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

General Store there. Some farmers with cash crops come back late from the city. Folks work
across the line at the mill in Anderson when they get paid late of a Friday. Folks like that.'
'They just ... leave their money out on this porch.'
'Why not?'
'Lord knows,' Smeg whispered.
'Sheriff says don't touch it, why - it don't get touched.'
Smeg looked around him, sensing the strangeness of this weed-grown street with its
wide-open night depository protected only by a sheriff's command. Who was this sheriff? What
was this sheriff?
'Doesn't seem like there'd be much money in Wadeville,' Smeg said. 'That gas station down
the main street out there looks abandoned, looks like a good wind would blow it over. Most of
the other buildings -'
'Station's closed,' Painter said. 'You need gas, just go out to the forks where my cousin,
Reb - '
'Station failed?' Smeg asked.
'Kind of.'
'Kind of?'
'Sheriff, he closed it.'
'Why?'
'Fire hazard. Sheriff, he got to reading the state Fire Ordinance one day. Next day he told
Jamison to dig up the gas tanks and cart 'em away. They was too old and rusty, not deep
enough in the ground and didn't have no concrete on 'em. 'Sides that, the building's too old,
wood all oily.'
'The sheriff ordered it ... just like that.' Smeg snapped his fingers.
'Yep. Said he had to tear down that station. Old Jamison sure was mad.'
'But if the sheriff says do it, then it gets done?' Smeg asked.
'Yep. Jamison's tearing it down - one board every day. Sheriff don't seem to pay it no mind
long as Jamison takes down that one board every day.'
Smeg shook his head. One board every day. What did that signify? Lack of a strong time
sense? He looked back at the night deposits on the porch, asked: 'How long have people been
depositing their money here this way?'
'Been since a week or so after the sheriff come.'
'And how long has that been?'
'Ohhhhh ... four, five years maybe.'
Smeg nodded to himself. His little group of Slorin had been on the planet slightly more than
five years. This could be ... this could be - He frowned. But what if it wasn't?
The dull plodding of footsteps sounded from the main street behind Smeg. He turned, saw a
tall fat man passing there. The man glanced curiously at Smeg, nodded to Painter.
'Mornin', Josh,' the fat man said. It was a rumbling voice.
'Morning', Jim,' Painter said.
The fat man skirted the Plymouth, hesitated to read the emblem on the car door, glanced
back at Painter, resumed his plodding course down the street and out of sight.
'That was Jim,' Painter said.
'Neighbor?'
'Yep. Been over to the Widow McNabry's again ... all the whole dang' night. Sheriff's going
to be mighty displeasured believe me.'
'He keeps an eye on your morals, too?'
'Morals?' Painter scratched the back of his neck. 'Can't rightly say he does.'
'Then why would he mind if ... Jim -'
'Sheriff, he says it's a sin and a crime to take what don't belong to you, but it's a blessing