"Carey, M.V. - The Three Investigators 32 - The Mystery of the Blazing Cliffs" - читать интересную книгу автора (Carey M.V)

"John keeps our vehicles running and all our machinery in order," said Detweiler. "Course, he shouldn't be here. He should be out designing big power plants and irrigation systems."

"Kind of hard to get a job designing a power plant when you quit school after the tenth grade," said Aleman, but he didn't seem unhappy.

Next to the machine shop were sheds used for food storage, and beyond these was a dairy barn which was empty at this hour.

"We have Guernseys here on the ranch," said Detweiler. "Right now the herd is grazing in the pasture up at the north end, under the dam. We have beef cattle, too, and sheep and pigs and chickens. And of course we've got horses."

Detweiler went on to the stable, where a sandy-haired young woman named Mary Sedlack was crouched in a stall next to a handsome palomino stallion. She had the horse's left rear hoof in her hands, and she was frowning at something she saw in the frog of the horse's foot.

"Mary tends to our animals when they get sick," said Detweiler. "Other times she just plain babies them."

"Better stand back," the girl warned. "Asphodel gets nervous if he thinks somebody's crowding him."

"Asphodel is one temperamental horse," said Hank Detweiler. "Mary's the only one who can get anywhere near him."

Detweiler and the visitors retreated to the parking area, where they got into a small sedan. Detweiler drove slowly out along a dirt track that ran north through the fields, away from the storage buildings.

"Forty-seven people work here on the ranch," said the foreman. "That's not counting the children, of course, or the people Mr Barron considers his own personal staff--specialists like Mary and John--and the supervisors. I'm the chief supervisor, and I'm responsible for everything that comes in here or goes out. Then there's Rafael Banales."

Detweiler waved to a thin, not very tall man who stood at the edge of a field where labourers were planting some sort of crop. "Rafe is in charge of the field workers. He is one very progressive farmer. He's a graduate of the University of California at Davis."

They went on, and Detweiler showed them the small building where John Aleman was experimenting with solar energy. He pointed to the slopes under the cliffs to the east, several miles away, where beef cattle grazed. He came at last to a lush green pasture beyond the fields of carrots and lettuce and peppers and marrows. The dairy herd was there, and beyond the pasture was a cement dam.

"We have our own water supply for emergencies," Detweiler told Konrad and the boys. "The reservoir beyond that dam is fed by the stream you see falling down the face of that cliff. We haven't had to use that water yet, but it's there if we need it. Right now we use artesian wells. In an emergency we can generate our own power for the pumps, and for all our other electrical needs. Aleman built the generators and they use diesel fuel. If that runs out, we can convert and burn coal or wood."

Detweiler turned the car around and started back towards the cluster of buildings under the eucalyptus trees.

"We keep bees here so we have a source of sugar," he said. "We also have a smokehouse for curing hams and bacon. We have underground storage tanks for our reserve gasoline supply and root cellars for keeping potatoes and turnips. We have miles of shelves to hold the canned things that Elsie and the other woman put up when the crops are ripe."

"Elsie?" said Jupiter.

Detweiler grinned. "Elsie is not the least of our specialists," he said. "She cooks for John and Rafael and Mary and me, and for the Barrons, too. If you've got time to stop at the ranch house before you leave, she's sure to spring for some soda pop all around."

Detweiler parked the car near the storage sheds and led Konrad and the boys down the lane towards the ranch house.

Elsie Spratt turned out to be a hearty woman somewhere in her thirties. She had short blonde hair and a broad, easy smile, and she presided over a kitchen that was bright with sunlight and warm with the smell of cooking food. When Hank Detweiler introduced the visitors, she hurried to pour cups of coffee for the men, and she took bottles of soda pop from the refrigerator for the boys.

"Enjoy it while you may," she said cheerily. "Comes the revolution, there won't be any soda pop."

Konrad sat down at the long table beside Detweiler. "Revolution?" he said. "We do not have revolutions in America. If we do not like the President, soon we elect a new one."

"Aha!" said Elsie. "But suppose the system breaks down. What do we do then?"

Konrad looked puzzled, and Jupe glanced around the kitchen. His eyes rested on the wood-burning stove that stood beside the big gas range.

"The system breaks down?" said Jupe. "That's what you're getting ready for here, isn't it? This place is like a fortress--stocked with supplies so that it can go through a siege. It's like one of the castles in the Middle Ages."

"Exactly right," said Detweiler. "What we're doing here is getting ready for the end of the world--or at least for the end of our way of life."