"Andre Norton - Darkness and Dawn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

leave it without some examination. He followed the road around the square. Only one
building still stood unharmed enough to allow entrance. Its stone walls were rank with
ivy and moss, its empty windows blind. He shuffled through the dried leaves and grass
which masked the broad flight of steps leading to its wide door.
There was the whir of disturbed grasshoppers in the leaves, as a wasp sang past. Lura
pawed at something which lay just within the doorway. It rolled away into the dusk of the
interior and they followed. Fors stopped to trace with an inquiring finger the letters on a
bronze plate.
"First National Bank of Glentown."
He read the words aloud and they echoed hollowly down the long room, through the
empty cage-like booths along the wall.
"First National Bank," he repeated. What was a bank? He had only a vague ideaтАФ
some sort of a storage place. And this dead town must be GlentownтАФor once it had been
Glentown.
Lura had found again her round toy and was batting it along the cracked flooring. It
skidded to strike the base of one of the cages just in front of Fors. Round eyeholes stared
up at him accusingly from a half-crushed skull. He stooped and picked it up to set it on
the stone shelf. Dust arose in a thick puff. A pile of coins spun and jingled in all
directions, their metallic tinkle clear.
There were lots of the coins here, all along the shelves behind the cage fronts. He
scooped up handfuls and sent them rolling to amuse Lura. But they had no value. A piece
of good, rust-proof steel would be worth the takingтАФnot these. The darkness of the place
began to oppress him and no matter which way he turned he thought he could feel the
gaze of that empty skull. He left, calling Lura to follow.
There was a dankness in the heart of this town, the air here had the faint corruption of
ancient decay, mixed with the fresher scent of rotting wood and moldering vegetation. He
wrinkled his nose against it and pushed on down a choked street, climbing over piles of
rubble, heading toward the river. That stream had to be crossed some way if he were to
travel straight to the goal his father had mapped. It would be easy for him to swim the
thick brownish water, although it was still roily from the storm, but he knew that Lura
would not willingly venture in. He was certainly not going to leave her behind.
Fors struck out east along the bank above the flood. A raft of some sort would be the
answer, but he would have to get away from the ruins before he could find trees. And he
chafed at the loss of time.
There was a sun today, climbing up, striking specks of light from the water. By
turning his head he could still see the foothills and, behind them, the bluish heights down
which he had come twenty-four hours before. But he glanced back only once, his
attention was all for the river now.
Half an hour later he came across a find which saved him hours of back-breaking
labor. A sharp break in the bank outlined a narrow cove where the river rose during the
spring freshets. Now it was half choked with drift, from big logs to delicate, sunbleached
twigs he could snap between his fingers. He had only to pick and choose.
By the end of the morning he had a raft, crude and certainly not intended for a long
voyage, but it should serve to float them across. Lura had her objections to the
foolishness of trusting to such a crazy woven platform. But, when Fors refused to stay
safely ashore, she pulled herself aboard it, one cautious paw testing each step before she
put her full weight upon it. And in the exact middle she squatted down with a sigh as Fors
leaned hard on his pole and pushed off.
The weird craft showed a tendency to spin around which he had to work against. And
once his pole caught in a mud bank below and he was almost jerked off into the flood.