"L'Amour, Louis - Last_of_the_Breed18" - читать интересную книгу автора (L'Amour Louis)

"We have always known they would find us one day. They have not simply because they have not cared. We have done no harm, we do not wish to do harm."
"What will they do if they find you?"
Baronas shrugged. "Perhaps to a labor camp. If they think we are trouble enough, to one of the extermination camps, working in uranium mines, cleaning the nozzles of atomic submarines. They always know what to do."
"And you?" Natalya asked. "How did you come to be here?"
He glanced at her. "I was a major in the Air Force, but I was flying experimental aircraft. Testing them, if you will. They knew this, of course. They believed I might cooperate and tell what they wished to know. One of the planes I was to test was planned to operate under extreme Arctic conditions, so I was becoming acclimatized. Suddenly, out over the Bering Sea my radio would not work. I was forced down at sea and taken prisoner. Obviously it was neatly planned and carefully orchestrated. The details are not important."
"And if you return to America?"
He shrugged. "I shall leave the Air Force. What I shall have to do they might understand but could not condone. It is better that I am a free agent."
She looked at him thoughtfully. He talked easily enough, and he was friendly, but there was something different about him. Often he was quiet for long periods and he smiled rarely. She was drawn to him and yet a little frightened by him.
"I had friends who migrated to America," Baronas said. "Some went for the greater freedom, some in hopes of becoming wealthy and returning with money. Only one of them ever came back and he only to visit."
"My home was in the mountains," Joe Mack said, "very remote. It was a very large house at the end of a meadow and with a magnificent view, but it was built into the mountain and built of rocks found close by. We had huge fireplaces and we burned down-wood, like in the forest around here. There were many Indian rugs.
"My grandfather, who was a Scotsman, built the house with the help of some men he hired. There was no road to the place, only narrow trails. Anything brought from the outside came on packhorses. Later, I flew home several times in a helicopter.
"It was a wild, lovely country and I loved it. I shall go back there again. From our wide porch we could look into the neighboring state of Washington, and off to the north was Canada."
"It sounds wonderful!" Natalya said. "It would be good to live in a real house again, even one so remote."
"It did not seem remote to us. It was our world, and only the seasons changed. Not far from our house there was a bunkhouse for those who worked for us. They were Indians."
"Sioux?"
"No, that was not Sioux country. It had never been. We had anywhere from four to six Indians working for us, and they were usually Kutenai or Nez Perce. After a while my father hired a couple of Basque sheepherders, and they are still with us, as are the Indians."
"Were there any towns close by? Where there were people?"
"We used to go down to Priest River, sometimes, but often we would ride through the mountains, staying always away from roads and towns until we could visit friends in central Idaho. We didn't care much for towns," he added, "only for shopping."
He stood up. "It grows late, and you will wish to sleep."
"Yours sounds like a wonderful country," Natalya said wistfully. "I wish I could see it."
"Will they let you leave?"
She shook her head. "It would be very hard, I think. Very hard, indeed."
He went out into the night and stood for a moment, standing close to the wall, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the outer darkness.
The wind stirred the dry, unfallen leaves. A branch creaked in the cold. Something moved in the forest and he remained still; then he went along the wall, ducking below the lighted window, and hesitated where the trees began.
All the twigs and sticks had been picked up from the ground to be used in kindling fires, so he moved soundlessly under the trees; then he paused to listen. Something or somebody was out there.
Peshkov? Probably--
He moved on in the darkness under the trees and then went up the hillside under the trees. There he crouched, waiting.
Somebody was coming. Somebody was following him.
Why would anyone follow him at night? To capture or kill him. There could be no other reason.
Unless, perhaps, to enter his hideout and steal his furs and meat.
A footstep crunched on the frozen earth. A huge shadow moved, and he arose from where he crouched and stood behind the man.
"If you start to turn around," he said, "I will kill you."