"Carol Emshwiller - Water Master" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emshwiller Carol)

I think he's saying he's all right but I can only guess since he's not that close anymore.

The man is staring at the Water Master. You can see the rage on his face. He's yelling, and for sure it's
cursing though we can't hear. He pulls one of the pistols from its holster, cocks it, aims it right at us.
Shoots one shot. We hear it ping as it ricochets against the rocks.

Amos Acularius walks right straight to him. Grabs him, gun and all. They tussle. Amos is clearly stronger.
It only takes a minute before Amos turns him around and bends his arm up behind him and walks him
towards the river bank. The bank is in a different place now. Already the lake is even lower and yet the
torrent below, where the dam used to be is much higher and much more vicious. I've never seen anything
like the way the water rushes down now.

Amos walks him to the new edge and throws him off. I see a brown hat fly away and I catch a glimpse of
feet in boots. Then, in less than half a minute, the man is long gone.

Amos Acularius stands on the broken edge watching the water rush down. I come up beside him. He
leans close, his hand on my shoulder. Is he going to kiss me? I'm not sure if I should pull back or lean
forward, but he just wants to speak into my ear so I'll hear above the sound of the water. I feel his breath
on my cheek.

"He won't die," he says. Shouts.

"How can he not?"

"The river won't let him. The river will save him. Throw him from pool to pool and never pound him into
the rocks. He'll end up looking like me that's all."

He takes his hand from my shoulder. He walks up to the weapons, picks up the rifle and throws it in the
river, then throws the man's and his own pistols in, too. He takes off his fringy jacket and throws it in.
"This goes with the job," he says. It belongs to the river.

He takes my arm and leads me, just as he did before, into his shack and shuts the door against the roar
of water. "I'm free," he says, and begins packing up his things, bunching them in to a muddy duffel, clean
and dirty lumped in together.

I plunk myself on the wobbly chair. I look down at the rips and scrapes all over my pants.

"This happens after every major drought. There's a new Water Master every time. Takes about twenty
тАж thirty years. He'll be it now. That's how you get to be Water Master. I'm free."

Then he notices I have my arms around myself again and I'm shaking more than when he first handed me
tea. That seems like a long time ago. He stops packing and gets me tea again. Sits beside me on his table
as he did before.

"I don't mind being Water Master, though you can never really master water (you think you can, but you
can't) but I don't care that much for the townspeople. They hate you for spoiling their townтАФlike it's
being spoiled right now, as we sit here. They'll hate him. They never learn it's not his fault, wasn't mine
either. I'm glad to be rid of them."

He reaches as if to touch my shoulder, but doesn't quite. As if he wants to caress but doesn't dare. "But