"Krinard, Susan - Twice A Hero" - читать интересную книгу автора (Krinard Susan)

Homer had been gone for over six months, and toward the end he'd been too weak to remind her of her promise to him. Toward the end he'd been content just to have her beside the hospital bed, to have her hold his hand and ease his passage.
But she knew he hadn't forgotten.
Mac swallowed back the lump in her throat. All her links to Homer had dissolved, one by one. The Victorian on Grove Street, far too big for one woman and in need of major repair, had long since been sold. The artifacts that had filled every dusty room had been donated to museums or universitiesЧall but a few minor keepsakes.
And the pendant. The symbol of a curse Mac simply couldn't buy.
She let the stone chip fall back against her shirt and brushed off her khakis. It hadn't been so difficult to come here in the end. Not too much left to tie her to the life she was used to. No one to take care of in the mornings and evenings after work. No vast hulk of a house to try to keep in reasonable order, only a studio apartment in Berkeley. No responsibilities other than her job at the museum. Nothing to stand in the way of a promise.
So here she was, surrounded by a past that refused to die. She glanced skyward. "I hope you're watching, Homer. I'm beginning to wonder if you sent me on a wild-goose chase just to make me spread my wings."
A hint of warm breeze stirred the ends of her bangs under Homer's battered San Francisco Giants baseball cap. She could almost feel Homer with her now; she'd have given a lot to see his expression. Would he be laughing at the grand, final joke he'd played on her?
But he'd been right about her. She'd known it as soon as she'd stepped off the plane in Belize. She'd known it on the short flight to Flores and on the bus to the ruins. She knew it now, surrounded by the magnificent bones of history.
The past was alive. And so was sheЧmore alive than she'd felt since childhoodЕ
Hold it, Mac, she chided herself. Keep your feet on the ground. She stood and stamped her boot for emphasis. Thinking like that came dangerously close to self-pity. She didn't regret a single moment with Homer. She'd have him back in a second if she could, uncharacteristic superstition and all.
But she couldn't have him back, and no one could ever replace him. Her social life hadn't exactly blossomed since she'd found herself with evenings and weekends free. Freedom wasn't all it was cracked up to be. And when the first pain of grief was past, it had been so easy to slip into the old routine. Spend as much time as possible at the museum, come back to the small Berkeley apartment, pop something in the microwave, read dusty old history books until bedtime.
Until she couldn't ignore the nagging sense that Homer was waiting for her to fulfill her promise and break the "curse."
Mac swore mildly as the toe of her boot connected with old but very solid limestone. She'd wandered to the base of one of the pyramid temples, towering a hundred feet over her head. The narrow steps leading up to the sacrificial platform at the top didn't make very good seats, but she braced herself against the steep incline, knees drawn up to her chest, and shrugged off her backpack. She needed another reminder of her purpose in coming here.
The photograph was carefully sandwiched between two pieces of museum board. She opened the makeshift case and laid the photo across her knees, glancing from faded image to present reality.
This was very close to the right part of Tikal, though the angle was different; you almost wouldn't know it was the same place, so changed was the site from the early 1880s. The temples behind Great-great-grandfather Perry and Liam O'Shea were overgrown and buried under centuries of vines, trees, and undergrowth, as they'd been until the first serious exploration had begun over a decade after their visit.
Now Tikal was a national park. Not much of a risk to visit it these days. But she was here, where they had been. She traced Perry's dapper figure with her fingertip and then the shape of the man beside him.
Liam O'Shea. She could still find herself fascinated by that cocky half-smile, that militant macho stance even after she'd looked at the damned photograph well over a thousand times.
Asking herself the same crazy questions. Did you do it, Peregrine Sinclair? Did you rob this magnificent man of his strength and hope and future? Did you taint the honorable name of Sinclair forever?
And then she would see Liam O'Shea, and imagine his life, and how he had struggled so far to meet such an end. Alone, with no one to care that he'd died.
Admit it, Mac. You came here as much for him as for Homer.
Pretty crazy, mooning over a guy in a photo. A guy who'd been dead for a century and probably would have been a jerk, judging by that smile. He probably was just the kind to curse someone and make it stick.
But I'm here to make amends. If you'll listen, Liam O'Shea, wherever you are.
She tilted her cap to a defiantly rakish angle. Hardly likely that she'd find Liam's remains. He couldn't have died in Tikal, or they would have found him already, and the old newspaper clippings reporting his death hadn't given any details.
Mac stood and tucked the photo away. NoЧher symbolic apology to Liam O'Shea would have to be whispered to the jungle itself. Maybe a ritual burial of the pendant near one of the ruins. She wished she'd paid more attention to New Age traditions. Candles and incense and magic circles and chants. Which would probably make Liam O'Shea's ghost laugh his head off.
