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

Nevertheless, the east-west road was closely watched where it left the outskirts of Williams Ford.
The Reserves had posted a man on a hill overlooking it, the same hill where Julian and Sam and I had
paused for blackberries on our way from the Tip last October. But it is a fact that the Reserve troops
were held in Reserve, and not sent to the front lines, mainly because of some disabling flaw of body or
mind; some were wounded veterans, missing a hand or an arm; some were too simple or sullen to
function in a disciplined body of soldiers. I cannot say anything for certain about the man posted as
lookout on the hill, but if he was not a fool he was at least utterly unconcerned about concealment, for his
silhouette (and that of his rifle) stood etched against the bright eastern sky for all to see. But maybe that
was the intent: to let prospective fugitives know their way was barred.

Not every way was barred, however, not for someone who had grown up in Williams Ford and
hunted everywhere on its perimeter. Instead of following Julian directly I rode north a distance, and then
through the crowded lanes of an encampment of indentured laborers (whose ragged children gaped at me
from the glassless windows of their shanties, and whose soft-coal fires made a smoky gauze of the
motionless air). This route connected with lanes cut through the wheat fields for the transportation of
harvests and field-handsтАФlanes that had been deepened by years of use, so that I rode behind a berm of
earth and snake rail fences, hidden from the distant sentinel. When I was safely east, I came down a
cattle-trail that reconnected me with the east-west road.

On which I was able to read the same signs that had alerted me back at Williams Ford, thanks to the
fine layer of snow still undisturbed by any wind.

Julian had come this way. He had done as he had intended, and ridden toward Lundsford before
midnight. The snow had stopped soon thereafter, leaving his horse's hoof-prints clearly visible, though
softened and half-covered.

But his were not the only tracks: there was a second set, more crisply defined and hence more recent,
probably set down during the night; and this was what I had seen at the crossroads in Williams Ford:
evidence of pursuit. Someone had followed Julian, without Julian's knowledge. This had dire implications,
the only redeeming circumstance being the fact of a single pursuer rather than a company of men. If the
powerful people of the Estate had known that it was Julian Comstock who had fled, they would surely
have sent an entire brigade to bring him back. I supposed Julian had been mistaken for a simple
miscreant, a labor refugee, or a youngster fleeing the conscription, and that he had been followed by
some ambitious Reservist. Otherwise that whole imagined battalion might be right behind me . . . or
perhaps soon would be, since Julian's absence must have been noted by now.

I rode east, adding my own track to these two.

Before long it was past noon, and I began to have second thoughts as the sun began to angle toward
an early rendezvous with the southwestern horizon. What exactly did I hope to accomplish? To warn
Julian? If so, I was a little late off the mark . . . though I hoped that at some point Julian had covered his
tracks, or otherwise misled his pursuer, who did not have the advantage I had, of knowing where Julian
meant to stay until Sam Godwin could arrive. Failing that, I half-imagined rescuing Julian from capture,
even though I had but a squirrel rifle and a few rounds of ammunition (plus a knife and my own wits, both
feeble enough weapons) against whatever a Reservist might carry. In any case these were more wishes
and anxieties than calculations or plans; I had no fully-formed plan beyond riding to Julian's aid and telling
him that I had delivered my message to Sam, who would along as soon as he could discreetly leave the
Estate.

And then what? It was a question I dared not ask myselfтАФnot out on this lonely road, well past the