"Robert Reed - To Church With Mr. Multhiford" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Robert)

didn't belong, all right. Turning, I tried to see the road, but all the world
was corn, and I couldn't see anything but the silky tops and the stars, and the
blackness between the stars, too.

Working again, I thought I heard an engine running. But when I stopped I
couldn't hear anything but Charlie moving back along the big U he was building,
pushing down more rows and never stopping. I was way, way behind. I made myself
finish the stem of my F, then I turned and looked up, and just then I saw the
sudden bright beam of a flashlight.

"Scared enough to piss your pants." I've read about it a hundred times, but I
didn't think it was possible. Until then. I almost pissed mine, I'll tell you.
Urine started trying to sneak right out of me.

Then I heard a crunching sound and a voice that didn't belong to any
seventeen-year-old kid. "Stop right there," it said, deep and strong. "You boys
stop."

It was astonishingly loud for not being a shout, and it had the wrong effect on
us. We started to run. I heard Pat shout, "It's him!" and Charlie screamed,
"He's got a gun!" Then the gun was fired. Playing it back in my head, I think
Multhiford aimed at the moon. I know the shot passed over me, and I was running
like a maniac, heading back along the rows of downed corn. My feet caught in the
bent stalks. My head pitched forward. What I'd knocked down knocked me down now,
and suddenly I took a big dive into the best farmland in the world.

I can't tell you how long I was down. Fear and the beer helped keep me on my
belly; my heart was pounding hard enough that I wondered if Dad could hear it.
The running sounds died away, which was good news. I kept still, praying to go
unseen. Then Pat laid into the horn, begging me to hurry.

Multhiford answered with a second blast -- another tall one -- and I realized he
was standing ten yards from me. Maybe less. Which was why I got up and ran
again, picking a new direction. Tearing crosswise through the corn, I ran blind,
getting no closer to the pickup for my trouble.

There were more honks, then the pickup coughed and accelerated, the guys having
no choice but to leave me.

And I dropped from exhaustion, rolling onto my back and no fight left in me. I
lay there looking up at the towering corn plants, telling myself to keep still
and wait, marshaling my energies for the walk home. It was just a five-mile
walk, I was thinking. I promised myself to cut down on my drinking and study
hard in the fall, and all that. Then I heard a man walking through his corn.
Coming closer. And just when I needed to be quiet, I got a piercing ache in my
belly, and the ache wanted to move, demanding to be let out.

That's what I was doing when Multhiford found me.
Beer can be a bad idea, and what you catch you can also throw away. The farmer
found me heaving and coughing, vomit under my face. He shone his flashlight on