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

"They'll want me soon," Ben Kreel said. "Will you excuse me if I ride ahead?"

"No, sir. Please don't mind about me."

"As long as we understand each other, Adam. Don't look so downcast! The future may be brighter
than you expect."

"Thank you for saying so, sir."

***
I stayed a while longer on the low bluff, watching as Ben Kreel's horse carried him toward town.
Even in the sunlight it was cold, and I shivered some, perhaps more because of the conflict in my mind
than because of the weather. The Dominion man had made me ashamed of myself, and had put into
perspective my loose ways of the last few years, and pointed up how many of my native beliefs I had
abandoned before the seductive Philosophy of an agnostic young aristo and an aging Jew.

Then I sighed and urged Rapture back along the path toward Williams Ford, meaning to explain to
my parents where I had been and reassure them that I would not suffer too much in the coming
conscription, to which I would willingly submit.

I was so disheartened by the morning's events that my eyes drifted toward the ground even as
Rapture retraced his steps. As I have said, the snows of the night before lay largely undisturbed on this
back trail between the town and the Estate. I could see where I had passed this morning, where
Rapture's hoofprints were as clearly written as figures in a book. (Ben Kreel must have spent the night at
the Estate, and when he left me on the bluff he would have taken the more direct route toward town; only
Rapture had passed this way.) Then I reached the place where Julian and I had parted the night before.
There were more hoofprints here, in fact a crowd of themтАФ

And I saw something else written (in effect) on the snowy groundтАФsomething which alarmed me.

I reined up at once.

I looked south, toward Williams Ford. I looked east, the way Julian had gone the previous night.

Then I took a bracing inhalation of icy air, and followed the trail that seemed to me most urgent.


6
The east-west road through Williams Ford is not heavily traveled, especially in winter.

The southern roadтАФalso called the "Wire Road," because the telegraph line runs alongside
itтАФconnects Williams Ford to the railhead at Connaught, and thus sustains a great deal of traffic. But the
east-west road goes essentially nowhere: it is a remnant of a road of the secular ancients, traversed
mainly by Tipmen and freelance antiquarians, and then only in the warmer months. I suppose, if you
followed the old road as far is it would take you, you might reach the Great Lakes, or somewhere farther
east, in that direction; and, the opposite way, you could get yourself lost among washouts and landfalls in
the Rocky Mountains. But the railroadтАФand a parallel turnpike farther southтАФhad obviated the need for
all that trouble.