"Scott O'Dell - Sing Down The Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'dell Scott)

The girl said this in one breath and was gone before I could answer.
Rosita had three baskets filled with food. We each carried one and shared the other. As we left the market I looked for the house where Running Bird was. I saw the big iron gate and the flag on the pole, but the gate was dosed and there was a lock on it. I did not tell Rosita that the Nez Perc girl had spoken to me.
The three baskets of food we carried back to the house were for the party the Senora had that night. The rest of the day I spent peeling chili peppers. I burned the skins over a fire and scraped them off and split each pod. Then I picked out the hundreds of little white seeds and

placed the pods on a platter. Now and again the Sefiora came and watched me, to make me hurry, I guess.
I did not hurry, yet by late afternoon I had done six platters of chili peppers. My fingers were on fire and I could scarcely see from my eyes. Ne-hana, the Nez Perc girl, was there, as she said she would be, sweeping the house and the walks and cutting flowers to put in bowls. She acted as if she had never seen me and when I spoke to her she did not answer.
After I finished with the chili peppers the Sefiora sent me off to my room to put on the new button shoes and the velveteen dress.
People came when the sun went down. They filled the house and flowed out into the garden. In my new clothes I walked around among them, as I was told, carrying a big tray of food. When one tray was empty I went back to the kitchen for another.
Most of the men were Long Knives. They were like the men who had come to our canyon and threatened to destroy our crops and burn our hogans. The Sefiora had told me to smile as I passed the food around, but I hated everyone there, the soldiers and their wives, too, and I did not obey her.
I saw Nehana many times while I was in the kitchen or walking around with trays of food, but she never spoke. Once when Rosita noticed that I was looking at the girl, she cautioned me.
"That one you keep looking at," she said, "is
bad. Once last year she ran away. She was caught and beaten for it, with a long leather whip. M she talks to you, do not listen. If the Sefiora catches you talking to her, you will be punished."
During the days I had been a slave in the house, I had learned that Rosita liked the life she was living. She came from a poor tribe and a poor family and she liked all the food she got to eat, the clothes the Sefiora bought for her, the soft bed, and the big room. She liked ordering me around and the penny she always got to keep when she went to the market.
If she talks to me, I wanted to say, I will talk, to her, whether I am punished or not.
"You will be happy here someday," Rosita said.
Most of the people were leaving and I was in the kitchen. Nehana was bringing dishes in for me to wash. Rosita and another girl were helping the women put on their cloaks. Nehana put a tray of dishes on the table and started out of the kitchen.
She turned at the door and listened. Men on horses were riding away. Someone was playing a guitar in the garden. Women were laughing in the other part of the house.
"In ten days," Nehana said, holding up ten fingers, "at the church."
The next instant she was gone and I went on washing the dishes. There were many. Rosita and I worked until the first roosters crowed. When we went to our room I lay down on the floor as I had every night since I came. But I did not sleep until gray light showed through the window.
On the tenth night after the baile Rosita and I went to the church. I tried to go alone, for this was the night Nehana had told me to come, but the Senora went with us.
While we were walking up the street she asked Rosita to tell me about the fiesta.
"It is called Easter," Rosita said, and told me all she had learned during the time she had been a slave-how Jesus Cristo was placed upon a wooden cross and slain and then how he rose from the dead.
"Jesus Cristo," Rosita said, "is like all our gods if you put them together. He is Falling Water and Spider Woman. But he is not cunning like Falling Water, nor is he vengeful like Spider Woman."
I nodded my head as though I understood everything she said, but I was not listening. I wondered if Nehana would come to the church, if she would see the three of us together and leave without speaking to me. I also wondered where Tall Boy was, if even now he was hidden somewhere near, waiting to take me home. I wondered so hard that I stumbled in a hole and fell down. I got dirt on my new velveteen dress and scuffed my red button shoes, which made the Senora angry.
The door of the church was covered with pine boughs and inside there were flowers everywhere. Smoke rose in the air. It smelled sweet as it swirled about me. The church was crowded with people, and though I kept glancing around while children dressed in white gowns were singing, I did not see Nehana.
When the singing and the talk were over we went out with the others. Nehana stood near the door, all but her eyes covered with a shawl. I was walking behind Rosita and the Senora. Nehana turned her back and waited for them to pass. Then she glanced at me. She was a dozen steps away and many people were around her, but I saw her hold up one finger, as she had held up ten the night of the baile. That is all she did before she disappeared, but I was sure that she meant for me to come there the following night.
