"Howard Waldrop - The Ugly Chickens" - читать интересную книгу автора (Waldrop Howard)



-------


Behind the Krait house was a henhouse and pigsty where hogs lay after
their morning slop like islands in a muddy bay, or some Zen pork
sculpture. Next we passed broken farm machinery gone to rust, though
there was nothing but uncultivated land as far as the eye could see.
How the family made a living I don't know. I'm told you can find
places just like this throughout the South.

We walked through woods and across fields, following a sort of path. I
tried to memorize the turns I would have to take on the way back. Luke
didn't say a word the whole twenty minutes he accompanied me, except
to curse once when he stepped into a bull nettle with his tennis shoes.

We came to a creek which skirted the edge of a woodsy hill. There was
a rotted log forming a small dam. Above it the water was nearly three
feet deep, below it, half that much.

"See that path?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Follow it up around the hill, then across the next field. Then you cross

file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Waldrop,%20Howard%20-%20The%20Ugly%20Chickens.txt (10 of 29)9-12-2006 0:15:21
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Waldrop,%20Howard%20-%20The%20Ugly%20Chickens.txt

the creek again on the rocks, and over the hill. Take the left-hand path.
What's left of the house is about three quarters the way up the next hill.
If you come to a big bare rock cliff, you've gone too far. You got that?"

I nodded.

He turned and left.




-------


The house had once been a dog-run cabin, like Ms. Jimson had said.
Now it was fallen in on one side, what they call sigoglin (or was it
antisigoglin?). I once heard a hymn on the radio called "The Land
Where No Cabins Fall." This was the country songs like that were
written in.