"Henry Kuttner - The Lion and the Unicorn UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

Line pointed to the white cloth. "Them don't fatten you up none."
"They're good anyhow. Try some of these here fish eggs."
"Yeah-pfui. Where's the water?"
Hartwell laughed. Line said, "We going north come summer?"
"We ain't voted on it yet. I'd say no. Me, I'd rather head south."
"More towns. It ain't safe to go on raiding, Jesse."
"Nobody can't find us once we get back in the woods."
"They got gun."
"You scared?"
"I ain't scared of nothing," Line said. "Only I sort of know you're thinking about another raid. And I'm telling you to count me out."
Hartwell's heavy shoulders hunched. He reached for a sardine, ate it slowly, and then turned his head toward the boy. His lids were half-lowered.
"Yaller?" But he made it a question, so a fight wasn't obligatory.
"You seen me fight a grizzly with a knife."
"I know," Hartwell said, rubbing the white streak in his beard. "A guy can turn yaller, though. I ain't saying that's it, understand. Just the same, nobody else is trying to back out."
"On that first raid we was starving. The second-well, that might pass too. But I don't see no percentage in raiding just so you can eat fish eggs and worms."
"That ain't all of it, Line. We got blankets, too. Things like that we needed. Once we lay our hands on a few guns-"
"Getting too lazy to pull a bow?"
"If you're spoiling for a fight," Hartwell said slowly, "I can oblige you. Otherwise shut up."
Line said, "O.K. But I'm serving notice to count me out on any more raids."
In the shadows Cassie's hand tightened on the dagger's hilt. But Hartwell suddenly laughed and threw his steakbone at Line's head. The boy ducked and glowered.
"Come the day your belt starts pinching, you'll change your mind," Hartwell said. "Forget about it now. Git that squaw of yours and make her eat; she's too skinny." He swung toward the woods. "Cassie! C'mon and have some of this fish soup."
Line had turned away, readjusting his cap. His face was less somber now, though it was still thoughtful. Cassie bolstered her knife and came out into the firelight. Hartwell beckoned to her.
"Come and get it," he said.
The air was peaceful again. No more friction developed, though Line, Cassie knew, was in a quarrelsome mood. But Hartwell's good humor was proof against any but direct insults. He passed around the whiskey bottle he had looted- a rare treat, since the tribe could distill smoke only when they settled for a while, which wasn't often. Line didn't drink much. Long after the fire had been smothered and snores came from the lean-tos around him, he lay awake, troubled and tense.
Something-someone-was calling him.
It was like one of his hunches. It was like what he had felt during the raids. It was like Cassie's nearness, and yet there was a queer, exciting difference. There was a friendliness to that strange call that he had never felt before.
Dim and indefinable, a dweller hidden deep in his mind woke and responded to that call of a kindred being.
After a while he rose on one elbow and looked down at Cassie. Her face was partly veiled by the deeper blackness of her hair. He touched its soft, living warmth gently. Then he
slipped noiselessly out of the shelter and stood up, staring around.
There was a rustling of leaves, and the chuckling of the brooklet. Nothing else. Moonlight dappled the ground here and there. A woodrat rustled softly through the wild grasses. The air was very cold and crisp, with a freshness that stung Line's cheeks and eyes.
And suddenly he was frightened. Old folktales troubled him. He remembered his foster mother's stories of men who could turn to wolves, of the Wendigo that swept like a vast wind above the lonely forests, of a Black Man who bought souls- the formless, dark fears of childhood rose up in nightmare reality. He had killed a grizzly with his knife, but he had never stood alone at night hi the woods, while a Call murmured in his mind-silently-and made his blood leap up in fiery response.
He was afraid, but the bait was too strong. He turned south, and walked out of the camp. Instinctive training made his progress noiseless. He crossed the brook, his sandals inaudible on the stones, and mounted a slope. And there, sitting on a stump waiting for him, was a man.
His back was toward Line, and nothing could be seen but the hunched torso and the bald, gleaming head. Line had a momentary horrible fear that when the man turned, he might see his own face. He touched his knife. The confused stirring in his brain grew chaotic.
"Hello, Line," a low voice said.
Line had made no sound, and he knew it. But, somehow, that dark figure had sensed his approach. The Black Man-?
"Do I look black?" the voice asked. The man stood up, turning. He was sneering-no, smiling-and his face was dark and seamed. He wore town clothes.
But he wasn't the Black Man. He didn't have a cloven hoof. And the warm, sincere friendliness subtly radiating from his presence was reassuring to Line in spite of his suspicions.
"You called me," Line said. "I'm trying to figure it out." His eyes dwelt on the bald cranium.
"My name's Barton," the man said. "Dave Barton." He lifted something gray-a scalp?-and fitted it carefully on his head. The sneer indicated amusement.
"I feel naked without my wig. But I had to show you I was a... a-" He sought for the word that would fit the telepathic symbol. "That you were one of us," he finished.
"I ain't-"
"You're a Baldy," Barton said, "but you don't know it. I can read that from your mind."
"Read my mind?" Line took a backward step.
"You know what Baldies are? Telepaths?"
"Sure," Line said doubtfully. "I heard stories. We don't know much about town life. Listen," he said with fresh suspicion, "how'd you come to be out here? How'd-"
"I came looking for you."
"Me? Why?"
Barton said patiently, "Because you're one of Us. I can see I've got to explain a lot. From the beginning, maybe. So-"
He talked. It might have been more difficult had they not been Baldies. Though Line was telepathically untrained, he could nevertheless receive enough mental confirmation to clarify the questions in his mind. And Barton spoke of the Blowup, of the hard radiations-so much Greek to Line, until Barton used telepathic symbolism-and, mostly, of the incredible fact that Line wasn't merely a hairless freak in his tribe. There were other Baldies, a lot of them.
That was important. For Line caught the implications. He sensed something of the warm, deep understanding between telepaths, the close unity of the race, the feeling of belonging that he had never had. Just now, alone in the woods with Barton, he was conscious of more genuine intimacy than he had ever felt before.