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

the short straw.

(It is, I think, for the likes of Flaxie that we maintain a belief in Heaven. I have met very few adults,
outside the enthusiasts of the established Church, who genuinely believe in Heaven, and Heaven was
scant consolation for my grieving mother. But Flaxie, who was five, had believed in it ferventlyтАФimagined
it was something like a meadow, with wildflowers blooming, and a perpetual summer picnic
underwayтАФand if that childish belief soothed her in her extremity, then it served a purpose more noble
than truth.)

Tonight the cottage was almost as quiet as it had been during the mourning that followed Flaxie's
death. I came through the door to find my mother dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief, and my father
frowning over his pipe, which, uncharacteristically, he had filled and lit. "The draft," he said.

"Yes," I said. "I heard about it."

My mother was too distraught to speak. My father said, "We'll do what we can to protect you,
Adam. ButтАФ"

"I'm not afraid to serve my country," I said.

"That's a praiseworthy attitude," my father said glumly, and my mother wept even harder. "But we
don't yet know what might be necessary. Maybe the situation in Labrador isn't as bad as it seems."

Scant of words though my father was, I had often enough relied on him for advice, which he had
freely given. He was fully aware, for instance, of my distaste for snakesтАФfor which reason, abetted by
my mother, I had been allowed to avoid the sacraments of our faith, and the venomous swellings and
occasional amputations occasionally inflicted upon other parishionersтАФand, while this disappointed him,
he had nevertheless taught me the practical aspects of snake-handling, including how to grasp a serpent in
such a way as to avoid its bite, and how to kill one, should the necessity arise.[7] He was a practical man
despite his unusual beliefs.

But he had no advice to offer me tonight. He looked like a hunted man who has come to the end of a
cul-de-sac, and can neither go forward nor turn back.

I went to my bedroom, although I doubted I would be able to sleep. InsteadтАФwithout any real plan in
mindтАФI bundled a few of my possessions for easy carrying. My squirrel-gun, chiefly, and some notes
and writing, and THE HISTORY OF MANKIND IN SPACE; and I thought I should add some salted
pork, or something of that nature, but I resolved to wait until later, so my mother wouldn't see me
packing.

***

Before dawn, I put on several layers of clothing and a heavy pakool hat, rolled down so the wool
covered my ears. I opened the window of my room and clambered over the sill and closed the glass
behind me, after I had retrieved my rifle and gear. Then I crept across the open yard to the barn, and
saddled up a horse (the gelding named Rapture, who was the fastest, though this would leave my father's
rig an animal shy), and rode out under a sky that had just begun to show first light.

Last night's brief snowfall still covered the ground. I was not the first up this winter morning, and the
cold air already smelled of Christmas. The bakery in Williams Ford was busy making nativity cakes and