"Hemingway, Ernest - Green Hills of Africa" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hemingway Ernest)

'He coughed once and went away,' I said. 'Hello, girl.'
She smiled. She was worried too. The two of them had been listening
since daylight for a shot. Listening all the time, even when our guest had
arrived; listening while writing letters, listening while reading, listening
when Kandisky came back and talked.
'You did not shoot him?'
'No. Nor see him.' I saw that Pop was worried too, and a little
nervous. There had evidently been considerable talking going on.
'Have a beer, Colonel,' he said to me.
'We spooked one,' I reported. 'No chance of a shot. There were plenty
of tracks. Nothing more came. The wind was blowing around. Ask the boys
about it.'
'As I was telling Colonel Phillips,' Kandisky began, shifting his
leather-breeched behind and crossing one heavy-calved, well-haired, bare leg
over the other, 'you must not stay here too long. You must realize the rains
are coming. There is one stretch of twelve miles beyond here you can never
get through if it rains. It is impossible.'
'So he's been telling me,' Pop said. 'I'm a Mister, by the way. We use
these military titles as nicknames. No offence if you're a colonel
yourself.' Then to me, 'Damn these salt-licks. If you'd leave them. alone
you'd get one.'
'They ball it all up,' I agreed. 'You're so sure of a shot sooner or
later on the lick.'
'Hunt the hills too.'
Til hunt them, Pop.'
'What is killing a kudu, anyway?' Kandisky asked. 'You should not take
it so seriously. It is nothing. In a year you kill twenty.'
'Best not say anything about that to the game department, though,' Pop
said.
'You misunderstand,' Kandisky said. 'I mean in a year a man could. Of
course no man would wish to.'
'Absolutely,' Pop said. 'If he lived in kudu country, he could. They're
the commonest big antelope in this bush country. It's just that when you
want to see them you don't.'
'I kill nothing, you understand,' Kandisky told us. 'Why are you not
more interested in the natives?'
'We are,' my wife assured him.
'They are really interesting. Listen...' Kandisky said, and he spoke on
to her.
'The hell of it is,' I said to Pop, 'when I'm in the hills I'm sure the
bastards are down there on the salt. The cows are in the hills but I don't
believe the bulls are with them now. Then you get there in the evening and
there are the tracks. They {have} been on the lousy salt. I think they come
any time.'
'Probably they do.'
'I'm sure we get different bulls there. They probably only come to the
salt every couple of days. Some are certainly spooked because Karl shot that
one. If he'd only killed it clean instead of following it through the whole
damn countryside. Christ, if he'd only kill any damn thing clean. Other new
ones will come in. All we have to do is to wait them out, though. Of course