"Utley, Steven - The Despoblado" - читать интересную книгу автора (Utley Steven)

"Who is he, and what's his story?"

"He's part of the paleoclimate survey. Mans the radio station out here."

"What's his story?"

"I don't know. Maybe he doesn't have a story."

"Nobody just becomes a hermit."

"No? Most people know or feelЧeven if they don't know they know it, or don't know they feel thisЧfor most people, selfhood exists not in isolation from other people but in relationships to other people. But there're always some men who want solitude. In pioneer days, they were the ones who pulled up stakes and moved on because they felt crowded by their closest neighbors, five miles away."

Michelle dried the last dish and put it away. She turned, leaned against the tiny sink, began carefully drying her fingers. Without looking at Walton, she said, "Is that how it is with you?"

"God, no. I'm gregarious as hell."

Now she did look at him. "You know, Mister Walton, I believe there's a good deal more to you than meets the eye. You're not just some old river rat."

"No," he said slowly, "I guess I'm not."

"What's your story? Or don't you have one either?"

"I have a degree from UCLA School of Philosophy. It's true. In another life, another time. On another world. I was the complete philosophy wonk. Even to having a tall, fair, Nordic girlfriend who liked to dress in black. She did look fine in a leotard, too. The stuff of being and meaning was our breakfast conversation and our pillow talk. She was doing her thesis on Kierkegaard, which may explain why she was about as lively in bed as a Norwegian cheese. Well, here's the best part of her storyЧher name was Joy! So. I had my degree in hand, I was all set to start teaching the next generation of philosophy wonks everything I'd just been taught about ethical formalism and intuitionism and what all, when the news came out about the spacetime anomaly. Time-travel, expeditions to prehistoric times! Then and there, in an instant, my life turned itself inside out. I told myself, told my girlfriend, Dammit, I want to go on one of those expeditions! Of course, as far as the National Science Foundation was concerned, a degree in philosophy wasn't all that relevant to Paleozoic research. So I hooked up with an uncle who plied the Intercoastal Waterway out of Mobile and learned how to handle a boat. Hired out to one of the private companies. Now I'm a private enterprise in my own right, with my own damn government contract. Ferrying supplies and delivering mail. Never regretted it for a second."

"And Wicket?"

"My sister Karen's boy. I became his legal guardian after she died. He's terminally shy, in case you haven't noticed, but he's quite intelligent, never forgets anything, whiz at math. So I made him the company accountant. When they said I couldn't bring him along in my capacity as an equal-opportunity employer helping somebody overcome a handicap, I made him my business partner. And some people went to bat for me. Kevin Barnet, for one." Walton paused, then said carefully, "By the way, do you know Kevo well?"

"Well enough to know he's a character."

"He's hardly what you'd call an unimpeachable character reference."

"I think this was in the way of one character recommending another. I distinctly heard him call you colorful."

"You should take everything that man says with a five-pound block of salt. He's a drunken old bum and a lecher. I really don't care much for the man. But I owe him on Wicket's account. Anyway, I believe Wicket's happy here. He likes being on the boat, likes his work. He doesn't have to deal with anyone but me and the occasional lower life-form."

"Such as me."

"You know perfectly well what I mean."




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The next morning as they went upriver, Walton called to her, and she saw him point to starboard. Well back from the bank the land was puckered into a line of rough hills, and set at intervals along the ridgeline were the improbable spindly forms of windmills. "Powers his generator. The old man of the mountain's. You'll see him around the next bend in the river."
"I don't even see the mountain."

"It's a metaphorical mountain. And he's a metaphorical old man." He tugged on the whistle cord, and Karen let out a piercing shriek. "That'll let him know to expect us. I don't want to scare him into the underbrush by just showing up. Metaphorical underbrush, you understand."