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

me, and I turned, aware of his gun and his lean little body. I thought he would
kill me out of hand. I just assumed that crazy men don't have trouble committing
murder.

Except he didn't shoot. All he did was say, "I know you."

I coughed again, no strength left in me.

Then he said, "Get up," and gave his shotgun a twirl. "And quit the running. I
know exactly who you are."

Fame is fame, no matter where it happens.

Strangers know the famous person too well, and they don't know him at all. Like
with my father, for example. He's been the Methodist minister for years, and
he's considered to be the most Christian man in the county. He's got what a
minister should have -- a pleasant wife and a good and pretty daughter -- but to
make things fair, he's also got a half-wild son. I guess I'm some kind of test
for Dad, and since my infractions are mostly tiny, I'm a test that he's passing.
Maybe not in God's eyes, but at least in the local ones.

The town doesn't love Dad, but it admires him. Which is the harder trick, if you
know Pelican City.

Yet Dad's not the perfect Christian everyone imagines. I won't claim he drinks
or loves the ladies or puts on Mom's makeup and pumps. What I mean is that he
has doubts. About God and himself, mostly. About the things people think
ministers should trust in and accept with every Christian breath, every second
of their eternal lives.

Early this summer I was reading in the den, and Dad came and sat, announcing, "I
just saw Clarence Multhiford." He waited for half a beat, then added, "At
Wal-Mart." As if that would help me understand why this was news. Then, after a
long look, he said, "We talked. We had quite the conversation."

"About corn, I bet."

"Sometimes," Dad admitted. "He said that his crop is doing well, but Henshaw
planted late and the Jacob brothers are sloppy.... "

That's Multhiford. He always has the good luck, and he always gives big advice.
Which makes him about as popular as hailstones among our local seed-cap sect, I
can tell you.

Dad gave me a stare, then said, "He asked about you."

"Who did?"
"Who are we talking about?"

I dropped my book, entirely surprised. "He doesn't even know me," I sputtered.