"Manly Wade Wellman - Can These Bones Live" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wellman Manly Wade)

I thought, looked like a head and shoulders. Another jabbed up like a finger, another
curved like a hawk bill. The lower ground into which we tramped was tufted with
trees, with a trickle of water through it. Beside this stood a grubby white house with
a steeple. Stumber Creek Church, I figured it to be.
Hallcott, at a front loop, steered us into a weedy tract with gravestones here and
yonder. "Set her down," he wheezed, and we did so. "Yonder comes Preacher
Travis Melick. I done sent him the word to meet up with us here."
From the church house ambled a gaunt man in a jimswinger coat, a-carrying a book
covered with black leather. Hallcott walked toward him. "Evening, Preacher," he
said. "Proud to have you here."
"The grave's been made ready," said the other in a deep-down voice, and nodded to
where a long, dark hole gaped amongst the weeds. Then he faced me. "Don't believe
I know this gentleman."
"Allows he's named John," grated the scrawny one called Oat.
"I've heard of John," said Preacher Melick, and held out his skinny hand. "Heard of
good things you've done, sir. Welcome amongst us."
Hallcott's crinkly face got easy. "If you say he's all right, Preacher, that makes him all
right," he said. "I'll tell you true, he made better than a good hand, a-wagging this
coffin the last part of the way."
We hiked the coffin to the side of the grave. On the bank of fresh dirt lay three
shovels. Oat touched the hook on the lid.
"Ain't we supposed to view the body?" he wondered us. "Ain't that the true old
way?"
"I've done seen the thing," snapped out Hallcott.
"Open it for a moment if you feel that's proper," said the preacher man.
Oat worked the hook out of the staple and hoisted the lid. The hinges creaked.
"Wonder who he was," he said.
The bones inside were loose from one another and half-wrapped in a Turkey Track
quilt, but I saw they were laid out in order. They were big, the way Hallcott had said,
big enough for an almighty big bear. I had a notion that the arms were right long;
maybe all the bones were long. Thick, too. The skull at the head of the coffin was
like a big gourd, with caves of eyeholes and two rows of big, lean teeth. Hallcott
banged the lid shut and hooked it again.
"That there's enough of a look to last youins all day and all night," he growled round
at the others.
"Brothers," said Preacher Melick, a-opening his book, "we're here to bury the
remains of a poor lost creature. We don't even know his name. Yet I've searched out
what I hope is the right text for this burying."
He put his knobby finger to the page. "Book of Ezekiel," he said. "Thirty-seventh
chapter, third verse. 'And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I
answered, O Lord God, thou knowest.'"
He closed his book. "The Lord God knoweth all things. We're taught that after death
will come the life we deserve. Let us pray."
We bowed our heads down. Preacher Melick said, "In the midst of life we are in
death," and so on. When he finished, I said, "Amen," and so did Hallcott and
two-three others.
"Now lower the coffin," said Preacher Melick.
We took hold and set it in the grave. It fitted right snug, its lid was just inches below
surface. Preacher Melick sprinkled a handful of dirt. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,"
he repeated, and then we all said the Lord's Prayer together. Finally the preacher man