"CHARLES COLEMAN FINLEY - A democracy of trolls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Finley Charles Coleman)

CHARLES COLEMAN FINLEY

A DEMOCRACY OF TROLLS

"LET GO."
Windy tugged her shoulder free from Ragweed's grip, cradling the baby protectively between her milk-heavy breasts and the wall of the cave. "No."
"We took a vote and voted you should put the baby down."
"Mosswater is dead, so his vote doesn't count."
"That's true. Mosswater is dead," Ragweed said flatly, remarkably unmoved by his brother's demise. He ground his jaw so hard the big flat teeth in back squeaked.
The sound annoyed Windy. She turned to snap at him and saw his face darken with a new idea.
"But the baby's dead too!" he said triumphantly. "That's why you should let go of it."
"Let's have another vote."
Ragweed smiled, showing off his gray, cracked teeth. "That's a idea. All those in favor of you putting down the dead baby?" He raised his hand. "And those against?"
Windy raised hers. "It's a tie. So I can do what I want."
"Hey! Wait a moment--"
Before he could protest, she stood up and leaned forward on one long-armed knuckled hand. The Sun had just sunk low enough so they could go outside again. She left the overhung ledge of the cave, pressing past the tree and through the overgrown shrubs. Leaves wet from a night and day of rain brushed against her, and water ran in little rivulets down her back, filling the cracks in her skin. She lifted her head into the branches to inhale the sharp clean scent of the pine needles. Droplets rolled over the hard angles of her cheeks in place of the tears she refused to cry.
Windy walked to her favorite open spot on the slope in the long shadow of the mountain's sheltering spur. From there she peered over the pines into the meadow below, and, surrounded by shade, watched the last light flow out of the valley. Uncheered by the dying Sun, she rocked the baby in the crook of her massive arm.
She glanced up to the mouth of the cave. Ragweed dug in the dirt with his big knobby fingers, then shoved his hands into his mouth. The soil was rich in spots where leaves and needles piled deep enough to decay and the rain sent worms swimming toward the surface. That had to be what Ragweed ate. Windy stirred the compost with fingerlike toes and a fat red wriggly worm squirmed out. She left it alone. She had no appetite.
Ragweed turned his head in her direction, wrinkled his nose, and snorted. "It's already starting to stink!"
She smelled it too. Her nose was sensitive to the scent of dead things, a main part of her diet. She knew her baby was starting to rot even though it had been dead less than a day. "I like the way she smells! And I'm not putting her down!"
Ragweed shrugged, then resumed his digging.
Windy stared at the little forlorn creature limp in her arms. She had been such a lively baby, so adventuresome, afraid of nothing. Hardly feared daylight at all. She used to crawl away at the first hint of darkness. So last night, when the rain poured down, and she crawled out of their crowded crack of rock, Windy listened to her laugh and took the chance to rub butt with Ragweed. She was just getting excited herself when she heard the bigtooth lion's roar and ran out to rescue her daughter.
She chased the bigtooth off at once, but by the time she reached her little girl it was too late. Her daughter's skull was crushed, all soft, pulpy, and misshapen. Like a rotten pumpkin. Windy had eaten pumpkins once, near one of the villages of the black-haired people. But now, thinking of her baby, she'd never eat pumpkins again, no matter how tasty they were.
She felt like she'd never do anything again.
The last finger of light lingered on the green face of the meadow. Ragweed strolled over and sat down beside her. He noticed the worm twisting in the leaves, picked it up, and offered it to her. She stuck out her tongue to show she wasn't hungry, to say no. He popped the worm in his mouth, chewed once, and swallowed.
"It's almost dark," he said. "We should go down to that turtle shell --" that was what he called the cave that people built themselves to live in "-- and see if Snapper's still there."
"Why?"
Ragweed shrugged. "Might be something to eat."
"Those animals might try to kill us, the way they killed Mosswater last night when he went to warn them about the lion."
Ragweed scratched his head, then probed one of his nostrils with a carrot-sized forefinger. Stirring up his brains in search of an idea, she guessed.
