"Robert Charles Wilson - Julian- A Christmas Story" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilson Robert Charles)

was in the airтАФthe tang of it, anywayтАФwhen fifty cavalrymen of the Athabaska Reserve rode into
Williams Ford, escorting an equal number of Campaigners and Poll-Takers.

Many people despised the Athabaskan winter. I was not one of them. I didn't mind the cold and the
darkness, not so long as there was a hard-coal heater, a spirit lamp to read by on long nights, and the
chance of wheat cakes or headcheese for breakfast. And Christmas was coming up fastтАФone of the four
Universal Christian Holidays recognized by the Dominion (the others being Easter, Independence Day,
and Thanksgiving). My favorite of these had always been Christmas. It was not so much the gifts, which
were generally meagerтАФthough last year I had received from my parents the lease of a muzzle-loading
rifle of which I was exceptionally proudтАФnor was it entirely the spiritual substance of the holiday, which I
am ashamed to say seldom entered my mind except when it was thrust upon me at religious services.
What I loved was the combined effect of brisk air, frost-whitened mornings, pine and holly wreaths
pinned to doorways, cranberry-red banners draped above the main street to flap cheerfully in the cold
wind, carols and hymns chanted or sungтАФthe whole breathless confrontation with Winter, half defiance
and half submission. I liked the clockwork regularity of these rituals, as if a particular cog on the wheel of
time had engaged with neat precision. It soothed; it spoke of eternity.

But this was an ill-omened season.

The Reserve troops rode into town on the fifteenth of December. Ostensibly, they were here to
conduct the Presidential Election. National elections were a formality in Williams Ford. By the time our
citizens were polled, the outcome was usually a foregone conclusion, already decided in the populous
Eastern statesтАФthat is, when there was more than one candidate, which was seldom. For the last six
electoral years no individual or party had contested the election, and we had been ruled by one
Comstock or another for three decades. Election had become indistinguishable from acclamation.

But that was all right, because an election was still a momentous event, almost a kind of circus,
involving the arrival of Poll-Takers and Campaigners, who always had a fine show to put on.

And this yearтАФthe rumor emanated from high chambers of the Estate, and had been whispered
everywhereтАФthere was to be a movie shown in the Dominion Hall.

I had never seen any movies, though Julian had described them to me. He had seen them often in
New York when he was younger, and whenever he grew nostalgicтАФlife in Williams Ford was sometimes
a little sedate for Julian's tasteтАФit was the movies he was provoked to mention. And so, when the
showing of a movie was announced as part of the electoral process, both of us were excited, and we
agreed to meet behind the Dominion Hall at he appointed hour.

Neither of us had any legitimate reason to be there. I was too young to vote, and Julian would have
been conspicuous and perhaps unwelcome as the only aristo at a gathering of the leasing class. (The
high-born had been polled independently at the Estate, and had already voted proxies for their indentured
labor.) So I let my parents leave for the Hall early in the evening, and I followed surreptitiously, and
arrived just before the event was scheduled to begin. I waited behind the meeting hall, where a dozen
horses were tethered, until Julian arrived on an animal borrowed from the Estate stables. He was dressed
in his best approximation of a leaser's clothing: hempen shirt and trousers of a dark color, and a black felt
hat with its brim pulled low to disguise his face.

He dismounted, looking troubled, and I asked him what was wrong. Julian shook his head. "Nothing,
AdamтАФor nothing yetтАФbut Sam says there's trouble brewing." And here he regarded me with an
expression verging on pity. "War," he said.