"Jay Lake - Crimson Mud, Drying Blood" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lake Jay)

"I'm back," I growled. When had my voice gotten so bearish?

"We done some more work on Big Man's bones, to raise the ribs around the lolly and hang His arms,"
Stumpwater Rob said, "and we're ready to hoist the new deck to the clavicle and build the head. I was
hoping you'd come raise that deck with me and some of the other big boyos, and the little boyos can get
to the rib deck, which is where we hung the lolly, and fill in the chest."

Work was what I needed. He was right. I hugged Stumpwater Rob, gave him one last kiss for luck, and
jumped up.

We worked past evenchant and into moonlight, raising the next deck. In the week I'd been gone,
someone had chopped three vertebrae out of an old cedar log, that made the spine rise. Ribs traded up
the river from the Ma'am's whose boyos hunted gray Leviathan in boats were hung, me at the top of the
beautiful pulleys instead of the bottom, helping the older boyos guide them in.

The new new deck was almost like a collar, round and stiff encircling Big Man's neck, and I could see
where His head would go as plain as if those fire eyes were staring back at me right then. I looked down
in the dim of the evening to see the younger boyos tossing leather sacks in between the ribs.
"Liver and lights!" yelled one of the Firehair twins, his grin gleaming in the starlight.

Then Miracle was there, her hand slipped into mine, and Stumpwater Rob and the other boyos were
gone as if they'd never been. I heard the flies whining on the lake and smelled the forest, smelling Miracle
as well, though her saltiness was less, replaced with more of a Ma'am smell, woven in with honey and
mint.

"You thought about it?" she asked, her free hand fingering my back.

My woodstick surged.

"I thought about it." I'd avoided the thought, as much as I could, but the time was come.

"Boyos are bringing Ma'am out, building a bonfire. Your turn is soon."

There'd be others after me -- there were at least a dozen boyos with spring birthdays, and four of them
had spaced so close behind me that they'd be faced this spring as well, but I knew Ma'am had marked
me out, brought Inker in from far instead of having Preach do it, or one of the part-time Inkers from just
down the river.

I would lead this year's boyos to...to whatever lay ahead. So I squeezed Miracle's hand, and let my
finger brush her chin, and followed her down the ladders and ropes, wishing I had some of that women's
blood-magic.

***

The bonfire roared, challenging the moon and stars with a brilliant orange that could only rise from the
Earth, just as the sun did every morning. Ma'am sat on her throne, that she hardly ever used, crafted
from Little Man stuff and woven reeds and aspen posts and for all I knew the bones of our Ma'am's
long-vanished Da, father to us all.