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

THE HOOFER
Walter M. Miller, Jr.

THEY ALL KNEW he was a spacer because of the white goggle marks on his sun-scorche
face, and so they toler-ated him and helped him. They even made allowances for him when
staggered and fell in the aisle of the bus while pursuing the harassed little housewife from seat
seat and cajoling her to sit and talk with him.
Having fallen, he decided to sleep in the aisle. Two men helped him to the back of the bu
dumped him on the rear seat, and tucked his gin bottle safely out of sight. After all, he had n
seen Earth for nine months, and judging by the crusted matter about his eyelids, he couldn't ha
seen it too well now, even if he had been sober. Glare-blindness, gravity-legs, and agoraphob
were excuses for a lot of things, when a man was just back from Big Bottomless. And who cou
blame a man for acting strangely?
Minutes later, he was back up the aisle and swaying giddily over the little housewife. "How!"
said. "Me Chief Broken Wing. You wanta Indian wrestle?"
The girl, who sat nervously staring at him, smiled wanly, and shook her head.
"Quiet li'l pigeon, aren'tcha?" he burbled affectionately, crashing into the seat beside her.
Two men slid out of their seats, and a hand clamped his shoulder. "Come on, Broken Win
let's go back to bed."
"My name's Hogey," he said. "Big Hogey Parker. I was just kidding about being a Indian."
"Yeah. Come on, let's go have a drink." They got him on his feet, and led him stumbling ba
down the aisle. "My ma was half Cherokee, see? That's how come I said it. You wanta hear a w
whoop? Real stuff."
"Never mind."
He cupped his hands to his mouth and favored them with a blood-curdling proof of h
ancestry, while the fe-male passengers stirred restlessly and hunched in their seats. The driv
stopped the bus and went back to warn him against any further display. The driver flashed
deputy's badge and threatened to turn him over to a constable.
"I gotta get home," Big Hogey told him. "I got me a son now, that's why. You know? A lit
baby pigeon of a son. Haven't seen him yet."
"Will you just sit still and be quiet then, eh?"
Big Hogey nodded emphatically. "Shorry, officer, I didn't mean to make any trouble."
When the bus started again, he fell on his side and lay still. He made retching sounds for a tim
then rested, snor-ing softly. The bus driver woke him again at Caine's junc-tion, retrieved his g
bottle from behind the seat, and helped him down the aisle and out of the bus.
Big Hogey stumbled about for a moment, then sat down hard in the gravel at the shoulder of t
road. The driver paused with one foot on the step, looking around. There was not even a store
the road junction, but only a freight building next to the railroad track, a couple of farmhouses
the edge of a side-road, and, just across the way, a deserted filling station with a sagging roof. T
land was Great Plains country, treeless, barren, and roll-ing.
Big Hogey got up and staggered around in front of the bus, clutching at it for support, losin
his duffle bag.
"Hey, watch the traffic!" The driver warned. With a surge of unwelcome compassion he trott
around after his troublesome passenger, taking his arm as he sagged again. "You crossing?"
"Yeah," Hogey muttered. "Lemme alone, I'm okay."
The driver started across the highway with him. The traffic was sparse, but fast and dangero
in the central ninety-mile lane.
"I'm okay," Hogey kept protesting. "I'm a tumbler, ya know? Gravity's got me. Damn gravit
I'm not used to gravity, ya know? I used to be a tumblerтАФhuk!тАФonly now I gotta be a hoofe
'Count of li'l Hogey. You know about li'1 Hogey?"