"Mary Rosenblum - Rainmaker" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenblum Mary)

"I sure agree with you." Uncle Kenny sighed, and kissed her as he got to his
feet. "Wish you made the laws, Sis. So, Donny-boy." He grinned down at me. "You
ready to ride?."

Mom was looking at me, and I had to say yes. I'd been just about willing to kill
to ride with Uncle Kenny, sitting shotgun beside him as he tooled the green and
white Sheriff's Department Jeep through the sage that was mostly what makes up
Hamey County. Everybody liked Uncle Kenny. It used to make me feel real
important, seeing how respectful everyone treated him. I licked my lips, trying
to think of an excuse not to go. "Sure," I finally said, and pretended not to
notice Mom's eyes get 'narrow.

"You'll make a good deputy, kid." He slapped me on the shoulder -hard enough to
hurt. "Let's go."

Uncle Kenny put his sunglasses on when he got into the car. I didn't say much as
we drove back into town. It was hot, and I had the window down all the way, but
the July heat washed over me, making me hotter. There isn't much to Bums. The
high school. A few streets on either side of highway 20. A lot of sage beyond
that, in gray-green clumps. You got rocks, too, and dust the color of a buckskin
mustang's hide. I saw a ghost in the distance, just walking through the sage. He
was carrying a bucket.

I see them a lot -- the ghosts. Sometimes I think the desert preserves them,
like it does the old homesteaders' cabins that are scattered all through the
sage. Or maybe the ghosts are everywhere, but it's just easier to see them out
here. I told my morn about them when I was six. She went in the bedroom and
cried, after. I heard her through the door. I never talked about 'em after that.
They don't pay us any attention anyway. I wonder if they even know we're here?

"You're sure talkative," Uncle Kenny spoke up. "Can't shut you up for a second.
Something eating at you, Donny-boy?"

"No sir." I could feel his eyes on me, but I couldn't stop looking at the ghost.

"Maybe we need to talk," he said in a real quiet voice.

I sneaked a quick look at him then, and yeah he was looking at me. I stared at
my twin faces in the mirrored surface of his glasses, and my stomach kind of
folded in on itself, so I could feel the lump of the pancakes I'd eaten. Then
his head jerked a little and he turned sharp without warning, so that I had to
grab the door. We were pulling into the parking lot of the motel across the
street from the high school, tires squealing. No siren.

This was Wednesday in late July. The lot should have been empty -too early in
the day for the truckers to be stopping, or the folks passing through on their
way to somewhere else. But it was full -- so full that Uncle Kenny pulled up
behind two big Ford rigs slantwise, not even bothering to look for a parking
space. A green and orange patio umbrella stuck up over the crowd at the back of
the lot, out where the asphalt left off and the sage began. Everybody was back