She snorted. Ghost indeed. No such animal.
She tested her stamina by climbing the precipitous temple stairway to the platform at the top. From this height the other tourists at the site were little more than toy figures, too distant and indifferent to share her minor victory.
She sighed a little wistfully and started back down. The morning mist was lifting. There was still a great deal to see at the site, and even with two days in one of the local hotels she had a lot of ground to cover. During that time she had to decide exactly what to do with the pendant. She hoped that some lightning flash of inspiration would strike.
By early afternoon, following a quick snack of beans, tortillas, and a fortifying Dr Pepper at a comedor, she hadn't had a single bright idea. She'd seen two of the main temples and one acropolis, not to mention a number of steles and related exhibits. All of it was fascinating enough. But none of it had given her a clue. She felt as if she were in the wrong place entirely.
As if she'd missed something vitally important.
She wandered close to the dense border of trees surrounding central Tikal, as she'd done time and time again throughout the morning. Out there, perhaps, was what she was searching forЧruins that had yet to be excavated; ancient, overgrown paths untrodden for centuries; the deep green silence of eternal nature.
"That's where Perry and Liam would have gone, isn't it, Homer?" she said. "Liam didn't die in Tikal. You think I should take a shot, however unlikely, at finding him."
A shiver worked up her spine. An image of Liam O'Shea rose in her mind; she didn't even have to pull out the photo. It had long since been memorized.
"Maybe I was premature about dismissing ghosts," she muttered. "I'm beginning to think Lucky Liam is haunting me. Is he up there somewhere egging me on, waiting for me to trip his curse? Is he doomed to wander these ruins for eternity until someone lays his bones to rest?"
"Bones, seёorita? No bones here. But I show you many things."
The voice was young and masculine and accompanied the teenage boy who stood directly in front of her. Mac was grateful she'd never had much of a blush. The kid probably thought she was nuts, talking to herself.
But he only regarded her with an open, earnest face that bore a remarkable resemblance to the murals and carvings of the Maya of ages pastЧstrong, hooked nose, full lips, and high cheekbones. He was skinny enough to remind her of herself. On his belt, secured by a leather loop, hung a large and imposing machete.
He grinned at her. "You want a guide, seёorita? Into the jungle? I take you. Only five dollars."
Five dollars. An absolute bargain. I'm beginning to believe this isn't just a coincidence, Homer.
More craziness. Maybe the heat was doing funny things to her brain. She made a mental inventory of her supplies. Just enough for a day's wandering: map, small flashlight, repellant, canteen, matches, first-aid supplies, and a few other useful items. "What did you have in mind?" she asked the boy. "I'm not prepared to hike too far out into the jungle today."
The boy's grin widened. "Not far. You want bones? Maybe I know where."
Well, that was too much of an incentive to pass up. Not Liam's bones, she reminded herself. Not human either. I hope. But she fished in her wallet for a sweat-dampened five-dollar bill and set it on the boy's grimy, outstretched palm. Even if this proved to be a waste of time, five dollars was not exactly a huge investment.
"You won't be sorry, seёorita," the boy said, tucking the bill in the pocket of his own threadbare trousers. "I know the best place. Venga conmigo, por favor."
Before she could ask a single question he was off, striding away from the carefully maintained area around the central plaza and toward the border of trees. He set a remarkably rapid pace for someone who must be used to dealing with sedentary turistas. The boy hardly waited for her to catch up before he plunged into a seemingly impenetrable mass of green.
At first there was a trail that even Mac could see. On either side the jungle formed a living wall of small trees, palms, ferns, lianas, and a hundred unfamiliar species of flora. Overhead hung the upper canopy of larger trees, with the occasional great ceiba towering fifty feet above the rest.
Only isolated cries of birds or monkeys broke the almost eerie quiet. Mac knew the jungle wasn't as noisy as fiction often painted it, but there was something in the quality of the stillness that made the hair at the nape of her neck stand on end.
It was as if the very jungle were holding its breath.
Mac rolled her eyes as she tripped over a root across the path. Great. Are you putting these crazy ideas in my head, Homer? I sure as hell don't remember thinking this way beforeЕ
"Cuidada, seёorita. I cut a path now."
She barely avoided walking into her guide as he deftly pulled the machete from his belt and began to slash at the growth into which their path disappeared. Mac glanced back the way they'd come. One part of herЧthe familiar, practical partЧtold her that it wasn't such a good idea to cut through the jungle away from the marked paths.
There was another part of her that snorted in derision at her caution. It was the part that Homer had remembered from her childhood, that had once confronted a neighborhood bully. The part that followed the Sinclair blood. The part that could see a mere photo of Liam O'Shea and respond on a level that made no logical sense.