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

"I always wonder myself if there's not truth in air tale. And as for bonesтАФI recollect
something the Indians called Kalu, off in a place named Hosea's Hollow. Bones
a-rattling round, and sure death to a natural man.'
"You believe that, too?"
"Believe it? I saw it happen one time. Only Kalu got somebody else, not me."
"Can these bones live?" Hallcott repeated the text. "Ain't there an old song about
that, the bones a-coming together alive?"
"I've sung it in my time," I said, and picked up my guitar and struck out the tune. "It
goes like this:


Connect these bones, dry bones, dry bones,
Connect these bones, dry bones, dry bones,
Connect these bones, dry bones, dry bones,
Hear the word of the Lord."
Hallcott sang the verse with me, his voice rough and husky:


The toe bone's connected to the foot bone,
The foot bone's connected to the heel bone,

Hear the word of the Lord.
And we sang the rest of it together, up to the end:
The shoulder bone's connected to the neck bone,
The neck bone's connected to the jaw bone,
The jaw bone's connected to the head bone,
Hear the word of the Lord.
Connect these bones, dry bones, dry bones,
Connect theseтАФ
Hallcott broke off then, and so did I. "John," he said, "looky yonder where we
buried him. What's that there white stuff?"
I saw it, too. In the shine of the moon above the grave stirred a pale something or
other.
It made just a sneaky blur, taller than a tall man. It came toward us with a ripple in it.
"Mist," Hallcott stuttered. "Comes from that there fresh-dug-up dirtтАФ"
"No," I said, "that's no mist."
I leant my guitar to the walnut tree and got up on my feet as whatever it was came
nearer, started to make itself into a shape.
I heard Hallcott say a quick cuss word, and then there was a scrambly noise, like as
if he was a-trying to make his way off from there on hands and knees. I faced
toward whatair the shape was, because I reckoned I had to.
As it came slowly along, the moonlight hit it fair. It looked scaffolded some way.
That was because it was just bones. I could see a sort of baskety bunch of ribs, and
big, stout arm bones with almighty huge hands a-hanging down below crooked
knees. The shallowy skull had deep, dark eyeholes. The long-toothed jaw sank itself
down and then snapped shut again. The skull turned on its neck bone and gave me a
long, long look.
Then it reached out its right hand with finger bones the size of table knives, and laid
hold on a young tree and yanked it out by the roots, without air much a-trying. It
stood and tore off branches, easy as you'd peel the shucks from an ear of corn. It