"Chad Oliver - Shadows in the Sun" - читать интересную книгу автора (Oliver Chad)

Trying to calm himself, he switched on the car radio. The faded yellow light on the dial clicked on,
together with a vast humming. Ellery hadn't been able to afford the standard radio when he had bought the
car, so he had installed a special model he had found on sale. It had its drawbacks, but it worked. It
warmed up and the first thing he got, naturally, was one of the huckster stations with mailing addresses in
Texas and transmitters in Mexico, where they could pour on the power:
Yes sir, friends, I want to remind you again tonight of our big special offer. My daughter and I
are offering you absolutely the biggest hymn book you've ever seen. This beautiful book, which will
give you hours and days of pleasure and consolation, is two feet high and one foot wide. Yes sir,
that's feet we're talking about and remember that there are twelve inches in every single foot. And
now, before my daughter sings one of these grand old hymns for you, just let me mention the price
of this huge hymn book. The price is the best part of all, my friends, and remember that it's your
contributions that keep this faith broadcast on the air
Ellery tried again, and picked up a network show out of a San Antonio station: (Burst of crashing
music.) Oh ho! And our next contestant, whose name is Ambrose Earnest, is from none other than
Sulfur Creek, Colorado! (Wild applause.) Well now, Mr. Earnest, you're not nervous are you?
(Laughter) Oh ho! Now then, Mr. Earnest, for two hundred and sixty-eight dollars in new quarters,
can you tell me under what name William Frederick Cody became famous in the West? (Long pause)
What's that? Speak right up, please. Oh ho, I'm sorry Billy the Kid is not the correct answer. (Moan)
But we don't want you to go away yet
Ellery turned the radio off. Nevertheless, his mood had brightened considerably. It was all so utterly
prosaic the peaceful country road, the night, the radio. How could there be subtle terror in a world of
two-foot-high hymn books? How could there be horror in the land of Ambrose Earnest from Sulfur Creek,
Colorado?
 He rumbled across the old bridge that spanned the Nueces, and turned sharply to the right along the
river. The road was gravel now, and his tires crunched through the ruts, although there was no need to slow
down. A screen of trees blocked his view of the Nueces on his right, and a fenced pasture stretched away
into the darkness on his left. He was getting close to the ranch road.
What was there, really, that alarmed him in Jefferson Springs? Paul Ellery told himself that he was
neither wildly imaginative nor given to flights of occult speculation. He was an anthropologist working on a
community study, and he had had experience both as a teacher and as a research scientist.
Apart from his profession, he was skeptical by temperament. He liked facts and was apt to ask
embarrassing questions to get them. He had a habit of being right, and a rather poor memory for the few
times he had been wrong. This led him to a certain cynical bullheadedness, which wasn't as objectionable as
it might have been, because he was saved by a lively sense of humor and a pleasant, unpretentious
personality.
In any event, he wasn't given to seeing ghosts.
Okay. Rule out the supernatural. Chins up, and all that rot. How could he explain the facts?
item 1: When he had first chosen Jefferson Springs as the subject for a community study, and had got a
grant from the Norse Fund in New York to carry it out, he had met with nothing but hostility from the
inhabitants of the town. When that happened, in ordinary circumstances, an anthropologist with only a few
months for research usually picked out another town where he could get quicker returns for the time
invested. Ellery, however, had been stubborn. He wasn't to be licked by Jefferson Springs.
item 2: After a few weeks, the people had changed their tactics. Instead of clamming up, they had talked
willingly and volubly. They had told him everything. Unfortunately, hardly a word of what they said rang
true.
item 3: There was not one single person in the town of Jefferson Springs who had lived there longer than
fifteen years. The town had a population of six thousand. Now, Jefferson Springs, for all its woebegone
appearance to a stranger, was no ghost town. It had been continuously occupied for one hundred and
thirty-two years. There had been no disasters, no social upheavals, no plagues, no crop failure, no nothing.
item 4: That meant, in a nutshell, that the entire population six thousand men, women, and children had