On the way back to the house, the Senora asked me if I liked the fiesta. I said, "Yes," which seemed to please her. I began to plan how I would get to the church alone on the following night.
The next morning, when Rosita was not looking, I wrapped twenty tortillas in a cloth, ten for me and ten for the black dog, and hid them in my room. When it was time for me to help with the supper I told Rosita that I had a headache and went to bed.
The Senora came and gave me a spoonful of something out of a bottle, which choked me but I did not mind. As soon as she left, I jumped up and got my blanket and the bundle of tortillas. I closed the door and walked quietly along the path to the front of the house.
The gate was locked. I had forgotten that the Sefiora locked it each night. The adobe wall that surrounded the house was higher than my head and the top was covered with pieces of broken glass. I stood there looking at it. I heard the Senora's voice and the closing of a door somewhere.
In a panic I threw the tortillas over the wall, then the blanket. The blanket caught on the pieces of glass and hung there. This was fortunate for me because I was able to put the black dog on top of the wall and climb up after him. I jumped to the ground. The dog followed me and we ran. I took my blanket but I forgot the tortillas.
People were going into the church. Nehana came out of the shadows and with her was Running Bird. Nehana did not go in but went past the door and along the side of the church. We followed her, walking carefully in the dark. We came to a ditch where water was flowing ankle deep and ran along it.
We traveled for a long time in darkness. Then the moon rose and we came to a path, which we followed to the ridge of a low hill. Below us in a small valley, I saw a clump of cottonwood trees, lights winking among them, and nearby the outlines of a building. While we stood there, catching our breath, men and women on horseback passed us and rode down toward the lights.
"That is where the Penitentes meet," Nehana said. "I do not belong to them but they will not harm us. It is far from town so the Penitentes come here on their horses. There will be many horses for us to choose from. Without horses they would catch us before we went far, as they caught me once."
When we reached the cottonwood trees, Nehana told Running Bird and me to put the blankets over our heads so that only our eyes showed.
Many horses were tethered in the cottonwood grove, some hobbled, some tied to the trees. Nehana went slowly, looking at them as we passed. Most of them were fine horses and had bridles made of silver and turquoise. A few men were standing among the trees smoking, and a crowd was gathered in front of the church, which was long and narrow like the white man's coffin.
"I have chosen three good horses," Nehana whispered as we left the grove. "But to take them now is unwise. We must wait for the right time. The three horses are pintos and they are tethered near the far side of the grove."
Running Bird and I followed her into the church and stood in the back, near the door.
"I will tell you when to leave," she whispered. "It will be when they put out the candles and everything is dark. Do not speak and keep your faces hidden. When I go, follow me quickly."
Half the people in the church were women and they held lighted candles. The men carried leather whips tipped with pieces of iron. Everyone stood quietly, facing the altar. Clouds of sweet-smelling smoke drifted back and forth. It was very hot and hard to breathe, but I kept my head covered.
At the far end of the church a drum began to beat. Someone played on a flute softly and a bent old man spoke a verse and people joined him, repeating what he said.
A tall figure suddenly appeared at the door, a man with a circle of cactus thorns around his head. He was carrying a heavy wooden cross on his back. On his face there were spots of blood.
Nehana grasped my arm. I felt her body grow stiff beside me. As I looked at the man standing in the doorway, his mouth began to move in pain and I saw a flash of white teeth.
"The Spaniard," Nehana whispered. "The slave catcher."
We stood tight against the wall, holding each other by the hand. The Spaniard looked one way and the other, peering through the candle smoke at everyone, at us. I did not breathe. At last he looked away and began to stagger toward the far end of the church, as people made way for him.
"They think he is Jesus Cristo," Nehana whispered.
He reached the far wall and two men took the cross from his back and a man held him so he would not fall. The flute started to play again. Someone gave a loud cry, like the cry of a wounded animal, and all the candles, as if there were only one, went out at the same time.
While the darkness settled down around us, there was a time of awful silence. Then women began to weep and louder than the weeping came the sound of whips whistling through the air, striking again and again.
Nehana pulled at my dress and the three of us squirmed our way through the darkness and found the door. Nehana ran toward the cotton-wood trees and we followed her, the black dog at my heels. Nehana did not pause. She ran toward the three pintos tethered at the far edge of the grove.
The moon was high in the east. We got into the saddles and rode toward it, moving slowly through the mesquite until the sound of weeping and the crack of whips died away in the night.