"Walter M. Miller - The Best of Walter M. Miller" - читать интересную книгу автора (Miller Walter M)

time will come.
"Who you whisperin' to, Doodie? Why are you mum-biin' so?" She looked down at his tousled head,
pressed tightly between her breasts.
His muttering ceased, and he lay quietly as if in a trance. It was always so. The boy had fits, and when
the paroxysm had passed, he went into a rigid sleep. But it was more like a frozen moment of awareness,
and old Ma Kutter said the boy was "witched." Lucey had never be-lieved in "witchin' ."
When he was tensely quiet, she tenderly disengaged herself and slid off the bed. He lay on his side,
face toward the window, eyes slitted and mouth agape. Hum-ming softly, Lucey returned to the stove
and took a stick of oak out of the bucket. She paused to glance back at himтАФand he seemed to be
rigidly listening to something. The rain?
"Doodle . . . ?"
"When are you coming for us, father?" came in a ghost whisper from the bed. `"When, when?"
"What are you talking about, Doodie?" The cast-iron stove-lid clattered on the hot metal as she lifted
it nerv-ously aside. She glanced down briefly at the red coals in the stove, then back at Doodie.
"Very soon . . . very soon!" he whispered.
Lucey chucked the stick of wood in atop the coals, then stood staring at the bed until the flames
licked up about the lid-hole to glisten orange on her sweat-glazed face.
"Who are you talkin' to, Doodie? "
 She expected no answer, but after several seconds, his breathing grew deeper. Then it came: "My
father."
Luccy's plump mouth went slowly shut and her hand quivered as she fumbled for the stove lid.
"Your pa is dead, Doodle. You know that."
The emaciated youth stirred on the bed, picked himself up slowly on one arm, and turned to look at
her, his eyes blazing. "You lie!" he cried. "Mama, you lie!"
Doodie!"
"


"I hate you, Mama. I hate all of you, and I'll make you pay. I'll be like him."
The stove lid clattered back in place. She wiped her hands nervously on her dress. "You're sick,
Doodie! You're not right in the mind. You never even seed your pa."
"I talk to him," the boy said. "He tells me things. He told me why you're my mother. He told me how.
And he told me who I am."
"You're my son!" Lucey's voice had gone up an octave, and she edged defensively away.
"Only half of me, Mama." The boy said, then laughed defiantly. "Only half of me is even human. You
knew that when he came here, and paid you to have his baby."
"Doodie!"

You can't lie to me, Mama. He tells me. He knows."
"


"He was just a man, Doodie. Now he's gone. He never came back, do you hear?"
The boy stared out the window at the rain-shroud. When he spoke again, it was in a small slow voice
of contempt.
"It doesn't matter. He doesn't want you to believeтАФany of you." He paused to snicker. "He doesn't
want to warn you what we're going to do."
Lucey shook her head slowly. "Lord, have mercy on me," she breathed. "I know I done wrong. But
please, punish old Lucey and not my boy."
"I ain't crazy, Mama."