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

to do?'
Painter turned, stared at him. 'Guide? In Wadeville?' He looked around him, back to Smeg. A
tiny smile tugged at his mouth.
'Well, where do I find your sheriff, for instance?' Smeg asked.
The smile disappeared. 'Why'd you want him?'
'Sheriffs usually know a great deal about an area.'
'You sure you actual' want to see him?'
'Sure. Where's his office?'
'Well now, Mr Smeg ... ' Painter hesitated, then: 'His office is just around the corner here,
next the bank.'
'Would you show me?' Smeg moved forward, his feet kicking up dust puddles in the street.
'Which corner? '
This'n right here.' Painter pointed to a field stone building at his left. A weed-grown lane
'


led off past it. The corner of a wooden porch jutted from the stone building into the lane.


Smeg walked past Painter, peered down the lane. Tufts of grass grew in the middle and
along both sides, green runners stretching all through the area. Smeg doubted that a wheeled
vehicle had been down this way in two years - possibly longer.
A row of objects on the porch caught his attention. He moved closer, studied them, turned
back to Painter.
'What're all those bags and packages on that porch?'
'Them?' Painter came up beside Smeg, stood a moment, lips pursed, eyes focused beyond
the porch.
'Well, what are they?' Smeg pressed.
'This here's the bank.' Painter said. 'Them's night deposits.'
Smeg turned back to the porch. Night deposits? Paper bags and fabric sacks left out in the
open?
'People leaves 'em here if'n the bank ain't open,' Painter said. 'Bank's a little late opening
today. Sheriff had 'em in looking at the books last night.'
Sheriff examining the bank's books? Smeg wondered. He hoped Rick was missing none of
this and could repeat it accurately ... just in case. The situation here appeared far more
mysterious than the reports had indicated. Smeg didn't like the feeling of this place at all.
'Makes it convenient for people who got to get up early and them that collects their money
at night,' Painter explained.
'They just leave it right put in the open?' Smeg asked.
'Yep. 'Night deposit' it's called. People don't have to come around when -'
 'I know what it's called! But ... right out in the open like that ... without a guard?'
'Bank don't open till ten thirty most days,' Painter said. 'Even later when the sheriff's had
'em in at night.'
'There's a guard,' Smeg said. 'That's it, isn't it?'
'Guard? What we need a guard fer? Sheriff says leave them things alone, they gets left
alone.'
The sheriff again, Smeg thought. 'Who ... ahh, deposits money like this?' he asked.
'Like I said: the people who got to get up early and ... '
'But who are these people?'
'Oh. Well, my cousin Reb: He has the gas station down to the forks. Mr Seelway at the