"Manly Wade Wellman - The Dead Man's Hand" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wellman Manly Wade)

were unnaturally long, longer than the middle fingers. One of them held his wide hat,
and the uncovered locks of dead black hair fell in soft waves over Mr. Shonokin's
broad brow. As Berna's eyes came to his, he smiled.
"I've been talking to your father," he said, "and now I want to talk to you."
She got to her feet, grateful for the restored power to do so. "Talk?" she echoed.
"Talk of what?"
"This place of yours," he told her, laying his hat on the table. "You see, the title
isn't exactly clear."
She shook her head at once. She knew her father better than that.
"It's completely clear, Mr. Shonokin. All in order, back to the original grant from
the Indians."
"Ah," said Shonokin, still gently. "But where did the Indians get their title?
Where? I'll tell you. From us, the Shonokins."
Berna was still trembling, from that strange moment of tranced inaction. She had
been hypnotized, she told herself, like Trilby in the book. It must not happen again.
She would face this stranger with resolution and defiance.
"You don't mean to claim," she replied, with an attempt at loftiness, "that your
family was in this part of the country before the Indians."
"We were everywhere before the Indians," he assured her, and smiled. His teeth
were white, perfect, and ever so slightly pointed, even the front teeth that should be
square-edged like chisels.
"Then you're Indian yourself," she suggested, but he shook his head.
"Shonokins are not Indians. They are notтАФ" He paused, as if choosing his
words. "We are not like any race you know. We are old, even when we are young.
We took this country from creatures too terrible for you to imagine, even though
they are dead and leave only their fossil bones. We ruled well, in ways you can't
understand." That sounded both sad and superior. "For reasons that you can't
understand, either, we were once tired of ruling. That is when we allowed the Indians
to come, retaining only limited domains. This is one of them."
"This farm?" prompted Berna. She still held the pencil, so tightly that her fingers
were bruising against it.
"This farm," said her visitor. "The Indians never had any right to it. It is ground
sacred to the Shonokins, where their wisdom and rule will continue forever. And so
any deed dating back to Indians is not lawful. I told your father that, and it's the
truth, however stupid and furious he may be."
"Suppose," said Berna, "that you say to my father that you think he's stupid. Tell
him to his face. I'd like to see what he does to you then."
"I did tell him," replied the man they knew as Mr. Shonokin. "And he did nothing.
He was frozen into silence, as you were just now, when I held upтАФ" His
strange-shaped hand moved toward his side pocket, where he had put that strange
sheaf of tapers.
"Suppose," went on Berna, "that you get out of this house and off this property."
It was bold, fierce talk for a quiet girl like Berna, but she felt she was managing it
splendidly. She took a step toward him. "Yes, right now."
His pointed teeth smiled at her again. He backed smoothly toward the open door
and paused on the sill. "You're hasty," he protested gently. "We want only to be fair.
You may enjoy this placeтАФenjoy it very much, as Old Monroe didтАФif you simply
and courteously make the same agreement."
"Sell our souls?" Berna snapped, as she had never snapped at anyone before in all
her life.