"Connie Willis - Nonstop to Portales" - читать интересную книгу автора (Willis Connie)

NONSTOP TO PORTALES
by Connie Willis
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Taken from: Year's Best SF 2
Edited by David G. Hartwell
Copyright ┬й 1997 by David G. Hartwell
ISBN 0-06-105746-0

eBook scanned & proofed by Binwiped 11-01-2002 [v1.0]




Every town's got a claim to fame. No town is too little and dried out to have some kind of tourist
attraction. John Garfield's grave, Willa Gather's house, the dahlia capital of America. And if they don't
have a house or a grave or a Pony Express station, they make something up. Sasquatch footprints in
Oregon. The Martha lights in Texas. Elvis sightings. Something. Except, apparently, Portales, New
Mexico.
"Sights?" the cute Hispanic girl at the desk of the Portales Inn said when I asked what there was to
see. "There's Billy the Kid's grave over in Fort Sumner. It's about seventy miles."
I'd just driven all the way from Bisbee, Arizona. The last thing I wanted to do was get back in a car
and drive a hundred and sixty miles round trip to see a crooked wooden tombstone with the name worn
off.
"Isn't there anything famous to see in town?"
"In Portales?" she said, and it was obvious from her tone there wasn't.
"There's Blackwater Draw Museum on the way up to Clovis," she said finally. "You take Highway
70 north about eight miles and it's on your right. It's an archaeological dig. Or you could drive out west of
town and see the peanut fields."
Great. Bones and dirt.
"Thanks," I said and went back up to my room.
It was my own fault. Cross wasn't going to be back till tomorrow, but I'd decided to come to
Portales a day early to "take a look around" before I talked to him, but that was no excuse. I'd been in
little towns all over the west for the last five years. I knew how long it took to look around. About fifteen
minutes. And five to see it had dead end written all over it. So here I was in Sightless Portales on a
Sunday with nothing to do for a whole day but think about Cross's offer and try to come up with a
reason not to take it.
"It's a good, steady job," my friend Denny'd said when he called to tell me Cross needed somebody.
"Portales is a nice town. And it's got to be better than spending your life in a car. Driving all over
kingdom come trying to sell inventions to people who don't want them. What kind of future is there in
that?"
No future at all. The farmers weren't interested in solar-powered irrigation equipment or water
conservation devices. And lately Hammond, the guy I worked for, hadn't seemed very interested in them
either.
My room didn't have air-conditioning. I cranked the window open and turned the TV on. It didn't
have cable either. I watched five minutes of a sermon and then called Hammond.
"It's Carter Stewart," I said as if I were in the habit of calling him on Sundays. "I'm in Portales. I got
here earlier than I thought, and the guy I'm supposed to see isn't here till tomorrow. You got any other
customers you want me to look up?"
"In Portales?" he said, sounding barely interested. "Who were you supposed to see there?"
 "Hudd at Southwest Agricultural Supply. I've got an appointment with him at eleven." And an