"William Tenn - Eastward Ho!" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tenn William)

Jerry looked up. "Calvin?" he asked. "Could it be Calvin? Sarah Calvin? The Daugh-ter of the
Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court?"
"Sarah Calvin. That's the one. Been with us for five, six years. You remember, chief? The girl your
son's been playing around with?"
Three Hydrogen Bombs looked amazed. "Is she the hostage? I thought she was some paleface
female he had imported from his plantations in southern Ohio. Well, well, well. Makes Much Radiation is
just a chip off the old block, no doubt about it." He became suddenly serious. "But that girl will never go
back. She rather goes for Indian loving. Goes for it all the way. And she has the idea that my son will
eventually marry her. Or some such."
He looked Jerry Franklin over. "Tell you what, my boy. Why don't you wait outside while we talk
this over? And take the saber. Take it back with you. My son doesn't seem to want it."
Jerry wearily picked up the saber and trudged out of the wigwam.
Dully, uninterestedly, he noticed the band of Sioux warriors around Sam Ruther-ford and his horses.
Then the group parted for a moment, and he saw Sam with a bottle in his hand. Tequila! The damned
fool had let the Indians give him tequilaтАФhe was drunk as a pig.
Didn't he know that white men couldn't drink, didn't dare drink? With every inch of their
unthreatened arable land under cultivation for foodstuffs, they were all still on the edge of starvation.
There was absolutely no room in their economy for such luxuries as intoxicating beveragesтАФand no
white man in the usual course of a life-time got close to so much as a glassful of the stuff. Give him a
whole bottle of tequila and he was a stinking mess.
As Sam was now. He staggered back and forth in dipping semicircles, holding the bottle by its neck
and waving it idiotically. The Sioux chuckled, dug each other in the ribs and pointed. Sam vomited
loosely down the rags upon his chest and belly, tried to take one more drink, and fell over backwards.
The bottle continued to pour over his face until it was empty. He was snoring loudly. The Sioux shook
their heads, made grimaces of distaste, and walked away.
 Jerry looked on and nursed the pain in his heart. Where could they go? What could they do? And
what difference did it make? Might as well be as drunk as Sammy there. At least you wouldn't be able to
feel.
He looked at the saber in one hand, the bright new pistol in the other. Logically, he should throw
them away. Wasn't it ridiculous when you came right down to it, wasn't it patheticтАФa white man carrying
weapons?
Sylvester Thomas came out of the tent. "Get your horses ready, my dear sir," he whispered. "Be
prepared to ride as soon as I come back. Hurry!"
The young man slouched over to the horses and followed instructionsтАФmight as well do that as
anything else. Ride where? Do what?
He lifted Sam Rutherford up and tied him upon his horse. Go back home? Back to the great, the
powerful, the respected capital of what had once been the United States of America?
Thomas came back with a bound and gagged girl in his grasp. She wriggled madly. Her eyes
crackled with anger and rebellion. She kept trying to kick the Confederate Ambassador.
She wore the rich robes of an Indian princess. Her hair was braided in the style currently fashionable
among Sioux women. And her face had been stained carefully with some darkish dye.
Sarah Calvin. The daughter of the Chief Justice. They tied her to the pack horse.
"Chief Three Hydrogen Bombs," the Negro explained. "He feels his son plays around too much with
paleface females. He wants this one out of the way. The boy has to settle down, prepare for the
responsibilities of chieftainship. This may help. And listen, the old man likes you. He told me to tell you
something."
"I'm grateful. I'm grateful for every favor, no matter how small, how humiliating."
Sylvester Thomas shook his head decisively. "Don't be bitter, young sir. If you want to go on living
you have to be alert. And you can't be alert and bitter at the same time. The Chief wants you to know
there's no point in your going home. He couldn't say it openly in council, but the reason the Sioux moved