"Kim Stanley Robinson - Sixty Days and Counting" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

worst 7-Eleven coffee he had ever tastedтАФcoffee so bad it was good, in terms of
waking him up. The idea that it might be poisoned gave him an extra jolt. Surely
someone had poured in their battery acid as a prank. There was too much time to
think. If Caroline was the boss, and her ex worked for her, thenтАж.
95 kept on coming, an endless slot through endless forest, a grass sward and two
concrete strips rolling on for mile after mile. Finally he came to Bangor, Maine, and
turned right, driving over hills and across small rivers, then through the standard
array of franchises in Ellsworth, including an immense Wal-Mart. During the night he
had driven north into full winter; a thin blanket of dirty snow covered everything. He
passed a completely shut-down tourist zone, the motels, lobster shacks, antique
stores, and miniature golf courses all looking miserable under their load of ice and
snow, all except the Christmas knickknack barn, which had a full parking lot and was
bustling with festive shoppers.
Soon after that he crossed the bridge that spanned the tidal race to Mount Desert
Island. By then the round gray tops of the islandтАЩs little range of peaks had appeared
several times over the water of FrenchmanтАЩs Bay. They were lower than Frank had
expected them to be, but still, they were bare rock mountain tops, shaved into
graceful curves by the immense force of the Ice AgeтАЩs ice cap. Frank had googled
the island on a cybercafeтАЩs rented computer, and had read quite a bit; and the
information had surprised him in more ways than one. It turned out that this little
island was in many ways the place where the American wilderness movement had
begun, in the form of the landscape painter Frederick Church, who had come here in
the 1840s to paint. In getting around the island, Church had invented what he called
тАЬrusticating,тАЭ by which he meant wandering on mountainsides just for the fun of it.
He also took offense at the clear-cut logging on the island, and worked to get the
legislature of Maine to forbid it, in some of the nationтАЩs first environmental
legislation. All this was happening at the same time Emerson and Thoreau were
writing. Something had been in the air.
Eventually all that led to the national park system, and Mount Desert Island had been
the third one, the first east of the Mississippi, and the only one anywhere created by
citizens donating their own land. Acadia National Park now took up about two-thirds
of the island, in a patchwork pattern; when Frank drove over the bridge he was on
private land, but most of the seaward part of the island belonged to the park.
He slowed down, deep in forest still, following instructions printed out from a map
website. The Maine coast here faced almost south. The island was roughly square,
and split nearly in half, east and west, by a fjord called Somes Sound. CarolineтАЩs
friendтАЩs house was on the western half of the island.
Nervously Frank drove through Somesville, at the head of the sound. This turned
out to be no more than a scattering of white houses, on snowy lawns on either side
of the road. He looked for something like a village commercial center but did not
find one.
Now he was getting quite nervous. Just the idea of seeing her. He didnтАЩt know how
to approach her. In his uncertainty he drove past the right turn that headed to her
friendтАЩs place, and continued on to a town called Southwest Harbor. He wanted to
eat something, also to think things over.
In the only cafe still open he ordered a sandwich and espresso. He didnтАЩt want to
catch her unawares; that could be a bad shock. On the other hand there didnтАЩt seem
any other way to do it. Sitting in the cafe drinking espresso (heavenly after the
battery acid), he ate his sandwich and tried to think. They were the same thoughts he
had been thinking the whole drive. He would have to surprise her; hopefully he could