was less than fully alert.