"Frank Herbert - The Featherbedders" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

peasant with a narrow, searching gaze. Sheriff, he'd said. Was it going to be this easy? Smeg
wondered how to capitalize on that opening. Sheriff. Here was an element of the mystery
they'd come to investigate.
As the silence drew out, the man said: 'Got 'er all clean. You can get out and look for
yourself.'
'I'm sure you did, Mr ... ahhh ... '
'Painter, Josh'a Painter. Most folks call me Josh on account of my first name there, Josh'a
Painter.'
'Pleased to meet you, Mr Painter. My name's Smeg, Henry Smeg.'
'Smeg,' Painter said with a musing tone. 'Don't rightly believe I ever heard that name
before.'
'It used to be much longer,' Smeg said. 'Hungarian.'
'Oh.'
'I'm curious, Mr Painter, why you'd be afraid I might tell the sheriff because the wind blew a
little tobacco juice on my car?'
'Never can tell how some folks'll take things,' Painter said. He looked from one end of
Smeg's car to the other, back to Smeg. 'You a gov'ment man, this car an' all, reckoned I'd
best be sure, one sensible man to another.'
'You've been having trouble with the government around here, is that it?'
'Don't take kindly to most gov'ment men hereabouts, we don't. But the sheriff, he don't
allow us to do anything about that. Sheriff is a mean man, a certain mean man sometimes,
and he's got my Barton.'
'Your barton,' Smeg said, drawing back into the car to conceal his puzzlement. Barton? This
was an entirely new term. Strange that none of them had encountered it before. Their study
of languages and dialects had been most thorough. Smeg began to feel uneasy about his
entire conversation with this Painter. The conversation had never really been under control.
He wondered how much of it he'd actually understood. There was in Smeg a longing to
venture a mindcloud probe, to nudge the man's motives, make him want to explain.
'You one of them survey fellows like we been getting?' Painter asked.
'You might say that,' Smeg said. He straightened his shoulders. 'I'd like to walk around and
look at your town, Mr Painter. May I leave my car here?'
' 'Tain't in the way that I can see,' Painter said. He managed to appear both interested and
disinterested in Smeg's question. His glance flicked sideways, all around - at the car, the road,
at a house behind a privet hedge across the way.
'Fine,' Smeg said. He got out, slammed the door, reached into the back for the
flat-crowned western hat he affected in these parts. It tended to break down some barriers.
'You forgetting your papers?' Painter asked.
'Papers?' Smeg turned, looked at the man.
'Them papers full of questions you gov'ment people all us use.'
'Oh.' Smeg shook his head. 'We can forget about papers today.'
'You jes' going to wander around?' Painter asked.
 'That's right.'
'Well, some folks'll talk to you,' Painter said. 'Got all kinds of different folks here.' He turned
away, started to walk off.
'Please, just a minute,' Smeg said.
Painter stopped as though he'd run into a barrier, spoke without turning. 'You want
something?'
'Where're you going, Mr Painter?'
'Jes' down the road a piece.'
'I'd ... ahhh, hoped you might guide me,' Smeg said. 'That is if you haven't anything better