"Zach Hughes - Mother Lode" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hughes Zach)

note to find out who could carve the letters and numerals into the stone.

A cold wind crept up the skirt of her dress uniform. As if reminded of
his loss by the moaning of the wind through the trees that outlined the
burial plot, the little dog lifted his head and howled.

"I know how you feel," Erin said, her throat tight, her eyes stinging.

Mop howled again and her own grief burst out of her again in harsh
sobs. The dog stopped howling, came to look up at her with concern. She
knelt next to him and said, "It's all right to howl. It hurts. If howling
makes it feel better, howl your head off." She threw back her head, looked
up at a leaden, winter sky that promised snow, and turned her sobbing
into an imitation of the dog's cry of loneliness. After one questioning tilt of
his head, Mop joined her and the joint howls of anguish soared upward,
out, and away to be absorbed in the dull, chill air.

Night. She went from room to room turning on all of the lights, Mop
following her every step. She discovered his water and food dishes in the
kitchen, saw that both basins were stocked. Someone had been looking
after him. He followed her to the main room of the house where a front
wall of glass gave a view of the Canadian. The river was up from heavy
rains in the hills to the west. Muddy water filled the wide channel from
bank to bank. In the summertime, she knew, there would be only a four or
five foot wide trickle of clear water making a runnel down the center of the
half-mile wide, sandy riverbed. In the glow of the lights on the patio, big
feathery snowflakes began to fall and, although it was warm and
comfortable in the house, she shivered.

She tried the holo, flipped through the available channels, turned the
power off. The image of a newsman in business dress faded quickly from
the viewing square. Mop was sitting in front of her, his long hair hanging
to the deep pile of the carpet.

"So what do you think?" she asked.
 He barked twice, with some urgency.

"You are kidding me," she said. "You really don't want me to let you
out."

The dog barked excitedly.

"Out?"

More excited barking, a run toward the glass wall. She opened a door.
The dog dashed out. Snowflakes and a cold wind hit him in the face. He
ran back in faster than he had run out.

"So?" she asked.