"We could try to scare them away," he offered.
She had guessed right. "We've been trying to scare them away for months," she reminded him.
"That's true," he said slowly. "They're probably pretty scared by now."
He didn't seem to notice her answering silence. She sagged on her haunches and studied him thoughtfully. Ragweed was the handsomest troll she'd ever seen -- he had a beautifully shaped head that sloped back to a nice point, a brow so thick you could hardly see his eyes beneath it, no neck to speak of, arms like the trunks of trees, and a belly as round and dark as the new Moon. Short, bristly hairs ran down between his shoulders and into the crack of his buttocks. Just looking at him used to send shivers up her spine and make her feel all juicy inside. She'd flirted with him, and he'd responded, and she was as happy as any troll could be until she became pregnant and realized that Ragweed was not the sharpest rock in the pile. He only looked smart compared to his brother, Mosswater. Of course, she couldn't be that much smarter. Before it was time for her baby to be born, she let Ragweed and Mosswater persuade her to come down out of the mountains to this stupid little valley.
Ragweed grunted. "When Mosswater and I came down here a couple years back, the turtle shell didn't have Snapper in it."
"Well, this year it did!" She'd heard the same statement a thousand times before and she was tired of it. But more than that, she wanted to blame Ragweed for Mosswater's death -- Mosswater was stupid but very kind, and used to bring sweet little slugs for her baby -- and she wanted to blame Ragweed for the baby's death too. She wanted to blame somebody, anybody, because if it was somebody else's fault, then it wasn't hers.
Ragweed rooted idly in the dirt. "I'm hungry."
Windy sighed. She'd heard that a thousand times as well. She stood up. Doing anything was better than doing nothing. "Come on. Let's go down to the turtle shell. Maybe they'll be scared off. Maybe we'll find something to eat."
He clapped his hands. The crack echoed off the mountain walls, scattering birds from the trees. "That's right!" he said. "All you need is some food, then you'll put that baby down."
They walked down the familiar slope. They'd varied the path some every night looking for new sources of food, but there were only so many ways to go. Ragweed turned over logs and broke off pieces of stumps, but they were the same logs and stumps he'd searched a dozen times before. They hadn't seen the carcass of so much as a dead sparrow in two weeks; it had been a month since they'd found that deer before the wild dogs got to it. Ragweed paused to snack on a nest of termites, then a bunch of grubs and crunchy hundred-leg bugs inside a stump. She waited for him to stuff his face. When they continued on their way, he grabbed the lower branches of trees and chewed the leaves off the ends. The rain moistened them up a bit so they didn't taste so chokingly dry. The scent enticed Windy, but not enough to make her eat.
They arrived at the wide meadow beside the pond and Ragweed waded into the water to slake his thirst. Windy's throat was terribly parched despite the drippings she'd licked off the cave roof, so she followed him, holding the baby out of the water as she bent down to take a drink.
Ragweed splashed over and rubbed his hands on her bottom.
"Thhppppt!" Water sprayed out of her mouth. "Stop that!"
"Nothing to interrupt us now," he leered.
She ignored him, bending to take another sip. He reached around and squeezed her breast.
"Yow!" Windy hopped away with a splash, bared her teeth, and smacked him with a backhanded swing.
"Hey!" he hollered. "What did I do?"
"That hurt." She turned away, sloshed out of the pond, and started her three-legged gait through the woods without him. Her breasts ached like a bad tooth. They'd been leaking all evening and she didn't know what to do. She guessed they'd dry up in a few days, but right now she'd rather step in fire than have him touch them.
Ragweed hurried to catch up. They crested the chestnut ridge where they'd sat most nights through the late spring and summer. Mosswater had been the only one brave -- or stupid -- enough to approach the turtle shell night after night. But he was that way. He did something one time and then got stuck doing it over and over even if it didn't work because he couldn't think of anything else.