"Charles L. Grant - Raven" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Charles L)

"Rusty?"
He laughed. "Do you always ask questions?"
"Me?"
He laughed again.
Her thumb tucked some hair behind her right ear. "So who's Rusty? A mountain lion or something?"
"No, not quite." And he could only watch as she gently freed the ashtray from his hands and pushed it away,
patted his wrist to tell him it was all right, don't worry, she wasn't going to bite.
For the second time that night he felt like a jerk.
"Rusty," she prompted.
"She's a squirrel."
A laugh brief and friendly.
"No kidding." He crossed his heart and explained how, soon after he had bought this place, a squirrel with a rust
belly and matching scrawny tail had come up to him while he'd been sitting on the steps, wondering what in god's
name he'd gotten himself into. By the five little ones trail-ing skittishly behind, chattering loudly, tumbling over each
other in explosions of playtime, he assumed it was a she. Impressed by her boldness, he fed her peanuts and grapes
and a few acorns he had picked up around the cabins. She was back the next day. And the day after that. Every year
for six years, every morning and every sunset, she and her latest brood came to feed, to play, and to listen to his
problems. Along the way, he also managed to pick up a pair of overweight raccoons, a family of skunks, some solitary
deer, and, last year, a black bear that had sent him wheeling and gasping inside, out of breath and terrified until the
bear found the garbage cans, found them dull, and waddled off.
"A bear?" Her eyes widened, but only slightly. "In New Jersey?" She laid a hand on his arm and examined his face,
searching for the gag. "You're not kidding, are you. I'll be. A bear." A look back to the creek. He couldn't help the
temptation to trace a finger down her spine, pulled his hand away just in time, and swiveled around to face the room,
to catch his breath, to wonder where his mind was, reacting like that. A customer. A woman. "There's some-one out
there."
He blinked as she slipped off the stool and tapped his side.
"Someone's out there," she said again.
Brandt bellowed laughter, not much louder than Davies.
Ken held Trish's hand, but she wasn't paying attention. "Is the raven back?" she asked excitedly as they passed.
Neil shook his head.
Mandy pointed, tapping the window. "Back there."
The trees bordering the far side of the creek were closely spaced, birch and pine, oak and hickory, the gaps filled
with shadow that swallowed the woods only a few yards beyond, hid the hill that turned invisible every night. It was
snowing. Small, hard flakes that had already begun to shade the grass, but not rapidly enough to be alarming.
No wind.
They fell straight, dodging now and then on their way to the ground.
"It's pretty," Trish said.
"By that one there with the white bark," Mandy told him, touching the window again, "Next to that big rock in the
water, see it? See over there?"
He nodded.
There was no one there.
Unless, he thought suddenly, it was one of the Holgates out for mischief.
Alerted, he watched carefully, not looking directly at the places he wanted to check; to do that would invite seeing
things that didn't exist, especially with the light so artificial, especially in the snow.
"What did he look like?"
"Who?" Davies asked. "A prowler? Peeping Tom?"
"Keep it down, Hugh," Ceil scolded without bite.
Mandy settled an arm across her stomach. "I didn't see him, not that clearly. He could have been Jack the Ripper for
all I know."
One of the bulbs in the trees snapped out. Another.