"Ludlum, Robert - The Cry Of The Halidon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ludlum Robert)

(Other liberties I really should not reveal--on advice of counsel.)

Of course, research is the dessert before an entree, or conversely, the
succulent shrimp cocktail before the hearty prime rib, the appetizer
leading to serious dining. It is also both a trap and a springboard. A
trap for it ensnares one in a world of geometric probabilities that an
author resists leaving, and a springboard for it fires one's imagination
to get on with the infinite possibilities a writer finds irresistible.

The first inkling I had regarding the crosscurrents of deeply felt
Jamaican religiosity and myth came when MY wife and I took our daughter,
along with the regal lady who ran the kitchen at our rented house, to a
native village market in Port Antonio. Our young daughter was a very
blond child and very beautiful (still is). She became the instant
center of attention, for this was, indeed, a remote thoroughfare and the
inhabitants were not used to the sight of a very blond white child. The
natives were delightful, as most Jamaicans are; they're gentle, filled
with laughter and kindness and intelligent concern for the guests on
their island. One man, however, was none of these. He was large,
abusive, and kept making remarks that any parent would find revolting.
The people around him admonished him; many shouted, but he simply became
more abusive, bordering on the physical. I'd had enough.

Having been trained as a marine-and far younger than I am now-I
approached this offensive individual, spun him around, hammerlocked his
right arm, and marched him across the dirt road to the edge of a ravine.
I sat him down on a rock, and vented my parental spleen.

Suddenly, he became docile, trancelike, then started to chant in a
singsong manner words to the effect of "The Hollydawn, the Hollydawn,
all is for the Hollydawn!" I asked him what he was talking about. "You
can never know, mon! It is not for you to know. It is the holy church
of the Hollydawn! Obeah, Obeah. Give me money for the magic of the
Hollydawn!"

I realized he was high on something-grass, alcohol, who knows? I gave
him a few dollars and sent him on his way.

An elderly Jamaican subsequently came up to me, his dark eyes sad,
knowing. "I'm sorry, young man," he said. "We watched closely and
would have rushed to your assistance should you have been in danger."

"You mean he might have had a gun, a weapon?"

"No, never a gun, no one allows those people to have guns, but a weapon,
yes. He frequently carries a machete in his trousers."

I swallowed several times, and no doubt turned considerably paler than I
had been. But the episode did ignite the fuses of my imagination. From
there, and courtesy of Bob Hanley and his plane, I crisscrossed the