"Frank Herbert - Soul Catcher" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

the thing at its beginning. You will hear the wilderness without names. You will feel colors
and shapes and the temper of this world. You will see the tyranny. It will fill you with awe
and fear.'
Gently, David tried to pull away from the restraining hand, to put distance between
himself and these terrifying words of almost-meaning. Indians should not speak this way!
But the hand shifted down to his left arm, held it painfully.
No longer trying to conceal his fear, David said: 'You're hurting me!'
The pressure eased, but not enough to release him.
Katsuk said: 'We have shared names. You will stay.'
David held himself motionless. Confusion filled his mind. He felt that he had been kicked,
injured in a way that locked all his muscles. Katsuk released his arm. Still David remained
fixed in that position.
Fighting dryness in his mouth, David said: 'You're trying to scare me. That's it, isn't it?
That's the initiation. The other guys are out there waiting to laugh.'
Katsuk ignored the words. He felt the spirit power grow and grow. 'I am Tamanawis
speaking to you ... ' With slow, deliberate movements, he took an elkhide thong from his
pouch, whipped it over the boy's shoulders, bound his arms tightly to his body.
David began twisting, struggling to escape. 'Hey! Stop that! You're hurting me!'
Katsuk grabbed the twisting hands, pinioned the wrists in a loop of the thong.
David struggled with the strength of terror, but the hands tying him could not be resisted.
The thong bit painfully into his flesh.
'Please stop it,' David pleaded. 'What're you doing?'
'Shut up, Hoquat!'
This was a new and savage voice, as powerful as the hands which held him.
Chest heaving, David fell silent. He was wet with perspiration and the moment he stopped
struggling, the wind chilled him. He felt his captor remove the knife and sheath, working the
belt out with harsh, jerking motions, then reclasping the belt without putting it into its loops.
Katsuk bent close to the boy, face demoniac in the moonlight. His voice was a blare of
passion: 'Hoquat! Do what I tell you to do, or I will kill you immediately.' He brandished
David's knife.
David nodded without control of the motion, unable to speak. A tide of bitter acid came
into his throat. He continued to nod until Katsuk shook him.
'Hoquat, do you understand me?'
He could barely manage the word: 'Yes.'
And David thought: I'm being kidnapped! It was all a trick.
AH the horror stories he'd heard about murdered kidnap victims flooded into his mind, set
his body jerking with terror. He felt betrayed, shamed at his own stupidity for falling into
such a trap.
Katsuk produced another thong, passed it beneath David's arms, around his chest,
knotted it, and took the free end in one hand. He said: 'We have a long way to go before
daylight. Follow me swiftly or I will bury your body beside the trail and go on alone.'
Turning, Katsuk jerked the rope, headed at a trot toward the dark wall of trees across the
bracken clearing.
David, the stench of his own fear in his nostrils, stumbled into motion to keep from being
pulled off his feet.
Statement of Bruce Clark, chief counselor at Six Rivers Camp:
Well, the first night we make the boys write a letter home. We don't give them any dinner
until they've written. We hand them paper and pencil there in the rec room and we tell them
they have to write the letter before they can eat. They get their meal cards when they hand
in the letter. The Marshall boy, I remember him well. He was on the six-o'clock news and