"Norton, Andre - Galactic Derelict" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

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bad-tasting as it had been a year earlier.
The pinto threaded a way between boulders along the course of a dried stream bed. Odd that a land now
so arid could carry so many signs of past water. There were miles of irrigation ditches used by the Old
Ones, marking the sun-baked pans of open land which had not known the touch of moisture for
centuries. Travis urged his mount up a sharp slope and headed west, feeling the heat bore into his
straight back through the single layer of faded shirt fabric.
He doubted if Whelan knew of the Canyon of the Hoho-kam. That was one of the things from the old
days, a story preserved by such as Chato. And there were now two kinds of Apache-- Chato and
Whelan. Chato denied the existence of the White-eyes, living his own life behind a shutter which he
dropped between him and the outside world, the world of the whites. And Whelan denied the existence
of the Apache, being all white with an effort.
Once Travis had seen a third way, that of bending the white man's learning to blend with Apache lore.
He thought he had discovered those who agreed with him. But it had all gone, as quickly as a drop of
water poured upon rock surface here would vanish. Now he tended to agree with Chato -- and,
knowing that, Chato had freely given him information Whelan did not have, facts concerning Whelan's
own range land.
Chato's father-- again Travis counted, fingertip against saddle horn-- why, Chato's father would be a
hundred and twenty years old if he were alive today! And he had been born in the Hohokam's valley
while his family were hiding out from the blue-coated soldiers.
Chato had known of the lost canyon, had guided Travis to it -when he was so small he could barely grip
a horse's barrel with his short legs. And he had returned there again

GALACTIC DERELICT

and again through the years. The houses of the Hohokam had intrigued him, and the spring there
never failed. There were pinons with a rich harvest of nuts to be gathered in season, and some stunted
fruit trees still yielding a measure of fruit. Once it had been a garden; now it was a hidden oasis.
Travis was working his way into the maze of canyons which held the forgotten trail of the Old Ones
when he heard that hum. Out of instinct he drew rein, knowing that he was in the concealing shadow
of a cliff wall, and glanced skyward.
" "Copter!" He said it aloud in sheer surprise. The ageless desert country had claimed him so
thoroughly during the past few hours that sighting that very modern mode of travel came almost as a
shock.
Could it be Whelan, checking up on him? Travis' mouth tightened. But when he had left the ranch
house at sunup, Bill Redhorse, Chato's grandson, had been working on the engine of the ranch bus.
Anyway, Whelan couldn't waste fuel on desert coasting. With the big war scare on again, rationing
had tightened up and a man kept his copter for emergencies, working horses again for daily work.
The war scare . . . Travis thought about it as he watched the strange machine out of sight. Ever since
he could re-member there had been snapping and snarling in the news-papers, on the radio, on the TV
screen. Little scrimmages bursting out, smoldering, talk and more talk. Then, some months back,
something queer had happened in Europe--a big blast set off in the north. Though the Reds had not
ex-plained what had happened and clamped down tight all their screen of secrecy, rumor had it that
some kind of a new bomb had gone wrong. All this might be only preliminary to an out-and-out break
between East and West.
And the VIPs chose to believe that was true. There was a tightening up of regulations all along the