"Nagle, Patti - Coyote Ugly" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nagle Pati)

PATI NAGLE

COYOTE UGLY

EVA SCUFFED HER FEET ON THE polished brick of Lincoln Avenue as she crossed the
plaza. She walked ungracefully, stumping along her new carving tucked carefully
in her arms. She passed the galleries and boutiques without glancing in the
windows. Their contents -- designer fashions, bizarre "art," and the inescapable
coyotes; bandana-adorned caricatures in pastel blues, pinks, and greens -- were
no part of her Santa Fe.

She paused to watch the workers setting up a bandstand for tomorrow night. It
sent her back to Fiestas years ago; driving out from the pueblo to picnic on the
hood of the pickup in Fort Marcy Park, with mariachis playing and kids and dogs
rolling in the dirt. She remembered playing with the wind when her mother wasn't
looking weaving twists of air into dust devils -miniature cyclones of stinging
sand. Sometimes, when her older brother Joe had been pushing her, she would send
a dust devil to plague him. She would laugh while he spat dust and rubbed his
eyes, and Grandfather would laugh with her. Grandfather was the only one who
didn't scold her for her wind tricks. Mother, if she noticed, would silence them
both with a fierce glare. But on that one night of the year, even Mother could
not frighten Eva.

Fiesta marked the end of summer and always began with the burning of Zozobra --
Old Man Gloom -- a puppet effigy, everyone's symbol for their worst troubles.
When the flames rose around his giant paper head and his eyes began to glow with
green fire, everyone felt the magic of that purge. Eva remembered softly
chanting, "No more trouble, no more fear, no more for another year," while
Grandfather's warm arms and an old wool blanket kept out the sharp wind. She
wouldn't dream of imagining her mother as Zozobra, but she let the hurt of being
scolded burn away in the fireworks.

That was a long time ago. Fiesta was different now; everything was different.

Eva walked slowly past the Palace of the Governors, where she'd sat under the
portico helping Grandfather sell his carvings on many a lazy, dusty afternoon.
Kachinas, carved the old Hopi way (the Hopi were Grandfather's people) from a
single cottonwood root, and painted in the summer colors or the winter colors by
Grandfather with Eva helping. Now the kachinas were intricate meaningless
sculptures that sold for thousands of dollars in hushed carpeted galleries.

Eva stopped at the corner where Grandfather had liked to sit, back in the shade
behind the half-wall at the eastern end of the portico. Back then the plaza
smelled of sunshine on dry dirt, cottonwood breezes, and the warm leather whiff
of La Fonda on the comer, where Eva would run to fetch a lemonade with the shiny
nickel Grandfather gave her. Now it was all French restaurants and the fancy
perfumes of rich patrons and sightseers. You even had to have a permit,
certifying you were a "Native American," to sell under the portico.