"Bruce Holland Rogers - Thirteen Ways to Water" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rogers Bruce Holland)

 4. Downhill

When Jack Salter was a boy, his father showed him the mountains.
They hiked the rain-soaked Siskiyous, the big timber of the Cascades, the
scrubby Sheepshead Mountains. And his father taught him that if he was
lost, he should go the way that water goes. He should follow a slope to a
stream, follow the stream to a river, follow the river to safety.



5. Lethe

They were far north of the DMZ, two Jolly Green Giants hovering above
the treetops. They'd had to wait for their Skyraider escort to fly up from
Da Nang. That gave the NVA time to locate the pilot, set a trap.
As the Skyraiders circled, Jack rode the cable down, found his man in
the underbrush, loaded him onto the litter. When the two of them reached
the helicopter doorway, the enemy opened up. A rocket seemed to pass
harmlessly through the rotors, but heavy rounds clapped the armor, or
pierced it. The Jolly Green started to pitch and rock. As she climbed away,
she was burning. Jack strapped a parachute on his injured man, donned
one himself.
When the helicopter exploded, the blast threw Jack out the open door.
His parachute opened just above the trees.
Jack's ears were ringing so badly that when the PJ for the other Jolly
Green came down to get him, he couldn't hear what the man was saying,
could barely hear the thundering of the engines when the second bird
hoisted him up, carried him away.
His crewmates were gone, along with the man they'd come for. Quick as
that.
When his head cleared, he thought, I can forgive anything. I can forget
anything.
 6. Under the Full Moon

The Willamette has rolled on for a few minutes, and Bull hasn't spoken
again. But now he says, "The first action I saw was on the night of a full
moon." He lets that sentence rest. "We went out on an ambush. The dikes
of the rice paddy were slippery. We were careful, trying not to fall down.
Quiet."
Bull watches the river, but Jack thinks he must be seeing something
else.
"We walked through the village. Eyes on us. I felt them. Now and then,
the moon appeared in the rice paddies. The sergeant with the starlight
scope said, real soft, 'There!' And he spread us out. These guys were
walking right toward us, toward the village, and when the sergeant
popped off the first rounds, the rest of us joined in."
Bull falls silent. Jack waits. And goes on waiting until Bull says, "We
went forward. Two bodies, and a third guy, shot up, who begged for his
life. The sergeant said no dice. He said, 'You.' тАЬ
Bull taps his chest. "I did a fucking good job. Had to wrap him like meat