"Roberts, Nora - Divine Evil(1)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberts Nora)

Life moved slow and calm in Emmitsboro, Maryland. ThatТs why he had come back.
The town had grown some since his youth. With a population of nearly two
thousand, counting the outlying farms and mountain homes, they had added on to
the elementary school and five years before had converted from septic tanks to a
sewage treatment plant. Such things were still big news in Emmitsboro, where the
park off the square at Main and Poplar flew the flag from sunup to sunset daily.
It was a quiet, tidy little town that had been settled in 1782 by Samuel Q.
Emmit. Tucked in a valley, it was ringed by sedate mountains and rolling
farmland. On three of its four sides, it was flanked by fields of hay and
alfalfa and corn. On the fourth was DoperТs Woods, so named because it adjoined
the Dopper farm. The woods were deep, more than two hundred acres. On a crisp
November day in 1958, Jerome DoperТs oldest son, Junior, had skipped school and
headed into those woods with his 30-30 over his shoulder, hoping for a six-point
buck.
TheyТd found him the next morning near the slippery banks of the creek. Most of
his head was missing. It looked as though Junior had been careless with the
safety, had slid on the slick carpet and blown himself, instead of that buck, to
kingdom come.
Since then, kids had enjoyed scaring themselves over campfires with stories of
Junior DoperТs ghost, headless and shambling, hunting forever in DoperТs Woods.
The Antietam Creek cut through the DoppersФ south pasture, slashed through the
woods, where Junior had taken that final slide, and meandered into town. After a
good rain, it bubbled noisily under the stone bridge on Gopher Hole Lane.
A half-mile out of town it widened, cutting a rough circle out of rock and
trees. There the water moved slow and easy and let the sunlight dance on it
through the shelter of leaves in the summer. A man could find himself a
comfortable rock and sink a line, and if he wasnТt too drunk or stupid, take
home trout for supper.
Beyond the fishing hole, the land started its jagged upward climb. There was a
limestone quarry on the second ridge where Cam had worked for two sweaty,
backbreaking summers. On hot nights lads would ride up there, mostly high on
beer or pot, and dive off the rocks into the deep, still water below, In
seventy-eight, after three lads had drowned, the quarry was fenced off and
posted. Kids still dived into the quarry on hot summer nights. They just climbed
the fence first.
Emmitsboro was too far from the interstate for much traffic, and being a
two-hour drive from D.C., it had never qualified as one of the cityТs bedroom
communities. The changes that took place were few and far between, which suited
the residents just fine.
It boasted a hardware store, four churches, an American Legion post, and a
clutch of antique shops. There was a market that had been run by the same family
for four generations and a service station that had changed hands more times
than Cam could count. A branch of the county library stood at the square and was
open two afternoons a week and Saturday mornings. They had their own sheriff,
two deputies, a mayor, and a town council.
In the summer the trees were leafy, and if you strolled in the shade, you
smelled fresh-cut grass rather than exhaust. People took pride in their homes,
and flower and kitchen gardens were in evidence in even the tiniest yards.
Come autumn, the surrounding mountains went wild with color, and the scent of
woodsmoke and wet leaves filtered along the streets.