"Andre Norton - Cat Fantastic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

source and remote chart recorder. In the hustle and bustle to build the dam (Black Canyon went up in
record time), certain details got overlooked. The concrete jockeys were pouring so fast that they didn't
think about laying access tunnels or conduits for instrumentation wiring.
A few weeks after I got hired and figured out the situation, I swore at them under my breath and laid
temporary cables along the downstream face of the dam to my monitoring shack. We had to have the
output from those instruments to tell whether the dam was undergoing any unusual stress or strain that
might foretell a collapse. My arrangement worked, but I knew that it would never satisfy the federal
inspectors. Those guys had a tendency to follow the letter of the law, not the intent. The contract
specified that the monitoring installation had to be permanently installed in conduit that ran inside the dam.
I was tearing out what remained of my hair over this problem when I met Mike and Tonochpa.
Actually I met Tonochpa before I met Mike. About it minute before. I don't think either she or I will ever
forget that introduction. And neither will a certain pair of pants, though I kept them as a memento of the
occasion.
It was the summer of '34, a few months after I had been hired. At that time the crews had finished most
of the blasting, but high-scalers stilt worked the canyon walls upriver from the dam itself. Some days it
seemed as though more dust than air hung above the construction site. The deep canyon blocked any
breeze from the surrounding desert country and the black basalt sucked up the sun until it was hot as a
griddle and you could literally fry flapjacks on the boulders if you didn't mind grit.
To get from the trailer that housed the company field office (all plastered over with the blue NRA eagle
like everything else in sight) to the chart-recorder shack, I had to cross an open area in front of the
cement mixing plant.
Back in those days, we didn't have the kind of cement trucks with the rotary mixers you see now. We
used flatbed diesels with eight-foot wheels, equipped with huge bins bolted to their flatbeds. Those trucks
were built like huge hay wagons, with a buckboard seat and no cab over the top. The wet cement would
start hardening when it hit the bins so the trucks lined up to load and go as fast as they could. This
encouraged some unique driving styles.
One fellow used to stand up on the seat, facing backward so he could watch his bins fill from the
overhead hopper. The stream of wet portland cement shot out so fast that he didn't have to stop his
truck. The monster ground forward at low throttle while he steered by way of one muddy boot on the
wheel. Others soon picked up that cowboy trick from him and the loading area soon resembled a rodeo
arena.
With my hard hat banging my glasses down on the bridge of my nose and my clipboard tucked
underneath my arm, I played the daily game of dodging the cement haulers. I was nearly in the clear when
I saw something shooting up the slope that led to the construction site. I caught a glimpse of blurred legs
and long ears. We often spook jackrabbits on the site, so I didn't think much of it until I spotted another
animal pelting along behind the rabbit. It moved so fast and churned up so much dust that I couldn't tell
what it was. A rope or leash whipped back and forth in the dirt behind the animal. I could tell the critter
was after the jackrabbit and not paying attention to much else. Trouble was that the jackrabbit was
making a run for the trucks.
I knew the rabbit would make it; I've seen them dash right between those rolling tires. But its pursuer
looked like someone's pet and with the handicap of a dragging leash....
I can't say I'm much of an animal lover, but I hate the job of peeling flattened carcasses out of the dirt. As
the rattling diesel of the nearest truck battered my ears, I lunged and stamped hard on the trailing rope as
the creature shot past me.
I nearly lost my footing as something heavy and furry rebounded against my shins. I heard a strangled
caterwaul, then claws began shredding my pantsleg so fast I didn't even feel the pain. Twelve pounds of
desert bobcat raked my knee and was heading up for strategic territory by the time I unfroze and tried to
grab the beast.
"Tonochpa, no!"
The Indian's voice was a lilting tenor and his accent different from that of the Navajo workers. His hands