"Nina Kiriki Hoffman - Past the Size of Dreaming" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoffman Nina Kiriki)

charts. After work, she sat and watched the quiet. She set her mug on the cement apron that wrapped
around the building and leaned back in the chair, which was still warm from the clayтАЩs heat.
The sun slipped behind the Cascade Mountains. The skyтАЩs clear, distant blue had faded to white near
the horizon, with bands of tangerine stain above where the sun dropped. At the zenith, the sky darkened.
Warped and twisty juniper trees poked up here and there from an expanse of scrubby sageтАФand
rabbitbrush that stretched, deceptively flat, from DeirdreтАЩs feet toward the forested mountains. She knew
unseen undulations hid things: only half a mile away, a gorge cut through the desert like a sword strike
through sand.
The desert rustled, anticipating night.
Birds flew down to the seep pond she had piped out when she first took over the veterinary
practice here, at the edge of a universe. Deirdre practiced stillness and watched.
This was her night: a place that looked desolate, arid, yet cupped life unseen. Her night, her place,
her secret hope, that under a desolate surface, rustling, uttering things still lurked.
She let out a slow breath, the frustrations of the day, and reached down for her coffee.
Something wet touched the back of her hand.
тАЬWhoa!тАЭ she cried, and jerked back. She looked down into the face of a coyote.
It stared at her with yellow-brown eyes.
She gathered her breath, settled into the chair, arid stared back. It showed no signs of rabies,
aggression, or fear. It just stared.
She had never been so close to a coyote before. She had seen them loping across distance, and
heard their voices raised in the night, usually far enough away that they might be part of dreams. She had
seen some caged down at the High Desert Museum in Bend, where injured wild animals were cared for
and then released when they were well.
There was a musky sagebrush-and-carrion scent, a strange heat that prickled the hairs on her
forearms. She exchanged glances with the coyote for a long while, then wondered what next.
It bucked up a step and sat down.
It lifted its left paw. For the first time she noticed the laceration. She sucked in breath.
A fight with another animal? How would it get a cut like that?
тАЬLooks pretty bad,тАЭ she said. тАЬYou want some help with that?тАЭ
It cocked its head.
Should she call animal control? She could deal with approach-with-caution cats and badly trained
dogs, but she was out of her element with a wild animal. Well, that wasnтАЩt totally true; occasionally
people brought her wild animals that had been hit by cars, but she dealt with them during office hours,
when she had her vet tech with her, and they were never alert the way this coyote was. She could call
someone and have the coyote shipped somewhere like the museum, where they had experience with
undomesticated creatures.
She sighed and got to her feet. If it spooked, so be it; that would make her decision for her. What if it
only wanted to get into her building, where several small animals were helpless and edible? Getting into
the kennels wouldnтАЩt be easy, and it would have to go through her first.
The coyote backed off the concrete, but stopped on the earth beyond. It watched her and waited for
what she would do next.
Deirdre opened the back door of the building, dropped a doorstop under it. The coyoteтАЩs access to
outside had to be clear. She went into the treatment room and waited.
The animal edged in, its nose lifted as it tasted air. After a period of examination, it limped forward.
Had it been trained somehow? She had heard of half-coyote dogs, but she had never heard of a
trained coyote. How was she going to deal with this?
She opened the door into surgery, propped it, too, with a doorstop, parted the stainless-steel-topped
operating table. тАЬUp here.тАЭ
 It gathered itself and jumped onto the table, then sat, its gaze fixed on her face.
тАЬOkay,тАЭ said Deirdre. She took a deep breath. She had to be crazy. What if it bit her? A bad bite