"Dan Simmons - Death Of The Centaur" - читать интересную книгу автора (Simmons Dan)

It may. It may. But take it from somebody who was in there pitching for eighteen
yearsтАФgood teachers are invaluable, more precious than platinum or presidents, but
a bad teacher's influence touches the same eternity.
***
The teacher and the boy climbed the steep arc of lawn that overlooked the
southernmost curve of the Missouri River. Occasionally they glanced up at the
stately brick mansion that held the high ground. Its tiers of tall win-dows and wide
French doors reflected the broken patterns of bare branches against a gray sky. Both
the boy and the young man knew the big house was most likely emptyтАФits owner
spent only a few weeks a year in townтАФbut ap-proaching so close afforded them
the pleasurable tension of trespass as well as an outstanding view.
A hundred feet from the mansion they stopped climb-ing and sat down, backs
against a tree which shielded them from the slight breeze and protected them from
the casual notice of anyone in the house. The sun was very warm, a false spring
warmth which would almost surely be driven off by at least one more snowstorm
before re-turning in earnest. The wide expanse of lawn, dropping down to the
railroad tracks and the river two hundred yards below, had the faint, green
splotchiness of thawing earth. The air smelled like Saturday.
The teacher took up a short blade of grass, rolled it in his fingers, and began to chew
on it thoughtfully. The boy pulled a piece, squinted at it for a long second, and did
likewise.
"Mr. Kennan, d'you think the river's gonna rise again this year and flood everythin'
like it done before?" asked the boy.
"I don't know, Terry," said the young man. He did not turn to look at the boy, but
raised his face to the sun and closed his eyes.
The boy looked sideways at his teacher and noticed how the red hairs in the man's
beard glinted in the sun-light. Terry put his head back against the rough bark of the
old elm but was too animated to shut his eyes for more than a few seconds.
"Do you figure it'll flood Main if it does?"
"I doubt it, Terry. That kind of flood only comes along every few years."
Neither participant in the conversation found it strange that the teacher was
commenting on events which he had never experienced first hand. Kennan had been
in the small Missouri town just under seven months, having ar-rived on an incredibly
hot Labor Day just before school began. By then the flood had been old news for
four months. Terry Bester, although only ten years old, had seen three such floods in
his life and he remembered the cursing and thumping in the morning darkness the
previ-ous April when the volunteer firemen had called his father down to work on the
levee.
A train whistle came to them from the north, the Dopplered noise sounding delicate
in the warm air. The teacher opened his eyes to await the coming of the eleven a.m.
freight to St. Louis. Both counted the cars as the long train roared below them,
diesel throbbing, whistle rising in pitch and then dropping as the last cars
disappeared toward town around the bend in the track where they had just walked.
"Whew, good thing we wasn't down there," said Terry loudly.
"Weren't," said Mr. Kennan.
"Huh?" said Terry and looked at the man.
"We weren't down there," repeated the bearded young man with a hint of irritation in
his voice.
"Yeah," said Terry and there was a silence. Mr. Kennan closed his eyes and rested
his head against the tree trunk once again. Terry stood to throw imaginary stones at