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

The burly farmer retrieved his gin bottle for him, still miraculously unbroken. "Here's yo
gravity," he grunted. "Listen, fella, you better get home pronto."
"Pronto? Hey, I'm no Mex. Honest, I'm just space burned. You know?"
"Yeah. Say, who are you, anyway? Do you live around here?"
It was obvious that the big man had taken him for a hobo or a tramp. Hogey pulled himse
together. "Goin' to the Hauptman's place. Marie. You know Marie?"
The farmer's eyebrows went up. "Marie Hauptman? Sure I know her. Only she's Marie Park
now. Has been, nigh on six years. SayтАФ" He paused, then gaped. "You ain't her husband by an
chance?"
"Hogey, that's me. Big Hogey Parker."
"Well, I'll beтАФ! Get in the ear. I'm going right past John Hauptman's place. Boy, you're in n
shape to walk it."
He grinned wryly, waggled his head, and helped Hogey and his bag into the back seat.
woman with a sun-wrin-kled neck sat rigidly beside the farmer in the front, and she neither greet
the passenger nor looked around.
"They don't make cars like this anymore," the farmer called over the growl of the ancie
gasoline engine and the grind of gears. "You can have them new atomics with their loads of h
isotopes under the seat. Ain't safe, I sayтАФeh, Martha?"
The woman with the sun-baked neck quivered her head slightly. "A car like this was goo
enough for Pa, an' I reckon it's good enough for us," she drawled mournfully.
Five minutes later the car drew in to the side of the road. "Reckon you can walk it from here
the farmer said. "That's Hauptman's road just up ahead."
He helped Hogey out of the car and drove away without looking back to see if Hogey stay
on his feet. The woman with the sun-baked neck was suddenly talking garrulously in his direction
It was twilight. The sun had set, and the yellow sky was turning gray. Hogey was too tired to g
on, and his legs would no longer hold him. He blinked around at the land, got his eyes focuse
and found what looked like Hauptman's place on a distant hillside. It was a big frame hou
surrounded by a wheatfield, and a few scrawny trees. Hav-ing located it, he stretched out in t
tall grass beyond the ditch to take a little rest.
Somewhere dogs were barking, and a cricket sang creak-ing monotony in the grass. Once the
was the distant thunder of a rocket blast from the launching station six miles to the west, but
faded quickly. An A-motored con-vertible whined past on the road, but Hogey went unseen.
When he awoke, it was night, and he was shivering. His stomach was screeching, and h
nerves dancing with high voltages. He sat up and groped for his watch, then remem-bered he h
pawned it after the poker game. Remember-ing the game and the results of the game made hi
wince and bite his lip and grope for the bottle again.
He sat breathing heavily for a moment after the stiff drink. Equating time to position h
become second na-ture with him, but he had to think for a moment because his defective visio
prevented him from seeing the Earth-crescent.
Vega was almost straight above him in the late August sky, so he knew it wasn't much aft
sundownтАФprobably about eight o'clock. He braced himself with another swal-low of gin, pick
himself up and got back to the road, feel-ing a little sobered after the nap.
He limped on up the pavement and turned left at the narrow drive that led between barbed-wi
fences toward the Hauptman farmhouse, five hundred yards or so from the farm road. The fiel
on his left belonged to Marie's father, he knew. He was getting closeтАФclose to home and wom
and child.
He dropped the bag suddenly and leaned against a fence post, rolling his head on his forearm
and choking in spasms of air. He was shaking all over, and his belly writhed. He wanted to tu
and run. He wanted to crawl out in the grass and hide.
What were they going to say? And Marie, Marie most of all. How was he going to tell her abo